by Wilbur Smith
They were running four abreast in ranks of ten, making up the forty vehicles which was the number that Nasla and Batur had quoted to me. As the last rank came level with where I was lurking I saw the charioteer in the nearest vehicle look at me. You will ask how I knew this. All of them including this one wore helmets that covered their heads entirely; even their eye slits were just dark apertures. But I could feel this one’s eyes. They passed over me almost casually as he nocked another arrow to his bowstring. Then his head jerked back and his gaze focused upon me as he recognized me. There was not a doubt in my mind. His hatred for me was so virulent that I could feel it like a jug of boiling water thrown in my face. I knew with utter certainty that I was looking into the eyes of my sworn and dedicated enemy to the death: Utteric Turo, self-styled the Great, putative Pharaoh of Egypt.
With his right hand he lifted his bow with sudden steely purpose and drew the fletchings back to touch the sneering slit that formed the mouth of his mask. I was pinned helplessly by the throng to the stone wall at my back, unable to even duck my head. However, his right-handed draw with the bow reminded me that Utteric was left-handed, and that therefore his arrow would have left bias. I saw and recognized the first movement of the fingers of his right hand that predicted his release of the arrow, and I rolled my head into the shot. The flight of the arrow was too fast for me to follow with the naked eye, but I felt the draught of air on my cheek as the arrowhead nicked my ear in passing. Then almost simultaneously I heard it strike the stone pillar behind my head and the shaft shiver into pieces at the impact. Almost immediately the pressure of the crowd that held me was released as they scattered and I dropped to the stone slabs.
I did not rise to my feet again immediately, not because I feared Utteric’s next arrow, but because it took me a second or two to staunch the bleeding from the nick in my earlobe. When I did regain my feet the formation of enemy chariots had burst out through the main gates and was racing away across the plain parallel to the river towards the west. They were being pursued by several hundred of Hurotas’ warriors. However, these were on foot and their arrows were falling well short of the fleeing chariots. Many of them were already starting to abandon the chase and turn back towards the fortress. By the morrow Utteric and his stalwarts would have a lead of twenty leagues or more; but which way would they be headed? I thought I knew.
So which way will Utteric be headed?’ Hurotas demanded of the council gathered inside the war room of the Abu Naskos fortress. Most of the other members glanced in my direction, so he turned to me. ‘My Lord Taita, do you have any thoughts on the subject?’
Like the rest of them Hurotas was in a rare mood. His tone was jovial, and his expression was genial. Only an hour previously he had been present when the treasure vault of the fortress had been thrown open. The royal accountants and assessors would still be busy tallying the total amount a week hence, and calculating the distribution to the gallant men who had freed this very Egypt from tyranny, and had never thought of counting the cost.
‘Utteric was born in Luxor,’ I replied to Hurotas’ query. ‘He has spent his whole life there. He has never left this very Egypt and I cannot imagine that he ever will. I am sure that he firmly believes that the city of Luxor is still in the hands of his minions. Like a small boy who has burned his fingers he will be running for home.’
‘Brief and to the point’ – Hurotas nodded – ‘as always, Tata. Now tell me, can you catch him for us?’
‘That is my firm intention,’ I assured him. ‘Apart from every other incentive such as loyalty and honour and justice, Utteric still has the greater part of Egypt’s treasure and wealth hidden away somewhere. What we retrieved here in the delta this day is only a very small part of it. I, for one, very much want the rest of it. I intend to leave for Luxor immediately. With your permission, naturally.’
Hurotas nodded assent. ‘You have it.’
‘I need a member of royalty to accompany me and give my mission standing and prestige. I would ask that it be Pharaoh Rameses. However, he is needed here.’
‘Then it should be either Hurotas or Tehuti who go with Taita, but it must be a member of royalty,’ Rameses supported me. But now other voices rose indignantly.
‘It is you, our own son-in-law, who is being crowned. We are not going traipsing off with Taita while that is happening,’ Hurotas protested and Tehuti took his hand and squeezed it to confirm their family solidarity of purpose.
Serrena was the only one of all of them who had not spoken out, but now she rose to her feet and came to stand beside me. Her expression was so remote from its usual sunny and charming aspect that a sudden silence fell on everyone in the hall, and all of them watched her in trepidation as they waited for her to speak.
‘I will go with Taita,’ she said firmly.
‘No! I forbid it,’ Hurotas jumped to his feet and shouted.
‘Why would you forbid me from performing my bounden duty, father of mine?’ Serrena asked softly.
‘I forbid it because you are only a woman.’ They were clearly the first words that came into Hurotas’ head, and they were not the most convincing or tactful of any I had ever heard him utter.
‘It was only this woman who slew the Laconian boar. I am only the woman who lopped the head off Doog the Terrible.’ Serrena stood a little taller as she replied. ‘I am the same woman who shot an arrow through the guts of General Panmasi. I am the Queen of Egypt and it is my duty to protect the kingdom from tyranny. Forgive me, Father, but I must go with Taita.’ Then Serrena turned her head towards Queen Tehuti, and she asked, ‘Mother?’
‘I have never been more proud of you than I am at this moment, my daughter.’ Tehuti’s voice quivered with emotion. She came to embrace her daughter, and her cheeks were wet with the tears of pride. She stepped back and unbuckled the sword belt from around her waist, and then with both hands presented it to Serrena. ‘I hope you never have cause to use it in anger, but if perchance you must then thrust deep, my darling daughter.’ The great ruby in the hilt of the blue sword burned with a sublime fire as she buckled it around Serrena’s waist.
Serrena looked beyond her mother to where Rameses stood. ‘My husband?’ she asked the same question, and his expression softened.
‘Now you have become a queen in far more than name alone,’ Rameses told her. ‘If I cannot accompany you then there is no other I would rather choose as your companion than Taita. The two of you go with my blessings!’
Serrena turned back to her father. ‘I ask your forbearance, my beloved father.’
Hurotas spread his hands with a smile of resignation which was both rueful and proud at the same time. ‘You have my forbearance, my beloved daughter,’ he replied.
Hurotas gladly allowed us to choose a hundred of his best men with their forty chariots and horses; to these we added Batur and Nasla and a half-dozen other stalwarts who had known Utteric Turo and would recognize him if they saw him again. Then Serrena and I discussed how we could travel to Luxor most expeditiously. Naturally, the deciding factor was the flow rate of the Nile which would be contrary to our direction of travel if we took ship from the delta to Luxor. At this season of the year over this stretch of the river the flow is almost the same as a man’s fast walking pace. That means that it would reduce the speed of a boat by half. However, a boat would be able to keep sailing both day and night. A horse with a rider on its back could only keep trotting for a limited time before it had to rest. Accordingly Serrena and I loaded our men and horses aboard five large river-boats that were lying beneath the walls of Abu Naskos. We had more than sufficient crew to man the oars, and to rotate them regularly. They pointed the prows into the current and we set off upriver for the city of Luxor.
The wind blew steadily out of the north both day and night, filling our sails and thrusting us on against the current, but it still took frustrating hours and days of sailing and rowing until the early morning when I climbed the peak of the mizzen mast and through the river mist I made out
the walls of the Garden of Joy on the hills above the river. An hour later we moored our little fleet alongside the main wharf of the Luxor docks and Serrena and I went ashore with half a dozen men; all of us but more especially Serrena wearing disguise. We were not sure whether or not Utteric had reached the city ahead of us. If he had done so then it opened up all sorts of nasty eventualities. There was even a remote possibility that he might have been able to reinstate himself in the city.
However, when we reached the main gates they were already open and it seemed that business was being conducted as usual. I even recognized three or four of the guards. They were all Weneg’s men. It was immediately clear that Utteric and his band of renegades had not yet arrived from the north, but I knew that they could not be very far behind us.
The city guards were delighted to see me. When I asked Serrena to remove her disguise and show them her face they recognized her immediately. Beside themselves with adulation, they prostrated themselves at her feet. I had to deliver a few solid kicks to get them on their own feet and have them escort us to Weneg’s apartments at the golden palace. Weneg also was thrown into transports of joy by the sudden appearance of the Pharaohin. I had to remind him sharply that Utteric and a band of his villains was not far behind us.
Four hours later, when Utteric’s chariots finally arrived before Luxor, it was to find the city gates locked and barred and the top of the walls deserted. A resounding silence gripped the city. He and his entourage stopped cautiously in a bunch at long arrow range from the main gates. They had very obviously ridden hard all the way from Abu Naskos. Those of their chariots that had survived the journey were dusty, battered and hard used. I had counted forty spanking new vehicles leaving the garrison of Abu Naskos, each of them drawn by a team of five matching horses in prime condition. Now the chariots had been reduced in number to twenty-nine. Eleven of them must have lost wheels or broken their axles and been abandoned along the road. The spare horses were being herded in a loose bunch by the charioteers who had been deprived of wheeled transport. They had lost condition and weight in the intervening days. Their coats were staring and stiff with dust. Four or five of them were lame and limping.
Within the city walls Weneg’s men were at their posts. Most of them were lining the tops of the walls, but at my orders keeping their heads well down behind the parapets. The rest of them were massed inside the city gates, out of sight but poised to sally forth at my order to do so.
Utteric Turo was obviously not expecting to meet resistance. He had left the city safely in the hands of General Panmasi. Now he was almost certainly expecting Panmasi to rush out to greet him. When he did not, Utteric was immediately wary. Suspicion was deeply embedded in his nature. And because I knew him so well it had infected my own thinking. I realized that I had made a mistake by ordering my men to keep out of sight.
‘Can you see Utteric?’ I asked Serrena, who lay at my side on the ramparts of Luxor, peering through the same niche in the parapet.
‘Not yet. There is too much dust and movement,’ she replied. ‘And they are too far distant.’
Utteric’s men were milling around nervously, waiting for his order to approach the city gates more closely. The situation was slowly developing into a stand-off.
I saw that most of Utteric’s charioteers, because of the heat at this time of the day, had removed their bronze helmets and breastplates. I shaded my eyes with cupped hands and stared fixedly at the group trying to recognize any of them. Suddenly one of them lifted his helmet with both hands, preparatory to replacing it on his head. At the same time his mount turned under him and the sunlight struck full upon his raised face.
I clutched Serrena’s arm. ‘There he is!’
‘You don’t have to punish me for it,’ she protested. Sometimes when I become excited I forget how strong I am. However, there was no doubt in my mind. It was the veritable Utteric and his suspicions had been thoroughly aroused by our failure to show ourselves. He was preparing to run once more. I rose to my feet with the arrow nocked in my bow. I knew the range was extreme, and he was a moving target. He was hauling his mount’s head around, and at the same time giving it a rowelling with his spurs. The range was much too far, but I let my arrow fly. I watched it climb into the sky and then begin the drop. It looked so good that I thought I was going to wing him at the very least and I exulted silently. But then I felt a sudden gust of wind kiss my cheek and I saw the arrow lift on the current of air and flick over his head. He ducked at the sound of it passing so close and flattened himself along the neck of his steed. The other riders and their mounts bunched up around him and they galloped away into the east, heading in the direction of the Rift Valley and the Red Sea.
I stood up and watched their dust cloud until it dispersed and then I called to Weneg, ‘How soon can you give me a hundred horsemen to follow Utteric?’
Weneg did not reply at once but he scrambled to his feet and came running to me along the walkway. His expression was worried. ‘Do you intend to chase after Utteric?’
‘Of course I do.’ I heard the snarl in my own voice. I abhor stupid questions.
‘But he is heading straight into Shushukan territory. You dare not follow him with only a hundred men. You will need an army at your back before you attempt it.’
‘Shushukan?’ I moderated my tone of voice slightly. ‘I have never heard of it. Who or what are you talking about?’
‘I must apologize, Lord Taita. I should have explained more clearly. I did not know about them myself until a few weeks ago. They are a tribe of renegades and criminal outcasts. They live beyond civilization or restraint.’ He spread his hands in a placating gesture. ‘I suggest we discuss it before we make any hasty decision, my lord.’
‘If Utteric is riding straight into their territory, and they are as wicked as you describe them to be, then these Shushukan creatures will surely take care of him for us. It will save us a deal of trouble.’ I smiled, but Weneg shook his head again.
‘I have heard rumours that Utteric himself is the chief of the Shushukan and the founder of their movement. Small wonder they call him the man with fifty faces.’
Serrena had been listening attentively to our exchange, but now she spoke out: ‘I do not understand why Utteric would have gone to such extremes. Surely as Pharaoh of Egypt he has ultimate power and authority over all?’
I shook my head. ‘Only over the good. But even a Pharaoh does not have the right to propagate evil. If Utteric rules as Pharaoh and at the same time he is Master of the Shushukan he has both good and utmost evil at his behest.’
‘How very clever of him!’ she said seriously, but her eyes sparkled like those of the lioness who has smelled her prey. ‘Surely you have closed down the good side for him. You have denied him access to Luxor and any of the other fine cities of this very Egypt. You have confined him where he belongs with access only to the Shushukan.’
‘We must learn all there is to know about this place of evil,’ I decided. ‘We must send our spies in to learn all about the perpetrators. Who rules and holds power there; who it is that makes the laws – although perhaps there are no laws in such an environment as that which Utteric has created.’
‘I have already made enquiry,’ Weneg assured me. ‘I would have reported to you earlier if I had been given the chance. But you had no sooner arrived than Utteric was breathing down your neck. The ostensible leader of the Shushukan is a man who glories in the name of Mad Dog.’
‘That sounds appropriate,’ I agreed.
‘They tell me that he is a foul villain, this Mad Dog. In other words, he is an excellent man for the job.’
‘Perhaps Mad Dog is merely one of Utteric’s many assumed names,’ I suggested before I went on to ask, ‘Do you have any idea how many Shushukan Utteric has under his command?’
‘I have no idea at all. But some say he has a hundred thousand men.’
I blinked to hear that figure. If Utteric had even half those numbers then he commanded the largest
army in the world. ‘What else do they say?’ I asked Weneg.
‘They say Utteric has already built a mighty castle at Ghadaka on the shores of the Red Sea from which he will conquer the rest of the world.’
I turned away from Weneg and paced along the parapet. I looked out to the east and saw the dust cloud of Utteric’s chariots shrivelling and dispersing on the light wind. I turned and went back to where Weneg waited for me.
‘What you tell me is all hearsay,’ I pointed out to him, and he shrugged and shuffled his feet.
‘It is what I have been told,’ he mumbled apologetically.
‘I want to send scouts down immediately to check this information. They must be good and trustworthy men, working separately so if one or more are apprehended by Utteric’s men then the others still stand a good chance of getting back to us with reliable information,’ I told him, and he nodded.
‘It makes good sense to check our information thoroughly, Lord Taita.’
‘There are two excellent men whom I brought with me from Abu Naskos. They are brothers by the names of Batur and Nasla. I particularly want you to send them on this reconnaissance.’
‘It shall be done. However, it will take several days for them to reach Ghadaka and return with their findings.’