Warlock: A Novel of Ancient Egypt tes-3

by Wilbur Smith

  They were alert for a Hyksos ambush and watched both banks of the wadi, but although the raw rock danced in the heat mirage, there was no sign of an enemy.

  'There is the watchtower.' Gil pointed ahead, and Taita saw its gnarled silhouette leaning drunkenly again the unblemished pale blue of the sky.

  They swept around another bend in the riverbed, and even from two hundred paces Taita could make out the area of confused wheel-tracks where the chariots of Pharaoh's squadron had halted and circled, and where many men had dismounted and remounted in the soft sand of the wadi bottom. Taita signalled his small force to slow down and they moved forward at a walk.

  'This is where Pharaoh dismounted and we went forward with Lord Naja to scout the camp of Apepi.' Gil pointed over the side of the dashboard.

  Taita halted the chariot and signalled the others to do the same. 'Wait for me here,' he ordered the sergeant of the following vehicle, then turned to Gil. 'Come with me. Show me the battleground.'

  Gil led the way up the rude pathway. At first he went slowly, in deference to the old man, but soon realized that Taita was matching him step for step and speeded up. The gradient increased and the surface became more uneven as they went on. Even Gil was breathing hard when at last they reached the tumble of large boulders halfway up the hill that almost blocked the pathway.

  'This is as far as I went,' Gil explained.

  'So where did Pharaoh fall?' Taita looked around him at the steep but open hillside, 'Where were the Hyksosian troops hidden? From where was the fatal arrow fired?'

  'I cannot tell you, lord." Gil shook his head. 'I and the rest of the men were ordered to wait here, while Lord Naja went forward beyond that outcrop of boulders.'

  'Where was Pharaoh? Did he go forward with Naja?'

  'No. Not at first. The King waited with us. Lord Naja heard something up ahead, went to scout and disappeared from our view.'

  'I do not understand. At what point were you attacked?'

  'We waited here. I could see that Pharaoh was becoming impatient. After a while Lord Naja whistled from beyond the rocks. Pharaoh sprang up. "Come on, lads!" he told us, and went up the path.'

  'Were you close behind him?'

  'No, I was near the rear of the file.'

  'Did you see what happened next?'

  'Pharaoh disappeared behind the boulders. Then there was shouting and the sound of fighting. I heard Hyksos voices and arrows and spears striking the rocks. I ran forward but the path was crowded with our men who were trying to get round the boulders here to reach the fight.'

  Gil ran forward to show him how the path narrowed and wove around the tallest boulder. 'This was as far as I got to. Then Lord Naja was shouting that Pharaoh had been struck down. The men ahead of me were milling around, and suddenly they dragged the King down to where I was standing. I think he was dead even then.'

  'How close were the Hyksos? How many were they? Were they cavalry or infantry? Did you recognize their regiments?" Taita demanded. All the Hyksos wore distinctive regalia, which the Egyptian troops had come to know well.

  'They were very close,' Gil told him, 'and there were a lot of them. At least a squadron.'

  'What regiment?' Taita insisted. 'Did you pick out their plumes?'

  For the first time Gil looked uncertain and a little shamefaced. 'My lord, I did not actually set eyes on the enemy. You see, they were behind the rocks up there.'

  'Then how do you know their strength and numbers?' Taita frowned at him.

  'Lord Naja was shouting-' Gil broke off and dropped his eyes.

  'Did any of the others, apart from Naja, see the enemy?'

  'I do not know, honourable Magus. You see, Lord Naja ordered us back down the pathway to the chariots. We could see that the King was mortally wounded, probably already dead. We had all lost heart.'

  'You must have discussed it later with your companions. Did any of them tell you he had engaged an enemy? That he had hit one of the Hyksos with arrow or lance?'

  Gil shook his head doubtfully. 'I don't remember. No, I don't think so.

  'Apart from the King, were any others wounded?'

  'None.'

  'Why did you not tell this to the council? Why did you not tell them that you had not seen an enemy?' Taita was angry now.

  'Lord Naja told us to answer the questions simply and not to waste the council's time with idle boasting and long tales of our part in the fighting.' Gil hunched his shoulders with embarrassment. 'I suppose that none of us wanted to admit that we ran without a fight.'

  'Do not feel ashamed, Gil. You carried out your orders,' Taita told him, in a kinder tone. 'Now, climb up on the rocks there, and keep your eyes open. We are still deep in Hyksosian territory. I shall not be long.' Taita went forward slowly and stepped round the boulder that blocked the path. He paused and surveyed the ground ahead. From this angle he could just make out the top of the ruined watchtower. The path went up towards it in a series of dog-legs. Then it disappeared over the crest of a slope, which was fairly open, with little cover for a Hyksosian ambush, just a few clumps of rock and scattered sun-blasted thorn trees. Then he remembered that it had happened at night. But something disturbed him. Taita felt a vague sense of evil, as though he was being watched by a powerful malignant force.

  This feeling grew so strong that he stood motionless in the sunlight and closed his eyes. He opened his mind and his soul, becoming a dry sponge to soak up any influence from the air around him. Almost at once the feeling grew stronger still: there were terrible things here, but the focus of evil emanated from somewhere not far ahead of him. He opened his eyes and walked slowly towards it. There was nothing to be seen, other than heat-blasted rock and thorn, but now he could even smell evil in the hot air, a faint but rank odour like the breath of a carrion-eating wild beast.

  He stopped and sniffed, like a hunting dog, and immediately the air smelt dusty and dry, but clean. This proved to him that the elusive stench was something outside natural law. He was catching the faint echo of an evil that had been perpetrated in this place, but when he tried to pinpoint it, it disappeared. He took a pace forward then another, and once more the nauseating stench wafted around him. Another pace, and now the smell was accompanied by a feeling of great sorrow, as though he had lost something of inestimable value, something that could never be replaced.

  He had to force himself to take the next step up the rocky pathway, and at that instant something struck him with a force that drove the air from his lungs. He cried out in agony and dropped to his knees, clutching his chest, unable to breathe. It was extreme pain, the pain of death, and he struggled with it as though with a serpent that had wound its coils about him. He managed to throw himself back down the path, and immediately the pain fell away.

  Gil had heard him cry out and came bounding up the path. He seized Taita, and helped him to his feet. 'What is it? What ails you, my lord?'

  Taita thrust him away. 'Go! Leave me! You are in danger here. This is a thing not of men but of gods and demons. Go! Wait for me at the bottom of the hill.'

  Gil hesitated, but then he saw the look in those glittering eyes and recoiled as if from a ghost.

  'Go!' Taita said, in a voice Gil wanted never to hear again, and he fled.

  For a long time after he had gone Taita struggled to bring his body and mind back under his own control, to enable him to counter the forces arrayed against him. He reached into the pouch on his belt and brought out the Periapt of Lostris. He held it in his right hand and stepped forward again.

  As he came to the exact spot on the pathway the pain struck once more with even more savage intensity, like a flint-tipped arrow through the chest, and he could barely prevent himself screaming as he reeled backwards and the pain fell away as it had before.

  Panting, he stared down at the stony ground. At first it seemed unmarked and no different from any other point on the rugged pathway he had traversed. Then, a small ethereal shadow appeared on the earth. As he watched, it changed, became a s
himmering dark scarlet pool. Slowly he sank to his knees. The heart blood of a king and a god,' he whispered. 'Here, on this very spot, died Pharaoh Tamose.'

  He rallied himself and in a quiet yet firm voice spoke the invocation to Horus, so potent that only an adept of the seventh degree dared voice it. On the seventh repetition he heard the rustle of unseen wings, which stirred the desert air around him. 'The god is here,' he whispered, and he began to pray. He prayed for his Pharaoh and his friend, entreating Horus to relieve his suffering and lift his torture.

  'Allow him to escape from this dread place,' he beseeched the god. 'It must have been murder for his soul to have been trapped here.'

  As he prayed he made the signs for the exorcism of evil. Before his eyes the pool of blood began to shrink, as though it were soaking away into the dry earth. As the last drop disappeared Taita heard a soft, formless sound, like the cry of a sleepy child, and the terrible weight of loss and sorrow that had burdened him fell from his shoulders. As he stood up he felt a great sense of release. He stepped forward on to the spot where the pool of blood had been. Even when his sandalled feet were firmly planted upon it he felt no pain and his sense of well-being remained intact.

  'Go in peace, my friend and my king, and may you live for all eternity,' he said aloud, and made the sign for long life and happiness.

  He turned away, and would have started back down the hill to where the chariots waited but something stopped him in his tracks. He lifted his head and tested the air again. There was still a faint whiff of that evil smell, just an elusive trace of it. Warily he turned back up the slope, passing the place where Pharaoh had died, and went on. With each pace the stench of evil grew stronger, until it caught in his throat and made his gorge rise. Once again, he realized that this was something from beyond the natural order. He went on, until after twenty measured paces the odour began to fade. He stopped and retraced his steps. Immediately the stench grew stronger. He quested back and forth until it was at its zenith. Then he stepped off the path and found it stronger still, almost suffocating.

  He was standing under the twisted branches of a thorn tree that grew next to the path. He looked up and saw that the branches were strangely shaped, as though they had been fashioned by a human hand into a distinctive cross that stood out against the blue of the sky. He looked down and a rock the size and shape of a horse's head caught his attention. It had recently been dislodged then replaced in its original position. Taita lifted it out of the depression in which it sat, and saw that it had covered a niche between the roots of the thorn tree. He laid it aside and peered into the niche. There was something in it and he reached in gingerly - it was the kind of shelter that might hide a snake or scorpion.

  He brought out a magnificently carved and tooled object. He stared at it for a moment before he realized that it was an arrow quiver. There was no doubting its origin, for the design was in the Hyksosian heraldic style, and the image tooled into the leather cover was Seueth, the crocodile god of war revered by Hyksosian warriors.

  Taita twisted off the stopper cover and found that the quiver contained five war arrows, fletched in green and red. He drew out one of the shafts and his heart beat fiercely as he recognized it. There could be no mistake. He had minutely examined the broken, blood-caked one that Naja had brought before the council. This was identical to the arrow that had killed Pharaoh.

  He held it to the light and peered closely at the signet etched into the painted shaft. It was a stylized head of a leopard, holding the hieratic letter T in its jaws. This was the device he had seen on the fatal arrow. This was its identical twin. Taita turned it over and over in his hands, as though trying to draw from it the last grain of information. He held it to his nose and sniffed it. There was just the smell of wood, paint and feathers. The foul odour that had guided him to the cache had disappeared.

  Why should the assassin of Pharaoh hide his quiver? After the fight the Hyksos had been left in possession of the field. They would have had all the time they needed to recover their weapons. This is a beautiful and valuable object. No warrior would abandon it, unless he were forced to, Taita thought.

  For another hour he searched the hillside, but found no other item of interest, nor did he detect again the supernatural odour of putrefaction and evil. When he went down to where the chariots waited in the sand of the wadi he carried the quiver concealed under his apron.

  --

  They waited hidden in the wadi until after nightfall. Then, the wheel-hubs freshly greased with mutton fat to stop them squealing, the horses' hoofs covered with leather boots, and all the loose weapons and tack carefully muffled, they went on deep into Hyksosian territory, with Gil guiding them.

  The lance-bearer knew the area well, and although Taita made no comment, he wondered how often the man had travelled this way with his master, and what other rendezvous they had kept with the enemy.

  By now they were down on the alluvial plain of the Nile. Twice they had to turn off the road and wait while parties of armed men, anonymous in the darkness, rode past their hiding-place. After midnight they came to an abandoned temple of some forgotten god that had been hollowed out of the side of a low clay hill. The cave was large enough to shelter the entire squadron, vehicle, horses and men. It was immediately apparent that it had been used before for this purpose: lamps and an oil amphora were hidden behind the ruined altar, and bales of horse fodder were stacked in the sanctum.

  As soon as they had removed the horses' harness and fed them, the troopers ate their own meal then settled down on mattresses of dried straw and were soon snoring. In the meantime Gil had changed from his cavalry uniform to the nondescript attire of a peasant. 'I cannot use a horse,' he explained to Taita. 'It would attract too much interest. On foot it will take me half a day to reach the camp at Bubasti. Do not expect me back before tomorrow evening.' He slipped out of the cave and disappeared into the night.

  Honest Gil is not such a simple bluff soldier as he seems, Taita thought, as he settled down to wait for Lord Naja's allies to answer the message that Gil was taking to them.

  As soon as it was light he posted a sentry at the top of the hill, where the air shaft from the subterranean temple emerged. Just before noon a low whistle down the shaft warned them of danger and Taita climbed up to join the sentry. From the east a caravan of heavily laden donkeys was heading directly for the temple entrance, and Taita guessed that it was these merchants who used the temple as a makeshift caravanserai. It was almost certainly they who had left the store of fodder in the sanctum. He scrambled down the hillside, keeping out of sight of the approaching caravan. In the middle of the roadway he arranged a pattern of white quartz stones while he recited three verses from the Assyrian Book of the Evil Mountain. Then he retired to await the arrival of the caravan.

  The leading donkey was fifty cubits or so ahead of the rest of the column. It was clear that the animal knew of the temple and the delights it contained, for he needed no encouragement from his driver to come on at a trot. As he reached the pile of white quartz stones in the path the little animal shied so violently that the pack slid over and hung under his belly. He started to buck and gallop at the same time, heading out across the plain away from the temple, hoofs flying in every direction. His hoarse honking and braying affected the rest of the animals in the column, and soon they were rearing and throwing their heads against the lead reins, kicking out at their drivers and running in circles as though attacked by a swarm of bees.

  It took the caravan drivers half of the rest of the afternoon to catch and reassemble the runaways, to pacify the terrified animals and to set off again on the road towards the temple. This time the portly and richly robed figure of the head driver marched in the van, dragging the reluctant donkey behind him on a long rein. He saw the stones in the middle of the road and stopped. The column crowded up behind him, and the other drivers came forward. They held an impromptu conference with raised voices and arms waving. Their voices carried to where Taita sat hidden am
ong the olive trees on the hillside.

  At last the head driver left the others and came on alone. At first his step was bold and assured, but soon it slowed and became timid until at last he stood ill-at-ease and, from a distance, studied the pattern of quartz stones. Then he spat towards the stones and jumped back, as if he expected them to return the insult. Finally he made the sign against the evil eye, turned and trotted back with alacrity to join his fellows, shouting and waving them back. The others needed little convincing. Soon the entire caravan was in full retreat along the road it had come. Taita went down the hill and scattered the stones, allowing the influences they contained to disperse, and opening the way for the other visitors he was expecting.

  They came in the short summer dusk, twenty armed men riding hard, Gil leading them on a borrowed steed. They swept down past the scattered stones and up to the entrance of the temple, where they dismounted with a clatter of weapons. The leader was a tall man, wide across the shoulders with a heavy beetling brow and a fleshy hooked nose. His heavy black moustaches were trained to droop down on to his chest, and coloured ribbons were plaited into his beard.

  'You are the warlock. Yes?' he said, in a thick accent.

  Taita did not think it opportune to let them know he spoke Hyksos like one of them, so he replied modestly in Egyptian, neither claiming nor denying magical powers. 'My name is Taita, a servant of the great god Horus. I call his blessing down upon you. I see that you are a man of might, but I do not know your name.'

  'My name is Trok, Paramount Chief of the Clan of the Leopard, and commander of the north in the army of King Apepi. You have a token for me, Warlock?'

  Taita opened his right hand and showed him the broken shard of blue glazed porcelain, the upper half of a tiny votive statue of the god Seueth. Trok examined it briefly, then took another fragment of porcelain from the pouch on his sword-belt and fitted the two pieces together. The broken edges matched perfectly, and he grunted with satisfaction. 'Come with me, Warlock.'