by Wilbur Smith
When I ended my recital Hurotas was silent for a while, and then he said, ‘So you brought the skull of Terramesh back with you, as irrefutable proof of this creature’s demise.’
‘No.’ I corrected him mildly. ‘That is not what I said.’
‘I know what you said and of course I believe you. But why complicate matters? We have plenty of choice skulls lying around here. Any one of them could have belonged to this creature you call Terramesh. I am going to have to send our troops back across the river to capture the fortress of Abu Naskos. If there is any possibility that Terramesh is still alive and waiting for them our troops will be more than reluctant to go back across the river. A nice clean skull, or even a filthy one, will convince them that Terramesh will not be there on the west bank to greet them.’
I glanced at Rameses and he grinned back at me. ‘In the short time I have been married I have learned not to waste my breath by arguing with either my wife or my father-in-law.’
The following morning the entire armies of Rameses I of Egypt, King Hurotas of Sparta and Lacedaemon and the fourteen remaining petty kings who paid him homage assembled in the dawn, but well back from the river and out of sight of the lookouts on the walls of the fortress of Abu Naskos. The mood of our troops was subdued. Later I heard that a malicious rumour had been circulating through the camp since the three of us had returned the previous evening from our expedition across the Nile. In essence this was that the campaign against Utteric Turo and his new and formidable warrior, Terramesh, was to be abandoned and that Hurotas and his allies were about to quit the field and scurry back to Sparta, taking Rameses and his bride with them.
King Hurotas and Pharaoh Rameses took the reviewing stand and stood shoulder to shoulder facing the serried ranks, but there was no cheering or beating of the war shields with drawn blades.
After a solemn pause Hurotas made an imperative gesture and two slaves followed them up on to the stand. Between them they carried a large wicker basket, which they placed on the front of the stand. Then they backed away, making obeisance so deep that their foreheads touched the planking between their feet. After another pause Hurotas began to speak.
‘Two days ago Pharaoh Rameses and his wife Pharaohin Serrena Cleopatra, accompanied by Lord Taita, crossed the Nile River surreptitiously and entered rebel-held territory. They went in search of the vile creature known to all of us as the scar-faced archer.’
A low, involuntary groan echoed from the massed ranks. Hurotas waved his hand to quieten them and went on speaking,
‘This archer is also known as Terramesh the Indestructible. I had commanded our three intrepid heroes to hunt him down and kill him like the mad dog he is, and then to return with his severed head, but making sure to conceal it until they were able to place the head in my hands.’ By this time Hurotas had captured the attention of the vast majority of the men assembled before him. Their mood had lightened. Even I who had been a participant was fascinated by Hurotas’ skilled manipulation of the facts. With a flourish Hurotas pointed at the wicker basket that stood before him and every eye in the dense mass of charioteers and archers followed the gesture. Hurotas stepped forward and threw open the lid of the basket, then reached into it and brought forth a human head which he held aloft for all to see.
Slivers of rotting skin and flesh still clung to the bone and the mouth lolled open with the swollen blue tongue hanging out of one corner. The eye sockets were empty gaping holes.
‘I give to you the head of Terramesh!’ he bellowed. No man in the array could doubt his word for even a fleeting second, for buckled on to the skull was the golden helmet that they all knew so well and feared so profoundly. A shout of joy and triumph went up from eight thousand throats.
‘Terramesh! Terramesh! Terramesh!’ As one man they drew their swords and beat upon their shields in time to the thunder of their voices.
Hurotas let them shout themselves hoarse and then he unbuckled the helmet from the skull, and held the helmet aloft.
‘This trophy goes to the regiment that most distinguishes itself in the battle that lies ahead.’ They roared again like lions. Then in his other hand he lifted the mutilated human head with sightless eye sockets and lolling tongue. ‘And this trophy goes to Hades the King of the Underworld. It will be conveyed to him by Hephaestus, the god of fire.’
He marched with the head to the watch fire and threw it into the flames and we all watched with fascination while it burned to ashes. It was a decision befitting a king, I thought. No one could ever question the authenticity of the skull, for it no longer existed.
The army spent the rest of that day restringing their bows, sharpening their swords, repairing their shields and armour and resting. Then when night fell we waited for the waxing gibbous moon to set, before they fell into their regiments and marched down to the bank of the river and boarded their vessels. They showed no lights and all commands were given by the officers in whispers. The troop ships dispersed and made their separate ways upstream and down to their landing positions on the enemy bank, which had been carefully selected over the previous days and weeks.
We had hoped to take the enemy sentries off guard, and in the event we were not disappointed. Utteric and his men had believed themselves secure under the protection of Terramesh. It transpired that Utteric had paid him the vast fortune of ten lakhs of silver for his protection. However, at this stage Utteric was totally unaware of the one-eyed monster’s very recent demise. As a consequence half his army was billeted outside the walls of the fortress of Abu Naskos where they were employed in farming grain and vegetables, and raising goats and cattle to feed themselves and their companions during the remainder of the campaign.
We came ashore after midnight and launched our attack on them. Most of them were asleep and their sentries with them, convinced as they were that they had the protection of Terramesh. When we woke them with our war cries they made very little effort to stand and fight but ran for the shelter of the fortress walls in pandemonium and panic. More than half of them made it. The remainder of them were cut down or taken as our prisoners.
Understandably, our men had been a little timid in their pursuit. Despite Hurotas’ exhibition of the severed head and their demonstration of bravery the previous day, most of them had been half expecting Terramesh to reappear.
Nevertheless, we managed to capture over a hundred of Utteric’s men. Two of them I recognized. They were good men who had been caught on the wrong side of the fence. When I took them aside for questioning they reminded me that their names were Batur and Nasla. They were brothers and they had fought under me against the Hyksos. When I opened a flagon of wine and poured each of them a mugful they remembered what good friends we really were. And with each mugful they downed they became more accommodating.
I questioned them minutely on the conditions existing inside the fortress of Abu Naskos and they replied readily. They told me that Utteric’s fortress was formidably secure against attack. There was only one entrance and that was through the massive double gates set into the walls on the opposite side to the River Nile. I asked them about scaling the walls and they replied that there were three sets of walls one within the other, and all of them were formidable in design and construction. They suggested that probably the most successful form of assault would be by tunnelling under the foundations. Then I enquired if they knew of any existing subterranean works beneath the fortress but they were adamant that there were none. It did not sound very promising, and I smiled ruefully as I realized that Utteric had chosen the easiest fortress in the whole of Egypt to defend.
Batur and Nasla then went on to inform me that Utteric had sent most of his horses and chariots away, probably to his forts in the delta where it would be difficult for us to follow and find them. However, he had retained about forty chariots and horses which he kept in the stables of the fortress, probably to be employed in forays against us; but even more likely to be used in escaping from Abu Naskos if the necessity ever arose.
The brothers also told me that they had lived for the past two years in the fortress of Abu Naskos and had learned most of the secret entrances and exits and the other complexities of that vast structure. When I wanted to know how the two of them had become embroiled in Utteric’s web, they explained that as young men they had enlisted in the service of Pharaoh Tamose. When he was killed by the Hyksos, his eldest son Utteric had inherited the Hedjet Crown of Pharaoh. However, the brothers had swiftly been disenchanted by Utteric. They assured me that it was their dearest desire to defect to the standard of Pharaoh Rameses whom they both knew and admired.
I presented the two of them to Rameses and he recognized them. He told me he had a high regard for them. He agreed with me that we should employ them as secret agents and they might be used eventually to help us gain access to the fortress – in whatever way was feasible. Batur was the older brother and he agreed to return to Abu Naskos with the alibi that he had been captured by Hurotas’ men, but had managed to escape and work his way back through our lines to reach the gates of Abu Naskos. The younger brother was Nasla. He would stay with us outside the walls to inform and advise us on matters related to the fortress and the monster within. The two brothers had developed an intricate code of signals with which they were able to correspond clandestinely and at a distance.
I was confident that they would prove themselves to be extremely useful.
The next few weeks were occupied by the laborious business of moving our forces across the river and closing in on the fortress to begin our preparations for the final assault on Utteric’s stronghold. When finally this began it soon fell into the familiar pattern of three steps advance and then two steps retreat, rather in the convoluted manner of a formal dance. Our engineers drove the trenches and tunnels towards the walls of the fortress, starting from a safe distance to avoid the arrows from the enemy archers on the tops of the walls. Then, once we were approaching the foot of the walls, Utteric’s men sallied forth during the night and attempted to destroy our trench-works. This led to bitter fighting in virtually complete darkness in which it was almost impossible to tell friend from foe.
Then the following morning we would assess the damage and begin once again the whole dreary process of repairing our earthworks and then driving them forward towards the seemingly impregnable walls. It was not a pastime which particularly appealed to me, and I left it to others with more patience and experience at breaching the walls of a citadel: men such as Hurotas and Rameses.
My thoughts returned rather to the four mysterious islands in the Nile and my pleasant and more fruitful interaction with the goddess Inana, who was so often there to greet me. I had made the most out of the three islands on the east side of the channel, and only the fourth island closest to the fortress of Abu Naskos still awaited my attention. This island lay within long arrow shot of the tops of the fortress walls so I was compelled to approach it from the east bank where Hurotas’ main camp had originally stood. However, this was an inordinately long swim even for me and the days and nights were becoming colder; so I was reduced to rowing across in the skiff during the hours of darkness when I would not make such an obvious and tempting target.
The first night I attempted this there was a gibbous moon which threw a good light, but not good enough to make me and my skiff visible from the walls of Utteric’s fortress. As I approached the island from the side furthest from the fortress I was struck by how closely it resembled the first three. Any lingering doubts I had about the interrelationship of all four islands were thus dispelled. When I reached it I moored my skiff to a liana that hung down from the top of the man-made wall almost to the surface of the river. The first thing that was apparent to me was that the stonework of this island was in much better state of repair than any of the other three. I was able to identify the individual blocks of stone. There were even footholds remaining in the wall which made the climb to the summit that much easier. I scaled it swiftly, buoyed up by excitement, and when I reached the top I found the entrance to the vertical shaft exactly where I expected to find it in the centre of the tower. However, the night was so dark that I was unable see more than a very short way down the shaft.
I knew that I had to light one of the candles that I had brought with me. These were a very recent innovation of mine to replace the common torches of reeds or grass. I had made them from beeswax, which was a superior innovation, but the clear light they threw was visible from a great distance. I decided to take the chance that it might be seen from the tops of the fortress walls. I climbed a short way down the shaft as I deemed it to be safe. Then some swift work with the fire-sticks and I had a glow of wood dust which burst into flames when I applied the wick of my candle to it.
My eyes adjusted almost instantaneously to the bright clear light and then I looked around and immediately gasped in awe. The entrance to the tunnel in which I was sitting was completely tiled with ceramic bricks in a pale green colour, each one decorated around the margin with tiny images of a prick-eared desert fox.
However, unlike the first three tunnels, the walls of this one were in a remarkable state of repair. More than a quarter of the ceramic friezes had survived the ages, and the stairs beneath my feet were only slightly dished by the passage of the feet of the ancient people who had used them.
The shaft was blocked in two or three places by fallen stonework and other rubbish, but I was able to clear a way through these with my bare hands. The staircase descended into the centre of the island at a steep angle. I counted the steps as I made my way down. I reached 150 and then I realized with a sudden shock that I must have descended far below the surface of the river.
I was in peril of death by drowning. At any moment a torrent of water might come rushing up the tunnel to sweep me into eternity. I turned and hurried back up the staircase, and as I went I chanted my prayers to all the gods, but more especially to Inana, to spare me from a dreadful death all alone in the depths of the earth.
I reached the entrance to the tunnel still breathing forcefully and with only my sandalled feet wet, but the rest of my body from the ankles upwards dry as the dunes of the desert. I sat on the top steps of the tunnel and considered this remarkable turn of affairs. I was faced with the fact that I had made a miscalculation, which was unusual for me; it now seemed possible that not every tunnel or space beneath the surface of a river must be inundated by water.
In fairness to myself this tunnel was the first one in existence that I had ever heard about that ran beneath a river, especially such a mighty one as the Nile. I had never even remotely considered such a possibility. However, I had no option now but to review my conclusions. From this standpoint it was only a matter of minutes before I had seen the flaw in my previous reasoning.
Why does the hull of a boat not fill with water? The answer is because there is no aperture for the water to enter by. Yet if you pierce a hole in the hull it fills immediately! Like the flatness of this earth on which we stand it all began to make sense.
I admit that I shied away from the conundrum of the vast differences in volume between the hull of a boat and a tunnel under the Nile River.
I waited impatiently for Inana to make her appearance so that I could discuss this proposition with her and hear her advice, but she was clearly in one of her contrary feminine moods and by now the dawn was breaking so I had to make my departure before I was spotted by the sentinels on the wall
s of the fortress.
I spent most of the following day in a frenzy of impatience waiting for nightfall. However, I had the good sense to employ part of the time searching out an assistant to work under me in my further endeavours. Nasla was my choice. Not only was he young and strong, but his knowledge of the layout of Abu Naskos fortress was more extensive than anyone in either army. He was intrigued to hear what I had already discovered about the island and the underwater tunnel, and he was eager to accompany me.
We set off in my skiff across the river at twilight. Once we had moored at the foot of the tower and climbed to the top he exclaimed in astonishment at the entrance to the shaft and demanded excitedly, ‘To where does it lead, my lord?’
‘I don’t know yet, but we are going to find out.’
‘I will go first if you so wish,’ he offered. I shrugged nonchalantly, and stood aside for him. Not that I was in anyway fearful of the consequences. I waited until his voice echoed cheerfully up the shaft, and I saw the reflection of his candle flame far below me.
‘I am at the bottom, Lord Taita. Do you wish to follow me down?’ he shouted up to me. It did not sound as if he was drowning, and I was pleased that my hypothesis was so far holding water, in both the literal and figurative senses. I started down to where Nasla was waiting for me at the bottom. Here the vertical shaft levelled out and became a horizontal tunnel.
‘Have you explored it further?’ I demanded.
‘No, my lord. I was waiting for you to take that honour.’