by Overton, Max
"Need a rest, do you?" Horemheb nodded and called out a command, slowing his pace gradually until they stopped near a lone scrubby Acacia tree. "Stay on your feet and move about," he told the men. "I want nobody's muscles stiffening." He called Mose over and in the last glimmers of daylight pointed out the slow rise of the land ahead of them. "There is a range of hills ahead and a single pass. Menkure will take his men through it. We will have to go round."
"You knew about this pass. How?"
"I questioned some of the prisoners."
Mose stared at his general. "You had this plan all along." Horemheb said nothing. "You let me suggest it, stake my life on it."
"I let you suggest it but it was your own tongue that put your life at risk."
"So I should not have tried to stop you coming?"
"I do not take kindly to being called fat and unfit to lead my men, Mose. If you had said nothing I could have delegated the task to Djeserkare. Now I have to prove myself."
"To me, my lord? You don't..."
"Of course not to you, you fool. To me. I am not ready to retire so I will keep up, which means you must pay the price for putting me through this hardship. I will not relinquish the wager."
Mose nodded slowly. "As you wish, my lord." The two men stood staring to the south as the light faded from the sky and the first stars appeared. "I am glad you will not be retiring, Lord Horemheb."
Horemheb pointed to a bright star low on the horizon. "There is our course marker. Lead the men off Mose. We have a long way to go by dawn."
They ran on into the night, slower now as they stumbled over rougher ground, but picking up the pace again when the moon rose. The hills steepened, and rather than tackle the slopes in the dark, Horemheb led them around the lower slopes, angling first east and as the moon drifted overhead with the passing night, back toward the west. They lost a handful of men to broken bones when missteps cast them into shadowed crevices, and once a man was mauled when the running column stumbled on a pride of lions hunting in the darkness. Putting them out of their misery, they left the fallen where they lay, and muttered prayers to the gods for the repose of their spirits.
Horemheb slowed the column to a walk as the eastern sky flushed pink. He turned them north toward the hills and spread them out to search for the trail.
"What if they've passed us?" Mose muttered. "We may have run right over the trail in the darkness."
"Then we will have failed."
The disc of the sun rose above the horizon and Horemheb turned toward it, intoning the prayers to Khepri, the Ascending Light. A few of the men saw this and joined in, and here and there men sang softly the Hymn to the Aten. As the worship finished, a black speck slid out of the golden glow and angled toward the north, beating against the breeze on thin curved wings.
"Behold Heru," Horemheb said with satisfaction. "The god is with us." He set off following the hawk, the men murmuring excitedly about the sign.
They found the trail an hour later, a broad beaten track of earth that bore the marks of countless feet and the hooves of swarming cattle. Mose dropped to his knees and examined the marks carefully. "They are moving north," he concluded.
"None moving south?"
"No my lord."
"Good. Then we're in time." The column of men turned north, trotting along the bare beaten earth.
Mose ran alongside his general, looking around at the bare plains that afforded little cover. "How are we going to do this?" he asked.
"Do what?"
"Make the rebels believe we are the whole Heru legion. They will see we are but a handful of men and roll right over us."
"I don't know." Horemheb glanced sideways at his Troop Commander, noting his expression. "Are you worried?"
"No sir," Mose lied.
They came to a broad gully that wound across the plain. On the far side the land rose steeply and then fell away to a flat plain again, the gully almost invisible after fifty paces. The hills loomed close and from their vantage point, they could see a cloud of dust ahead of them, spreading out and thinning in the breeze.
"So, we come to it," Horemheb murmured. He stared to the north, his forehead creased, ignoring the mutterings from his men. After a few minutes he shrugged and turned to Mose. "Have every man cut a branch from those thorn trees." He waited until his command had been carried out. "I want a hundred men with bows drawn up on the road, facing north, in ten columns of ten. The rest of them will accompany you, with the branches, along the gully for five thousand paces." He explained what they were to do.
Mose nodded and drew closer to his general, lowering his voice. "That's it? By the time we get here the rebels will have slaughtered you."
"Then you won't have to worry I'll collect on our wager."
"That's not my concern, sir," Mose said stiffly.
"No. You're a good man, Mose. Just carry out my orders. The rest is with the gods."
Horemheb watched as Mose trotted up the gully with his men, the thorn branches carried aloft like the wing plumage of so many ostriches. When they had disappeared from sight he told the hundred remaining men to get some rest, and scouted the edge of the track for a suitable boulder. He sat down to wait for the rebel army to arrive.
The dust cloud approached and Horemheb had the men form up in ranks again. He chose two men to hold the Hawk standards beside him and had others planted in the ground near the soldiers. He sat on his rock and faced the hills, waiting.
A man appeared, followed by another. They caught sight of the small squad of men on the road and stopped, gesturing indecisively. Two more came into view. There was a hurried conference and the last two turned and ran back while the others advanced a few paces further, shading their eyes against the morning glare. They stood a hundred paces away and stared at the sitting man under the Hawk standards.
Horemheb noticed the dust cloud was drifting, not being renewed. He smiled and shifted on his rock. "Come then, Menkure," he murmured. "Let us talk."
As if in response, a group of men, dirty and sweat-stained, appeared on the road under a banner with the symbol of the crocodile-god Sobek emblazoned on it. They talked to the scouts and stared at the bowmen in front of them for several minutes. At length, three men detached themselves from the main body and approached. They stopped about fifty paces away.
"Horemheb! I should have guessed it would be you." The speaker, a bearded man with a savagely scarred body and who moved with a distinct limp, cleared his throat and spat to one side.
"Menkure," Horemheb acknowledged. "Who are your companions?"
"Two of my commanders," Menkure replied. "Kashta and Kasaya. What are you doing here?"
Horemheb smiled briefly. "I have come to capture you."
"Capture or kill?"
The general inclined his head. "That is up to you."
Menkure grunted. "How did you get here anyway? I saw you head up-river from Ta-senet. Did you cut through the desert? How did you know I'd be here?"
"The secret of being a good general is to have excellent intelligence. You should know that Menkure. Or did you rely on your master too much?"
A look of pain washed across the bearded man's face at the reference to Smenkhkare. "Why did you oppose him, Horemheb? You knew who he was--the eldest surviving son of Nebmaetre and a good king."
"There is no point in scratching at old sores," Horemheb replied calmly. "The good king I knew died in the crocodile's jaws. The man who returned brought only hatred and death. I chose to follow the new king of Kemet."
"You would bow before a boy?"
"He is a son of Nebmaetre too."
"But one held on a short leash by Ay."
Horemheb shook his head. "Ay is finished. Nebkheperure means to make me Tjaty of the Two Kingdoms."
"So you will hold the leash instead of Ay." Menkure shrugged. "Either way, Kemet is ruled by a commoner through a puppet king."
"I am impervious to your insults, Menkure, but you will cease insulting my king."
"Ho
w will you stop me?"
"By force of arms."
Menkure looked beyond Horemheb to the hundred bowmen. "With these? I have fifty times your force."
"There is the Heru legion too. I hurried on ahead with a few men to see if I could persuade you to return with me and prevent further bloodshed." Horemheb turned and gestured to the southeast where a cloud of dust rose from an unseen source. "They will be here soon."
Menkure shaded his eyes and stared into the bright morning light. "Even if you had a full strength legion I still outnumber you." He turned to look at Horemheb again, considering. "You would not meet me except from a position of strength, yet here you are confronting me with a mere handful of men. Why? Is it that you expect help from the legions sent to follow me? They are back in Sitweh, old man--they lost heart." He laughed. "You are all alone."
"Then you have nothing to worry about."
"Yet you are not concerned. Have you had word that the legions in Sitweh are coming after all?" Menkure turned to one of his Nubian commanders. "Kasaya, send scouts back to look."
"At once, General." Kasaya turned and started back down the road.
Horemheb stood and waved his hand and a flight of arrows slashed after the man, tumbling him into the dirt.
"So they are coming," Menkure yelled. "Well, your boy-king will lose his commander at least. Your single legion cannot stop me." He backed away, with Kashta guarding him with sword drawn.
"Take them," Horemheb called.
Another flight of arrows flitted down the road and Kashta threw himself in front of Menkure, taking the arrows in his own body. The dying commander pushed Menkure away and shielded him for the few seconds it took for his general to turn and race down the road as fast as his crippled leg would carry him. Arrows winged after him but missed and Menkure disappeared from sight.
"Call yourselves marksmen?" Horemheb snarled. "Your mothers could do better. Never mind, leave them," he yelled as a few of the archers started toward the fallen men to collect the spent arrows. "Fall back to the gully. We are going to be attacked."
The bowmen ran back down into the broad gully and up the far side just as Mose and the branch carriers came in sight. They dropped their branches and ran to the others on the lip of the gully. Mose grabbed a spear and joined his general.
"What is happening, my lord?"
"The plan worked. Menkure believes we are the Heru legion and he is coming to wipe us out and escape before the other legions get here."
"Wonderful," Mose muttered.
Horemheb grinned. "It could be worse. At least you will have a chance to pay out your wager. Here they come."
The first of the rebel soldiers appeared on the far side of the gully and derisive jeers broke out when they saw the small force opposing them. A scattering of arrows arced across from the Nubian archers. One man fell but most of the arrows missed. Horemheb waited until the rebels were bunched on the lip of the gully, hesitating before plunging downward, and rapped out a crisp command. A hundred archers raised their bows and loosed as one man, the volley slashing into the packed ranks on the far side. As screams broke out and bodies fell, another volley followed, then another.
Menkure and his commanders urged their men down into the gully and up the other side, determined to bring the sword to the tiny force opposing them. They scrambled across the rocks and sand, screaming out tribal war cries. Many fell from the last of the arrows but they swarmed up the other side in their hundreds.
"Fall back," Horemheb commanded, his voice carrying easily over the sounds of battle. "Form a square." His men were already fighting for their lives with spear and sword, but they fought as a unit, paying attention to their comrades on either side of them as they stepped unhurriedly back.
"Where are the other legions?" Mose screamed, swinging his blade in defence of his general. "Are those buggers still at breakfast?"
"That is with...the gods." Horemheb stabbed a man, stepped over the corpse and attacked another. "Heru answered...me from the rising...sun. He...would not...lie."
The rebels pushed back, sheer force of numbers now giving them the advantage. Many of the soldiers were tall Nubians, their reach enabling them to stab deeper into the shrinking square. A man slashed Horemheb across the chest and the old general was forced back. Mose killed the man who did it but was stabbed in the thigh, forcing him to one knee. Horemheb now came to his defence and half carried his troop commander back into the crumbling square.
"Make your peace with the gods, Mose. It seems we took all the fast runners from the legions. They are not going..."
A shudder went through the rebel line and the pressure eased. Above the din of the tribal shouting came the clear orders of the legion commanders. The Nubians turned to face this new threat, and though still outnumbering Horemheb's combined force, were too ill-disciplined to take proper advantage of the fact. They wavered and broke, many throwing down their weapons and fleeing in all directions as the Re and Khent-abt legions erupted from the gully and attacked.
It was all over by an hour before mid-day. Hednakht supervised the taking of right hands from the fallen rebels, collecting them up into linen sacks, while Djeserkare did a sweep of the area, rounding up survivors and marching them back to the gully. Legion doctors tended to the wounded. Horemheb's wound was slight and the edges of the gash were just sealed with gum. Mose's spear thrust was more serious and the doctors bandaged it tightly with strips of cloth on which were inscribed the proper prayers of healing.
Horemheb clapped the groaning troop commander on the shoulder. "Your wager is paid, old friend. Just choose your words more carefully in future."
Hednakht saluted and gestured toward the heap of severed hands already coated with a black pall of flies. "Nine hundred and thirty-one dead rebels, sir. The rest have scattered. They won't be a threat any more."
"Menkure?"
"No sign of him."
Horemheb cursed, long and colourfully. "He'll regroup his forces if he can. That man will always be a menace."
"A messenger came looking for you just after you left, sir," Hednakht said. "From Waset."
"From the king?"
"No sir..." Hednakht hesitated. "I'm sorry, sir, but I opened it. I thought it might have been important."
Horemheb shrugged. "No matter. I left you in command. Was it important?"
Hednakht did not reply, handing over the folded parchment instead.
Horemheb examined the broken seal, his eyebrows lifting slightly when he recognised the cartouche of the queen. He opened it and scanned the message. "He would not dare," he muttered to himself. "Forty-nine days..."
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Chapter Four
Queen Ankhesenamen fretted as she waited for the return of Horemheb. Her messenger, Bebi, had been gone nearly twenty days and still there was no sign of the general. The first few days she had been in high spirits, imagining Horemheb's reaction on reading the letter, his swift return and the execution of her grandfather. As the days slipped by and the West Road remained vacant save for the farmers moving to and from the fields, she started to imagine what could have gone wrong. Was Bebi was in the pay of Ay? He may have thrown her letter away; he may have fallen to bandits; he could not find Horemheb; Horemheb had abandoned her to her fate; Ay had killed Horemheb already. Each fantasy was worse than the last and now, as the days until her husband's burial neared forty, she became desperate. She sent for her maidservant Tipallil and the soldier Meny and explained her problem to them.
"You are the only ones I can trust,' she said, "What should I do? Advise me."
Tipallil visibly quailed, turning her face away and mumbling. "I cannot, your majesty. It would not be proper."
Meny recognised the despair in the queen's voice and his heart warmed to her. "Whatever we can do, Divine One, we will do. Tell us your wishes."
"I have heard nothing from Lord Horemheb and I can wait no longer. Time is running out. I cannot rule Kemet alone, not with powe
rful men like Ay standing in my way so I must find a new husband."
Meny thought for a moment. "There is no male in the Royal House. You will have to look elsewhere."
Ankhesenamen controlled her impatience with an effort. "Obviously, but where do I look?"
"Among the houses of the Nobles?" Meny hazarded.
"I have considered this. None are suitable."
"Then...then a commoner."
"Unacceptable. That is a vile suggestion. You'll have me marrying a slave next."
"Forgive me, Divine One," Meny said. "I have no experience of such matters. I am trying to do my duty to you by making suggestions. I mean no insult."
Ankhesenamen nodded abruptly and turned away. "I forgive you. I asked you for advice. Please continue."
"Divine One, forgive me, but I must return to the subject of a commoner. Legend has it that royal houses have in the past risen from the people as the gods called them. What of a worthy man like Lord Horemheb? His wife Amentia died recently."
"Horemheb?" The queen pursed her lips and furrowed her brow. "I had not considered such a man. He is certainly able and a fine administrator. He is a commoner though, with no trace of nobility in his blood for all his fine attributes. I will consider him but only as a last resort. Who else is there?"
"Lord Ay?" Meny saw the expression on the queen's face and hurried on, seeking to dilute her anger. "He is related to the Royal House and has been Tjaty. He knows how to rule..."
"He is my grandfather, and enemy of my beloved husband," Ankhesenamen said coldly. "I would sooner die than marry him. If you have nothing more constructive to offer, Meny, you may leave."
"Then the only other choice is a foreign prince."
"You would be ruled by a foreign king?"
"I would be ruled by a queen of Kemet who happened to have a foreign husband...if that is your wish, Divine One."
"Do you have a prince in mind, Meny?"
The soldier shrugged. "Divine One, I am a common soldier of Kemet. How should I know princes?"
"Then of what nation?"
"Nubia perhaps? Mitanni? The Hittites or Babylonians? I know the names of the nations, Divine One, but I have no knowledge of the worth of the respective kings."
