The Sunbird

by Wilbur Smith

  Three hundred paces out, halfway across the river, was a small islet. The flood waters would cover it, and it was thick with driftwood and mats of stranded papyrus. This was the first stage of the ford. It was here that he would anchor his lines of twisted bark that his men were plaiting now. He would rig the lines at dawn, and attempt to make the crossing in a single day. He knew how heavy his losses must be. They were weak with hunger and wounds and exhaustion, the bark ropes were unreliable, the current was swift and treacherous, and the enemy was as swift and unrelenting.

  Timon moved away downstream, passing amongst his sentries, talking quietly with them, stopping to examine the huge coils of bark rope that were laid ready upon the bank, and at last he came to the perimeter of his camp.

  Downstream was the garrison of Sett, 1,000 paces away, a Roman mile as Timon now thought of it. There were torches burning upon the walls and Timon could see the sentries moving vigilantly in the light.

  Out on the river, anchored in a deep placid pool were the galleys of the river patrol. With oars shipped and sails furled they were saurian in shape, and Timon watched them uneasily. He had never seen warships in action and he did not know what to expect of them. When Huy Ben-Amon had spoken of the great sea battles of the Romans and Greeks and Carthaginians, he had paid scant attention. He regretted it now. He wished he could form some estimate of the threat that these strange craft afforded his crossing.

  The sound of voices came faintly to him across the water, and though he could not recognize the words, yet the familiar modulations of the Punic language fanned his hatred. He listened to them and he felt it come up out of the pit of his belly. He wanted to hurl himself upon them, and destroy them. He wanted to destroy every trace, every memory of this grotesque light-skinned people with their skills and strength and strange gods and monstrous cruelties.

  Standing in the darkness and staring at the distant fortress, hearing their voices in the night, he remembered the body of his woman sliding and bouncing over the rough ground, he remembered the slaves wailing in the compounds of Hulya, he remembered the slave smell, the sound and kiss of the lash, the jangling weight of the chains, the searing heat of the rock, the voices of the slave-masters, the thousand other memories burned and branded into his brain. He massaged the thickened chain callouses at his wrist, and stared at his enemies, and from the core of his soul his hatred bubbled and boiled, threatening to flood his reason like the red-hot lava of an active volcano.

  He wanted to swing his army about and fall upon them. He wanted to destroy them, destroy every last trace of them.

  He found with surprise that he was shaking, his whole body shuddering with the force of his hatred, and with an immense effort of his will, he controlled himself. Sweat poured down his face and chest in the night cool, the rank-smelling sweat of hatred.

  ‘My time is not now,’ he thought. ‘But it will come.’

  There was a presence beside him in the darkness and he turned to it.

  ‘Zama?’ he asked, and his lieutenant answered softly.‘

  ‘The dawn is coming.’

  ‘Yes.’ Timon nodded. ‘It is time to begin.’

  With loving attention Tanith braided his beard, and then twisted it up under his chin and clubbed it out of the way where it would not catch in Huy’s breastplate nor afford a grip for a desperate enemy.

  She whispered endearments as she worked, the endearments of a childless woman, speaking to him as though he were her infant. Huy sat quietly on his couch, delighting in the deft and gentle touch of her hands, the soft words and the loving tone of her voice; all this contrasted so violently with what the day would bring, and when Tanith rose from the couch and went to fetch his heavy breastplate, he felt a sharp sense of loss.

  She helped him to arm, kneeling to buckle the straps of his greaves, fussing with the folds of his cloak, and although she smiled, he could hear the fear in her voice.

  He kissed her awkwardly, and the iron crushed her breast as he held her. She made a small movement of protest, half pulling away, then she surrendered to his embrace and, ignoring the pain, pressed herself to him.

  ‘Oh Huy,’ she whispered, ‘my lord, my love.’

  The old priestess pulled aside the hanging reed mat and stepped into the chamber. She saw the two of them clinging to each other, oblivious of all else. Aina stared at them through rheumy old eyes, then her mouth sagged open into a tooth-less grin and she drew back silently and let the reed mat fall into place.

  Tanith drew away at last. She went to the wall against which the vulture axe leaned beside Huy’s couch, and she took it up and untied the soft leather sheath from the blade. She came to Huy, standing before him, and she lifted the blade to her lips and kissed it.

  ‘Fail him not!’ she whispered to the axe and handed it to Huy.

  In the pre-dawn darkness there was an eager group of officers on the ramparts of the fort staring upstream to where the slave army was encamped. They were all armed and were eating the morning meal as they stood. They greeted Huy and Tanith with boisterous high spirits, and Tanith watched and listened as they discussed the day. She found it difficult to understand how they could face the possibility of dealing or receiving death with the enthusiasm of small boys for a piece of mischief.

  Tanith felt herself excluded from this mysterious male camaraderie, and she was startled by the change which had come over Huy. Her gentle poet, her solemn scholar and shy lover was as inflamed as any of them. She recognized all the signs of his excitement in his fluttering hand gestures, the hectic spots of colour in his cheeks and the high-pitched giggle with which he greeted one of Bakmor’s sallies.

  ‘This is the day. Enough waiting,’ Huy declared, as he stared upstream into the dawn gloom. There was a heavy mist upon the river, and the smoke from 10,000 camp fires obscured the field. He paced restlessly. ‘A curse upon this mist! I cannot see if they have strung their lines across the ford yet.’

  ‘Shall I order one of the galleys upstream to investigate?’ Mago asked.

  ‘No,’ Huy waved the suggestion aside. ‘We will know soon enough, and I don’t want to draw attention to the galleys yet.’ Huy crossed to the parapet on which the food was spread. He poured a bowl of hot wine sweetened with honey and raised it to the company. ‘A bright edge to your swords!’

  Huy sang the greeting to Baal as the sun came up over a red and smoky horizon, and then standing bareheaded he drew the attention of the gods to the fact that he intended fighting a battle this day. In strong but respectful terms he pointed out that though the men he commanded were the finest, yet the odds were high, and he would need assistance if the day was to be carried. He relied on them for their cooperation. He made the sun sign, and then turned briskly to his staff.

  ‘Very well, you know your stations and duties.’ As they dispersed, Huy led Bakmor aside. ‘You have a man to attend the priestess?’

  Bakmor beckoned to a grizzled old infantry man who stood a short way off, and the man came forward.

  ‘You know your duties?’ Huy demanded, and the soldier nodded.

  ‘I will remain with the priestess through the day ’

  ‘Never letting her out of your sight,’ Huy cautioned him.

  ‘Should the enemy triumph, and it seem that she will fall into their hands, I will—’

  ‘Good,’ Huy interrupted him gruffly. ‘If it is necessary, make the stroke swift and sure.’

  Huy could not look at Tanith, he turned away quickly and went down to where a small boat waited to row him out to the largest of the two galleys.

  Huy stood on the castle of the galley and waited. The sun was well up now, and the mist was dispersed. The galley was singled up to a bow anchor, and she faced into the current. The rowers were at their benches, their shields and weapons at their feet, the oars feathered and ready.

  The slave army was committed to its crossing. Twenty lines had been strung from the south bank to the mid-stream island, and now they were laying the lines from there to the
north bank.

  The ford was congested with a great struggling mass of humanity. Clinging to the bark ropes, they were wading steadily across towards the island. Only their heads showed, long lines of black dots around which the water swirled and creamed. Already there were fifteen or twenty thousand slaves in the water, and the number increased steadily as the horde on the south side filed down the bank and took to the ropes.

  It was happening just the way that Huy had known it would. The party on the south bank would dwindle to a size which would be a fair match for Bakmor’s impatient warriors Huy smiled as he imagined how Bakmor must be chafing at this delay. He had longer to wait, Huy decided, as he watched the first slaves emerge from the green waters and scramble thankfully out onto the island with their black skins shining wetly in the morning sunlight.

  Their thankfulness was premature, Huy thought. There was still the north channel of the river between them and safety. They began filing off the island, while behind them the bark ropes bowed downstream with the weight of human bodies and the island itself swarmed with naked black flesh. It was an awesome spectacle, such a multitude strung across the river, and still a dense mass of black men upon the south bank.

  If it is Timon, he will know enough to hold his best men in the rearguard. Huy peered at the men waiting to take their turns upon the ropes, and it seemed that they were steadier and better armed than those in the van. He must let their number reduce further before he could risk Bakmor’s tiny force against them.

  Huy turned his attention back to the ford, from the island the lines of heads were creeping slowly across towards the far bank. He could see now that he would have a difficult choice to make. If he delayed his attack much longer, then many of the fugitives would escape into the dense forests of the north, beyond the reach of his army for ever. However, if he struck before they escaped it would mean committing Bakmor to battle with vastly superior numbers. The choice was a delicate one, and Huy pondered it carefully. His decision was made when he thought suddenly of the day in the future when he would report to his king.

  ‘Not one of them escaped, Majesty.’ And he could almost hear the reply, ‘I did not doubt it, my bird of the sun.’

  Huy turned to the captain of the galley who stood beside him.

  ‘Hoist the standard!’ he said quietly, and immediately the order was shouted to the foredeck. The golden battle standard soared to the masthead.

  As a hoarse cheer rose from the rowing decks of the galley,

  Huy saw the battle signal repeated in the other galley anchored on his starboard beam.

  In the bows a sailor swung a battle-axe, severing the anchor cable and the galleys spread their wide wings of oars. They dipped and swung and rose, wet and gleaming golden and silver in the sunlight. Under Huy’s feet the ship dashed forward against the current, so swiftly that he staggered before he caught his balance. The galleys flew in formation, their great wings beating, arrowing upstream on a diverging course that would carry one through each channel of the river.

  ‘Steer for the centre of their line,’ Huy ordered the galley captain, and the order was shouted to the helm.

  They raced down on the crowded ropes, strung like black pearls with the heads of struggling men. Above the rush of water, and the creak and dip of oars, Huy heard a mounting hubbub of terror from the men who looked up at the deadly bows that towered above them.

  He moved to the bulwark and looked down. He saw their faces turned up towards him, and their eyes showed white in the dark faces. He crushed down the stirrings of his pity, for these were not men. They were the enemy.

  The archers in the bows were loosing their arrows into them now. Huy saw an arrow strike one of them squarely in the face and stand there as the man threw his arms high and was swept away by the current.

  The galley cut into the heavily laden ropes, slowing slightly and lurching as the weight of them checked the forward dash, then they snapped and burst asunder beneath the iron-shod bows, and the current swept the lines of men away into deep water, washing them close under the walls of the garrison where Huy’s archers waited to pick them like windfallen fruit.

  The galleys drove through the shallows, scraping their keels against the rock bottom of the ford and then they were into the deep water beyond, and Huy ran to the stern and looked back. The river was filled from bank to bank with screaming, drowning men. Some of them clung to the branches of overhanging trees, others to slippery outcrops of rock, or to floating pieces of driftwood and mats of papyrus. The island was completely hidden by a solid blanket of wet and shivering humanity, and still others were trying to find a foothold upon it, floundering and struggling in the shallows.

  There were so many of them that they reminded Huy of a migration of insects, rather than human beings. They were like ants, tens of thousands of ants. He held that thought as he steeled himself to give the next order.

  The galley captain was watching him expectantly, he could see the sailors in the bows at the tubes. They were looking up at the castle, waiting for the order.

  ‘Very well, Captain,’ Huy said, remembering that they were ants and not men. Instantly the galley captain was shouting his orders, and the ship swung broadside to the current. The other galley conformed to this manoeuvre and from the bows of both of them the deadly jets of Opet’s secret weapon, ‘Baal’s fire’, were squirted.

  It sprayed upon the surface of the river, spreading smoothly, the sunlight broke into rainbows of colour upon the floating liquid, and the stink of it was oily and rank.

  Then magically it burst into flame, the entire surface of the river became a solid sheet of roaring orange flame from which banks of sooty black smoke billowed, and the heat of it was so intense that Huy drew back quickly as he felt his beard singe.

  ‘In Baal’s holy name,’ Huy whispered, as he watched the fire, named for the great god Baal, sweep majestically downstream, filling the great river from bank to bank, filling the sky with dark clouds. It flowed over the crowded island, and when it had passed, the blackened bodies lay in high smouldering heaps, while the driftwood and dried papyrus burned like a funeral pyre.

  The wall of fire marched downstream, past the fortress walls, searing the vegetation along each bank, sweeping the river clear of life. In ten short minutes 20,000 souls had perished, and their charred bodies floated down towards the sea or washed up as jetsam along the sand banks and back eddies of the river.

  After the flames passed, Timon stood appalled and stared at the devastation. He could not believe the dreadful destructive force he had just witnessed, he could not believe that more than half of his army had vanished so swiftly. He was left with a small portion of his original command.

  Those left were his best men, but in truth he knew them to be no match for the cohorts that opposed him. Although he realized that he must make his dispositions for the attack which would now surely follow, yet he wasted a few seconds staring longingly across the river to the north where his own land lay. He was cut off from it now, perhaps for ever.

  The galleys lay a hundred paces off the bank, with their bows pointed towards him. They were as menacing as two great reptilian monsters, and now he had seen them in action Timon felt fear’s chilly breath on his neck when he looked at them.

  Behind him rose the roar of challenge and counter-challenge and the clash of shields and weapons. Timon swung about. The second attack had come, as he feared. It had come with the precision and timing he had expected. It had come crashing into his rear at the exact moment when his men’s stomachs were cold with the dreadful destruction they had witnessed in the van.

  Timon felt his anger swell and buoy him upwards, his hatred rose with it. Anger and hatred, the forces upon which his whole existence depended. Anger that he must fight against men like these with such fragile weapons. Even as he turned to join the conflict he swore an oath that he had sworn a hundred times before. I will build an army from my own people which will match these pale-skinned devils.

  Timon
fought his way towards the rear through the press of his own men. The attack was driving them back steadily, jamming them against the river, packing them so densely that they could neither manoeuvre nor wield their weapons.

  It was a nightmare sensation, attempting to find a way through this swaying, surging sea of black bodies. Desperately Timon bellowed his orders, trying to force them forward, trying to make them deploy outwards, but his voice was lost in the battle roar and even his great strength was helpless in this jam of black humanity.

  Over the heads of his men he could see the enemy helmets and plumes ringing them. The sword and axe rose and fell to a solemn rhythm, and before them his men dropped their weapons, turned their backs and tried to burrow their way into the massed bodies of their companions. The pressure increased steadily, smothering the ranks behind and driving them steadily back towards the river.

  Over the heads of the attackers the archers and javelin men hurled a rain of missiles into Timon’s centre, and so densely was it packed that the dead men could not fall but were held upright by their neighbours’ striving bodies.

  Now the galleys stole in quietly towards the bank and from the high castles the archers loosed their arrows into the van of Timon’s army. The bank began to crumble away beneath the desperate feet, and living and dead slid and fell into the swift waters.

  Soon the colour of the water changed from green to brown, and then to the bright scarlet of life blood.

  ‘A river of blood, Holiness,’ the galley commander remarked in conversational tones. ‘I have heard it sung by the poets before, but this is the first time I have ever seen it.’

  Huy nodded without answering. He could see that the battle had reached a point of equilibrium. The pressure that Bakmor’s cohorts, even strengthened with those of Mago, could exert was insufficient to drive the enemy back another yard. Soon that pressure must relax, for already the axemen were tiring. When that happened the slave army would explode outwards, like a released bowstring. It needed but an ounce more pressure to topple the slaves into the river, but that pressure must come within the next few minutes.