by Wilbur Smith
“Where lies Apepi’s camp?”
“Beyond the ridge. I left my spies overlooking it.” Naja pointed up the pathway toward the watchtower on the crest. “On the far side is a hidden oasis. A sweet-water well and date palms. His tents are set among the trees.”
“We will take a small patrol with us to scout the camp. Only then can we plan our attack.”
Naja had anticipated the order, and with a few terse orders selected a scouting party of five troopers. Each one was bound to him by blood oath. They were his men, hand and heart.
“Muffle your scabbards,” Naja ordered. “Make not a sound.” Then, with his recurved bow in his left hand, he stepped onto the pathway. Pharaoh came close behind him. They went upward swiftly, until Naja saw the crossed branches of the thorn tree silhouetted against the dawn sky. He stopped abruptly, and held up his right hand for silence. He listened.
“What is it?” Pharaoh whispered close behind him.
“I thought I heard voices on the crest,” Naja answered, “speaking the Hyksosian tongue. Wait here, Majesty, while I clear the path ahead.” Pharaoh and the five troopers sank down and squatted beside the path, while Naja went on stealthily. He stepped around a large boulder and his dim figure disappeared from view. The minutes passed slowly and Pharaoh began to fret. The dawn was coming on swiftly. The Hyksosian king would soon be breaking his camp, and moving on, out of their grasp. As a soft whistle came down to him he sprang to his feet eagerly. It was a skilful imitation of a nightingale’s dawn call.
Pharaoh hefted his fabled blue sword. “The way is clear,” he murmured, “Come, follow me.”
They went on upward, and Pharaoh reached the tall rock that blocked the pathway. He stepped round it, then stopped abruptly. Lord Naja faced him at a distance of twenty paces. They were alone, hidden by the rock from the men who followed. Naja’s bow was at full draw and the arrow was aimed at Pharaoh’s naked chest. Even before he could move, the full realization of what confronted him blazed in Pharaoh’s mind. This was the foul and loathsome thing that Taita, with his clairvoyant powers, had smelt in the air.
The light was strong enough for him to make out every detail of the enemy he had loved as a friend. The bowstring was pulled hard against Naja’s lips, twisting them into a dreadful smile, and his eyes were honey gold and fierce as those of the hunting leopard as he glared at Pharaoh. The fletching of the arrow was crimson and yellow and green, and in the Hyksosian fashion the arrowhead was made from razor-sharp flint, designed to tear through the bronze of an enemy’s helmet and cuirass.
“May you live for ever!” Silently Naja mouthed the words as though they were a curse, and he loosed the arrow. It flew from the bowstring with a twang and a hum. It seemed to come quite slowly, like some poisonous flying insect. The feathers spun the shaft, and it made one full revolution as it covered the twenty paces. Though Pharaoh’s eyesight was sharpened and his other senses were heightened by the mortal danger in which he found himself, he could move only with the slowness of nightmare, too slowly to avoid the missile. The arrow took him high in the center of his chest, where his royal heart pounded in its cage of ribs. It struck with the sound of a boulder dropped from a height into a bed of thick Nile mud, and half the length of the shaft was driven through his chest. He was spun round by the force of the impact, and thrown against the red rock of the boulder. For a moment he clung to the rough surface with his hooked fingers. The flint arrowhead had pierced him through and through. The blood-clotted barb stood out of the knotted muscles that ran down the right side of his spine.
The blue sword dropped from his fist, and a low cry burst from his open mouth, the sound muffled by a gout of his own bright lung blood. He began to slide down to his knees, his legs buckling under him, his fingernails leaving shallow scratches on the red rock.
Naja sprang forward with a wild cry, “Ambush! Beware!” and he slipped one arm around Pharaoh’s chest below the protruding arrow.
Supporting the dying King, he bellowed again, “On me, the guards!” and two stout troopers appeared almost instantly from around the rock wall, responding to his rallying cry. They saw at a glance how Pharaoh was struck and the bright bunch of feathers on the base of the arrow.
“Hyksos!” one yelled, as they snatched Pharaoh from Naja’s grasp and dragged him back behind the shelter of the rock.
“Carry Pharaoh back to his chariot while I hold off the enemy,” Naja ordered, and whirled around, pulling another arrow from his quiver and loosing it up the path toward the deserted summit, bellowing a challenge, then answering himself with a muffled counter-challenge in the Hyksosian language.
He snatched up the blue sword from where Tamose had dropped it, bounded back down the path and caught up with the small party of charioteers who were carrying the King away, down to where the chariots were waiting in the wadi.
“It was a trap,” Naja told them urgently. “The hilltop is alive with the enemy. We must get Pharaoh away to safety.” But he could see by the way the King’s head rolled weakly on his shoulders that he was past any help, and Naja’s chest swelled with triumph. The blue war crown toppled from Pharaoh’s brow and bumped down the path. Naja gathered it up as he ran past, fighting down the temptation to place it on his own head.
“Patience. The time is not yet ripe for that,” he chided himself silently, “but already Egypt is mine, and all her crowns and pomp and power. I am become this very Egypt. I am become part of the godhead.”
He held the heavy crown protectively under his arm, and aloud he cried, “Hurry, the enemy is on the path hard behind us. Hurry! The King must not fall into their hands.”
The troops below had heard the wild cries in the dawn, and the regimental surgeon was waiting for them beside the wheel of Pharaoh’s chariot. He had been trained by Taita, and though lacking the old man’s special magic he was a skilled doctor and might be capable of staunching even such a terrible wound as had pierced Pharaoh’s chest. But Lord Naja would not risk having his victim returned to him from the underworld. He ordered the surgeon away brusquely. “The enemy is hard upon us. There is no time for your quackery now. We must get him back to the safety of our own lines before we are overrun.”
Tenderly he lifted the King from the arms of the men who carried him and laid him on the footplate of his own chariot. He snapped off the shaft of the arrow that protruded from the King’s chest and held it aloft so that all his men could see it clearly. “This bloody instrument has struck down our pharaoh. Our god and our king. May Seth damn the Hyksosian pig-swine who fired it, and may he burn in eternal flame for a thousand years.” His men growled in warlike agreement. Carefully Naja wrapped the arrow in a linen cloth, and placed it in the bin on the side wall of the chariot. He would deliver it to the council in Thebes to substantiate his report on Pharaoh’s death.
“A good man here to hold Pharaoh,” Naja ordered. “Treat him gently.”
While the King’s own lance-bearer came forward, Naja unbuckled the sword-belt from around Pharaoh’s waist, sheathed the blue sword and carefully stowed it in his own weapons bin.
The lance-bearer jumped onto the footplate and cradled Tamose’s head. Fresh bright blood bubbled from the corners of his mouth as the chariot wheeled in a circle, then sped back up the dry wadi with the rest of the squadron driving hard to keep up with it. Even though he was supported by the strong arms of his lance-bearer, Pharaoh’s limp body was jolted cruelly.
Facing forward so that none could see his expression, Naja laughed softly. The sound was covered by the grinding wheels and the crash of the chassis over the small boulders he made no attempt to avoid. They left the wadi and raced on toward the dunes and the natron lakes.
It was mid-morning and the blinding white sun was halfway up the sky before Naja allowed the column to halt and the surgeon to come forward again to examine the King. It did not need his special skills to tell that Pharaoh’s spirit had long before left his body and started on its journey to the underworld.
; “Pharaoh is dead,” the surgeon said quietly, as he stood up with the royal blood coating his hands to the wrists. A terrible cry of mourning started at the head of the column and ran down its entire length. Naja let them play out their grief, then sent for his troop captains.
“The state is without a head,” he told them. “Egypt is in dire peril. Ten of the fastest chariots must take Pharaoh’s body back to Thebes with all haste. I shall lead them, for it may be that the council will wish me to take up the duties of regent to Prince Nefer.”
He had planted the first seeds and saw by their awed expressions that they had taken root almost immediately. He went on, with a grim, businesslike air that suited the tragic circumstances which had overtaken them, “The surgeon must wrap the royal corpse before I take it home to the funeral temple. But in the meantime we must find Prince Nefer. He must be informed of his father’s death and of his own succession. This is the single most urgent matter of state, and of my regency.” He had assumed that title smoothly, and no man questioned him or even looked askance. He unrolled a papyrus scroll, a map of the territory from Thebes down to Memphis, and spread it on the dashboard of his chariot. He pored over it. “You must split up into your troops and scour the countryside for the Prince. I believe that Pharaoh sent him into the desert with the eunuch to undertake the rituals of manhood, so we will concentrate our search here, from Gallala where we last saw him toward the south and east.” With the eye for ground of a commander of armies Naja picked out the search area, and ordered a net of chariots to be spread out across the land to bring in the Prince.
The squadron returned to Gallala with Lord Naja in the van. Next in line came the vehicle carrying the partially embalmed body of Pharaoh. On the shore of the natron lake Waifra, the surgeon, had laid out the royal corpse and made the traditional incision in his left side. Through this he had removed the viscera and internal organs. The contents of the stomach and intestines had been washed in the viscous salt water of the lake. Then all the organs were packed with the white crystals of evaporated natron from the lake edge and stored in pottery wine jars. The King’s body cavity was packed with natron salts, then wrapped in linen bindings soaked with the harsh salt. When they reached Thebes he would be taken to his own funerary temple and handed over to the priests and embalmers for the ritual seventy days of preparation for burial. Naja grudged every minute spent upon the road, for he was in desperate haste to return to Thebes before the news of the King’s death preceded him. Yet at the gates of the ruined city he took more precious time to instruct the troop captains who were to undertake the search for the Prince.
“Sweep all the roads to the east. The eunuch is a wily old bird and will have covered his tracks, but smell him out,” he ordered them. “There are villages at the oases of Satam and Lakara. Question the people. You may use the whip and the hot iron to make certain they hide nothing. Search all the secret places of the wilderness. Find the Prince and the eunuch. Fail me not, at your peril.”
When at last the captains had refilled their waterskins and were ready to take their divisions out into the desert, he held them with a final order, and they knew from his voice and his ferocious yellow eyes that this was the most fateful order of all, and that to disobey would mean death. “When you find Prince Nefer, bring him to me. Give him into no other hand but mine.”
There were Nubian scouts with the divisions, black slaves from the wild southlands highly skilled in the art of tracking down men and beasts. They trotted ahead of the chariots as they fanned out into the wilderness, and Lord Naja spent another few precious minutes watching them go. His jubilation was tempered with unease. He knew that the ancient eunuch, Taita, was an adept; that he possessed strange and wonderful powers. If there is one single man who can stop me now, it is he. I wish that I could run them down myself, the eunuch and the brat, rather than send underlings to pit themselves against the Warlock’s wiles. But my destiny calls to me from Thebes and I dare not linger.
He ran back to his chariot and seized the reins. “Onward!” He gave the command to advance with a clenched fist. “Onward to Thebes!”
They drove the horses hard, so that when they raced down the escarpment of the eastern hills onto the wide alluvial plain of the river the lather had dried white on their heaving flanks and their eyes were red and wild.
Naja had withdrawn a full legion of the Phat Guards from the army encamped before Abnub. He had explained to Pharaoh that these were the strategic reserves to throw into the gap and prevent a Hyksosian break-out should the offensive fail. However, the Phat Guard was his own special regiment. The commanders were oath-bound to him. Following his secret orders they had pulled back from Abnub, and were waiting for him now at the oasis of Boss, only two leagues from Thebes.
The guards’ pickets saw the dust of the approaching chariots and stood to arms. The colonel, Asmor, and his officers were turned out in full armor to meet Lord Naja. The legion, under arms, was drawn up behind them.
“Lord Asmor!” Naja hailed him from the chariot. “I have dreadful news to take to the council at Thebes. Pharaoh is killed by a Hyksosian arrow.”
“Lord Naja, I stand ready to carry out your orders.”
“Egypt is a child without a father.” Naja halted his chariot in front of the ranks of plumed and glittering warriors. Now he raised his voice so it carried clearly to the rear ranks. “Prince Nefer is a child still, and not yet ready to rule. Egypt stands in desperate need of a regent to lead her, lest the Hyksos take advantage of our disarray.” He paused and stared significantly at Colonel Asmor. Asmor lifted his chin slightly in acknowledgment of the trust that Naja had placed in him. He had been promised rewards greater than any he had ever dreamed of.
Naja raised his voice to a bellow: “If Pharaoh falls in battle, the army has the right by acclamation to appoint a regent in the field.” He fell silent and stood with one fist clenched on his breast and the lance in his other hand.
Asmor took a pace forward and turned to face the ranks of heavily armed guards. With a theatrical gesture he removed his helmet. His face was dark and hard. A pale scar from a sword slash twisted his nose to one side, and his shaven pate was covered by a plaited horsehair wig. He pointed his drawn sword to the sky, and he shouted, in a voice that had been trained to carry over the din of battle, “Lord Naja! Hail to the Regent of Egypt! Hail to Lord Naja!”
There was a long moment of stunned silence before the legion erupted in a roar, like a pride of hunting lions, “Hail to Lord Naja, Regent of Egypt.”
The cheering and the uproar lasted until Lord Naja raised his fist again, and in the silence that followed he spoke clearly: “You do me great honor! I accept the charge you place upon me.”
“Bak-her!” they shouted, and beat upon their shields with sword and lance until the echoes broke like distant thunder on the hills of the escarpment.
In the uproar Naja summoned Asmor to him. “Place pickets on all the roads. No man leaves this place until I do. No word of this must reach Thebes ahead of me.”
The journey from Gallala had taken three days of hard riding. The horses were worn out, and even Naja was exhausted. Yet he allowed himself only an hour to rest, bathe away the dust of the journey and change his apparel. Then, with his jaw shaven, his hair oiled and combed, he mounted the ceremonial chariot that Asmor had ready and waiting at the entrance to the tent. The gold leaf that decorated the dashboard shone in the sunlight.
Naja wore a white linen skirt, with a pectoral plate of gold and semi-precious stones covering his bare muscled chest. On his hip he carried the fabulous blue sword in its golden scabbard that he had taken from Pharaoh’s dead body. The blade was beaten from some marvelous metal, heavier, harder and sharper than any bronze. There was none other like it in all Egypt. It had once belonged to Tanus, Lord Harrab, and had come to Pharaoh by his bequest.
The most significant of all his accoutrements, however, was the least eye-catching. On his right arm, held in place by a plain band of gold above the
elbow, was the blue hawk seal. Like the sword, Naja had taken it from Tamose’s royal corpse. As Regent of Egypt, Naja was now entitled to wear this potent badge of imperial power.
His bodyguard formed up around him, and the full legion fell in behind him. With five thousand men at his back the new Regent of Egypt began his march on Thebes.
Asmor rode as his lance-bearer. He was young for the command of a full legion, but he had proved himself in battle against the Hyksos, and he was Naja’s close companion. He, too, had Hyksosian blood in his veins. Once, Asmor had thought the command of a legion was the summit of his ambition, but now he had scaled the foothills and suddenly before him rose the glorious Alps of exalted office, of power unfettered, and—dare he even think it?—elevation to the highest ranks of the nobility. There was nothing he would not do, no act so reckless or base that he would not undertake it willingly, to hasten his patron Lord Naja’s ascension to the throne of Egypt.
“What stands before us now, my old comrade?” It seemed that Naja had read his thought, for the question was so appropriate.
“The Yellow Flowers have cleared all but one of the princes of the House of Tamose from your path,” Asmor answered, and pointed with his lance across the gray silt-laden waters of the Nile to the far hills in the west. “They lie there in their tombs in the Valley of the Nobles.”
Three years previously the plague of the Yellow Flowers had swept through the two kingdoms. The disease was named for the dreadful yellow lesions that covered the faces and bodies of the stricken before they succumbed to the pox’s burning fevers. It was no respecter of persons, choosing its victims from every station and level of society, sparing neither Egyptian nor Hyksos, man nor woman nor child, neither peasant nor prince, it had mown them down like fields of dhurra millet before the sickle.