The Quest (Novels of Ancient Egypt)

by Wilbur Smith

  ‘I have him in my eye,’ Sidudu murmured.

  ‘Shoot him!’ Fenn snapped, and they let fly together. The two arrows fluted over Taita’s head. One took the Jarrian sergeant cleanly in the eye: he went over backwards and his armoured weight crashed into the two men behind him, bringing them down. Sidudu’s shot hit the man beside him in the mouth. Two of his teeth snapped off and the arrowhead buried itself in the back of his throat. The troopers behind them shouted with anger, jumped over the corpses and rushed upon Taita and his two companions. Both sides were now so closely engaged that the girls dared not fire another arrow for fear of hitting their own.

  However, only three Jarrians at a time could reach the head of the line. Taita ducked under the blow of the man who came at him and, with a low sweep of the blade, cut his legs out from under him. As he dropped, Taita sent a thrust through the lacing of his breastplate into his heart. Hilto parried the blade of his man, then killed him with his riposte, which flew through the gap below the visor of his helmet. The three squared up and retreated two paces.

  Three more Jarrians jumped over their dead comrades and rushed at them. One struck at Meren, who parried, seized his opponent’s sword wrist and swung him out over the edge of the cliff to fall, shrieking, to the rocks far below. The man who came next at Taita lifted his sword with both hands and aimed at his head, as though he were cutting firewood. Taita caught the blow on his blade, then stepped up close and drove the dagger he held in his left hand into the fellow’s belly, and pushed him staggering back into his own ranks. Meren maimed another and, as he was falling, kicked him in the head to send him reeling backwards over the cliff. Hilto split the helmet of the next Jarrian with a blow that cut through the bronze crest and went on deeply into his skull. The force of the blow was more than the blade could withstand. It snapped off short and left Hilto with the hilt.

  ‘A sword! Give me a fresh blade,’ he shouted desperately, but before those behind him could pass it to him he was attacked again. Hilto hurled the hilt at the face of the Jarrian but he ducked and deflected it with the visor of his helmet as he thrust at Hilto. The blow went home but Hilto seized him round the waist in a bear-hug and dragged him back into his own lines. The men behind him killed the Jarrian as he struggled to free himself from Hilto’s grip. But Hilto was hard hit and would fight no more that day. He leant heavily on the comrade who led him back to the bridge, and Nakonto stepped into his place in the line beside Taita. He had a stabbing spear in each hand and wielded them with such speed and dexterity that the bronze heads merged into a blur of dancing light. Leaving a trail of dead and dying Jarrians on the pathway, the three backed away towards the bridgehead, matching the pace of their retreat to that of the tail end of the refugee column.

  At last Fenn shouted, ‘They are all across!’ Her ringing tones carried clearly above the din of the battle. Taita killed the man he was fighting with a parry and riposte to the throat before he glanced back. The bridge was clear.

  ‘Order the axeman to lay on with a will. Bring down the bridge!’ he called to Fenn, and heard her repeat the order as he turned back to meet the next enemy. Over their heads he could see the ostrich plumes in the crest of Soklosh’s helmet and heard his harsh cries urging on his men. But the Jarrians had seen the slaughter of their comrades, and the ground under their feet was red and muddy with blood. The track was cluttered with corpses, and their ardour was waning. Taita had time enough to look back again. He could hear the thudding of the axes on the guy lines and the bridge timbers. However, the two mounted girls had not yet crossed the gorge. With them, a small group of men stood ready to fill any gap in the line.

  ‘Go back!’ Taita shouted at them. ‘All of you, go back!’ They hesitated, reluctant to leave so few to face the foe. ‘Go back, I tell you. You can do no more here.’

  ‘Back!’ roared Meren, ‘Give us space. When we come it will be fast.’

  The girls swung the horses round and their hoofs clattered on the planks of the bridge. The other men followed them across the gorge and reached the far side. Nakonto, Meren and Taita, still facing the Jarrian host, backed slowly out on to the bridge and took their stand in the centre, with the deep drop on either side. The cliffs resounded to the thudding of axes as men hacked away at the main supports.

  Three of the enemy rushed out on to the bridge. The planking trembled under their tread. They clashed their shields against those of the three in the centre. Hacking and thrusting, both sides balanced on the swaying catwalk. When the first Jarrian rank was cut down, others ran out to take their places, slipping in the blood puddles and tripping over the corpses of their comrades. Others crowded on to the narrow bridge behind them. Blades clanged on blades. Men fell, then slithered off the sides of the bridge and dropped wailing into the void. All the time the axe strokes boomed against the timbers, and shouts started the echoes anew.

  Suddenly the bridge shuddered, like a dog trying to shake off its fleas. One side dropped and hung askew. Twenty Jarrians were hurled, screaming, into the gorge. Taita and Meren fell to their knees to keep their balance on the swaying deck. Only Nakonto stayed upright.

  ‘Come back, Taita!’ Fenn cried, and all those round her took up the cry. ‘Come back! The bridge goes down! Come back!’

  ‘Back!’ Taita roared at Meren, who jumped up and ran, balancing like an acrobat. ‘Go back!’ he ordered Nakonto, but the Shilluk’s eyes were glazed red with battle lust. They were fixed upon the enemy and he did not seem to hear Taita’s voice. Taita hit him a resounding blow across the back with the flat of his sword. ‘Get back! The fighting is over!’ He seized his arm and thrust him towards the far end.

  Nakonto shook his head as though waking from a trance and ran after Meren. Taita followed a few yards behind him. Meren reached the end of the bridge and sprang on to the rocky path, but at that moment there was a crack like a whiplash as one of the main guy ropes that held the bridge parted. The catwalk heaved and sagged at a sharper angle, before it caught again. Those Jarrians who still had a footing could no longer maintain it. One after another they slid towards the edge and dropped off. Nakonto reached solid ground a moment before the bridge sagged again.

  Taita was still on it when it tilted violently. He slid towards the edge and, to save himself, flung aside his sword and threw himself flat. There were narrow gaps between the lashings of the planking. Clawing with hooked fingers, he found a handhold. The bridge shuddered again and fell until it hung vertically down the cliff face. Taita’s feet dangled over the gorge as he hung on by his fingertips. He groped for a foothold, but the toes of his sandals were too bulky to squeeze into the narrow gaps in the planking. He drew himself up by the main strength of his arms.

  An arrow thumped into the plank closest to his head. The Jarrians on the opposite side of the gorge were shooting at him, and he could not defend himself. He drew himself up hand over hand. Each time he changed his grip he hung on one hand and groped with the other for the planking above. The bridge was twisted so that each successive gap between the planks was narrower than the preceding one. At last he reached a point where he could not force his fingers into the next opening and hung there helplessly. The next arrow struck so close that it pegged the skirt of his tunic to the wood.

  ‘Taita!’ It was Fenn’s voice and he craned his neck to look up. Her face was ten feet above him. She was lying on her stomach peering over the edge. ‘Oh, sweet Isis, I thought you had fallen.’ Her voice trembled. ‘Hold hard for just a little longer.’ She was gone. Another arrow thumped into the timbers close to his left ear.

  ‘Here, take hold of this.’ The looped end of a halter rope dropped beside him. He reached for it with one hand and slipped it over his head, then worked the bight of the loop under his armpit.

  ‘Are you ready?’ Fenn’s eyes were huge with fear. ‘The other end is knotted to Whirlwind’s saddle. We’ll pull you up.’ Her head disappeared again. With a jerk the rope came up tight. As he went up, he fended himself off the dangling bridge w
ith his feet and hands. More arrows slammed into the timbers but although he could hear the Jarrians clamouring for his blood, like a pack of dogs beneath a treed leopard, not one of their arrows touched him.

  As he came level with the path the strong hands of Meren and Nakonto reached out to haul him to safety. He regained his feet, and Fenn dropped Whirlwind’s reins to run back to him. She embraced him silently with tears of relief streaming down her cheeks.

  All that night they kept the column of refugees moving down the track, and in the early light of dawn they shepherded the last on to the bank of the Kitangule river. Tinat was waiting for them at the gates of the boatyard stockade, and came quickly to meet Taita. ‘I am glad to see you safe, Magus, but I am sorry to have missed the fighting. I have reports that it was hot and heavy. What news of the Jarrian pursuit?’

  ‘The bridge over the gorge is down, but that will not hold them for long. Sidudu says there is an easier road down the escarpment forty leagues further to the south. We can be sure that Soklosh knows about it, and that he will take his men that way. He will be moving a great deal faster than we were able to. We can expect him to join us again soon.’

  ‘The southern road is the main entry port into Jarri. Of course Soklosh must know of it.’

  ‘I have left pickets upon the road to watch for him and to warn us of his approach,’ Taita told him. ‘We must get these people on to the boats at once.’ First they loaded the horses, then the remaining refugees.

  Before the last were aboard the pickets galloped into the boatyards. ‘The Jarrians’ leading cohorts will be upon us within the hour.’

  Meren and his men chivvied the last group of refugees down the jetty and into the boats. As soon as each vessel was filled the rowers pulled out into the mainstream of the river and turned the bows down the current. Fenn and Sidudu carried Hilto’s litter on to the last boat in the flotilla. Twenty remained empty on the slipways so Taita remained ashore with a few men to see to their destruction. They threw lighted torches into them and when the timbers were blazing fiercely they pushed them into the river where they burned swiftly to the waterline. The lookouts on the walls of the stockade that surrounded the boatyard sounded the alarm on kudu-horn trumpets. ‘The enemy is in sight!’

  There was a final scramble for the boats. Taita and Meren jumped on to the deck where the two girls were waiting anxiously for them. Meren took the helm and the rowers pulled away from the dock. They were still within bowshot of the bank when the leading squadron of the Jarrian vanguard galloped into the boatyard. They dismounted and crowded the bank to loose volleys of arrows, some of which pegged into the deck but nobody was hit.

  Meren swung the bows to catch the current of the wide Kitangule, which was in spate and bore them away, sweeping them round the first bend. He leant on the long steering oar as they gazed back at the high cliffs of the Jarrian massif. Perhaps they should have been ecstatic as they took their leave of the kingdom of Eos but, rather, they were silent and sober.

  Taita and Fenn stood apart from the others. Fenn broke the silence at last. She spoke low, for Taita’s ears alone: ‘So we have failed in our quest. We have escaped, but the witch survives and the Nile flows no longer.’

  ‘The game is not yet played out. The pieces are still on the board,’ Taita told her.

  ‘I do not take your meaning, my lord. We are flying from Jarri, deserting the battlefield and leaving the witch alive. You have nothing to take back to Egypt and Pharaoh but these miserable fugitives and our own poor selves. Egypt is still doomed.’

  ‘Nay, that is not all I take back with me. I have all the wisdom and astral power of Eos.’

  ‘How will that profit you or Pharaoh if Egypt dies of drought?’

  ‘Perhaps I will be able to use the witch’s memories to unravel her mysteries and designs.’

  ‘Do you already hold the key to her magic?’ she asked hopefully, watching his face.

  ‘This I do not know. I have taken from her a mountain and an ocean of knowledge and experience. My inner mind and consciousness are awash with it. There is so much that, like a dog with too many bones, I have had to bury most of it. Perhaps some is so deeply buried that I will never retrieve it. At best it will take time and effort to assimilate it all. I will need your assistance. Our minds have become so attuned that only you can help me with this task.’

  ‘You do me honour, Magus,’ she said simply.

  The Jarrian cohorts pursued them for several leagues downstream, riding hard along the track that followed the riverbank, until swamps and thick jungle forced them to abandon the chase. The flotilla raced along on the current, which was swollen with the rain that had fallen on the Mountains of the Moon, leaving the enemy far behind.

  Before nightfall that day the leading vessels of the squadron reached the first of the rapids that had so impeded their voyage upriver so many months before. Now the white water sent them hurtling down the chutes, the banks blurring past on each side. At the tail of the rapids when they stormed ashore below the stockade walls of the small Jarrian garrison, they discovered that the soldiers had fled as soon as they realized that the flotilla was hostile. The barracks was deserted, but the storerooms were well stocked with weapons, tools and stores. They loaded the pick of the supplies on to the barges and pressed on eastwards. A mere ten days after embarking, they sailed out through the mouth of the Kitangule into the vast blue expanses of the Lake Nalubaale and turned northwards, following the shore round towards the hills of Tamafupa.

  By this time the voyage had settled into a routine. Taita had claimed a corner of the deck just forward of the rowing benches for himself and Fenn. He had spread a matting sail over it for shade and privacy. They spent most of their days sitting close together on a sleeping mat, holding hands and gazing into each other’s eyes while he whispered to her in the Tenmass. It was the only language that was adequate to convey to her all the new information with which his mind brimmed.

  As Taita murmured to her he became acutely aware of how her mind and her astral soul were expanding. She was giving back to him almost as much as she was taking, and the experience strengthened and enriched them. Also, far from exhausting them, their intense, unremitting mental activity enlivened them.

  Each evening the flotilla anchored before sunset, and most of those aboard went ashore for the night, leaving only an anchor watch aboard. Usually Taita and Fenn took advantage of the last hours of daylight to wander along the shore and the fringes of the forest, gathering roots, herbs and wild fruit. When they had sufficient for their dinner and for any medicines they required, they returned to their shelter, which was set apart from the rest of the encampment. On some evenings they invited Meren and Sidudu to share the meal they had concocted, but often they kept their own company and continued with their studies far into the night.

  When at last they lay down on their sleeping mat and pulled the fur kaross over themselves Taita took her in his arms. She cuddled against him and, without the least sign of self-consciousness, reached down and took him in an affectionate but unskilled grip. Often her last drowsy words before she fell asleep were not to Taita himself but to the part of him that she held. ‘Ho, my sweet mannikin, I like playing with you but you must lie down to sleep now, or you will keep us awake all night.’

  Taita wanted her desperately. He longed for her with all his new-found manhood, but in many ways he was as innocent and untutored as she was. His only carnal experience had been the brutal warfare of the Cloud Gardens, in which he had been forced to use his body as a weapon of destruction, not as a vehicle of love. It had had not the remotest relationship to the bittersweet emotion he felt now, which grew more poignant each day.

  When she fondled him he was consumed with an overpowering desire to express his love in the same intimate manner, but instinct warned him that although she stood at the very portals of womanhood, she was not yet ready to take the final step across the threshold.

  We have a lifetime, perhaps many, ahead of us, he co
nsoled himself, and determinedly composed himself to sleep.

  The men on the rowing benches were bound for a lost motherland, so they pulled with a will. The familiar lakeshore streamed past, and the leagues dropped away behind the flotilla, until at last the hills of Tamafupa rose from the blue lake ahead. They crowded the rails of the boats and stared at them in awed silence. This place was fraught with evil, and even the bravest were filled with dread. As they rounded the headland of the bay and saw before them the Red Stones that dammed the mouth of the Nile, Fenn moved closer to Taita and took his hand for comfort. ‘They are still there. I had hoped they had fallen with their mistress.’

  Taita made no reply. Instead he called to Meren, at the helm, ‘Steer for the top of the bay.’

  They camped on the white beach. There was no celebration that night. Instead the mood was subdued and uncertain. There was no Nile on which to continue the voyage, or enough horses to carry them all back to Egypt.

  In the morning Taita ordered the boats to be dragged up on to the beach and dismantled. No one had expected this, and even Meren looked at him askance, but none thought to question his orders. Once the baggage and equipment had been unloaded, the dowel pins were knocked out of their slots and the hulls were broken down into their separate sections.

  ‘Transport everyone and everything, boats and baggage and people, up to the village where Kalulu, the legless shaman, lived on the crest of the headland.’

  ‘But that is high above the river,’ Meren reminded him, puzzled.

  He shuffled his feet and stood awkwardly as Taita turned an enigmatic gaze upon him. ‘It is also high above the great lake,’ he said at last.

  ‘Is that important, Magus?’

  ‘It may be.’