The Quest

by Wilbur Smith

  They never slept two nights in the same bivouac. Between them That and Sidudu knew all the back ways and hidden tracks through the forest, so they moved swiftly and secretly, avoiding well-travelled paths, covering much ground between one camp and the next.

  They went from village to village, meeting local magistrates and headmen who were sympathizers. All were incomers, and most of the villagers were loyal to them. They provided food and safe houses for the fugitives. They kept watch for Jarrian patrols and warned of their approach.

  In each village Meren and That held a war council.

  ‘We are going back to our very Egypt!’ they would tell the magistrates and headmen. ‘Have your people ready to march on the night of the harvest moon.’

  That would look round the circle of faces that glowed with elation and excitement in the firelight. He pointed to the chart he had unrolled and spread before him. ‘This will be the route you must follow. Arm your menfolk with what weapons you have to hand. Your womenfolk must gather food, warm clothing and blankets for their families, but bring nothing that you cannot carry. It will be a long, hard march. Your first assembly point will be here.’ He indicated the place on the chart. ‘Move swiftly to it. There will be scouts waiting for you. They will have more weapons for your men, and they will guide you to the Kitangule Gap. That will be the main mustering ground for all our people. Be discreet and circumspect. Tell only those you can trust of our plans. You know from bitter experience that the spies of the oligarchs are everywhere. Do not move before the appointed time, unless you receive direct orders from either Colonel Cambyses or me.’ Before sunrise they rode on. The commanders of the outlying garrisons and military forts were almost solidly Tinat’s men. They listened to his orders, made few suggestions and asked fewer questions. ‘Send us the order to march. We will be ready,’ they told him.

  The three main mines were in the south-eastern foothills of the mountains. In the largest, thousands of slaves and prisoners toiled on the stopes, digging out the rich silver ore. The commander of the guards was one of Tinat’s men. He was able to spirit That and Meren, dressed as labourers, into the slave barracoons and prison compounds. The inmates had organized themselves into secret cells and elected their leaders. That knew most of the leaders well: before their arrest and incarceration they had been his friends and comrades. They listened to his orders with joy.

  ‘Wait for the harvest moon,’ he told them. ‘The guards are with us. At the appointed time they will open the gates and set you free.’

  The other mines were smaller. One produced copper and zinc, the alloy needed to turn copper into bronze. The smallest of all was the richest.

  Here the slaves worked a thick seam of gold-bearing quartz, so rich that lumps of pure gold gleamed in the light of the miners’ lamps.

  ‘We have fifteen wagonloads of pure gold stored in the smelter,’ the chief engineer told That.

  ‘Leave it!’ Meren ordered brusquely.

  That nodded. ‘Yes! Leave the gold.’

  ‘But it is a vast treasure!’ the engineer protested.

  ‘Freedom is an even greater treasure,’ Meren said. ‘Leave the gold. It will slow us down, and we can find better use for the wagons. They will carry the women, children and any men who are too frail or sick to walk.’

  It was still twenty days short of the harvest moon when the oligarchs struck. Many thousands were already privy to the planned exodus so a bright flame was burning throughout Jarri. It was inevitable that the spies would pick up its smoke. The oligarchs sent Captain Onka with two hundred men to Mutangi, the village from which the rumours had emanated.

  They surrounded it at night and captured all the inhabitants. Onka interrogated them one at a time in the village council hut. He used the lash and the branding iron. Although eight men died during the questioning, and many more were blinded and maimed, he learned little.

  Then he started on the women. Bilto’s youngest wife was the mother of twins, a girl and a boy aged four. When she resisted Onka’s questions, he forced her to watch while he decapitated her son. Then he threw the boy’s severed head at her feet, and picked up his sister by a handful of her curls. He dangled her screaming and wriggling before her mother’s face. ‘You know that I will not stop with just one of your brats,’ he told the woman and pricked the little girl’s cheek with his dagger. She shrieked afresh with pain, and the mother broke down. She told Onka everything she knew, and that was a great deal.

  Onka ordered his men to drive all the villagers, including Bilto, his wife and their surviving daughter, into the thatched council hut. They barred the doors and windows, then set fire to the thatch. While the screams were still ringing from the burning building, Onka mounted and rode like a fury for the citadel to report to the oligarchs.

  Two of the villagers had been hunting in the hills. From afar they witnessed the massacre and went to warn That and Meren that they had been betrayed. They ran all the way to where the band was hiding, a distance of almost twenty leagues.

  That listened to what the two men told him, and did not hesitate.

  ‘We cannot wait for the harvest moon. We must march at once.’

  ‘Taita!’ Fenn cried out, in agony of spirit. ‘You promised to wait for him.’

  ‘You know that I cannot,’ That replied. ‘Even Colonel Cambyses must agree that I dare not do so.’

  Reluctantly Meren nodded. ‘Colonel That is right. He cannot wait. He must take the people and fly. Taita himself wanted it.’

  ‘I will not go with you,’ Fenn cried out. ‘I will wait until Taita comes.’

  ‘I will stay too,’ Meren told her, ‘but the others must leave at once.’

  Sidudu reached for Fenn’s hand. ‘You and Meren are my friends. I will not go.’

  ‘You are brave girls,’ said That, ‘but will you go again to the Temple of Love and bring out our young women?’

  ‘Of course!’ Fenn exclaimed.

  ‘How many men will you need to go with you?’ asked That.

  ‘Ten will suffice,’ Meren told him. ‘We will also need spare horses for the temple girls. We will bring them to you at the first river crossing on the road to Kitangule. Then we will come back to wait for Taita.’

  They rode for most of the night. Fenn and Sidudu led, but Meren followed close behind on Windsmoke. In the early light of dawn, before sunrise, they breasted the top of the hills and looked down on the Temple of Love, nestled in the valley below.

  ‘What is the morning routine in the temple?’ Fenn asked.

  ‘Before sunrise the priestesses take the girls to the temple to pray to the goddess. After that they go to the refectory for breakfast.’

  ‘So they should be in the temple now?’ Meren asked.

  ‘Almost certainly,’ Sidudu affirmed.

  ‘What of the trogs?’

  ‘I am not sure, but I think they will be patrolling the temple grounds and the woods.’

  ‘Are any of the priestesses kind to the girls? Are there any good women among them?’

  ‘None!’ said Sidudu bitterly. ‘They are all cruel and merciless. They treat us like caged animals. They force us to submit to the men who come, and some of the priestesses use us for their own foul pleasures.’

  Fenn looked across at Meren. ‘What shall we do with them?’

  ‘We kill any who get in our way.’

  They drew their swords and rode down in a tight group, making no attempt to conceal their approach. The trogs were nowhere to be seen, and Sidudu led them directly to the temple, which stood detached from the main building. They raced towards it and pulled up the horses in front of the wooden doors. Meren jumped down and tried the latch, but it was barred from the inside.

  ‘On me!’ he shouted to the men who followed him, and they formed up in phalanx. At his next order they lifted their shields and charged the door, which burst open. The girls were huddled on the floor of the nave with four black-robed priestesses standing guard. One was a tall, middle aged woman with a ha
rd, pockmarked face. She lifted the golden talisman she held in her right hand and pointed it at Meren.

  ‘Beware!’ Sidudu shouted. ‘That is Nongai and she is a powerful sorceress. She can blast you with her magic’

  Fenn already had an arrow nocked to her bow and did not hesitate.

  She drew and released it in a single fluid movement. The arrow hummed down the length of the nave and struck Nongai in the centre of her chest. The talisman spun out of her hand and she crumpled on to the stone floor. The other three priestesses scattered like a flock of crows.

  Fenn shot two more arrows and brought down all but the last, who reached the small door behind the altar. As she wrenched it open Sidudu shot an arrow between her shoulder-blades. The woman slid down the wall leaving a trail of blood on the stonework. Most of the temple maidens were screaming. The others had pulled their chitons over their heads and were cowering in a terrified group.

  ‘Speak to them, Sidudu,’ Meren ordered. ‘Quieten them.’

  Sidudu ran to the girls, and pulled some to their feet.

  ‘It’s I, Sidudu. You have nothing to fear. These are good men, and they have come to save you.’ She saw Jinga among them. ‘Help me, Jinga! Help me bring them to their senses!’

  ‘Take them out to the horses, and get them mounted,’ Meren told Fenn. ‘We can expect an attack from the trogs at any moment.’

  They dragged the girls out through the doorway. Some were still weeping and wailing and had to be thrown up bodily on to the saddles.

  Meren was ruthless with them, and Fenn slapped one across the face as she shouted at her: ‘Get up, you foolish creature, or we will leave you to the trogs.’

  At last they were all mounted, and Meren shouted, ‘Forward at the gallop!’ and touched Windsmoke’s flanks with his heels. He had two girls up behind him, clinging to him and each other. Nakonto and Imbali hung on Fenn’s stirrup ropes and she carried them along with her. Sidudu had Jinga behind her and one of the other girls seated in front. All the other horses carried at least three girls. Heavily laden, they galloped in a tight group back across the temple lawns, heading for the hills and the road to Kitangule.

  As they entered the track through the forest, the trogs were waiting for them. Five of the huge apes had climbed into the trees and they dropped out of the branches on to the horses as they passed below. At the same time other apes came bellowing and roaring out of the undergrowth. They leapt up at the riders or snapped with their powerful jaws at the legs of the horses.

  Nakonto had a short stabbing spear in his right hand and killed three of the brutes with as many quick blows. Imbali’s axe hissed and hummed through the air as she cut down two more. Meren and Hilto hacked and thrust with their swords, and the troopers who followed spurred their horses into the fight. But the trogs were fearless and single-minded and the fight was ferocious. Even when they were gravely wounded or dying the apes tried to drag themselves back into the fray. Two set upon Windsmoke and tried to savage her hindquarters. The grey mare aimed two mighty kicks. The first crushed the skull of one and the second caught the other under the jaw and snapped its neck cleanly.

  One of the temple maidens was dragged down from behind Hilto’s saddle and her throat was ripped out by a single bite before Hilto could smash in the brute’s skull. By the time Nakonto had speared the last trog many of the horses had been bitten: one had been so gravely savaged that Imbali had to dispatch it with an axe stroke through the crest of its skull.

  They formed up again, rode out of the valley, and when they reached the fork in the track they turned eastwards towards the mountains and the Kitangule Gap. They rode through the night, and early the next morning they saw a dustcloud rising above the plain ahead of them.

  Before noon they had caught up with the tail of a long dense column of refugees. That was riding with the rearguard, and as soon as he saw them coming he galloped back to meet them. ‘Well met, Colonel Cambyses!’ he shouted. ‘I see you have saved our girls.’

  ‘Those who have survived,’ Meren agreed, ‘but they have had a hard time of it, and are near the end of their tether.’

  ‘We will find places for them on the wagons,’ That said. ‘But what of you and your party? Will you come out of Jarri with us, or are you determined to go back to find the old magus?’

  ‘You already know what our answer must be, Colonel That,’ Fenn replied, before Meren could speak.

  ‘Then I must bid you farewell. Thank you for your courage and for what you have done for us. I fear we might never meet again, but your friendship has done me great honour.’

  ‘Colonel That, sir, you are the eternal optimist.’ Fenn smiled at him.

  ‘I warrant you shall not be rid of us that easily.’ She pushed Whirlwind up beside his mount and planted a kiss on his whiskery cheek. ‘When we meet again in Egypt I shall kiss the other,’ she told him, and turned Whirlwind back, leaving That staring after her in pleasurable confusion.

  They were reduced to a tiny band now, only three women and three men. For once Nakonto and Imbali had chosen to ride rather than run, and each led a spare horse.

  ‘Where are we going?’ Fenn asked Meren, as she rode beside him.

  ‘As close to the mountains as is safe,’ Meren answered. ‘When Taita comes we must be able to join him swiftly.’ He turned to Sidudu, who rode at his other side. ‘Do you know of a place near to the mountain where we can hide?’

  She thought for only a moment. ‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘There is a valley where I used to go with my father to collect mushrooms when they came into season. We camped in a cave that few know of.’

  Soon the shining white peaks of the three volcanoes rose above the western horizon. They skirted round the village of Mutangi, and looked down on the burnt-out ruins from the low hills where they had hunted the wild hog. The smell of ashes and charred bodies wafted up to them.

  No one said much as they turned away and went on westwards towards the mountains.

  The valley to which Sidudu took them was tucked away in the foothills. It was so well concealed by trees and the folds of the land that it was not visible until they were looking down into it. There was good grazing for the horses and a tiny spring that supplied sufficient water for their needs. The cave was dry and warm. Sidudu’s family had left a pair of battered old cooking pots and other utensils in a crevice at the back, with a large pile of firewood. The women cooked the evening meal, and they all gathered round the fire to eat.

  ‘We will be comfortable enough here,’ Fenn said, ‘but how far are we from the citadel and the road that leads up to the Cloud Gardens?’

  ‘Six or seven leagues to the north,’ Sidudu answered.

  ‘Good!’ said Meren, through a mouthful of venison stew. ‘Far enough to be unobtrusive but close enough to reach Taita swiftly when he comes down.’

  ‘I am pleased that you said when and not i,’ Fenn observed quietly.

  There was silence for a while, except for the clinking of spoons in the copper bowls.

  ‘How will we know when he comes?’ Sidudu asked. ‘Will we have to keep watch for him on the road?’ They all looked at Fenn.

  ‘There will be no need for that,’ Fenn replied, ‘I will know when he comes. He will warn me.’

  They had been continually on the move, riding and fighting, for many months. In all that time this was their first chance for a full night’s sleep, broken only by their turns on sentry duty. Fenn and Sidudu took the midnight watch and when the great cross of stars in the south dipped towards the horizon they stumbled half asleep into the cave to wake Nakonto and Imbali for the dog watch. Then they fell on to their sleeping mats and dropped into oblivion.

  Before dawn the next morning Fenn shook Meren awake. He started up so violently that he woke the others - and when he saw the tears on Fenn’s cheeks he reached for his sword. ‘What is it, Fenn? What is amiss?’

  ‘Nothing!’ Fenn cried. Now he looked properly at her face, and realized she was weeping for joy. ‘Everything
is perfect. Taita is alive. He came to me in the night.’

  ‘Did you see him?’ Meren seized her arm and shook her in agitation.

  ‘Where is he now? Where has he gone?’

  ‘He came to overlook me while I was asleep. When I awoke he showed me his spirit sign and told me, I will return to you soon, very soon.’

  Sidudu leapt up from her mat and embraced Fenn. ‘Oh, I am so happy for you, and for the rest of us.’

  ‘Now everything will be all right,’ Fenn said. ‘Taita is coming back and we will be safe.’

  ‘I have waited through the eons for you to come to me,’ said Eos, I and although he knew that she embodied the great Lie, Taita could not help but believe her. She turned and walked back into the mouth of the grotto. Taita did not try to resist. He knew that he could do nothing but follow her. Despite all the defences he had raised against her enchantments, there was nothing he wanted to do more at that moment than follow wherever she might lead.

  Beyond the entrance the tunnel narrowed until the lichen-covered rock brushed his shoulders. The spring water was icy as it burbled over his feet and splashed the hem of his tunic. Eos glided ahead. Under the black silk her hips moved with the undulating motion of a swaying cobra. She left the stream and went up a narrow stone ramp. At the top the tunnel widened and became a roomy passageway. The walls were covered with lapis-lazuli tiles carved in bas-relief, depicting human forms, and beasts both real and fabulous. The floor was inlaid with tiger’s eye, and the roof with rose quartz. Large rock crystals the size of a man’s head were set on brackets on the wall. As Eos approached each in turn they emitted a mysterious orange glow that illuminated the passage ahead.