by Lauren Haney
Even the drovers seemed less disheartened, but they re mained as watchful as they had been since Dedu’s body had been found. Bak had a feeling they no longer trusted anyone, not even User, the man for whom they toiled. They continued to accept Nebenkemet’s help with the donkeys and the load ing, but were much more taciturn than before. When Bak sent Kaha to sound them out, they shook their heads, pre tending not to understand.
No one had seen any sign of the watching man since leav ing the gorge where last they had seen Dedu alive. Was he still watching them from afar? Or had the guide’s death been his ultimate goal, releasing the caravan from his constant scrutiny?
Convinced they were not yet free of him, Bak sent Kaha and Rona to scout the land through which they were travel ing, telling them specifically to look for the watching man.
After they left, he walked to the head of the caravan to in quire about the day’s trek. He found Senna to be unusually informative and anxious to please.
“Minnakht was more interested in this area, sir, than in any other place.” Senna motioned toward the rugged reddish hill sides all around them. “We spent almost two weeks explor ing the mountain slopes and the wadis, never straying more than a day’s march from water: the pools where we were when Dedu died, the well to the east that you and User spurned, and the gorge where we’ll spend this night.”
“Did you always remain within the triangle formed by those three water sources?” Bak asked.
“Now and then, he’d spot a faroff landform that he thought interesting or would find a stone that had been washed down a wadi from afar. If he believed them promising, we ventured farther afield.”
Bak wondered if Minnakht had restricted his explorations solely because of the proximity to water or if something had convinced him that he would find what he sought in the trian gular area Senna had described. User had never ceased to study the landscape through which they walked. He had dis 168
Lauren Haney played no special interest in anything he saw and derided the idea that gold would be found this far north. Eyeing the bro ken and eroded granite around them, Bak was inclined to agree.
“If you wish, sir, we could part from this caravan and I could take you to the places we explored. Minnakht might’ve seen something I missed and kept it to himself.” Senna spoke with a growing enthusiasm. “Who knows what we might find if we travel the path he took!”
Bak smothered a smile. He regretted that Amonmose was not close by to hear the offer-and the lure of wealth that made it sweeter. The trader’s mistrust of the guide far sur passed his own and his reaction would have been interesting to behold.
“I thought myself close to Minnakht,” Senna went on, “but
I’d not be surprised if he kept to himself whatever he found.
You’ve no idea how secretive these explorers can be when they think they’re close to finding something of value.”
The guide surely knew Bak did not entirely trust him. Was he so naive that he believed the thought of discovering gold would break down his defenses? “I think it best that we re main with User. We can explore these wadis and mountains more thoroughly on our return journey to Waset.”
Senna flung him a surprised look. “You plan to come back this way, sir?”
Bak could not be sure, but he thought he heard a touch of dismay in the nomad’s voice. “Unless I find Minnakht else where, we must. His father and Commandant Thuty would expect no less.”
“It’s clear to me,” Nebre said. “Senna wishes to separate
Lieutenant Bak from the caravan and slay him.”
“Where the lieutenant goes, we go,” Psuro said. “He knows that.”
Bak leaned back against the wall of rock behind him and watched the pair fill a goatskin waterbag, pouring water from a large pottery jar. “I must admit I was tempted to go with him, if for no other reason than to learn if he’s as innocent as he claims.”
“You wouldn’t, sir!” Psuro said, horrified.
“Not without taking precautions, no, but it might be worth the risk. If we knew for a fact that he wishes me dead, we could in all good conscience force the truth from him about
Minnakht. As for the men who’ve been slain since we set out from Kaine, he couldn’t have taken either life, but I’d not be surprised to learn that he knows who did.”
“Do you think, as you did before, that one of the men with
User slew them?”
“I’m not sure what to think. The absence of all other foot prints at the first well pointed to one of them; the footprint in the gorge indicated that an intruder slew Dedu.”
“The watching man.”
“So it would seem.”
The two Medjays stood with Bak in a broad wedge of shade cast by the almost vertical wadi wall. Three half-asleep donkeys shared the space with them, while their remaining animals and those in User’s string stood or lay in the shade at the base of the wall farther south. The explorer and his party lay slightly apart from their animals, sleeping. Minmose, as signed to keep watch, sat with Senna beneath an overhanging rock across the wadi, playing throwsticks. The vantage point was not good, but offered the only shade large enough for two men.
A hot breeze blew sporadically up the wadi, rippling the surface of puddles that had not yet dried, offering no relief from the midday heat. Water trickled through the rocks in the bed of the deeper channel, flowing down the center of the watercourse. Brown sparrow-like birds flew among the branches of four acacia trees that grew on the edge of the channel, catching flying insects, while grayish finches hopped across the sand among roots laid bare by the raging floodwaters, seeking grubs or seeds washed to the surface.
Their bright voices carried through the still air.
Psuro plugged the waterbag and set it aside. “Minnakht was experienced in the ways of this vile desert and he was beloved by the nomads who dwell here.” He picked up an other bag and held it out so Nebre could fill it. “Of equal im port, he had a good life in the land of Kemet, a life of ease and luxury. Would a man whose days were filled with advan tage choose to disappear?”
“Unlikely,” Nebre said.
“If he didn’t trust Senna any more than we do, he might’ve gone off on his own,” Bak pointed out for argument’s sake.
“Would he not have gone to his nomad friends?” Psuro asked.
“Nefertem claimed he wants to know as much as I what happened to Minnakht.” A large brown lizard darted down the cliff face, drawing Bak’s glance. Something above must have startled it, a bird hunting its midday meal most likely.
“He may’ve been leading my thoughts astray, but I don’t think so. I think his people have searched everywhere they know where to look. That’s why he wants us to seek Min nakht beyond the sea.”
“I suppose we must take Senna with us,” Psuro said with a notable lack of enthusiasm.
“If I can’t convince all the men in User’s party to go, I fear
I’ll lose all my suspects except him.”
A grating of stone against stone sounded above and a pat tering of rocks on the face of the cliff, pebbles skittering downward. Dirt and small stones pelted Bak’s head and shoulders, and the donkey beside him awoke with a start. The birds cheeped a warning and darted into the air.
“Someone’s above us,” Bak yelled. “Move!”
He shoved himself away from the wall and slapped the donkey on the flank, sending it and its startled brothers out into the sunlight. Psuro tore the goatskin bag away from the stream of water and ran. Nebre raised the neck of the jar, sav ing the rest of the precious liquid, and raced out of the shade with Bak and the donkeys.
A huge granite boulder came crashing down from above, bringing smaller stones with it. It struck the ground with a solid thud, smashing a water jar leaning against the wall within a hand’s breadth of where Bak had stood. Smaller stones clattered down the cliff face, and quiet descended.
Bak looked at Psuro and Nebre to be sure they were unhurt and at the three donkeys, wh
o had stopped their headlong flight near the trees. Farther to the south, men and donkeys stood in the sunlight, confused by their abrupt awakening, their burst of speed to get away from the cliff. He offered a silent prayer of thanks to the lord Amon that no one had been injured. He had only to look at the water jar to see what could have happened. Reddish shards lay at the base of the fallen boulder in a puddle of water.
“Sir!” Minmose came racing across the wadi floor. “I saw a man looking down from above. He must’ve pushed the boulder over the cliff.”
“Which way did he go?”
“North, I think.”
“Let’s go, Nebre.”
“I’ll come, too,” Psuro said.
Bak tore the half-full waterbag from Psuro’s hand, shoved it at Nebre, and scooped up the bag the men had filled earlier.
“No, Sergeant. Someone must look after the caravan while
I’m gone.” He paused over the pile of weapons, decided a bow and quiver would be less ungainly to handle than a spear and shield and armed himself.
Nebre, far more talented with the bow than Bak, chose a similar weapon. “I noticed a cleft between this hill and the next, around the bend a couple hundred paces to the north.
We can climb to the top there.”
They ran down the wadi, ignoring the anxious calls of the men in User’s party, the shouted questions as to what had happened. Lizards darted out of their path and the birds wheeled around to settle on and among the acacias behind them. Rounding the bend, they glimpsed the defile and seven or eight gazelles standing close to the top of the hillside be yond, watching a female urging a tiny baby up a lower slope of rough and broken rock.
“I’ll wager he set those gazelles to flight,” the Medjay said.
“He must’ve come down this way, thinking to cross the wadi and enter the rougher land to the west.” Bak looked to ward the foothills of the red mountain and the multiple peaks beyond. “In land so rough, he’d have an easier time of evad ing us.”
“Could he have reached this point ahead of us, I wonder?”
They hurried into the defile. The first thirty or so paces were almost flat and were floored with drying sand. A half dozen shallow runnels left by the receding water retained some moisture. Loose rocks dotted the surface. Bak and Ne bre slowed their pace so the Medjay could search for prints.
“Sir.” Nebre knelt to look at a reddish stone and a wet in dentation where it had recently lain. “Someone came this way not long ago.”
A dozen paces farther, the Medjay spotted the print of the outer edge of a sandal. Bak sucked in his breath, let it out slow and long. The sole was old and worn, curled to fit the foot of the man wearing it, and it had a slight cut near the small toe.
“The watching man.” Bak arose and glanced up the cut.
“He looks to be heading down to the wadi.”
Seeking confirmation, Nebre walked deeper into the de file. A couple dozen paces farther, up the slope where the sand was dryer, they found a long indentation that ran along the edge of a runnel and cut down into it, the sign of a man who had skidded on the loose, rocky soil. Where his other foot had come down hard when he saved himself from falling, he had left a print that matched the one they had seen before.
The man they sought had been in a hurry, racing down the defile, no doubt hoping to cross the wadi before they could round the bend and spot him.
Nebre gave Bak a humorless smile. Bak stared out across the wadi toward the red mountain. He was no more eager than the Medjay to follow a man into a landscape constructed by the lord Set himself, but the task must be done. The sooner they laid hands on the watching man, the sooner their many questions would be answered.
“How many times have we spotted him?” Bak asked.
“Four.” Nebre scowled at the high reddish walls of the wadi up which they were walking. “Each time we lose his trail or can find no footprints, he reappears. Too far away to catch, too close to miss seeing him.”
“So I was thinking.” Bak eyed the way ahead, the narrow ing gorge whose stone floor had been washed clear of sand.
Water filled holes etched deep into the stone. The early part of the storm, which had struck the red mountain from the north, had drained this way. “Those opportune appearances worry me, Nebre. Is he trying to get us lost? Or is he leading us into a trap?”
Nebre responded with a noncommittal grunt.
Kneeling beside a pool, Bak splashed his face and upper body. The water was clear and warmed by the sun. “Let’s walk to the end of this gorge and no farther. We’ve been away from the caravan too long. Psuro will be wondering where we are.”
“We’re to let the man ahead slip away again?” Nebre asked, chagrined.
“He knows this land. We don’t.” Bak walked on up the gorge. “Would it not be foolhardy to let him lead us to our deaths?”
“If we always turn back, sir, we’ll never lay hands on him.”
The Medjay was like a dog, Bak thought. Once he had scented his prey, he’d risk his life rather than give up the chase. “We must find some other way of snaring him.”
“How?”
Bak flung the Medjay an annoyed look. “If I knew that,
Nebre, we’d not be here now, debating whether or not we should allow our quarry to tempt us deeper into his lair.”
Nebre had the good sense to say no more.
They walked on, following a stream that meandered from pool to pool. Bak feared the gorge would narrow further, forming a trap they could not evade, but around the next bend, the walls spread wider. Wisps of cloud passed across the brilliant blue sky and an eagle soared overhead.
They rounded another tight bend and stopped dead still.
The gorge ended thirty or so paces ahead, blocked by a high wall. The stream poured out of a groove eroded over the top and plummeted downward, a silvery, gurgling waterfall splashing down narrow steps of waterworn red granite, each step taller than a man.
The climb to the top was possible, Bak thought, and tempting, but commonsense prevailed. “We’d best turn back.”
Nebre looked half around, turning a wary eye to the gorge through which they had come. “Could this be the trap we’ve been expecting?”
“I can think of no better place.”
Eyeing the high walls to either side, the steep waterfall in front, not sure if they expected one man to set upon them or an army, Bak and the Medjay eased backward toward the nearest bend in the gorge. Suddenly a solitary man came out from among the rocks at the top of the fall and stood beside the lip over which the water spilled. He stared boldly at the two men on the floor of the gorge, then knelt to cup his hands and drink. The action was deliberate, a gibe at Bak’s decision not to follow, a sneer at their worried retreat.
Bak muttered an oath, echoed by Nebre.
The man rose to his feet, stretched, and yawned, making further mockery of the men below. He was tall and thin and had the same dark skin as Nefertem and his tribesmen. His clothing-a dark brown kilt, probably leather, and a ragged, long-sleeved tunic discolored by age or dirt or both-was that of a nomad. He carried a long staff or maybe a spear, dif ficult to tell which at so great a distance
“I’d like to know his purpose, Nebre. Do you think you can disable him?”
Baring his teeth in a eager smile, Nebre drew an arrow from his quiver and seated it. “I’d rather slay him, sir, but since I’m forbidden to do so, will an arrow in the thigh sat isfy you?”
As the Medjay raised the bow, the man on the clifftop flung himself sideways, out of sight. The arrow sped through the air where he had been, traveled high into the sky, and arced downward.
Nebre spat out a curse and strode toward the waterfall.
“I’ll get him for you, sir!”
“No!” Bak barked out the word, an order meant to be heeded.
“But, sir…” Nebre stared in angry frustration up the wa terfall.
“If he allowed us to climb the cliff unmolested-and I doubt he’d miss so tempt
ing an opportunity-he’d be far away by the time we reached the top.” Bak glared at the Med jay, waiting for him to see reality.
As Nebre turned around with obvious reluctance, Bak added, “We must return to the wadi the caravan is traveling. I, for one, would not like to spend the night in this wretched land, with a man who wishes us dead lurking about.”
“Would you recognize him if you saw him again?” Bak asked.
“He was too far away.” Nebre scowled. He had come to see the sense in their retreat, but his irritation had not entirely fallen away. “Would you, sir?”
“I doubt it,” Bak admitted. “He made sure we got a good look at him, but not good enough.”
He studied the craggy slopes to either side. The sun had dropped behind the mountain, leaving the landscape around them in shadow. Hills and precipices, ledges and steep de files, merged together in the near distance, the loss of light turning them an identical shade of deep red and stealing away depth of vision. Even the patches of sand that had blown into the nooks and crannies had a reddish tinge, as if reflecting the flaming sky.
He guessed he and Nebre were about a half-hour’s walk to the main wadi, which they should reach as darkness fell. The caravan would have moved on an hour or two earlier, but they could easily catch up with it in the cooler hours of night.
Signs of the recent passage of men and animals would be clear on the freshly washed and smoothed sand, eliminating any risk of getting lost.
He eyed the glittering wound on the side of a boulder where, during their outbound trek, Nebre had chipped away a piece of rock to mark their path. “I thank the lord Amon that we had the good sense to leave a clear trail when we entered these mountains.”
Nebre looked back over his shoulder. “I haven’t spotted anyone behind us, sir, which surprises me. If the man we fol lowed is trying to slay us, he’d surely come after us.”
“He has to have guessed the caravan’s destination-and ours. He may know a shorter way than the route we’re taking.”
