Khu: A Tale of Ancient Egypt

by Jocelyn Murray

  Lessons had been learned, at least; hard lessons which would only strengthen Mentuhotep’s army in the long run. Sometimes a snake’s bite—if it does not kill its victim—makes it stronger, immunizing it against the poison. But the bite would leave a scar nevertheless.

  A painful scar.

  After Qeb’s injury, Khu replaced Qeb as military chancellor, and he oversaw the extensive battalion of warriors assembled from settlements stretching as far north as Ipu, Tjeny, Abdju and Gebtu. He remained with his father throughout the years, fighting alongside the king who always led the soldiers into battle.

  Mentuhotep relied on Khu’s ability to command with ease, and especially on his intuition and perceptiveness that had been honed over the years. Khu had developed an uncanny ability to anticipate the enemy’s move, and thus learned to defeat them. It had been Khu’s gift that had played a critical role in winning the numerous battles against the Kushites. Because he was attuned to their intentions, Khu was able to advise Mentuhotep in the best strategies for victory, especially after that devastating battle in Swentet—something Khu would always regret missing, and which sat like a boulder in the river of his conscience.

  More than three years passed since that treacherous battle at Swentet, and about seven since the one in Abdju. Time was marked by battles, bloodshed and a driving ambition of reunification. The Kushites had finally been defeated after a long series of skirmishes that ended with a peace treaty. The disgraced enemy had suffered great losses—far more than Mentuhotep—and they had no choice but to back down and bow out, and so they abandoned their ambition to overtake the Theban throne. After all that had happened, they just wanted to retain a hold on their own lands and kingdom, lest the Theban king take it away from them.

  Mentuhotep trusted Khu with his life and kingdom, and he wanted his son close by, especially when the time would come to fight Khety and Ankhtifi. He wanted Khu by his side when the time came to go north and face the Nen-nesian ruler once and for all.

  That time had finally arrived.

  SIXTEEN

  Mentuhotep’s fleet was approaching Zawty. Oarsmen worked in shifts, plowing through the waters of the river whose current flows northward from the south. A pallid moon remained suspended over a mountain range rising in a craggy line in the distance beyond the floodplain. It hung in a violet sky glittering with the fading stars, until the first hints of dawn cast an ashen patina over the land.

  The king had not been able to sleep. He was alone with his thoughts, standing on deck as he listened to the rhythm of the water sloshing around the ship’s hull. He was wearing his blue Khepresh royal war crown, and had a dagger and short sword strapped to his legs. Almost everyone else was still asleep with their weapons next to them in case they should run into trouble. Mentuhotep felt apprehensive, and when Khu refused to sleep either, the king’s uneasiness grew.

  Mentuhotep hoped to sail quietly past the province that supported the northern king. He had instructed his oarsmen to push quickly along the river, so that their journey would be swift. The river curved westward, nearing a sharp narrow bend where the eastern bank formed a rocky escarpment above the water. Zawty lay on the western bank, just beyond the bend that protected the inlet leading to its natural harbor. It was an ideally situated province, naturally fortified by the limited accessibility to its port, and protected by the rocky land formations along the river as well as the mountain range beyond the floodplain.

  Although Mentuhotep had received reports that Khety left Zawty to go back to his palace in Nen-nesu the previous season, Mentuhotep’s guard was up, and he had stationed his best warriors on the ships at the front of the fleet as a precautionary measure.

  Khu was pacing back and forth on deck like a restless cheetah pent up in a cage, when he stopped suddenly to probe the fading darkness with his golden eyes. He stood immobile on the port side of the ship, staring with narrowed eyes into the gloom. He sensed something odd and it made him nervous. A hostile presence lurked on the river, waiting for them.

  Someone was out there.

  Khu instinctively held his breath as they veered west by the rising escarpment. And just as he turned to look for the vessels following behind them, an arrow struck the ship’s head coxswain, killing him at once. The man was standing on the steering platform at the stern of the ship, manning the tillers that guided the vessel, when the arrow struck him in the chest, piercing his heart. He slumped forward and then fell with a thud, tumbling off the platform and onto the deck.

  “An ambush!” Khu shouted, waking the men. “It’s an ambush! We are under attack!”

  A barrage of long-shafted fiery arrows was discharged by the enemy, and rose in a high trajectory over the water before raining down on the fleet.

  “Shields!” Mentuhotep ordered before the carnage began. “Get your shields!” He squinted, trying to see precisely where the attack had come from. He felt vulnerable defending his fleet from an invisible enemy.

  Some of his men had ducked for cover under their ox-hide shields, easily deflecting the onslaught that came from above, while others screamed in pain and anger as the missiles found their mark. Many of the arrows struck the water around them harmlessly, hissing and fizzling out as they disappeared beneath its dark surface.

  It did not take long for all the ships in Mentuhotep’s fleet to be alerted to the danger. Men stood ready with their spears and shields in hand, while the archers had their bows strung, and quivers brimming with goose-fledged arrows, slung across their backs. The oarsmen continued to pull and heave, sweeping the oars in one smooth motion to keep the ships moving so they would not sit in the open like ducks. Every moment drew them deeper into enemy waters, deeper into the powerful province that supported the northern ruler. And just as the ships rounded the bend below the escarpment, another barrage of arrows flew from above, their tips ablaze in fire.

  Khety’s best archers were crouched among the reeds that grew thick and tall next to the marshes west of the river and along the steep escarpment on the east, beyond which sycamores, acacias and date palms spread out over the higher plain. The ranks of his army had swelled with Kushites and other mercenaries including Ankhtifi and his men, during the past few years. He had positioned his men along both banks of the Nile, which ran narrower in these parts by the province, to try and ambush Mentuhotep as his fleet passed the settlement of Zawty. His soldiers loosed their arrows just as the ships veered blindly around the sharp bend which had hidden the enemy from sight.

  Farther down the Nile a blockade of ships stretched across the narrowest part of the river, just before the mouth of the inlet leading to Zawty’s harbor. The ships had been tied together from prow to stern, barricading the Theban fleet from going north, and from accessing Zawty’s inlet. Soldiers and archers waited to attack the Theban fleet from the blockading ships as well.

  Although Khety had gone to Nen-nesu the previous season, he had recently returned in secret after being warned of Mentuhotep’s intentions to sail to Nen-nesu.

  “He will be coming north soon,” one of Khety’s advisors had cautioned him during the previous season at his palace in Nen-nesu, when they were meeting in his pavilion.

  “Coming with his entire fleet,” another added grimly.

  Khety had turned away to ponder the news as his gaze swept the lands of his settlement, from the crop fields near the Nile’s western bank, to the village lying south of the palace, to the sand plains, desert ridges, and rocky plateaus in the distance. The news was not surprising. He had been expecting this. He knew Mentuhotep would eventually come after him, but he did not want to put his own province at risk.

  “We would be better off facing him in Zawty then,” Khety said, turning back around to look at his advisors and warlords. “Nen-nesu is not fortified enough to withstand an attack.”

  “Not an attack of that magnitude,” one of them acknowledged.

  “Assuming the reports are true,” another argued. “The reports are not always reliable. We cannot be sur
e of the size of his army.”

  Khety heaved a great breath, raising and lowering his shoulders as the lines between his brows deepened. “It is better to assume the reports are correct. We cannot take that risk. Not here anyway.”

  His men did not reply. They did not need to say anything. They knew he was right. A few of them nodded before looking away.

  Khety preferred to face Mentuhotep in Zawty where his chances for victory were better, instead of remaining north where he would have been less secure.

  “What did you have in mind?” someone asked him.

  “An ambush. We will block his fleet and attack them where they will be most vulnerable as they sail down the Nile by Zawty,” Khety ran a finger along a map on a scroll. “Over here,” he pointed, “where the river curves sharply along the bend by the escarpment. That is one of the narrowest sections of the river, is it not?”

  “Yes, Lord King,” one of his warlords replied. “They would not see our men waiting for them.”

  “We will place our men along both sides of the river, and then attack his fleet as they near the escarpment.”

  “It is a treacherous bend,” one of the men said, approving of the idea. “They will be trapped.”

  So Khety had gone back to Zawty from Nen-nesu to fight Mentuhotep on his own terms. The offensive strategy was a wise move on Khety’s part, for it provided him with a more fortified battleground in which to ambush the Theban fleet using a kind of pincer maneuver to attack them simultaneously on both flanks where they were most defenseless and exposed.

  “Shields! Shields!” Mentuhotep shouted, as a second assault of arrows flew toward Mentuhotep’s ships. “Guard the flanks!”

  This time more of the men were struck. Some were killed instantly, while others shrieked in pain from the sharp fiery tips penetrating their flesh.

  The oarsmen stopped rowing to duck beneath their shields, then grabbed the oars again to pull the ships out of danger.

  Qeb stood on the steering platform, replacing the coxswain after he died. “Pull!” he prompted, guiding the oarsmen along the sharp bend.

  “Archers ready!” Mentuhotep ordered.

  But there was nothing they could do for the moment. They had to clear the escarpment.

  “Pull! Pull!” Qeb urged in his deep voice, willing them to clear past the danger.

  And just as the first ships cleared the narrow bend, Khu spotted the blockade.

  “Shields!” Khu shouted before the third attack. “Up ahead!” he pointed when he saw Mentuhotep glancing around.

  This time arrows flew from three directions, attacking their flanks and head-on as they cleared the bend and neared the blockade where more of the enemy waited. Khu heard the ominous sound of the bowstrings being released, and then the rush of air as the arrows hissed overhead, a dark and sinister streak against the early dawn.

  Three of Mentuhotep’s ships had caught fire, one of which was put out soon enough. But the other two were destroyed as the ropes and reed caulking burned, and the planks quickly fell apart.

  Men fell or jumped into the water in a panic of confusion and turmoil, as the ships were destroyed and sank beneath the river. Those who had not been struck and injured or killed by the arrows, scrambled aboard other ships from the water where they tried to swim to safety.

  “There!” the king pointed at the blockade of ships barring their way, “up ahead! Archers!” When Mentuhotep gave the signal, they released the bronze-tipped arrows, killing some of the enemy, and injuring others.

  “Attack them!” Mentuhotep shouted as they reached the blockade. “To their ships! To their ships!”

  Mentuhotep worried about the reports he had received regarding Khety and his forces. If his spies had been wrong in their information that the northern ruler was in Nen-nesu, it could well be possible that they were wrong in their estimate of the number of men in Khety’s army as well. Once again, the enemy had the advantage of surprise. Their ambush reminded the Theban king of the battle at Swentet three years before, and Mentuhotep nearly cringed from the memory of that treacherous attack.

  “Qeb!” Mentuhotep shouted above the noise, turning to look for his former military chancellor, as a cold fear shrouded the memories of the battle where Qeb had almost died. “Qeb,” Mentuhotep repeated, relieved to find the Kushite warrior nearby. The king placed a protective hand on Qeb’s left shoulder, above the scarred stump of his arm. “You are to remain with the fleet. Guard the ships with the other men.”

  Qeb said nothing, letting a moment of silence hang between them. He knew the king meant well, and he regarded Mentuhotep with an unreadable expression, before casting a meaningful glance at his left shoulder, where Mentuhotep’s hand remained. Qeb raised a single eyebrow as he looked at the king’s hand on his left arm. The king followed Qeb’s eyes and let his hand drop to his side.

  “Very well,” the king conceded with an exasperated breath, as though reading Qeb’s thoughts.

  Qeb gave the king a half-smile in reply.

  Mentuhotep set his jaw, drawing his brows together, as he thought again of the reports he had received from his spies. Regardless of their accuracy, this battle was long overdue. It was an unsettled score that demanded payment—the final payment that would determine the fate of Egypt and its divided kingdoms.

  Nakhti was among the first of the men to attack the enemy, as they struck their hulls with their fleet. Together with Khu and some of their men, they charged ahead, climbing aboard their ships, where they were met by a savage defense of spears, axes, daggers and swords. Hand-to-hand combat ensued as more men joined in the fighting when they clambered aboard the enemy vessels. Men heaved, howled, wrestled and roared as they chopped and drove their weapons into flesh.

  Mentuhotep’s men swarmed the enemy like an army of ants on a raid. The king fought to break through the blockade with his fleet and his forces, in order to reach land where he knew Khety waited.

  “Father!” Nakhti waved Mentuhotep over to a boat he secured after slaying the men aboard.

  The king joined him and Khu with Qeb and a few other soldiers, and the boats were poled to Zawty’s shore. Men rushed at them with spears and daggers before they had disembarked. But Mentuhotep and two of his warriors deflected the blows, as the rest of the men hopped onto the ground while striking back. And although the king had wanted Qeb to stay back out of danger, Qeb remained at Mentuhotep’s side, fighting with his favorite scimitar, which he continued to wield expertly, one-handed, despite his handicap.

  Several hours passed as the men fought in the chill of the early morning. Fire was set to some of Khety’s ships, so that those vessels consumed by the flames, spat and sizzled as they sank beneath the water, opening the barrier that had previously barred the inlet. The rest of Mentuhotep’s army eventually broke through the enemy ranks and entered the harbor.

  Khu and Nakhti stayed close to their father’s side in the beginning of the fighting, but were then all separated in the maelstrom. Some of Khu’s own men caught up to him and they ventured through the town, scouring the streets and narrow avenues, hunting down and killing many of the enemy, while rounding up the wounded and those who surrendered.

  It was difficult to tell how many men they were up against at first, and neither Khu nor Mentuhotep felt comfortable believing the reports they had received. Although they had heard countless rumors that Khety’s army was smaller than the Theban forces, the ambush on the river had overwhelmed them, making the opposite seem true. Mentuhotep preferred to err on the side of caution, and assume that they were the ones who were outnumbered.

  The Theban king had scrutinized, examined and studied the various battle scenarios over the last years, carefully weighing all prospects each time he reviewed the reports he had garnered from his informants.

  “They will have the advantage of fighting on familiar ground—in their own territory,” Mentuhotep had warned his men in the preceding season, during one of the many strategic planning sessions with his warlords and g
enerals who would, in turn, pass on the information to their respective battalions. “Because they will not come to us,” he shook his head. “No. They will not come to Upper Egypt.”

  “They tried that already,” one of the warlords said, speaking of Swentet.

  “They did,” Mentuhotep agreed with a nod, “and they failed. But they will not try that again. The chances of that happening are highly unlikely. We will go to them.”

  “Where they will lay traps to ambush us in their town,” Khu had added grimly.

  “Will it be in Zawty as you originally believed?” someone had asked.

  The king had looked at Khu and Qeb, but refrained from answering. Khu shrugged, and Qeb did not reply.

  “It may,” Mentuhotep finally said, “or it may not. We will only know when the time comes. Some things cannot be predicted, no matter how much planning is done in advance.”

  So Mentuhotep had led his army north to fight his enemy on their own soil.

  They had not known it would be in Zawty, especially since Khety had been fighting his own battles in several of the northern provinces, many of which lay along the branches of the Nile Delta. Once Mentuhotep’s informers had confirmed that Khety had returned to Nen-nesu, the Theban king believed he and his army would follow Khety there. But the Seven Hathors devised their own schemes, thwarting the best laid plans, and outwitting men’s orderly objectives. And the Mistresses of Fate led them to Zawty.