The Sunbird

by Wilbur Smith

  You are wise to speak of it as past,‘ Lannon told her. He turned away to stand by the casement, and looked out across the lake. Nothing must come between us, he thought, I need him. I need him.

  ‘What will it be, Majesty? Poison or the secret dagger? How will you kill a priestess of Astarte? Have you forgotten that I belong to the goddess?’

  ‘No,’ said Lannon. ‘I have not forgotten, and I will send you to her, on the tenth day of the Festival of the Fruitful Earth. You will go as the messenger of Opet to the Gods.’

  ‘Huy will not allow it,’ whispered Tanith in horror.

  ‘Huy is in the north - a long way from the pool of Astarte.’

  ‘He will hate you for it, always. You will lose him forever,’ Tanith warned him, but he shook his head.

  ‘He will never know that I ordered it so. He will never know that you betrayed him, told me his name.’ He smiled then, a cold and golden smile. ‘No, it is you that will lose him, and I that will have him. You see, I need him, and my need is more important than yours.’

  He had been borne in a litter at first, while he was unconscious and then later when he was still too weak to march, so he did not know for how long and in what direction they had travelled.

  Even later when he was forced to walk, they bound and blindfolded him, so that he was aware only of the press of their bodies about him and the stench of sweat and the rancid fat with which they smeared their skin. There was no answer when he spoke, and rough hands urged him forward, and a spear blade pricked him when he baulked.

  He had been badly beaten and bruised, there were still lumps and gashes in his scalp, and his body was grazed and painfully wrenched, but he had taken no serious wounds, no deep spearthrust nor broken bones. It was as though they had carefully avoided dealing him a killing or crippling injury despite the fact that he had piled the corpses of their comrades in wind-rows about him, the vulture axe taking cruel toll before they overwhelmed him.

  On the first night when they camped he began a tentative investigation of his position with escape in mind, but then when he tried to shift his blindfold enough to see out, a heavy blow in the face dissuaded him. They fed him a handful of boiled corn and a strip of badly aired meat, gamey and rank with bacon beetle. Huy ate it hungrily.

  In the morning they were marching before the dawn, and when Huy felt the sun’s warmth on his cheek and saw the light through his blindfold, he repeated the praise of Baal silently and asked the god for his help.

  Later that day he was aware of the ground levelling beneath his feet as though they journeyed across an open plain, and there was the smell of cow dung and smoke and humanity. Over the thudding rhythm of his escorts’ bare feet and the swish of their war-kilts he heard a vast susurration of voices and movement. Blending with this was the lowing of many cattle, the air quivered with sound and movement, a hive murmur which warned him of the presence of a great multitude.

  At last they stopped him. He stood weary and thirsty in the hot sun with the raw-hide rope cutting into his wrists and his bruises and grazes aching. Time passed slowly in the silence of waiting men.

  At last a voice called out loudly, and Huy’s nerves jumped. The voice was in Vendi demanding, ‘Who seeks the lion-clawed, who seeks the bird-footed?’

  Huy remained silent, waiting for some indication of how to behave, and to his surprise he felt the cool touch of iron at his wrists and a blade sawed through his bonds. He rubbed his fingers, wincing at the flow of blood. Then he lifted his hands to the blindfold, expecting another blow, but none came and he loosed the cloth and blinked uncertainly in the bright sunlight.

  His eyes adjusted quickly, and he felt his heart lurch with shock at what he saw. Huy stood at the centre of a wide plain, a slightly concave bowl of land rimmed in with low hills.

  Except for a circular open area a hundred paces across, at the centre of which Huy now stood, the land was black with warriors. Huy gazed in awe at this multitude, and he could not begin to reckon their numbers. He would never have believed that the land could support such numbers, it was unreal, completely nightmarish - and the quality of unreality was heightened by the menacing stillness of the black hordes. Only the feathers of their head-dresses stirred in the sluggish wash of heated noonday air.

  The heat and the press of humanity threatened to suffocate him, and he looked about him desperately as though seeking an avenue of escape. Storch stood near him, and he carried the vulture axe on his shoulder. Huy felt a weak flutter of anger for the man’s treachery, but somehow it seemed unimportant in the enormity of this fresh experience.

  Storch was not looking at him, instead he was watching a group of Vendi war captains who stood about a low mound of earth at the end of the clearing. The mound was bare, but compelled the attention of them all, like an empty stage before the principals appear.

  Again the voice demanded, ‘Who seeks the Great Black Beast, who hunts the lion?’

  The heated silence and stillness persisted, then suddenly the multitude stirred and sighed as a man stepped up onto the mound.

  The tall crown of heron feathers on his head and the height of the mound upon which he stood made him god-like. His robes of leopard skin hung to the ground about him, and he stood as still as a tall tree in a rustling plain of grass as the royal salute shook the foundations of earth and sky.

  Storch carried the vulture axe to the mound and laid it at the king’s feet, then he backed away, and the king looked across the open ground at Huy.

  Huy drew himself up, trying to ignore the aches of his body, trying not to limp as he approached the mound and looked up at Manatassi.

  ‘I should have guessed.’ he said in Punic.

  ‘You should have killed me,’ said Manatassi, and from the folds of his robes he lifted the iron claw. ‘Instead of arming me with this.’

  ‘You do not understand,’ Huy said. ‘Your life was not mine to take. I made an oath.’

  ‘Still a man who lives on his word,’ Manatassi said, yet Huy looked in vain for the traces of mockery in his voice,

  ‘There is no other way to live.’ Huy felt tired now, he faced his certain death with resignation. He did not really have the energy to debate it.

  Manatassi made a gesture with the claw, indicating the massed ranks of his army.

  ‘You see what a spear I have forged?’

  ‘Yes,’ Huy nodded.

  ‘Who can stand against me?’ Manatassi asked.

  ‘Many will try,’ said Huy.

  ‘You amongst them?’

  And Huy smiled. ‘I do not think I will have the chance to do so.’

  Manatassi looked down at the little hunchback in his tattered tunic, his beard matted and the bruises on his face and arms, soiled and beaten, but not humble as he discussed his own fate.

  ‘Not one of my men understands us,’ Manatassi told Huy. ‘We can speak freely.’

  Huy nodded, puzzled, but interested in this change of mood.

  ‘I offer you life, Huy Ben-Amon. Come to me, give me the love and duty you have given to the Gry-Lion of Opet and you will live to be an old man.’

  ‘Why do you choose me?’ Huy asked.

  ‘I have waited for you. I knew you would come. My spies have watched for you, but it was fate that delivered you so neatly into my hands.’

  ‘Why me?’ Huy repeated.

  ‘I need you,’ Manatassi said simply. ‘I need your learning, I need your understanding, and your humanity.’

  ‘You forgive me the taking of your hand?’ Huy asked.

  ‘You could have taken my life,’ Manatassi answered.

  ‘You forgive the slave lash and the mines of Hulya?’

  ‘Those I will never forgive,’ Manatassi snarled, his face twitching and the eyes glaring smoky yellow. ‘But they were not your doing.’

  ‘You forgive the massacre at Sett?’ Huy persisted.

  ‘You are a soldier, you could do nothing else ’

  Manatassi was still trembling, and Huy sensed how nar
rowly he skirted the abyss, but he felt compelled to explore this man’s strength - and weakness.

  ‘What would you have of me. then?’ Huy asked.

  ‘March beside me,’ said Manatassi.

  ‘Against?’

  ‘Against Opet and its monstrous cruelties and terrible gods,’ Manatassi urged him. ‘With you beside me and this army at my back I will rule the world.’

  ‘I cannot do that,’ Huy shook his head.

  ‘Why not? Tell me why. It is evil, it must be destroyed.’

  ‘It is mine.’ said Huy. ‘My land, my people, my gods - therefore they cannot be evil.’

  ‘I thought you were a man of reason,’ Manatassi snarled.

  ‘Reason can carry a man just so far, and then he must trust to his heart,’ said Huy.

  ‘You refuse me, then?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You know that you choose death?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Manatassi raised his hand, the iron claw glowing in the sunlight, and Huy knew that when the hand fell he would die. He steeled himself to meet it as calmly as he had dealt it.

  Manatassi turned away. Then after a moment he sighed, and his shoulders beneath the thick scars heaved.

  ‘You spared me,’ said Manatassi. ‘I shall spare you.’

  Huy felt weak with relief. He had not wanted to die, and he allowed himself at last to think of Tanith and the child. Now he would still see his son, and his heart soared.

  ‘Go back to Opet. Go back to your king. Tell him that Manatassi, the Great Black Beast, marches out of the north to destroy him.’

  ‘Should you warn an enemy?’ Huy asked. ‘Did I teach you that?’

  Manatassi smiled. ‘A warning will not help him,’ he said. ‘Tell him what you saw here. Tell him of this army - and let it chill his guts. Tell him I come for him, and I will spare none nor leave a memory of him to taint this land. Tell him I come, and I come swiftly.’

  Manatassi picked up the vulture axe and handed it to Huy.

  ‘Go!’ he said. ‘All debts between us have been paid. You have no call on me, and I have no call upon you. When I meet you again I shall kill you.’

  They stared at each other, standing close enough to touch, but separated by a distance wider than the span of the oceans or the vastness of the land.

  Huy turned and limped away down the corridor of warriors that opened for him, and no man barred his way.

  ‘Old mother, you must not distress yourself so,’ Tanith whispered. ‘It was not your fault.’

  ‘I would have told them,’ Aina mumbled. ‘I know I would have told them. That Sister Haka, she terrifies me.’

  ‘You did not tell,’ Tanith comforted her. ‘You kept our secret well - even we ourselves did not know you had found out.’

  Aina set down the food bowl beside Tanith’s bed, and she smiled reflectively. ‘You were so happy, the two of you. It made me feel good just to see you. He is a good person, despite his poor crooked back, he is gentle and kind.’

  Tanith moved across on the couch, making room for Aina to sit. ‘Sit by me for a while, old mother. I am so lonely here, it makes the waiting so much harder.’

  Aina glanced fearfully across the narrow chamber at the barred doorway.

  ‘They do not like me to stay too long.’

  ‘Please,’ Tanith entreated. ‘There is so little time left.’ And Aina nodded and gathered up her skirts to sit, creaking at her knee joints, upon the couch. Tanith leaned closer to her, and she whispered eagerly, ‘Did you send messengers, did you find someone to go?’

  ‘I sent two young ensigns from Legion Ben-Amon. They worship the Holy Father as though he were himself a god. I told them that you were in mortal danger, and that the Holy Father must return with all speed.’

  ‘Do you think they will find him?’

  ‘There are a hundred roads that he might take, and the land is wide. I would not lie to you, my child. The chance is not good.’

  ‘I know,’ said Tanith. ‘And if they find him, can he return in time, and if he does, is there aught he can do to dissuade the Gry-Lion?’

  ‘If he returns in time, then you are safe. I know the man.’

  ‘Wait for him, Aina. If he returns, go to him secretly and tell him that the king knows about us. You must warn him of that, for he is also in danger.’

  ‘I will warn him,’ promised Aina.

  ‘Oh, I pray to all the gods that he returns swiftly to Opet. I do not want to die, old mother. There is so much I would yet have from life, but the days run out now. It is already the sixth day of the Festival, Unless Huy comes there are but four days of my life left.’

  ‘Gently, child/ Aina crooned and put an arm about Tanith to pat and cuddle her. ’Be brave,‘ she crooned, ’be brave, child.‘

  ‘It is not so easy,’ Tanith told her, ‘but I will try.’ And she pulled away from Aina’s embrace and sat up straight. ‘You must go now, old mother - or Haka will beat you again.’

  On the walls of the fortress at Zanat, south of the great river, a sentry held a javelin lightly in his right hand, concealing it below the level of the parapet, and he looked down on the strange wild figure below him. The man’s hair was filthy and matted, he wore no armour, his tunic hung in tatters, and his face was bruised and badly swollen. He seemed to be wounded for he was doubled up painfully in an unnatural posture, bowed beneath the weight of the huge battle-axe he carried.

  ‘What is your name, and what your business?’ the sentry hailed, and the traveller looked up at him.

  ‘I am Ben-Amon, High Priest of Baal and warrior of Opet. My business is the king’s.’

  The sentry started, and thrust the javelin back into its rack. He realized how close he had come to making a fool of himself. The crooked back and the axe were famous throughout the four kingdoms, he should have recognized them immediately, and he berated himself as he ran down into the courtyard shouting for the officer of the guard, warning him of their distinguished caller.

  Huy came in through the side gate the moment it swung open, and he cut short the military salutes with a curt, ‘Enough of that nonsense.’

  The officer of the guard was startled at having the legion’s beloved ceremonial dismissed in such a cavalier fashion, and he smothered a grin. Coupled with his appearance and his beggar’s garb this story would go to swell the body of legend that already existed about this remarkable little man.

  Huy was striding past the hastily assembled guard, demanding of the officer as he passed, ‘Where is the general? Is he here?’

  ‘Yes, my lord - Holiness. He is in his quarters.’

  ‘Praise to Baal!’ Huy grunted with relief.

  Huy wolfed a thick cut of cold meat folded between two corn cakes, and he washed it down with a bowl of red wine, speaking through and around each mouthful of food as he issued his orders.

  Marmon’s scribe dashed off each article, racing to keep up with the flow of Huy’s words. Marmon sat on his stool in the corner, his head of silver hair shining like a summer thunder cloud and his handsome face anxious and worried.

  He could hardly believe what he was hearing, yet he knew better than to doubt the word of Huy Ben-Amon. He realized that he was culpable, that he should have been the one to discover this deadly threat that had grown up so swiftly on their borders. Perhaps he had spent too much of his time dreaming over his ancient histories, perhaps he had grown old and feeble without realizing it. He wondered what retribution there would be from Huy Ben-Amon and the Gry-Lion of Opet. Neither of them were men who let failure pass unnoticed.

  He listened as Huy issued the orders which would place every garrison and every unit on the alert, would mobilize every disbanded legion, would send messengers racing across the land carrying the scrolls that would place the entire empire on a war footing. Marmon wondered at the courage of a man who could make this battle decision alone, a decision for which he would have to answer to the king and the council of nobles. He might be held responsible for all the losses a
nd damages that would arise when the entire industry and commerce of the nation were suspended. It was a decision upon which his own life might hang, as well as that of Opet.

  As he watched Huy signing the orders he doubted that he would have had that much certainty of the rightness of his own actions. He knew he would have sent to Opet for orders, and probably have jeopardized whatever chance there was of survival. For, from what Huy had told him, it was a matter of survival. They were confronted by an enemy so vastly superior in numbers that success lay with the gods.

  Huy was finished. He signed the last scroll and the fire went out in him. It was only then that Marmon realized that the man was exhausted. He staggered slightly, his whole body slumping and he seemed to shrivel in size under the burden of his weariness.

  Marmon jumped up from his stool and went to him. Huy brushed off the helping arm and tried to gather his strength in hand again.

  ‘I must leave for Opet,’ he said, slurring like a drunkard and steadying himself against a corner of the table. ‘What day is it, Marmon? I seem to have lost count of the days,’

  ‘It is the seventh day of the Festival, Holiness.’

  ‘The Festival?’ Huy looked at him stupidly.

  ‘The Fruitful Earth,’ Marmon reminded him.

  ‘Ah!’ Huy nodded. ‘I did not think it was that late. Have you a war elephant to carry me to Opet?’

  ‘Nay, Holiness,’ Marmon told him regretfully. There are no elephants here.‘

  ‘Then I must march.’ Huy resigned himself.

  ‘You must rest first.’

  ‘Yes, Huy agreed. ’I must rest.‘ And he let Marmon lead him to the bedchamber. As he fell across the couch he asked, ’How long will it take to reach Opet from here, Marmon?‘

  ‘If you move fast, six days. Five, if you fly.’

  ‘I shall fly,’ said Huy. Wake me at dusk.‘ And he fell asleep.

  Looking down on the sleeping figure. Marmon felt the familiar stirring of his affections. He felt his admiration for the great heart of this little fighting man, felt envy for the thrust and drive which always carried him ahead of the pack, and he was glad that Huy Ben-Amon led them at a time of such a crisis