“Look,” he said, catching Taharqa’s attention. “What are those?”
“Hippos,” the prince replied. “Good meat. And a perfect opportunity for my soldiers to organize themselves and hunt, rather than mourn.” His tone held just the amount of ice to make one think of a coldhearted snake, or Nadine, but Matt noticed his eyes twitch.
With a wave of his hand, Taharqa sent the men splashing into the river on their mounts. Shouts and screams erupted as they fired a hailstorm of arrows into the middle of the herd. The hippopotamus bulls didn’t panic or try to flee. Instead, they charged back at the men with enraged bellows. Matt cringed, but the soldiers skittered out of the way with ease and mounted another offensive. The beasts charged again. Most Nubians and their horses danced nimbly to the side, except for a few unlucky ones. Shrieks rose from these horses as hippos slashed into their flanks with razor-sharp teeth.
The sound cut right through Matt.
Was the meat really worth the cost of the horses and even some men? But it was more than simply a hunt to Taharqa. He was training his men, as Senkamon had explained earlier. He had to prepare them for battle, where they would likely lose many men.
The hunt was over in less than an hour and the company of soldiers moved on until they reached farmland, this Shangri La. Matt could still hear the screams from that morning and, even more clearly, from the night of the raid, piercing his eardrums, ricocheting throughout his skull. If only he could stop these senseless fights. But he wasn’t here to do that. His father had already changed things too drastically. Matt couldn’t interfere, at least not in that way. But how should he interfere? What would his father do that would end up erasing their past and present?
Well, it hardly mattered now, unless he came across his dad and could prevent him from doing whatever he was going to do. That might bring Sarah and him right home. In the meantime, he had to follow the prince’s lead—his plan to intercept the Medjay and rescue Sarah. And he had to stop thinking about what they might be doing to her.
Stay alive, Sarah. I’m coming.
“What’s wrong, Walet?” asked Taharqa, riding up to them and dismounting. He’d been supervising an exchange of supplies with the local farmers—hippo and elephant meat for fruit and vegetables—and must have just returned and noticed Walet scowling. “Is the boy giving you trouble?”
“He wanted me to give him my bow,” the soldier muttered.
“Not give,” Matt interjected. “Just borrow. I would have given it back. I just want to learn how to use it. To fight the Medjay.”
“Not to place an arrow between my shoulder blades?” asked the prince, one eyebrow arched.
Matt sighed. “Why do you have to be so suspicious of me? All I want to do is rescue Sarah.”
“Very well,” said the prince. “You want to learn? You have no concept of how to fight, that much I’ve noticed. It’s interesting, and rather sad.”
Matt’s cheeks burned. He wanted to say, “Look. I know some karate,” but that wouldn’t score any points here.
“I’ll teach you,” said Taharqa.
Matt looked up at him, his jaw dropping. This was the last thing he’d expected.
“On one condition.”
Here we go.
“You promise to fight alongside me and my men. If we must tame rebelling Egyptian princes in the Delta, you’ll join me. If we’re called to even greater battles, you’ll accompany me.”
“And Sarah?”
“And I’ll help you recover Sarah.”
Matt gritted his teeth, but he nodded his agreement. He couldn’t help but feel, though, the size of the bargain he’d just struck, as huge and heavy on his shoulders as the pyramids themselves. How was he, a teen from the suburbs of Ottawa who’d rarely even been in a fistfight, supposed to fight here, in battles to the death? It was beyond his wildest nightmares. But he had to do everything in his power to save Sarah. If that meant killing and maybe even dying, he’d just have to do it.
“Dad, where are you?” he asked the fathomless sky and the countless hidden wormholes. If he ever needed his father, it was now.
Chapter 11
Horse Thief
Qeskaant seized Sarah’s arm, withdrew the sword from the tender veins of her neck, and yanked her off the horse. She fell clumsily to the ground, her bottom smacking the sand.
“Do you know the penalty for stealing a Medjay’s horse?”
“N-no,” she said. But she could guess.
He pulled her to her feet, glowered at her. “We behead men who steal our horses, impale them with our spears, and throw them into nests of cobras. Which punishment would you like?”
“N-n-none,” she finally managed to sputter out. “Please, I didn’t mean . . .”
“To escape. Of course you meant to escape. Because you refuse to be penned or tied or restrained in any way.” Unexpectedly Qeskaant smiled. “You’re not a prisoner. You can run. Go. Escape from our evil clutches. Just don’t take my horse.”
Sarah gazed into the dark, the rolling dunes barely visible in the moon’s pale light. He was letting her go. She could run.
An eerie, high-pitched sound rippled across the desert. A howl that was answered by many more. Then a series of yips.
“Wh-what was that?”
“Oh, that. That was merely a pack of wolves, waiting for you to wander from the group so they can surround you. They’ll leap at you one by one, biting, upending you, then retreat, teasing, as they love to do, and watching you bleed. Then, eventually, they’ll approach all at once and rip you apart.”
Sarah turned back to Qeskaant. She wanted to scream at him for doing his best to scare her. Was it a game to keep her here, or was it the truth, to keep her alive?
“We’re not as evil as you think,” said another Medjay, rolling out of his makeshift bed. He stood and shuffled closer. “Qeskaant does his best to frighten you, but he’d never hurt you. He cares too much for the pharaoh’s slaves. He’d just like you to stay with us, for now. At least until we can get you somewhere safe.”
“If he wouldn’t hurt me, then why did he attack me with his sword?”
The men chuckled at her question, a low rumble that seemed to swell.
“What’s so funny?”
“If I were to really attack you, little one,” said Qeskaant, “then you’d be dead.”
He winked and definitively slid his sword back into the leather sheath at his waist.
Sarah chewed on her lip. They had to be telling the truth, and she’d never survive to get back to Matt without a horse and with wolves running around in the night. She had to stay with the Medjay, at least until she came up with a better plan or could find someone to guide her back to Nubia.
“Okay,” she said. “I’m not dead. You’re not going to hurt me?”
Qeskaant shook his head.
“So I’ll stay with you for now. But am I free to go whenever I want?”
“Yes,” said the other man soothingly. He elbowed Qeskaant.
“Yes,” said Qeskaant through taut lips. “As long as it’s safe. And as long as you leave me my horse.”
At their reassurance, a valve popped open in Sarah’s chest, releasing all the pent-up air and letting it swirl away like a deflating balloon. She lowered her shoulders, and then her head. She wondered what smart aleck comeback Matt would whip up in response to Qeskaant’s semi-serious teasing. With a fragile grin she said, “I guess I’ll leave you the horse. I was having a little trouble mounting him anyway.”
“A little?” said Qeskaant, a gradual smile baring more and more of his ivory teeth.
The men chortled. Sarah nervously joined them. Then, surprisingly, Qeskaant bowed and indicated, with a flourish, the rumpled leopard skin for her to lie down again. With a little less wariness, but only a little, Sarah sank onto it and curled the skin around her like a cocoon. She didn’t think she’d be able to sleep, especially with all these strange men nearby, their hands still cradling spears and swords, but when she heard a
nother piercing howl, she shifted just a centimetre closer to Qeskaant.
* * * *
The next day Sarah shared breakfast with the men: dried dates, some meat she had trouble identifying—circle-shaped with a hard, muscled texture—and a rough kind of flat bread. Afterward Qeskaant boosted her onto his horse and they rode to the northeast. For hours they travelled through land so bleached and barren it was hard to imagine they were still on earth. No palm trees or even pathetic bristles of grass struggled up from the waterless ground. Maybe they’d time travelled to the moon.
Qeskaant, despite his threats when she’d tried to steal his horse, now acted as her protector more than her captor, nestling a straw hat on her head to save her from the heat, draping thick white linen over her arms to keep them from getting burned. The menacing posture had all but disappeared. In fact, even with the heat, he seemed energetic. When at last they reached their camp for the night, he leaped off his horse as if they were on a picnic in an orchard filled with plump, juicy fruit, his teeth flashing a smile. He helped her off the stallion, patting the animal’s dusty mane, then whipped out a container of water from his saddle bag. He splashed a cupful into his mouth before handing it to Sarah, who gratefully drank, as if she’d tapped an aquifer. He stopped her after a few swallows, though, and poured out the remainder into a clay bowl for the horse. The stallion gleefully dipped his muzzle in and drank.
“We take only what we need, until we reach the oasis.”
Sarah nodded. It made sense, but she was still so thirsty.
“How long until we get there?” she asked.
“Two days, then we rest. Tonight we camp in the cave.”
“Cave?”
Sarah examined the sheer walls of the ridge in front of them, but she couldn’t spy a chink in the limestone.
“It’s well disguised,” said Qeskaant. He pointed to a slight indentation in the wall to his right, and with a dramatic hand-flip, disappeared into it.
Sarah gaped at the magic trick, but he returned in a second, showing her how the successive shadows in the valley created an optical illusion, concealing the cave’s entrance.
“If it’s so well hidden, how did you find it in the first place?”
“We travel through here quite often. We watch the birds and the bats. But it was through necessity that we found it. A sandstorm took us by surprise on our last . . .” he hesitated. “Expedition,” he said.
Raid, she thought.
“It was a particularly nasty storm, and would have killed a number of us and our horses if we hadn’t found shelter. As I stumbled along in this valley, I suddenly tripped and fell, right into the entrance. The gods were smiling on us that day.”
Sarah nodded and grinned. This was a strange man, who believed in gods and hated slavery, but still raided and killed without a hint of guilt. But then, he seemed fairly young, and maybe this life was all he knew. Despite the roughness of his skin—dry cracks ran along his lips and fanned into crinkles around his eyes—most likely from the sun, he couldn’t be much older than Taharqa. Nineteen? Twenty, maybe? He was fully grown, but he seemed a teenager at heart. He likes to play. She’d just have to play along with him until she could figure out a way to return to Matt.
“Come,” he said, holding out his hand.
Swallowing her reluctance, Sarah took his hand and let him lead her into the cave. They entered a vast hollow space tunnelled through the limestone and ending in darkness. Sarah shuddered. Not another cave. Memories of arrows and bears, complete, deadly darkness, and Nadine came flooding back. Now more than ever she wanted to feel Matt’s fingers curled around hers instead of this strange Medjay raider’s. He guided her to the cave wall where the other Medjay were chucking their food supplies and spears. They cast leopard skins on the ground, and passed around ribbons of dried meat and bundles of figs and nuts for their supper. Qeskaant encouraged her to sit on the fluffy carpet of animal skin, squeezed her hand, for reassurance, she imagined, and strode back outside to gather food from his pack. She still didn’t trust him, but couldn’t help but feel a flutter of panic when he left her. Here she was, surrounded by fierce, menacing raiders in, of all places, a cave.
The Medjay raiders hardly noticed her, though. They gobbled up their food and chattered with one another. Suddenly angry voices rang out.
“Bilkaar, did you steal my mutton?”
“Yes, Senjay. Did you snitch my figs?”
Up they leaped. Out came their swords. Clang. Clang. Were they going to kill each other? They danced around her, slamming their swords together, parrying and thrusting. It was enough to make her scream. Or laugh. Then she couldn’t help it. Giggles bubbled up in her throat. She began snickering, chuckling, a little hysterically, but it was better than crying or screaming. Her laughing grew so belly-deep that tears rolled down her cheeks.
The men stopped their swordplay and gaped at her. Then they began to laugh too. Chortles, guffaws, snorts, and hiccups. Soon the whole cave resounded with it. Qeskaant returned, squinting uncertainly, but the laughter was contagious and he soon joined in.
Eventually, when they couldn’t laugh anymore, or even breathe very well, the cave grew quiet. Then Qeskaant said, “What was so funny?” and they burst out laughing again.
It was Senjay—the stumpier fellow with the thick nose and overlarge ears—who finally answered. “Your girl thinks we are funny, Qeskaant.”
Qeskaant looked at her, his eyebrows reaching for the sky.
“They fight about nothing,” she tried to explain.
He nodded and winked. “That’s our way. But only with ourselves. When we truly fight, it’s about something.”
Sarah wiped her eyes and gazed at Qeskaant, now so serious. She looked at the others, and they, too, had grown solemn. Should she ask them what that something was? But then, she probably already knew.
“Freedom?” she asked.
“Freedom,” he echoed and placed a heap of figs on her lap. “And food.”
Chapter 12
Ta-Seti—Land of the Bow
Matt slapped at the flies buzzing around his head. He swatted them from Sarah’s flanks too—Sarah, the horse. They were the most annoying insects on the planet, he decided. Especially in this dry climate. They thirsted just like he did, and that’s why they tried to slurp every molecule of moisture from whatever source they could find, particularly from other creatures’ nostrils, eyes, or sweat. If he could have hit a target so small, Matt would have ripped out his newly-acquired bow and arrows and sliced the miserable insects in two.
Well, if he couldn’t get rid of the flies, at least he could now defend himself. Matt patted his quiver and the bow slung over his shoulder. Taharqa had made good on his promise to teach Matt archery.
“After all,” Taharqa had said, “we are in Ta-Seti—the Land of the Bow. It’s best you learn from the masters.”
The prince had insisted that Matt construct his own bow and arrows—a rather interesting project. Taharqa, himself, used a composite bow, made of several pieces of wood and horn glued together, but he didn’t have time to teach Matt how to fashion such a complex weapon. Instead they chose a single piece of wood from the stem of a palm branch and string made of sinew—as Matt had suspected. They used reeds for their arrows, tipped with barbed iron on occasion, but when they had no forge available, as was the case at this time, they used sharpened stones.
Taharqa gave Matt a leather guard to wear on his arm. This would prevent bruising as the sinew snapped back and the arrow flew forward. He taught Matt how to stand and fire, with legs spread apart to anchor his body, his hand pulled back to his ear. It demanded all of Matt’s strength to maintain that position. His arms quivered annoyingly after only a few draws, but his aim was becoming quite good, his arrows skewering several dates from a palm tree during his last practice session.
Taharqa had commented on that. “You have a good eye.”
“But not a good arm,” Matt had said.
“That will come, with p
ractice. Soon I’ll have you hunt a gazelle, then perhaps a hippo.”
Matt had gulped at the idea. He didn’t really want to kill an animal, let alone one that might charge at him. But this prince expected even more from him. He expected him to kill human beings, and if anyone had harmed Sarah, he probably could do it. Still, the thought made him nauseous.
“Will I be ready to face the Medjay?”
The prince had chewed on his response for the longest time. Something had danced behind his eyes—a fleeting shadow. Fear, maybe? “No one is ready to face the Medjay,” he’d finally said. “They were once Pharaoh’s warriors, when Egypt was ruled from Thebes. No one could stand against these men as they fought campaign after campaign for the dynasties. But they had issues with Egypt’s policies, and so they broke away, became rogues and raiders. They live by their own rules in the Red Sea corridor, and no one has defeated them—yet.” He’d paused again and the look of fear had passed, and been replaced with one of stone. “You will never be ready, but if you’re determined, you’ll learn enough to stay alive. And if I’m sufficiently cunning, we will succeed.”
Matt still shuddered when he thought of that speech. The rippling fear he felt for Sarah had grown into a tidal wave. He could hardly keep from jabbing his heels into his mare’s ribs, to send her galloping forward to find Sarah, save her. But he also knew that if this bold prince couldn’t defeat the Medjay, then he had absolutely no hope of rescuing her on his own. He could barely hit a date. Boy, did he ever need to practice.
“There,” shouted the prince, pointing to a mud-winged duck that had just taken to the sky within Matt’s range. “Shoot it.”
The men grabbed for their bows, but he stopped them immediately. “Let the Matt-boy do it.”
They chuckled as if he’d made a joke and set their weapons back while Matt fumbled for his bow. He slung an arrow into position, retracted the sinew/string, and aimed at the moving target. The duck was flying higher now, farther out of reach, but he tracked its trajectory and fired. The arrow spun through the air and, with a wicked thud, hit its mark. A cheer rang out as the duck plummeted to the ground.
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