by Wilbur Smith
The nearest men had heard Taita’s warning and they turned back. Now almost five hundred men were gathered around Nefer, but none dared move. They stared in horror at the mortal predicament of their pharaoh.
The cobra gaped wide, the preliminary to the attack, and the bony fangs came erect in the pale roof of its mouth. Drops of venom sparkled on the needle points.
Taita swung the Periapt of Lostris on its long chain like a pendulum, and it twinkled in the sunlight. He sent it swinging past the cobra’s raised head. Distracted, the serpent swiveled its eyes away from Nefer to stare at the glittering charm. Taita had his staff in his other hand, and he edged closer. “When I strike, jump clear,” he whispered, and Nefer nodded. Taita moved gradually out to one side and the cobra turned with him, fascinated by the golden charm.
“Now!” said Taita, and thrust at the cobra with his staff. At the same instant Nefer jumped clear, and the snake struck at the staff. Taita jerked away, so the cobra missed and for an instant it was stretched out along the bare earth. With a movement even faster than the strike, Taita pinned it behind the head with the curved end of the staff, and a shout of relief went up from the watchers.
The cobra writhed and coiled into a glittering scaly ball around the end of the staff. Taita reached down and worked his hand through the heaving coils until he could grip the snake behind its head. Then he lifted it up and showed it to the men, who gasped with fear and horror. They shrank back instinctively as it coiled around Taita’s long, thin arm. They had expected him to kill it but, still carrying the writhing snake, Taita walked through their ranks, out into the open desert.
There he threw the serpent from him. As it struck the ground it uncoiled and slithered away across the rocky earth. Taita watched it, rapt.
Suddenly there was a shrill cry from the sky above. They had all been so intent on the capture of the cobra that no one had seen the falcon hovering high in the blue above them. Now it stooped toward the earth, dropping toward the cobra. At the last moment the snake became aware of the danger and reared up again, its hood spread wide. In full flight the falcon sank its talons into the flared hood, an inch behind the head, then rose on heavily flogging wings, carrying the cobra dangling and twisting below it.
Taita watched the bird as it bore away the snake. It dwindled in size in the distance and at last disappeared into the blue-gray heat haze that shrouded the horizon. Taita stood a long time staring after it. When he turned and walked back to where Nefer stood his expression was grave, and he was silent for the rest of that day. In the evening he rode back to Gallala in the chariot beside Nefer, still silent.
“It was an omen,” Nefer said, and glanced at him. He saw by Taita’s face that this was so. “I have listened to the men,” Nefer went on quietly. “They are disturbed. None of them has ever seen the like before. The cobra is not the natural prey of the royal falcon.”
“Yes,” said Taita. “It was an omen, a warning and a promise from the god.”
“What does it mean?” Nefer studied his face.
“The cobra threatened you. That means great danger. The royal bird flew toward the east with the snake in its talons. It means great danger in the east. But in the end the falcon triumphed.”
They both looked toward the east. “We will take out a scouting expedition tomorrow at the first light of dawn,” Nefer decided.
In the chill darkness before the dawn Nefer and Taita waited on the mountain-top. The rest of the scouting party were encamped on the back slope. All told they were twenty men. For the sake of stealth they had left the chariots in Gallala and they traveled on horseback. Wheels threw more dust than hoofs alone, and hoofs made accessible these high, precipitous places along the coast where wheels could not travel.
Hilto and Shabako had taken other scouting parties to cover the terrain to the south; between them they could sweep all the eastern approaches to Gallala.
Nefer had brought his party from the Gebel Ataqa down along the western shores of the Red Sea, looking in on every port and fishing village along the way. Apart from a few trading caravans and wandering bands of Bedouin they had found nothing, no sign of the danger foreshadowed by the omen. Now they were camped above the port of Safaga.
Taita and Nefer had woken in the darkness and left the camp to climb to the lookout peak. They sat close together in companionable silence. Nefer spoke at last.
“Could it have been a false omen?”
Taita grunted and spat. “A falcon with a cobra in its talons? It is not in nature. It was an omen, without doubt, but false perhaps. Ishtar the Mede and others are capable of setting such snares. It is possible.”
“But you do not think it is?” Nefer insisted. “You would not have driven us so hard if you believed it to be false.”
“The dawn comes on apace.” Taita avoided the question, and looked instead to the darkling eastern sky, where the morning star hung, like a lantern, low on the horizon. The sky softened like a ripening fruit, turning the color of persimmon and ripe pomegranate. The mountains of the far shore were black and sharp and ragged as the fangs of an ancient crocodile against the lightening backdrop of the heavens.
Taita stood up suddenly and leaned on his staff. Nefer never failed to be amazed by the acuity of those pale old eyes. He knew Taita had seen something. Nefer stood up beside him.
“What is it, Old Father?”
Taita laid a hand on his arm. “The omen was not false,” he said simply. “The danger is here.”
The sea was turning the gray of a dove’s belly, but as the light strengthened the surface was speckled with white.
“The wind has whipped the sea into white horses,” Nefer said.
“No.” Taita shook his head. “Those are not breakers. They’re sails. A fleet under sail.”
The sun pushed its upper rim above the tops of the far mountains, and sparkled on the tiny triangles of white. Like a vast flock of egrets returning to the roost, a fleet of dhows was heading into the port of Safaga.
“If this is the army of Trok and Naja, why would they come by sea?” Nefer asked quietly.
“It is the direct and shortest route from Mesopotamia. The boat crossing will save the horses and the men from the hard road through the desert. Without the warning of the snake and the falcon, we would not have expected danger from this direction,” Taita answered. “It is a cunning move.” He nodded approval. “It seems that they have commandeered every trading vessel and fishing boat in the entire Red Sea to make the crossing.”
They scrambled back down the mountain to the camp in the gorge below. The troopers were awake and alert. Nefer called in the sentries and gave them their orders. Two would ride back with all speed to Gallala, carrying his orders to Socco, whom he had left in command of the city. Most of the other men he split into pairs and sent south to find the scouting parties under Hilto and Shabako and bring them in. He kept five troopers with him.
Nefer and Taita watched the men he had despatched ride away, then they mounted and rode down through the hills toward Safaga, with the five men Nefer had selected following them. They reached the high ground above the port in the middle of the morning. Taita led them to an abandoned watchtower that overlooked the port and the approaches. They left the horses in the care of the troopers and climbed the rickety ladder to the top platform of the tower.
“The first boats are entering the bay.” Nefer pointed them out. They were deeply laden, but with the wind on the quarter they came in swiftly with the bow waves curling white as salt in the sunlight and the big lateen sails bulging.
They rounded up just off the beach and dropped the heavy coral anchors. From the top of the tower Nefer and Taita had a fine view down onto the open decks, which were crowded with men and horses.
As soon as the dhows were anchored the men removed the wooden gunwales along the dhows’ sides. Their faint cries carried up to the ruined watchtower as they urged the horses to leap out. They struck the water with tall splashes of spray. Then the men stripped
down to loincloths and jumped in after them. They seized the horses’ manes and swam alongside them to the beach. The animals came ashore shaking the water from their bodies in a fine mist that turned to rainbows in the sunlight.
Within an hour the beach was swarming with men and horses, and defensive pickets had been set up around the mud-daub buildings of the little port.
“If only we had a squadron of chariots,” Nefer lamented, “this would be the time to strike. With only half their force ashore and their chariots broken down, we could cut them to pieces.” Taita made no reply to such wishful speculation.
By now the bay was filled with shipping. The boats carrying the chariots and the baggage had anchored close in, and as the tide ran out from under them they took the ground and listed over. Soon the water was only knee-deep around their hulls. The men from the beach waded out to begin unloading. They carried the parts of the broken-down chariots ashore and reassembled them on the beach.
The sun was setting over the western mountains when the last dhow entered the bay. This was the largest of them all, and at the peak of her stubby mast she flew the snarling leopard head gonfalon and the gaudy colors of the House of Trok Uruk.
“There he is.” Nefer pointed to the unmistakable figure in the bow.
“And that is Ishtar beside Trok, the dog and its master.” Taita had a fierce gleam in his pale eyes that Nefer had seldom seen before. They watched the strange pair wade ashore.
There was a stone jetty running out across the beach. Trok mounted it. It gave him a vantage-point from which to watch the disembarkation of the rest of his army.
“Do you see Naja’s standard on any of the other ships?” Nefer asked, and Taita shook his head.
“Trok alone leads the expedition. He must have left Naja to hold Babylon and Mesopotamia. He has come to take care of personal business.”
“How do you know that?” Nefer demanded.
“There is an aura around him. It is like a dark red cloud. I can sense it even from here,” Taita said softly. “All that hatred is focused on one person alone. He would never let Naja or anyone else share in the lust for revenge that has brought him here.”
“I am the object of his hatred?” Nefer asked.
“No, not you.”
“Who, then?”
“Above all else he comes for Mintaka.”
When the sun set, Nefer and Taita left the five troopers to shadow Trok’s advance and rode hard through the night, back toward Gallala.
The morning after his landing at Safaga, Trok captured two Bedouin leading a string of donkeys down the road to Safaga. Unsuspecting, they walked out of the desert straight into the arms of his pickets. Trok’s reputation had penetrated even into these desert fastnesses, so as soon as they learned who was their captor the Bedouin were desperate to please. They gave Trok tantalizing accounts of the resurrection of the ancient city. They told him of the fountain of sweet water that now flowed from the cave in the hills, and of the pastures of lush grass that surrounded Gallala. They also gave him an estimate of the numbers of chariots that Nefer Seti commanded, and Trok realized that he outnumbered his enemies five to one. Most important of all, they gave him details of the route from Safaga to the ancient city. Up to now Trok had had only secondhand knowledge of the approach march to Gallala, and it seemed that he had been misinformed. He had been told that even traveling fast it was a journey of three or four days, and he had planned on carrying his own water and fodder wagons with him from the coast. This would have been a long and laborious process. This new intelligence changed everything. The Bedouin assured him he could reach Gallala in a day and a night of hard riding.
He weighed the risks and dangers, then decided on a dash through the desert to Gallala to take the city by surprise. It would mean, of course, that they would ride straight into battle with the horses exhausted by the long march and with their waterskins empty. However, with numbers and surprise on their side they could seize the fountainhead and the pastures that the Bedouin had described. Once they had those prizes victory was assured.
It took him two more days to disembark all his squadrons, and to assemble the chariots. On the second evening he was ready to begin the forced march on Gallala.
With the waterskins filled, the leading cohorts pulled out of Safaga as soon as the heat went out of the sinking sun. Each of the chariots had two spare teams behind it on lead reins. They would not stop during the night to rest the horses, but would change them as they tired. Any exhausted animals would be turned loose and left behind for the remount herds to bring up.
Trok led the vanguard, and set a killing pace, alternately walking up the inclines, then whipping the horses into a trot or a canter downhill and on level ground. Once the waterskins were empty there was no turning back. By mid-morning the following day the heat had become fierce, and they had used up most of the spare horses.
The Bedouin guides kept assuring Trok that Gallala was not far ahead, but each time they topped a rise the same daunting vista of rock and baked earth shimmered in the heat mirage ahead.
In the late afternoon the Bedouin guides deserted. With the grace of djinn they melted away into the heat mirage, and though Trok sent a brace of chariots after them they were never seen again.
“I warned you,” Ishtar the Mede told Trok smugly. “You should have listened to my advice. Those godless creatures were probably in the pay of Taita the Warlock. Almost certainly he has masked the road, and led us astray. We do not know how far it is to this mythical Gallala, or for that matter if it really exists.” For this uninvited opinion, Trok lashed him across his tattooed face. This did nothing to alleviate the sense of doom and despondency that threatened to overwhelm Trok. He whipped up the horses once more and took them up the next long, stony incline that faced them. He wondered how many more lay ahead. They were almost at the end of their tether, and he doubted they could keep going through the night.
Somehow they kept struggling onward, or at least most of his force did. Fifty or sixty chariots burned out their last teams of horses, and Trok left them scattered back along the road.
The sun came up on the second day, warm as a kiss after the chill of the night, but it was a treacherous kiss. Soon it stung and dazzled their bloodshot eyes. For the first time Trok faced the possibility of dying here on this dreadful road to nowhere.
“One more hill,” he called to his last team of horses, and tried to whip them into a trot, but they stumbled up the easy incline with their heads hanging, and the sweat long ago dried to white salt on their flanks. Just below the crest Trok looked back down the straggling column of his army. Even without counting them he saw that he had lost half of his chariots. Hundreds of dismounted troopers were staggering along behind the column, but even as he watched he saw two or three fall and lie beside the track like dead men. There were vultures in the sky following them, hundreds of dark specks turning in high circles against the blue. He saw some slant down to the feast he had prepared for them.
“There is only one way,” he told Ishtar, “and that is forward.” He cracked the whip over the backs of his team, and they went on painfully.
They reached the top of the hill, and Trok gawked in astonishment. The scene in the valley below him was like nothing he had ever imagined. The ruins of the ancient city rose before him. Their outline seemed ghostly but eternal. As he had been promised, the city was surrounded by fields of cool green, and a network of sparkling water canals. His horses smelt the water and strained against the reins with renewed strength.
Even in his desperate haste, Trok took time to assess the tactical situation. He saw at once that the city was helpless and undefended. The gates stood wide open and from them poured the panic-stricken rabble of the escaping populace. Carrying their children and pathetic bundles of possessions they streamed away up the narrow but steep-sided valley to the west of Gallala. A few foot soldiers mingled with the refugees, but they were obviously in rout and out of hand. There was no sign of cavalry or of f
ighting chariots. They were a flock of sheep before the wolf pack, but the wolves were parched and weak with thirst.
“Seueth has delivered them into our hands,” Trok shouted with triumph. “Before the sun sets this day you will have more women and gold than you can use!”
The cry was taken up by the men who followed him over the ridge, and they rode down as fast as their exhausted horses could move to the first irrigation ditch. They spread out along the length of it, the horses sucking up the blessed liquid until their bellies swelled as though in pregnancy. The men threw themselves full-length along the bank, plunging their faces under, or filling their helmets and pouring it over their heads and down their throats.
You should have let me poison the irrigation canals,” Nefer said flatly, as they watched from the other side of the valley.
“You know better than that.” Taita shook his silver head. “That would have been an offense that the gods would never forgive. In this bitter land only Seth or Seueth could contemplate such a foul deed.”
“On this day I could play Seth willingly enough.” Nefer smiled bleakly, but he said it merely to provoke the Magus. “Your two rogues have done well.” He glanced at the two ragged Bedouin who knelt beside Taita. “Pay them and let them go.”
“They place no value on gold,” Taita explained. “When I lived at Gebel Nagara they brought their children to me, and I cured them of the Yellow Flowers.” He made a sign of blessing over the crouching men and said a few words to them in their dialect, thanking them for risking their lives to mislead Trok, and promising them his future protection. They kissed his feet, then slipped away among the boulders.