“I…I thought you might be…but I…”
She smiled at him to calm him. “You did not hurt me. And I gave myself to you willingly. While we may not have a future together I wanted us to have that night. I wanted you to…I wanted to…feel you with me. I will always remember us.” She lowered her eyes to the ground. “Anyway,” she looked to the statue. “She gave me that mark.”
“You mean your parents had it tattooed on you?”
“No. I awoke one morning to the mark and once I did it is what assured my position. I had learned some fighting, but I don’t think my parents really ever intended for me to take on as much of a role as I have acquired. Before my father called me out of battle I led my own arsenal of warriors. But he called me home and my army became my brother’s army. My warriors his warriors and while I still command in battle, I was brought forth to become ready to be queen. After my mother and sister were gone I was the last for the line that actually willingly accepted the position. My brother would have never come willingly and I believe my father knew that. It is why he made these provisions.”
“Is this what you want—to be queen?”
“I want to lead my people, to keep them safe and whether that is into battle or leading them here at home to better our lives…I will accept whatever gift the goddess gives me, but I will always be her warrior. I will always fight the battles she asks me to fight.” She gestured to the far corner of the garden. “Mehit is down there. I would not be quick to anger her. She is said to be very vengeful. Don’t get on her bad side,” she laughed and he laughed with her.
“I’ll try my best not to.”
“We have Isis and some of the other goddesses; some were brought to us from Egypt when we were all living in unity, before the battles begun. The goddesses are welcome here though.”
“And how do you know they will all protect you?”
“Because they have so far, and because Amesemi brought you here. They have not countered your arrival so I believe even the gods and goddesses are angry with Ramathes. We are fighting the war they allow, and they have sent us help.”
“I’m afraid I’ll lose you,” he admitted. “I know we haven’t really known each other long. The few weeks of training and getting to know each other leave much to still learn. I know I’m going to end up back in my time, but I don’t want to watch you die.”
“Nor I you,” she didn’t want to think about him leaving her, even though she knew it would happen. The goddess was about balance and she would be forced to restore it. “I wish you could stay with me. I wish you all could stay. Your men seem to be enjoying Nubia.”
“Oh yeah,” he chuckled. “I think Greg and Mitch are falling in love with your female warriors and Ian’s looking rather hard too. We’re all without blood family ties in our time. None of us are married now. They bounced around in foster care and I never had a solid familial bond with my father. I guess that’s why we all attached so well with each other. I think they feel like they could have a family here. Everybody has been so nice to us.”
“That is the way of Nubia. We welcome all…sometimes that has not worked out so well for us, but we try to maintain our hospitality and acceptance of others. You would love to live here I know.”
“I would love to be with you,” he admitted. “You know if I could; if there was any way to be with you I would stay, but we have to return. We were also on the battlefield there and we have to go back. The goddess won’t let us stay anyway. You’ve already said she’s all about balance. I suppose the proper balance would be to return us to our time.”
“It would,” she nodded. “That doesn’t mean I have to like it.” She heard the high pitched yell and without hesitation she ran toward the screams and crying. When she reached the main yard she saw Loki laying little Hakna on the ground.
“What happened?”
“He was…he was playing,” Koi cried. “We were just playing and we came across Hex, he took us and made us go to camp with him and the guard killed Hakna. He ran him through with his blade and they let me go because they said I should tell you Pharaoh will come for you. They dropped us, me and my brother’s dead body near the river and I found help,” she sniffled.
Nefertari felt her anger rising. Hakna was only a boy. He was nine plus one day and those monsters had killed him. “Get my horse,” she ordered as she marched toward her abode.
“No,” Inka followed behind her trying to calm her, but she could not be calmed.
She pushed open the doors with such fury that they clang against the wall with a loud thud. The servants inside jumped in fear.
“Get my horse and my weapons now!” The servants fled to do her bidding.
“No, Nefertari. Not like this. Don’t you see this is what he wants? He wants you to come for him and when you do he will have you.” Inka tried reason, but she couldn’t hear him. Her heart was pounding in her chest. Too many of their children had died at the hands of this beast. Too many of their family and friends and she would not let that go without punishment.
“I will go and I will run him through with the sword of Hankar!”
“Nefertari,” Alexander’s calm voice called to her. “You know your brother is right. You know that striking in anger will not bring you victory.”
“I know no such thing,” she barked although in reality, if she could calm down for a second she was sure she would hear them both. Right now she wanted blood—his blood poured out on the earth as he had been the cause of so many others going to the afterlife. She wanted to send him there, to let him meat with Anubis and be judged for his sins. The god would lead him to the torment he deserved, but her blade would be what sent him to that reckoning. She would be sure of it.
“You do know,” he said calmly as he walked toward her. You know and you’re fighting it, but you are a leader, a warrior and you know what you must do.”
Why did this man have to make sense? Why did he have to be so smart? She wanted revenge. Much like Mehit she wanted her vengeance to pour out on Ramathes and claim his pitiful existence, removing him from this world for all eternity.
Her servants returned with her weapons, her breastplate and her battle clothes. She lowered her head, trying to regain her sanity and push away her thirst for revenge.
“Put those away, please?” Inka ordered. They looked to her for permission and she nodded briefly. Perhaps going in anger was wrong. Perhaps leaving while she could barely see straight, while her rage blinded her to the dangers, was not her best position. She would wait, but she would, and she promised that to Amesemi, she would spill his blood for the lives he had claimed.
“We will win this battle, Nefertari.” Inka approached her cautiously. “We will have our justice. You must believe that. His time will come.”
“I know,” she admitted freely because she knew his time would come and it would come at the end of her sword. She would claim his life, and she would do it sooner than what he might think. “I will kill him,” she swore the oath. “He will die.” And on those words she turned from both men and left them standing there. She could not concentrate on them while she was this angry. She needed to settle her mood. She needed to settle her rage so that she could formulate a plan—one that would meet her end goal of destroying Ramathes.
Inka exhaled slowly. “She may bare the mark of Amesemi, but she has the spirit of Mehit when she is angry.”
“I’ll admit, seeing that little boy dead, and knowing how he died…I’m angry too.”
“Yes, we all are, but for Nefertari it’s more than just anger. She thought of him like a son. I know that may seem odd to you, but she mothers many people; she would give much to all, and children are her heart. When his father was killed on a mission she made it her mission to ensure good men took him under their wings. She sat with him and his sister for hours educating them on the gods and goddesses, of the ways of our people. Even when their mother was dying inside she became a mother to them until she was no longer needed to fulfill that role. She
became everything to that family, granting his mother a place among her helpers so that she would be taken care of…without a husband and without a skill a woman with two children will suffer. We try to help, but these men have families too. Bringing her into the royal home meant she could keep a place to live, food in her belly and a place to heal surrounded by loving friends.”
“I understand.” He truly did understand that. He was blessed compared to his comrades. He knew his parents, even if they weren’t necessarily the best parents in the world. They never knew their parents. Ian had been left at a church. Mitchell’s mother had died in childbirth and his father had given him up. He wasn’t sure about Greg’s story. Greg had very few memories of early childhood, but he had been able to find out from his records that he had never lived with his biological mother. Where she was, who she was, was a mystery to him. So maybe their pain, his own pain, could allow him to empathize with anybody who lost a father, or mother, to death.
“This will kill Mareket. This will kill her. First her husband, now her son.”
“She has a daughter she needs to stay strong for…she has to.”
“From the start we could all see that Hakna was her heart. He looked so much like his father and I fear that losing him will feel almost as if she has lost the last link to him.”
“And her daughter, why is she not important?”
Inka sighed and shook his head. “Koi is the daughter of an Egyptian soldier. He forced himself on Mareket and she became with child. She has never really treated Koi with love, but her husband had while he was alive. He treated her as if she were his own. He would never let Mareket constantly remind her of where she came from. When he died there was some relapse, but in order to stay in the royal house she was forbidden from negating Koi. But now…now I fear she will change.” He shook his head. “For now this is not our problem. Ramathes’ armies advance and we must be ready to stop them. I will find a home for Koi when I return.”
“Maybe things will change and she’ll be fine with her mother.”
“I doubt that. I have never seen a mother hate her blood as much as Mareket hates Koi. She will not tolerate her now that her son is gone. I will find placement for her. Nefertari will have to approve of course, but I will handle it. Nefertari has enough on her shoulders now. Taking the throne, fighting a war, marrying a man she doesn’t love while losing the one she does for all eternity is a lot for anybody to hold up to—even a warrior queen.”
“Love…no I think…”
“She loves you. I can see it in the way she looks at you. It is the way our mother looked at our father. As if she would give her last breath to keep him safe. She inevitably did sacrifice herself for him. But that will not be the case for my sister. We must protect the queen.”
Alex nodded. He would protect her with every fiber of his being, giving his life for hers if he had to. He would not let this pharaoh or any of his minions take the life of this woman. He was starting to believe, maybe he already did. Clearly she had been right about the time travel thing. He could say he stepped into the Twilight Zone while he was on the field in Afghanistan or he could believe a goddess brought him back to help fight this battle. Either version would be a strange reality to face, but when in Nubia do as the Nubians do, he told himself. He planned to pick up his sword and fight among side these men and women. Clearly their cause was true. Any ruler who could have a blade put through a child deserved to die the same way.
Nefertari kept her distance, not even bothering to spend the time with them at dinner. It was morning now, not light yet, but getting closer to sunrise. The death of Hakna had delayed their departure because Inka thought they all needed to settle their anger before going into battle. He was a wise commander for he knew going into battle with rage as a distraction would bring death and defeat. Nefertari should have been preparing for battle like everybody else. Alex had planned to go find her before the final check of their equipment, but on his way he ran into Inka once again. Inka was coming from her room, assuming she had gone to the dining area outside for an early morning meal.
“I was just out there,” Alex didn’t like the looks of this. “She’s not out there. Is there anywhere else she could be?”
Inka scowled. “Come with me,” he started walking before Alex could say anything more. He just followed the man waiting to see what section of the royal halls he led him to next. He summoned a few guards as he went, or maybe it was just the look of quiet panic on Inka’s face that made them follow. Either way, they were in hot pursuit of something. Did they think another traitor had come inside and taken her?
They came to a bath house that he wasn’t sure he should be in. He had seen her naked, but Inka didn’t know that.
“Where is she?” He asked the petite ebony female. “Speak now or be banished!” Clearly she wasn’t answering fast enough.
“She asked for her weapons, for her attire and for her horse. She goes to Egypt.”
“Somebody stop her at the gates!”
Panic flooded Alex’s mind. How could she go on her own?
“It is too late. She left long before the sun starts to rise.”
Inka growled loudly. His fear, his anger, his sudden since of panic was evident. He knew, just as Alex knew, they could lose her.
“We ride now.” He ordered. They had to try to catch her, or at least get close enough to stop her from doing something stupid.
“Will Helos stop her?”
“She doesn’t have to pass Helos. She will most likely take the southern route outward first. We have guardians there but they will not defy her. They will assume she is meeting up with Helos.”
“Wouldn’t they assume she would go the direct route?”
“No. We do not travel the same route when we come that we do when we leave. I planned to take us the northern way out.”
“Then how can you be sure she took the southern route?”
“Because it will get her to Egypt more swiftly.” He mounted his horse; Alex mounted his and with an army behind them they rode out. Inka had sent a few warriors to get Helos and have him attack directly. It was what they had planned in the first place only instead of needing to send a messenger, Inka’s route would have taken him right to Helos and the camp. They would have all rode out together.
They rode hard and fast, no one bothered to complain about the pace because this was their queen they had to save her. He felt as if they had been riding for hours. The sun had come up and the heat had swiftly followed. When they saw her horse standing there alone they all worried—he knew he did.
“Get down from there,” he heard the voice before he saw her uncover the cloth from her body. He thought it was just more sand, yet she was hidden beneath it. That was one heck of a disguise. Of course her smarts didn’t negate his anger, not even her brother’s anger had subsided.
“What were you thinking?” They all dismounted and waited for more instruction.
“I was thinking I planned to kill him. Then I saw that down there and I figured I should wait for you. What took you so long?”
Inka scoffed. He took a spyglass from his side holder and looked through it before handing it to Alex. What he saw was an army waiting for them.
“So we fight now?” She looked at her brother.
“We fight now, but later I will tell you a thing or two about not running off without your protection.”
She laughed. “Sure you will. You have told me before and look how well I listened.” She looked over to Alex and smiled at him before looking back to Inka. “Helos?”
“Should be on his way from that direction.” He pointed.
“Okay, then let’s get on with it. He can join us once he is here.”
Inka growled and clasped his big hand over her wrist to keep her in place. “I give the orders in battle now.”
Alex could tell Nefertari was a force to be reckoned with on her own, and that her brother didn’t stand a chance. Clearly she was the best choice to lead the country. She
could invoke fear in men even with that sweet smile, yet she still led with compassion and integrity.
“Okay, we go now,” Inka agreed on the command. Alex was sure he was going to anyway; he just wanted to be the one to utter the command.
They mounted their horses, ready to ride into battle. This was the turning point, this was now the point of no return. He looked to his own team and nodded.
“Let’s go get them,” Ian gave a high fist in the air. If Alex didn’t know better he would say his guys were having fun with this whole ancient warfare scene as if it were some high-tech computer game.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” he reminded them.
The moment they reached the army he knew he had to up his game. He got knocked off his horse, but fortunately he didn’t get trapped beneath it when it fell. That bastard had killed his horse. He liked that horse. He fought hard; he fought fast, but he also fought with the skills Nefertari had tried to instill in him. She had taught him avoidance moves he didn’t know before and because of that he had outsmarted a few of the enemy’s moves.
Called to Duty (Adventures Through Time) Page 4