The Age of Ra aog-1

by James Lovegrove

  The Lightbringer appeared with an entourage of warlords. He greeted David with a weary wave.

  ''Planning meeting,'' he said. ''Coming?''

  David hesitated. A planning meeting could go on for hours, and all that time he would be sitting there, listening to conversations conducted in rapid-fire Arabic, with the Lightbringer clueing him in on what was being said, but only now and then, during infrequent lulls in the proceedings. He couldn't see himself waiting that long to have his man-to-man with Steven. Instead, he could see himself quietly fuming in a corner of the room, getting more and more agitated until in the end he stood up and said or did something rash and regrettable.

  He swallowed hard. Much though it pained him, he would have to put the matter on hold. For now.

  ''No,'' he said.

  ''No?''

  ''You don't need me. I'd be better off finding myself some weapons and getting down there.'' He nodded towards the plain. ''That's where I'm needed, I think.''

  A heartbeat pause. Then: ''Fair enough. If you say so.''

  ''I do,'' David said, and left.

  He made a beeline for the armoury, which occupied the husk of a building that had probably been Megiddo's main counting-house. The city, in its heyday, had stood at the nexus of several major trade routes and had raked in revenue accordingly, in the form of levies and handling fees. Now, in a hall where actuaries had once hunched over ledgers and money had been accumulated, an arsenal was stockpiled. Under the eye of a man called Farooq, who was, for want of a better job title, quartermaster, David browsed. Farooq recommended an Argentine pistol, a Horusite mace. He proffered David several types of sub-machine gun. ''Very good, this one. Three-round-burst setting. Kill, kill, kill.'' With a gurning mime of firing the gun. ''And save on ammo.'' But what David was after, and found, were an Osirisiac ba lance and a crook-and-flail set.

  He hefted the ba lance, then the crook and flail. This was what he understood. This was what he knew. The weapons felt right in his hands. They were things he had been trained to use and knew he could rely on. A god rod and a pair of modified farming implements — tools of the trade.

  He checked the charge in the lance. Three-quarters full. Not bad going. He strapped it on his back. He hooked the crook and flail onto his belt.

  Then, tossing a ''Shokran'' to Farooq, he exited the armoury and set off down the mountain.

  Steven hadn't tried to stop him.

  That was the thought that obsessed David as he headed south across the plain, past smouldering fields and around bomb craters, to the forwardmost line.

  He'd said he was going down here, into the thick of things, and Steven had replied, ''Fair enough. If you say so.'' As if meaning: You go and face the enemy head-on, when he comes. Put your life in jeopardy. I don't care.

  Perhaps he'd been preoccupied, too many other things to think about. Perhaps he'd seen the determination in his brother's eye and known there was nothing he could to dissuade him.

  Or perhaps letting David go to the battlefront, where he might well get killed, was convenient for Steven. His rival for Zafirah, eliminated.

  No, Steven wasn't like that.

  Was he?

  David wasn't sure he knew his little brother any more. Steven hadn't simply changed into the Lightbringer. Being the Lightbringer had changed Steven. It was more than a role, more than the donning of mask, jumpsuit and gloves. As David walked across the plain, he looked at the Lightbringer's troops recovering from the raid and preparing themselves for the impending ground battle, and he admired them and pitied them in equal measure. The Lightbringer had given these Freegyptians something to believe in. He'd drawn them on with a vision of their god-independent way of life being spread across the globe. What they didn't understand, at least not at any conscious level, was that he had achieved this by behaving much like a god himself. He had bent them to his will, as a god would. He refused to show them his true face, keeping a godlike distance between him and them. He pretended to care about them, and perhaps he did, but in a lofty, aloof way, and it was important to them that they loved him as much as, if not more than, he did them.

  And now they were cleaning their guns, checking the magazines, attaching grenades to bandolier belts, sharpening knives, sitting in tight-lipped anticipation of what was to come. Some had brought bleached-white cotton balaclavas with them, which they were wearing now, to resemble their leader. Some were smearing their faces with chalk dust or pale foundation make-up — war paint — for the same purpose. And some were so sick with nerves, their faces were ashen, whitened by natural means. It was all so brave. So wonderful. So inexpressibly sad.

  He passed near the spot where he knew Zafirah and her fellow Liberators were positioned. They had come through the bombing unscathed. He saw Zafirah busy stripping a rifle down to its components, hunched over the task like a concert pianist tackling a difficult passage in a sonata. He slipped by without her seeing. He didn't want to face her at present. Whatever was going on between her and his brother, he didn't hold her to blame. To some extent it was his own fault. He'd had his chance with her and blown it. Talking to her would only remind him of that, and of Steven's underhand behaviour. It would deepen the mire of bitterness he was sinking into.

  David's skull crackled with the onset of a hangover. Somewhere amid the brittle pain a voice was telling him that he could, should, simply walk away from all this. Go west, the only direction from which the enemy hosts weren't approaching. Aim for the coast, get on a boat, find his way back to Cyprus and his garrison. Now was the time. His last chance, really. Wash his hands of this whole business. Forget Steven. Forget Zafirah. Return to the army and all he was familiar with. Return to his gods, Osiris of the Djed-pillar, Isis of the Harvest, begging their forgiveness with prayer and altar-sacrifice. Disentangle himself from the coils of a cause that he didn't truly hold with and a fraternal relationship that had turned upside down, with the older brother the thrall of the younger. Everything was wrong here. He knew it. He didn't belong. This was not his fight. He should quit while he still could. Getting through and out of Arabia would be difficult but not impossible. He was a smart and resourceful fellow. And if what was waiting for him when he rejoined the army was a court martial, so be it. He suspected, though, that in the light of its deeds at Petra the army might prefer to let him slip quietly back into the ranks. No questions asked, no awkward answers raised. Or else grant him an honourable discharge if he wanted it. Were he to leave Megiddo now, it would be to face an uncertain future — but there would at least be a future. Staying meant facing a very certain future, and a very short one.

  He was tempted. But he resisted. And the temptation was unexpectedly easy to resist.

  He would finish what he had started. He would fight here.

  Not for the Lightbringer. Not for Steven.

  For these people. The Freegyptians. For their sake.

  He was David Westwynter, a paratrooper, a soldier, a good one.

  His presence here would make little or no difference to the outcome of the battle.

  But it would make all the difference in the world to him.

  27. Megiddo

  No ground force could hope to sneak up on an entrenched enemy unawares, especially not one of the size the Nephthysians had assembled. The Lightbringer's army had plenty of warning that the foe was coming. Scouts and spotters posted on hilltops radioed in with sightings of dust clouds on the horizon, then of long processions of troop transport bringing in men and materiel. They reported soldiers setting up tents, forward bases being established, Scarab tanks rolling to the forefront. Much of it was already happening before the bombing raid took place. After the raid, the pace of progress quickened. Infantry were organised into their regiments, drilled on tactics. Armoured divisions, meanwhile, headed out in formation to take up position at the foot of the valley. The grind of drive spheres drifted north towards Mount Megiddo like the rumble of a low-grade earth tremor.

  A conservative estimate would put the total of
Nephthysian troops at 20,000. Of Scarab tanks there were a good couple of hundred.

  The Nephthysian generals had learned their lesson with the mummies at Suez, and had had it confirmed with the level of retaliation during the bombing raid. The Lightbringer was a wily and formidable opponent. His troops had spirit and bite. They were few in number but motivated. No chances should be taken. The generals had mustered many more troops than they'd thought they would need, but they would use them all. Absolute and overwhelming numerical superiority was called for.

  And then there was the small matter of the Setic task force currently forging south, several columns of infantry and armour heading down through Armenia and Azerbaijan, skirting the eastern fringes of the Ottoman Empire to pass into Persia and Mesopotamia and beyond. They were still a day or two away from arriving, these reinforcements, and the Nephthysians were keen that by the time they got here the battle would be over and there would be nothing left for them to do, except maybe mop up the odd fleeing Freegyptian. It was a matter of pride. Intra-bloc politics. The Setics needed to be shown that the Nephthysians could handle things by themselves, thank you very much. A decree had come down from the Synodical Council to the generals: Prove to the Commissariat of Holy Affairs that we're not the bumbling inferiors they like to think we are.

  The Lightbringer might have selected the battlefield but that was the only say he would have in determining the course of the battle itself. He and his troops were going to be wiped out. Instantly, decisively, devastatingly. A massacre.

  By mid-morning the sky was overcast. Charcoal-smudge clouds moved in to hang low over the plain, blotting out the sun. Ra, it seemed, did not want to observe what was about to take place. A veil had been drawn.

  The Lightbringer looked down from Mount Megiddo, scanning the scene with binoculars. His troops were in place. There was nothing else he could do except wait and watch, with his radio at hand so that he could give orders as and when necessary.

  The grey sky pleased him. The Nephthysian Scarab tanks must be low on juice, having driven hard to get here, and now there was no sunlight to replenish their solar batteries, whereas his tanks had been sitting idle for days and were fully charged.

  And that wasn't the only advantage he had.

  There was still a trick up his sleeve. Something the Nephs simply wouldn't be expecting. A trump card.

  He'd hinted as much to the warlords, and they had passed the word on down through the ranks.

  The Lightbringer's small but resolute band of followers stood like a garden fence before an oncoming hurricane. It might just smash them to flinders. But if they could withstand it for a while, if they bent and broke but still stayed more or less intact, then…

  Then…

  Then everything would be very different.

  The Nephthysian armoured divisions began their offensive shortly after midday. Phalanxes of Scarab tanks crawled northward. Within an hour they were close enough to the Lightbringer's forward positions to open fire. Their initial salvoes were met by intense return fire. Mortars and rocket-propelled grenades hammered them, along with volleys of various-coloured ba. Several of the tanks erupted in domes of purple light.

  But there were more behind. For each one the Freegyptians destroyed, another came forward to take its place. Slowly, persistently, the tanks gained ground, visiting considerable damage on the Lightbringer's men and machines.

  The four remaining C39s roared into action, strafing the tanks and swiftly notching up several bullseyes. The gunships were low on ammunition, however. Soon their missile pods were empty and their ba cells had run dry. They pounded away at the tanks with bullets, but then these too were gone. The only things left to use as weapons were the helicopters themselves.

  Nonomura and his men prepared themselves for their death runs. Each pilot aimed for a concentration of tanks, intending to take four, five or more with them. The choppers flew across the plain at full speed, swooping on the Nephthysians. Inside, the crews sang Anubis's praises, telling him how almighty he was and how happy they were to be coming to meet him. One of the C39s didn't make it to its destination. A bolt from a blaster nozzle evaporated it in midair. The others, though, danced around the incoming ba and struck dead-on. Cascades of purple light erupted upwards as the groupings of tanks exploded, one igniting the next in a chain reaction.

  But more Scarab tanks came, and still more, bearing down hard on the Lightbringer's front ranks. Under pressure, the Freegyptians responded with street-fighting tactics. They were, many of them, veterans of guerrilla warfare. They knew that what could not be achieved by means of heavy artillery might be done with people on the ground, moving at speed and taking reckless risks. They darted out, scurrying from place of cover to place of cover and lobbing grenades at the ranks or loosing off with ba lances, shrieking battle cries as they went. The tanks' blaster nozzles swivelled in all directions, trying to track and eliminate these new, nimbler targets. Men died, incinerated by blasts of divine essence. But their constant harrying took its toll. Tank after tank ended up a burning wreck, or else lost a caterpillar track or had its drive sphere damaged so that it was rendered immobile, to be picked off at leisure. Several of the tanks destroyed each other, shooting wildly at a Freegyptian and hitting the machine next door instead. Two of them removed themselves from the equation by chasing after the same man so intently that they collided. The driver of another tank became so disorientated by the number of sources of hostile fire that he ploughed his vehicle nose first into a drainage ditch, leaving its drive-sphere high in the air, spinning uselessly.

  It was touch-and-go for a while. The Scarab tanks came perilously close to breaking through the Freegyptian lines. In the end, though, the Nephthysian generals saw how their armoured divisions were taking a pasting, and how their numbers were being whittled down by the infidels, and ordered a strategic withdrawal. By now there were perhaps half as many tanks left as had set out, and the majority of them were low on battery power. It was time to get them off the field while they could still move. The tanks retreated, passing among a host of advancing foot soldiers. They limped back to base, drawing on their reserve batteries for the final mile or so of the journey. Several hours of basking in direct sunlight would be called for before they could make a return visit to the plain, and that couldn't even begin to happen while the cloud cover remained stubbornly in place.

  Still, the Nephthysian generals were confident. Dozens of infantry regiments were now marching into the theatre of combat. There was going to be no let-up for the Lightbringer's forces, no reprieve. Within an hour of the tanks falling back, the first clashes between Freegyptians and Nephthysian troops had begun.

  David wielded his ba lance with precision, firing from behind a whitewashed farmyard wall, making every narrow-beam shot count.

  He had fallen in with a small group of Freegyptians, among them Saeed and Salim, the cousins-who-could-be-twins. Together, they had been responsible for the destruction of five Scarab tanks and the crippling of three others.

  Now they were holding a farmhouse against the oncoming Nephthysian infantry. The air rang with gunshots and the snap-crackle-zap of ba bolts. Cordite and the burnt-bone tang of ba were all that David could smell.

  He was calm, his calmness the kind that often came in the midst of conflict, an eye-of-the-storm tranquillity. Everything outside his head was hellish and insane. Men were slaughtering men. Bodies were piling up in front of the farmhouse. Death reigned. But inside him there was only certainty, a sense of expediency, a simplification of self. He must fight and kill or he would be killed. This was what his world had telescoped down to. A Nephthysian soldier came lurching towards him out of a field of wheat. David took aim, pressed the trigger and the soldier's helmeted head exploded into a thousand fragments, disappearing as instantaneously as a popped balloon. The decapitated body stumbled on for several steps before sprawling flat over the corpse of a colleague. David scanned for the next enemy. A purple ba bolt thudded into the other side of
the wall. He flinched and ducked. When the dust cleared, he aimed over the top of the wall and shot in the direction the bolt had come from. There was nothing else to do but this: fire, fire back, keep firing. Battle had such an awful purity to it. The terror and horror were so immense, they were like a flame, scorching existence down to its essence. He did not have to think about anything but the next moment and the moment after that. He needed to live, and stay alive. That was all there was to it.

  Soon the gunfire and ba-fire dwindled. The time was coming, that time, the customary phase-shift in modern warfare when the fighting went from ranged weapons to hand-to-hand. David's ba lance was spent. He tossed it aside and reached for the crook and flail. He rose from behind the pockmarked, battered wall. Out in the fields, Nephthysians were approaching, hundreds of them. Literally hundreds. The Freegyptians with David had knives, and some of them had Horusite maces and Setic staves. Whether or not they were competent with these weapons, he didn't know. They had side arms, too. Would they observe the niceties of battlefield tradition and keep them holstered from this point on? David didn't know that either, and didn't care. All that mattered to him now was the enemy. He moved out into the field, wading through thigh-deep crops, crook raised in right hand, flail whirling in left. His heart sang a song of dread and joy. The Nephthysians closed in, short swords drawn. He was numb, contented, and ready.

  28. Barque