by Wilbur Smith
Naja looked away from him as Apepi went on to nominate an assembly point, and to give his final orders. At last the rams’ horns sounded the mount-up and the advance, and the five columns drove out of the valley. On the level ground they split into their separate squadrons and headed out in diverging directions.
As the last of the other squadrons disappeared among the stark hills, Mintaka leaned even closer to Nefer and murmured, “At last Hathor has shown mercy to us.”
“I believe it is Horus who has granted us his favor,” Nefer grinned down at her, “but I will accept this benevolence from whomsoever it comes.”
There were two other chariots in Nefer’s squadron, commanded by Colonel Hilto, the old soldier who had discovered him and Taita when they had tried to escape from Egypt. He had served under Nefer’s father and was loyal unto death: Nefer knew he could trust him without reservation.
Nefer led them fast, wanting to make the most of the remaining daylight, and within an hour’s ride the vast vista of the river plain opened beneath them. He reined in to admire it for a few minutes. The river was an emerald mounted in the luscious green of fields and plantations that enclosed it.
“How beautiful it is, Nefer.” Mintaka spoke almost dreamily. “Even when we are married, we must always remember that this land owns us, and that we do not own it.”
Sometimes he forgot that she had been born in Avaris and had as strong a claim to the land as he had. He felt his heart swell with pride that she loved it as he did, and felt the same patriotic duty.
“I will never forget it, not with you at my side.” She lifted her face to him and her lips were parted slightly. He could smell her sweet breath, and the temptation to reach down for those lips with his own mouth was almost irresistible. Then he felt the gaze of Hilto and the other men on them, and from the corner of his eye saw one smile knowingly. He drew back and looked at Hilto coolly. He had been rehearsing his next order since they had left the rest of the hunting party. “Colonel, if the lion is here it will probably be lying up somewhere on the slope of the hills down below us.” He indicated the area with a sweep of his arm. “I want to extend in line abreast. The left flank must be on the edge of the plain and our right up here on the crest of the hills. We will sweep northward.” He made a wide gesture, but Hilto looked dubious and scratched the scar on his cheek.
“That is a broad front, Your Majesty. It’s almost half a league to the valley bottom. At times we will be out of sight of each other.”
Nefer could see that it went against all his military instincts to spread his front too thin, and he went on swiftly to mollify him. “If we do become separated we will reassemble on the third ridge ahead of us, under that small hillock over there. It will give us a good landmark.” He pointed out a distinctive rock pile four miles ahead. “If any of us is late to the rendezvous the others must wait until the sun is at that angle before coming back to look for the missing vehicle.”
He had given himself a few hours before they would begin to search for him and Mintaka. Still Hilto hesitated. “I beg Your Majesty’s indulgence, but the Lord Naja charged me most strictly—”
Nefer cut in with a sharp tone and cold expression: “Do you presume to argue with your pharaoh?”
“Never, Majesty!” Hilto was shocked at the accusation.
“Then do your duty, fellow.”
Hilto saluted with deep respect and hurried back to his own chariot shouting urgent orders to his men as he ran. As the squadron wheeled out down the slope, Mintaka nudged Nefer and smiled. “Do your duty, fellow!” she mimicked his haughty tone, then laughed. “Please never look at me like that or use that tone to me, Your Majesty. I am sure I would die of fright.”
“We have only a little time,” he replied. “We must make the most of it, and find a place where we can be alone.”
He swung the chariot back over the skyline so that they could no longer be seen from the river valley or by the chariots lower down the slope, and as they trotted forward they were both craning eagerly ahead.
“Look, over there.” Mintaka pointed to the right. A small grove of thorn trees was almost hidden by a fold in the ground, only the dull green tops showing. Nefer turned toward it, and they found a narrow ravine that had been cut, over millennia, into the hillside by wind and weather, and rare thunderstorms. There must have been subterranean water, for the thorn trees were robust. Their thick foliage offered shade and privacy in this hot midday. Nefer drove down the bank and into the shade. As soon as he stopped, Mintaka hopped down from the footplate.
“Loosen the harness, and give the horses a rest,” she suggested.
Nefer hesitated, then shook his head. It was against his training: in a detached and unsupported position such as this, he must have the vehicle ready for any sudden alarm or excursion. He jumped down and went to fill the bucket from the waterskin to water the horses. Mintaka came to help him. They worked side by side in silence.
Now that the moment they had both longed for had arrived, they were shy and tongue-tied. Suddenly they turned to each other simultaneously, and spoke in unison.
Nefer said, “I wanted to tell you—”
Mintaka said, “I think that we should—”
They stopped and laughed shyly, standing close together in the shade. Mintaka blushed and looked down at her feet, and Nefer stroked the head of his stallion.
“What were you going to say?”
“It was nothing. Nothing important.” She shook her head and he saw that she was blushing. He so loved to watch the color bloom in her cheeks. She was still not looking at him, and her voice was so soft as to be barely audible as she asked in her turn, “What were you going to say?”
“When I think that you will be gone in just a few more days’ time, I feel as though my right arm has been cut off, and I want to die.”
“Oh, Nefer.” She looked up at him and her eyes were huge and liquid with the turmoil and rapture of first love. “I love you. I do truly love you.”
In the same instant they both lunged for each other, and their teeth came together with a click. His lower lip was caught between them and a drop of blood oozed from the nick, so their kiss was salt-flavored. Their embrace was unpracticed and unrehearsed, clumsy and frenzied. It evoked wild and uncontrolled feelings in both of them. They clung together, moaning with the strength of these new sensations. Even though her body was flattened against his, he tried to pull her closer still, while she clung harder as though to weld their separate flesh into one entity, like potter’s clay. She reached up and twisted her fingers into his thick dusty curls and said, “Oh! Oh!” but her voice was blurred.
“I don’t want to lose you.” He broke the kiss. “I never want to lose you.”
“I don’t want to leave you ever—ever!” she gasped, and they kissed again, if possible even more furiously than before. From here onward they were in unexplored realms of mind and body. They rode together on a chariot that was out of their control drawn by the runaway horses of love and desire.
Still clinging together they sank down on the soft white sand of the wadi bottom, and clawed at each other’s bodies as though they were enemies. Their eyes were wild and unseeing, their breathing ragged and broken. The linen of her skirt tore like papyrus parchment in his hands, and he reached through the opening. She moaned as though in mortal agony, but her thighs fell apart and she went limp and pliable. Neither had any inkling of where this was leading. All Nefer wanted was to feel his bare skin against her smoothness. It was a deep need on which his very life seemed to depend. He ripped away his own apron and they pressed their bodies together, both absorbed in the ecstatic sensation of her warm young flesh against his hardness. Then without any conscious thought he began to move against her, rocking rhythmically, and she rode his movements as though she were flying in a chariot over rough ground.
Then abruptly she felt something hard pressing imperiously at the very portals of her womanhood, and she experienced the almost undeniable urge to meet th
rust with thrust, to help him break through, to welcome him into her soft, secret places.
Then reality rushed back upon her. She kicked out wildly, arching her back and struggling with renewed strength like a gazelle in the jaws of a hunting cheetah. She tore her mouth from his and screamed, “No, Nefer! You promised! By Horus’ wounded eye, you promised!”
He sprang away from her, recoiling as though from a slash with a chariot whip. He stared at her with wide and terrified eyes. His voice was hoarse and panting, as though he had run far and fast. “Mintaka, my love, my darling. I don’t know what happened to me. It was a madness. I did not intend it.” He made a despairing gesture. “I would rather die than break my oath, and bring dishonor upon you.”
Her breathing was so labored that she could not answer him at once. She averted her eyes from his naked body, and he went on piteously, “Please don’t hate me. I did not know what was happening.”
“I don’t hate you, Nefer. I could never hate you.” His distress was too much to bear, she wanted to throw herself back into his arms and to comfort him. But she knew how dangerous that would be. She used the wheel of the chariot to pull herself to her feet. “I am as much at fault as you are. I should never have let that happen.” Her legs trembled under her, and she tried to push her hair back off her face with both hands.
He stood up guiltily, took one step toward her, but when she recoiled he stopped at once. “I have torn your skirt,” he said. “I did not mean to.”
She looked down, and saw how blatantly she was exposed—she was almost as naked as he was. Hastily she pulled the ripped ends together and stepped farther from him. “You must dress yourself,” she whispered, and despite herself she looked down at him. He was so lovely, and she felt desire rise again. She forced herself to look away. He stooped quickly, gathered up the discarded chiton and fastened it around his waist.
They stood in guilty, awkward silence. Desperately Mintaka searched for words to distract them both from this terrible moment. Her own body came to her aid. She became aware of a real and pressing fullness in her bladder. “I must go!”
“No,” he pleaded. “I did not mean it. Forgive me. It won’t happen again. Stay with me. Don’t leave me.”
She smiled shakily, “No. You don’t understand. I will be gone for a short while only.” She made an unmistakable gesture with the hands holding her torn skirt together. “I won’t be long.”
His relief was almost pathetic. “Oh, I understand. I will make the chariot ready.” He turned to the horses, and she left him and picked her way deeper into the grove of thorn trees.
The lion watched her come through the trees toward where he lay. He flattened his ears against his skull, and pressed his body closer to the stony earth.
He was an old beast, past his prime. There were gray hairs in the dark, shaggy bush of his mane. His back had once had a bluish sheen, but now it was lightly frosted with age. His teeth were worn and stained, and one of the long fangs was broken off close to the gum. Although he could still pull down a full-grown bullock and kill it with a single blow of one of his huge paws, his claws were worn and blunted, so that it was difficult for him to cling to more agile prey. The previous night he had missed an oryx, and his hunger was a dull, insistent pain in his gut.
He watched the human creature with yellow eyes, and his upper lip lifted in a silent snarl. As a cub his dam had taught him to feed on the dead flesh that they scavenged from the battlefields. He did not have the natural repugnance that most other carnivorous animals feel for the taste of human flesh. Over the years he had killed and feasted upon this meat whenever the opportunity presented itself. He saw this creature come toward him through the low scrub as natural prey.
Mintaka stopped fifty paces short of where he lay, and looked around her. The instinct of the lion during the stalk was to avoid the direct gaze of his prey. He kept his head low to the ground and hooded his eyes to slits. This was not the moment for the attack, and his tail was held stiff and low.
Mintaka stepped behind the trunk of one of the trees, crouched down and voided her bladder. The lion’s snout creased into deep wrinkles as he picked up the sharp scent of her urine. It quickened his interest. Mintaka stood again and let her torn skirt drop back around her thighs. She turned away from the lion, and started back toward where Nefer waited.
The lion slashed his tail back and forth, the prelude to the charge. He lifted his head, and the black-tufted tail whipped against his flanks.
Mintaka heard the rhythmic swish and thud of the tail, stopped and looked back, puzzled. She looked straight into the yellow gaze of the beast. She screamed, a high-pitched sound that struck Nefer to the heart. He whirled round and in an instant took in the situation: the girl and the crouching beast facing her.
“Don’t run!” he shouted. He knew that if she ran it would trigger the feline reflex of the lion to chase. “I am coming!”
He snatched his bow and quiver from the rack on the dashboard, and raced toward her, nocking an arrow as he ran.
“Don’t run!” he repeated desperately, but at that moment the lion growled. It was a terrible sound that seemed to vibrate in Mintaka’s bones and make the ground tremble under her feet. She could not control the terror that overwhelmed her. She whirled and ran back blindly toward Nefer, sobbing with each stride.
Instantly the lion’s mane rose like a dark aura around his head and he launched himself into his charge, coming straight after her, a dark, tawny streak through the trees. He overtook her as though she were still rooted to the earth.
Nefer stopped dead and dropped the quiver to free both hands, and he threw up the bow. He drew the fletching to his lips and set his aim on the massive heaving chest. Even though the range was short, it was a difficult shot. The beast was coming at an angle, so the deflection was critical, and Mintaka was in the direct line of his fire. On top of that, he knew that a wounding would not save Mintaka. He must drive an arrowhead through the beast’s vital organs to pin him down, and give her the chance to get clear. Yet there was no time for precise calculation, the lion was almost on top of her.
He came grunting at each bound, clods and pebbles spurting up under the drive of his great paws. The yellow eyes were terrible. Nefer swung just a touch ahead, allowing a hand’s breadth for the drop of the arrow in flight, and he yelled, with all the urgency he could muster, “Down, Mintaka! Clear my shot!”
They had developed a close accord over the weeks in which they had hunted together, and she had learned to trust him implicitly. Even in her transport of terror he could still reach her. She did not hesitate, but from full run she threw herself flat upon the stony earth almost under the jaws of the onrushing lion.
In the same instant that she went down, Nefer let fly. The arrow sprang from his bowstring. To Nefer’s fear-crazed eyes it seemed to move across the gap that separated them with the leisurely flight of some overburdened bird of prey. It passed over where Mintaka lay, already beginning to drop, seeming tiny, slow and ineffectual against such a massive animal.
Then it struck soundlessly and Nefer half expected the flimsy shaft to snap, be thrown aside contemptuously by the grunting, bounding animal.
Just as the lion’s mouth gaped wide, showing the full array of ragged stained fangs, the flint arrowhead disappeared into the thick coating of dark hair that covered his chest. There was no sound of the impact, but the slim straight shaft of the arrow slid in after it, until only a hand’s span of shaft and the bright feathers of the fletching protruded.
Nefer thought that he had struck the heart. The lion leaped high in a monumental convulsion and his grunting changed to a barrage of continuous roars that shook a cloud of dried leaves from the thorn branches over his head. Then the beast spun in a circle snapping at his own chest, chewing the projecting end of the shaft of the arrow to splinters. Mintaka lay almost under his flying, slashing paws.
“Get away from him!” Nefer screamed. “Run!”
He stooped and grabbed a second
arrow from the quiver at his feet, and ran forward, nocking the arrow as he closed in. Mintaka sprang up. She had recovered enough of her wits not to impede his aim by racing to him for protection, and dodged behind the trunk of the nearest thorn tree.
The movement was enough to draw the wounded lion’s attention back to her. Now in pain and fury, rather than in hunger, he lashed out at her. The hooked yellow claws tore a slab of wet bark from the tree trunk behind which Mintaka crouched.
“Come! Here I am! Come to me!” Nefer yelled wildly, trying to pull the lion off her. He swung his huge, mane-shaggy head toward him, and Nefer drew and shot the next shaft with one desperate movement. His arms were shaking and his aim was hurried and wild. The arrowhead took the beast too far back, lancing deep into his belly, and he coughed at its sting. He left Mintaka and hurled himself toward Nefer.
Though he was mortally wounded and already slowing, there was no chance for Nefer to evade this fresh charge. He had shot his last arrow and the quiver lay on the hard ground well out of his reach. He reached down and drew his dagger from the sheath on his belt.
It was a flimsy weapon against this furious beast. The thin bronze blade was not long enough to stab through to the heart, but he had heard the royal huntsman tell tales of miraculous escapes from just such a deadly predicament. As the lion launched himself into the death spring, Nefer fell backward, not even attempting to resist the beast’s weight and impetus. He lay between the lion’s forepaws, and the beast opened his jaws to full stretch and thrust his head down to crush Nefer’s skull with those terrible fangs. His breath was so foul, with the stench of rotten meat and open graves, that Nefer felt hot vomit rise in his throat. He steeled himself for the moment and thrust his right hand, with the dagger, deep into the open jaws. The lion bit down instinctively.
Nefer had the dagger held firmly in his fist, with the blade aligned upright, and as the lion’s jaws closed the bronze point was driven up through the roof of his mouth. Nefer snatched away his hand before the fangs could crush the bones of his wrist, but the lion’s jaws were fixed open by the dagger held between them, and he could not bite down.