by Lauren Haney
Thin dust rose in puffs around the feet of the struggling men. The stench of blood and sweat was strong. Forgetting the stinging in his thigh, the blood seeping from beneath the makeshift bandage, Bak parried thrusts with spear and shield, downed one man, disarmed another.
He fought hard, sweat dripping in spite of the evening chill. His spearmen, spread out among the enemy with Ah mose’s soldiers, were battling with a skill and enthusiasm none would have dreamed of a few days before. He was proud of them. They could return to the capital with Amon ked, holding their heads high.
Bak heard something behind him, a man’s harsh breathing. He pivoted, striking an enemy warrior at waist level with the long shaft of his spear, knocking him off balance, deflecting the blade of a dagger. The tribesman grabbed the shaft to steady himself and held on. Bak jerked one way and another, trying to wrest the weapon free.
Abruptly the man released his hold and crumpled to the ground. Seshu, standing over him, raised his mace in a tri umphant salute and swung away to face a fresh conflict.
Muttering a hasty prayer of thanks, Bak pressed forward.
Inside the fallen wall of shields, he found his long spear ungainly, his thrusts hampered by the narrow, twisting aisles between the high stacks of equipment and supplies.
Most of Nebwa’s troops had already abandoned their spears to fight on with smaller weapons. The tribesmen had been forced to follow suit. The congestion had been Nebwa’s idea, and a good one. What hampered the men of the car avan in a mild way was bound to confuse the men of the desert-and distract them with innumerable desirable ob jects.
Bak rammed his spearpoint into the ground beside a pile of fodder and drew the staff from his belt. He had always found a shield awkward to manage, but since he had no armor, he dared not give it up.
Using the staff as a club, he knocked an ax from the hand of one man, broke the arm of another, clouted a third on the head. As they fell back, others replaced them, men more wary of drawing close. One threw a dagger, whose flight Bak stopped with the shield. A yell-Horhotep’s voice-swiveled him around and he knocked a mace from a warrior’s hand. As he downed the man with a second blow, another leaped at Horhotep, meaning to lay him open with a scimitar. Bak lunged, knocked the scimitar away, breaking the man’s hand, and hit him hard across the lower legs, felling him like a tree.
Horhotep raised a hand in thanks and an instant later sank his dagger into the side of a man raising his mace to brain a drover. Blood gushed. The adviser bent double, vomited, and dived back into the fray. Bak was surprised and pleased. Under duress, Horhotep was proving himself a worthy officer.
He glanced quickly toward the sun. Close to a half-hour of daylight left. How could time pass so slowly? His arms and legs felt weighted with lead, his breathing was labored.
Sweat poured.
A shout drew him to Sergeant Dedu and a drover re claiming a half-dozen vats of newly made beer from tribes men who had dropped their weapons so they could carry off the brew. An easy victory.
Among the shifting, struggling throng, he spotted Mery mose, side-by-side with Sennefer and Thaneny. They were fending off a small but concentrated attack by a half-dozen tribesmen led by a painted and befeathered warrior intent on reaching-and most likely taking as personal trophies Amonked’s and Nefret’s carrying chairs. He offered a quick prayer of thanks to the lord Amon that the nobleman had arrived unhurt, added a plea that he and the young officer and the scribe would survive the battle. Thaneny was awk ward in his movements, slower than he should be, but he thrust the harpoon he carried with deadly accuracy.
A tribesman plunged through a tangle of men and rushed
Bak with a spear. He sidestepped the weapon, knocked it from the man’s hand, and shoved him toward Sergeant Roy, who tapped the man on the head with his mace, gave Bak a quick grin, and leaped aside to fend off a man with an ax. Roy also was showing brave colors.
“Bak! Behind you!” Nebwa bellowed.
Bak pivoted, deflected a harpoon aimed at his midsec tion, and raised his staff to clout the tribesman. His foot came down on something wet and slid out from under him.
He fell hard on his back, his shield half beneath him. The force of the impact knocked the staff from his fingers. A vicious smile spread across his attacker’s face and he leaped forward to finish the task he had begun. As he raised the weapon above Bak’s breast, his mouth and eyes opened wide, the harpoon slipped from his fingers, and he toppled forward, falling on Bak with such force he knocked the breath from him. A long dagger protruded from his back.
Minkheper stepped close and jerked the weapon free.
“Are you all right, Lieutenant?”
Bak nodded. “I owe you a debt I doubt I can ever repay.”
The captain rolled the body aside and offered his hand.
“No debts of honor, I pray. The very thought makes me ill.” He pulled Bak to his feet, wiped the sweat from his brow, smiled grimly. “Will this battle never end? I’m bone weary.”
“Even Nebwa looks tired,” Bak said, nodding toward his friend.
The troop captain, Amonked, and a guard were fighting a motley group of tribesmen bent on taking all they could carry from a stack of chairs, stools, and woven reed chests.
One sat on the ground clutching his bloody side among a cascade of fine white linen spilling from one of Nefret’s chests.
“Maybe I can break the impasse,” Minkheper said and strode in their direction. Blood dripped from the long blade of his dagger, making him look like the murderer he was.
Bak picked up his staff and shield. His debt to Minkheper lay heavy in his heart. How could he take the captain before
Commandant Thuty or, more likely, the viceroy, and charge him with the murder of Baket-Amon? How could he plead for the death of a man who had saved his life?
With the sun squashed hard against the horizon, the num bers of men fighting within the encampment had dwindled.
The enemy who remained were more intent on looting than risking their lives for a war that looked to be lost. The heart of the battle had shifted to the open grazing land. The tribesmen still on their feet and well enough to retreat now found themselves facing not only the men of the caravan and Ahmose’s troops, but the farmers Hor-pen-Deshret had terrorized for so many years.
Bak wove a path through the piles of supplies and equip ment, stepping around the dead and wounded. A few of his own men lay among the enemy, who had fallen in large numbers during the battle. Both friend and foe watched him pass, the few he knew with pained smiles, the rest with looks pleading for help or wearing the blank expression of exhaustion. He summoned one of Amonked’s porters, go ing among the wounded with poultices and bandages, and ordered him to help as best he could.
Thinking to rejoin the battle on the open plain, Bak laid aside his staff with some reluctance and picked up a spear leaning against a high pile of grain sacks, their contents dribbling out of holes pierced during the battle. He swung around-and found Hor-pen-Deshret blocking the narrow aisle. They both stared, equally shocked by the unexpected encounter. The tribal leader was no longer the proud, strut ting warrior. Sweat stained his leather kilt, armlets, and anklets; his broad collar hung askew; the bright feather drooped from his hair. Bak had no doubt he looked equally worn and tattered.
Shaking off his surprise, Bak bounded toward the enemy chief, thrusting his spear. Hor-pen-Deshret parried the at tack with his own spear and lunged forward. Bak took a quick step back and raised his shield to deflect the deadly bronze point. His opponent, assuming the backward step a sign of retreat, bared his teeth in a triumphant smile and inched forward, moving in for an easy kill. Or so he thought.
Both men lunged, giving their opponents no time to think. While the tribal chief thrust forward, Bak swung his weapon sideways, using all the force he could muster, driv ing Hor-pen-Deshret’s blade into a stack of water jars. With a loud crash, three of the tall, heavy cylindrical containers shattered, gushing water and unbalancing the stack. Thir
ty or more vessels tumbled to the ground and began to roll, striking Bak and his opponent in the ankles, unbalancing them. Both men lost weapons and shields in a futile strug gle to remain upright.
They scrambled to their feet and waded through the still rolling jars to the edge of the encampment. Bak, like his opponent, searched frantically for an undamaged shield and spear among those that had fallen during the initial attack.
Of the few remaining shields, most had been slashed or broken. Neither man could find an unbroken spear. As tired as he was, Bak dreaded close combat-but he had no choice. He jerked his dagger free of its sheath.
The tribal chief drew a similar weapon and bounded for ward. Bak ducked away. The pair danced to left and right, out of arm’s reach, feinting, testing each other’s speed, strength, vigilance. More than once they clashed, each hold ing his opponent’s weapon at a distance. Hor-pen-Deshret was the more muscular man but, thanks to the lord Amon and a hardy sense of survival, Bak drew on a strength and cunning he did not know he possessed.
When neither man could bear the tension any longer, they backed off to circle each other again, sweat pouring forth, gasping for air. Bak’s legs grew heavy, his dance became a shuffle. Hor-pen-Deshret, the feather in his hair broken and bedraggled, looked equally tired, but his move ments seemed lighter and quicker. Bak knew that if he did not soon conquer the tribesman, he would lose the battle.
And his life.
Desperately in need of a spear, or any weapon that would place him at a distance from his opponent, he stepped back among the shields lying on the ground. Allowing his atten tion to stray for a mere instant, he spotted the shaft of a spear, its point broken off. As Hor-pen-Deshret lunged to ward him, he scooped it up and slammed it against his arm, shattering the bone. The weapon fell from the tribal chief’s hand. He gave Bak a look of utter incredulity.
And dropped to his knees in supplication.
Bak stood with Amonked and Nebwa, watching Ahmose and the troops from Askut rounding up what was left of the tribal army. The local people looked on, their eyes glit tering with satisfaction. About a hundred men of the desert had survived unscathed, more than half were injured to a lesser or greater degree, and the remainder were dead, gath ered together and laid out to be buried on the verge of the desert at daybreak.
“Such carnage,” Amonked said, shaking his head sadly.
“What will their families do?”
“Some will survive, the rest will starve,” Nebwa said.
“As always.” He sounded cold, but a tightness in his voice betrayed his true feelings.
Amonked led them to the short line of fallen archers, guards, and drovers, fourteen men of the caravan who had died at the hands of the enemy. Pawah was on his knees at the end of the row, his head bent over the prone body of
Thaneny. The scribe had fallen to an enemy spear toward the end of the fighting.
The youth looked up, unashamed of the tears rolling down his cheeks. “I loved Thaneny like a brother. I shall miss him always.”
Amonked knelt beside the boy and placed an arm around his shoulders. “No man will ever take his place.” He laid his free hand on the scribe’s shoulder and his voice thick ened with emotion. “He was my right hand, not my servant but my friend.”
Bak turned away, unable to understand the whims of the gods. Thaneny had come so close to death in the past, over coming unspeakable odds. Now here he was far from his home, his life taken in battle. One who had died because he refused to stand back and take refuge while men he knew fought to the death nearby. A man courageous to a fault. Where was the reward for a life lived so valiantly?
“You know, don’t you?” Minkheper, standing at the river’s edge, glanced at Bak, who had come up beside him.
“You slew Baket-Amon.”
“Someone remembered my brother, I assume?”
Bak ignored the question. He had promised Pawah si lence, and he would keep that vow. “Menu deserved to die.
The prince did not.”
“True.” Minkheper stared at an irregular strip of torch light falling across the faintly rippled surface of the water, golden reflections cast by a guard on the island where the donkeys had been left. “My brother, much younger than I and given all the advantages by our father, lived a life of utter depravity. He shamed my parents while they lived and he shamed me. Death by violence was inevitable.”
Chilled by the cold night air and a lurking fury mixed with sadness in Minkheper’s voice, Bak crossed his arms in front of his chest. “Did he always take pleasure in hurting others?”
Minkheper knelt and let the water flow around his hand, caressing his fingers like a lover about to lose its beloved.
“He always had a cruel tongue, which he used at first to pummel my mother and father and later his wife Iset. As far as I know, she was the first he struck with his fist. After that… Well, as the years rolled by, a fire seethed within him, making him less than human.”
Bak tried to read the seaman’s face, but the night was too dark. “You knew of his cruelty and did nothing to stop him?”
“I knew of the abusive way he spoke to our parents, and when Iset sought a divorce, I was told the reason. He made no secret that he wagered, drank himself witless, lay with innumerable women. As for the rest…” Minkheper tore his hand from the river, stood up, and expelled a bitter laugh. “My only excuse is that I was too far away for too long to learn the truth.”
He paused, stared out toward the island. “When I came back to Waset to settle his affairs, I found nothing to settle.
He’d lost everything our parents left behind, including property he and I held together. If Baket-Amon had not already taken his life, I’d have slain him myself.”
“Were you ever told that the prince slew him because he found him with a young woman he’d just beaten to death?”
“So Thutnofer said.”
Turning their backs to the river, they walked up the dark path toward the caravan encampment, which was ablaze with light. Bonfires reached for the sky, giving sight to the men tending the wounded. With so many in need of care, they had long since run out of poultices and bandages, but
Nebwa and Ahmose had demanded from the nearby villag ers additional lengths of cloth and medicinal herbs.
“Menu’s death was justified in the eyes of men and the gods,” Bak said, “yet you were driven to exact revenge.
For the love of Amon, why?”
“As the eldest son, I was honor-bound to slay the man who took his life.”
“No matter how just or unjust the cause.” Bak’s voice was flat, uncritical, yet all the more censorious for its lack of reproach.
“Yes.”
Sorrow flooded Bak’s heart. Minkheper was as much a man of Kemet as Amonked or Nebwa or Commandant
Thuty. Nonetheless, he had felt obliged to obey the deities of a far-off land, gods who demanded that a good man’s life be taken in exchange for that of a brute. Unlike the lady Maat, who required that justice be done, never seeking a man’s death for no good reason.
“Did Baket-Amon face you in Buhen, unaware of your purpose?”
“He knew what would happen should we meet.” Min kheper took a deep, long breath. “The day after I learned the truth of my brother’s death, I called upon the prince. I warned him of my duty, saying that the next time I laid eyes on him, I must slay him.” Another deep breath that reeked of sadness. “We parted amiably, with the regret of men who could have been as close as brothers under other, better circumstances.”
“He was fortunate you were a mariner who sailed distant seas much of the time.”
Minkheper seemed not to hear. “We spent the interven ing years far apart. In the rare instances when we inadver tently walked the streets of the same city, we went out of our way to avoid each other. Then fate, or perhaps it was the will of the gods-your gods or mine, I’ll never know placed us both in Buhen, both in that wretched house where
Commandant Thuty quartered us. I was forced
to avenge my brother, like it or not, and Baket-Amon did nothing to stop me.”
Silence descended, accompanying them through the darkness to the edge of the encampment.
“You tried to slay me twice,” Bak said.
“I’d heard of your reputation as a hunter of men. I had to make an effort to save myself.”
“But you saved my life today.”
Minkheper’s wry smile was clearly visible in the light reaching out from the nearest fire. His bright hair glowed as if from an inner sun. “I thought I wanted to survive, to reach the lofty rank of admiral for which I’ve strived for so many long years. In the end, though, faced with a choice of holding my head high or bowing it in shame, I couldn’t bring myself to slay a man I’ve come to like and respect.”
Chapter Eighteen
“Look at them.” Nebwa rested his hands on either side of the crenel and leaned forward, looking down at the pris oners collected at the base of the towered wall. “You’d think they’d’ve had enough of fighting, but there they are, squabbling among themselves already.”
Bak, standing at the next crenel, eyed two men shouting insults at each other, each backed by allies, men from the same tribe, he guessed. He had long since ceased to be surprised at such behavior. “Hor-pen-Deshret must have a tongue of pure honey to’ve held his coalition together as long as he did.”
“Even if he had the freedom to do so, he’d not form another very soon. The men of the desert still treat him with respect, so say the guards-in the heat of battle, he proved himself a more than able warrior-but now they listen to him with caution.”
“They’ve learned a valuable lesson.”
“Unfortunately, their memories are short.”
The two friends stood in amiable silence, watching the confrontation below, well satisfied with the outcome of the previous day’s battle. A cool northerly breeze eased the warmth of the morning sun. The smell of drying fish wafted up from the rooftop of a building block outside the wall.
