There might be a record somewhere, but she had been sold as part of the spoils of war, not as Khai’s personal possession. Some remembered she’d fought for sport once upon a time, but those days were in the past and Akhom had been far afield.
Looking at her, Khai knew Akhom didn’t see the warrior Khai had seen that day on the battlefields to the north but rather the seemingly soft priestess in her fine robes and delicate sandals, despite the swords at her back. Khai, though, remembered the fighter standing amidst her dead, fighting with no care for herself until the moment she’d realized she fought alone. Then she’d gone still…
It was that stillness he remembered, always, her eyes lifting to his as she recognized her defeat and accepted her fate, laying down her arms.
It was a delicate balance she walked here now and he knew she walked it for him but he also had no doubt she would ride out in the morning regardless, alone if she must.
That he wouldn’t allow. Not alone. He’d left her once and suffered the tortures of wondering about her fate. He wouldn’t leave her again.
“Akhom,” Khai said, “the priestess can ride out with me. If she can’t keep up…” He shrugged eloquently and spread his hands, as careful not to look at Irisi as she had been careful not to look at him.
Akhom considered it.
It wasn’t his intention to put the priestess at risk, but the last thing he needed was to have the priests looking over his shoulder. He already had the Grand Vizier doing it. Then there was this unknown threat…
None of the people they passed spoke of soldiers, only of darkness, of things that came out of the night… Beasts? Lions driven out of the desert? Jackals? Wild dogs, too, sometimes hunted in packs. When food grew scarce, it wasn’t unlikely. But so many?
And the army to fight it?
He looked at the girl.
She was a slender woman and her face was youthful. Soft. His eyes went to the scars on her arms speculatively. Slips of the sword, parried, still sometimes cut. So she had fought with swords.
As with many in Thebes, he’d heard stories but he’d never seen her fight so he was inclined to believe they were exaggerations.
Still.
“If you can keep up by all means you may join General Khai,” he said, grudgingly.
“We ride out in the morning,” Khai said, “at first light.”
Irisi inclined her head in assent, first to Akhom, and then to Khai.
“My thanks, my Lords. General Khai, I’ll see you at daybreak?”
His tone level, he said, “If you aren’t there when we ride out, we’ll leave without you.”
A small smile touched her lips. Old habits died hard. She’d always been an early riser, waking often before first light as she had since she’d been a child called to milk the cows or perform other chores. Now she was the one who most frequently summoned the others to Goddess’s service.
“I’ll be there.”
Of that Khai had no doubt.
It was a long restless night for him though. For some reason he was intensely aware that Irisi’s tent had been pitched not far from his. He remembered vividly the look of her when she’d been in his, her hands pinned above her, her lush white body glowing in the light of the lamps, so exotic in her fairness, slender, beautifully formed.
He’d found himself thinking of her over the years at the unlikeliest times. She’d never been far from his mind. He remembered seeing her smile peek out from behind the rippling fall of her hair as she glanced at him from behind it.
Irisi, too, found herself restless, unable to sleep, thinking of gold-touched eyes, a voice in the night talking to her. She’d dreamed of tawny skin and firm muscles, and of how fine it had felt to lie with him curled around her.
What awaited them on the morrow disturbed her, too. Extending her senses as she’d been taught, she could feel a Darkness press back against them. She shivered and resolutely turned her back on it, drawing her coverings over her.
The room was rich, sumptuous, filled with reclining benches and pillows. At the end of it was a great chair not unlike the King’s throne but smaller, done in gilded marble with a gold-dyed cushion where Kamenwati sat to receive his guests. He waited now, with servants at each side waving fans made of the wings of swans to keep him cool.
Kamenwati looked down on the small man who’d been ushered into his presence and smiled.
Such a little man. Little in height, little in spirit. Were it not for folks such as him he wouldn’t know all that he knew. He wouldn’t have the power he had. And so he had men like these.
“What do you have for me?” Kamenwati asked, waving his assent for the other to speak in his presence. “What of my slave? Who is it she meets? Who does she see?”
It was this they shared in common, their one tie, the reason this one had come to him, and the reason Kamenwati’s agents had sought him out.
His anger flaring, the priest called Saini said, his tone bitter, “She meets no one. She sees no one. As befits a priestess of Isis she is most proper with everyone…nor does she serve or service any, as some are called to do.”
Proper.
In all the time the one they now called Irisi had been in Kamenwati’s service she’d never once given invitation or favor to any. If she had, he’d have killed them as she belonged to him and only he could use her so. Was it her nature? Or, in the face of his threat, did she withhold herself from such? In either case, it served him well that she denied herself what he enjoyed in plenty. It was nearly enough…
“Even now she rides south at the bidding of Banafrit and the other priests and priestesses to meet the army…” Saini continued, his anger blinding him.
In his place, doing what Saini himself should be doing. It was he who should be at Banafrit’s right hand, not that girl! A foreigner! An ex-slave and foreigner, whom Banafrit would make High Priestess over himself as High Priest.
Kamenwati sat up, suddenly alert and furious. “She’s gone where? What priests and priestesses?”
Saini quailed at the abrupt and intense attention. The countenance of the Grand Vizier was a severe one, dark and grim. The flash of fear that went through him as those black eyes focused on him shocked him. For the first time, Saini questioned the wisdom of his actions, the words he’d spoken so thoughtlessly, even as he realized he couldn’t take them back. He was committed to this path.
“All of them, my lord Vizier, the priests and priestesses of all the major Gods, and many of the lesser,” Saini stammered, his knees quaking. “Ra, Isis and Osiris, Horus, Hathor, even Sekhmet, all of them.”
Banafrit. This was her doing. Kamenwati’s jaw tightened. They conspired against him, all of them.
Fury burned in him.
All of the major Gods and Goddesses. All, that is, but one.
He, the High Priest of Set, hadn’t been invited. Not that they knew he served that God. Even so, one day they would regret that omission. Someday they would all bow before him as High Priest and King of all Egypt. It had been promised to him.
“The one called Irisi goes south? To what purpose?”
Although of course he knew, but he wanted the little priest to confirm it.
“To seek the source of this darkness,” Saini said. “To determine what the army faces. They speak of a prophecy…”
Prophecy.
That lone word was like a bolt of lightning through Kamenwati. He sat up sharply.
“What prophecy?” he snapped, leaning forward on the arm of his chair.
Saini quailed beneath the intensity of that black glare. It seemed something alien and inhuman moved behind those dark eyes, a glow like coals in a fire, as if something burned within them. Within him.
“I don’t know,” Saini said, his voice a croak. Suddenly he found he regretted what he’d said and done. “I’ve only heard whispers, rumors, something about a darkness rising over Egypt…”
Kamenwati sat back.
A prophecy…one the priests and priestesses of the other Gods
clearly felt was imminent. One they’d kept from him, the Grand Vizier. High Priest of Set.
Well.
A darkness rising…
Oh, there was a darkness rising indeed.
“A prophecy,” Kamenwati said, reaching out toward the little man before him as he summoned the Djinn within him. He gestured “I would know more.”
Kamenwati smiled and Saini went cold at the sight of it.
To Saini’s shock, words poured out of him like a leak in a broken pitcher. Everything he thought, everything he’d overheard. It was as if he were wrung like a rag.
A darkness rising to devour all of Egypt. Kamenwati felt something inside him shiver in anticipation, a coldness he reveled in rising within him and a heat that burned to match it.
He considered what he’d learned.
Well, his once slave might just find the source of that darkness…
As for Banafrit and the others? There might be surprises for them as well. There was a lesson to be learned for all of them. Kamenwati would teach it to them.
If Kamenwati could gain control of the army, even Narmer would be hard pressed to stop him. Only Akhom stood between Kamenwati and control of the armies. If Akhom fell…
Few knew Baraka was his man, body and soul. In truth, not even Baraka knew how deeply Kamenwati had set his hooks there.
His time had come at last. The darkness was rising. They were coming.
Chapter Sixteen
The first light of morning was just touching the sky as Khai and his men went to harness their horses only to find the Lady Irisi already mounted and waiting, her guards yawning at the earliness of the hour. Wide-awake and aware, the Lady looked far more ready for battle than General Akhom would have expected if he had seen her, but he was still abed. She was dressed in a soft, worn, undyed linen shift. Her swords were in their sheaths on her back, the leather straps of the harness crisscrossed her torso at her breastbone. Her wavy, golden hair had been braided at both sides of her face to leave her vision clear while the rest was left free to flow over her back and shoulders like a river of sunlight.
This was the warrior Khai had seen that first day.
She’d surprised all of them, to judge by their expressions…all but Khai, who’d expected no less.
He looked at her and felt that stirring within him again. He’d slept restlessly, memories of her tormenting him. Now he was aware of her in a way he hadn’t been before.
Even dressed for battle, she was beautiful.
“First light, my lord Khai?” she said, looking up at the sky, a perfectly arched brow lifting as her mouth twitched teasingly. “You’re late.”
His men smothered chuckles.
“Lady,” Khai said with respect, amused, and inclined his head in greeting.
Her eyes lit with laughter as she returned the gesture graciously.
A few of his men now laughed softly in consideration for the sleepers, appreciatively and openly.
“We’ll be riding hard,” Khai warned.
Irisi nodded her understanding and gestured. “After you?”
In the early morning light, to her he was as darkly handsome as ever. As she was, he was dressed for battle, wearing only a linen kilt belted in place and little else, leaving his muscled chest exposed. Against the pale material his burnished bronze skin and thick wavy hair was all the more striking. The sight of him caught at her heart in a way she’d never experienced, making it both lighten and ache at the same time.
The first golden edge of the sun peeked over the desert. With a gesture, Khai sent his people out, his scouts racing ahead.
Irisi whistled lightly and what he’d taken in the dim morning light for a sandy mound or a discarded pile of blankets resolved itself into a young lion as the animal rose to its feet. With a rumble, it shook his shaggy head as Irisi held up her hand to Khai’s men to forestall them.
“Don’t,” she said, to the archers. “He’s mine. You may be grateful for him later.”
Her eyes turned to Khai.
Raising an eyebrow, Khai returned the look as he eyed the lion speculatively.
“Nebi,” she said.
Motioning with her hand, she bid the lion to sit. Which it did, obediently.
Khai remembered her request of the King.
Her cats. Lions.
This then was one of them.
Lifting her chin, Irisi grinned at him in challenge, her eyes sparkling.
Giving the lion a look and then her, Khai shook his head in amusement, refusing to show any trepidation.
Irisi laughed, clearly delighted.
Normally Khai wouldn’t have ridden out with the scouts, but the loss of his patrol and the tales he’d heard from the refugees had been more than enough to alarm him. He wanted to see this for himself. Had to. So he would know what had happened to the men he’d sent there.
“We ride to the fort first,” Khai said, “to see if they’ve learned anything we haven’t.”
On any other day the ride would have been pleasant, even at the hard pace they set, were it not for the stream of refugees, mostly farmers, who fled east north east past them. They passed by villages where thin dogs barked. Eerily, in each, cats crouched on the western walls, their ears flattened as they stared outward.
The fields were empty; some of the people who lived there piled their belongings on rickety carts, while others reinforced their walls and doors.
A few called to Irisi, her robes marking her as a priestess of Isis, asking for her blessing.
She remembered too well what it was to lose everything. Bending in the saddle, she touched every hand that reached to her as they passed, knowing what it was they sacrificed.
Khai watched. He’d come from much the same background as the folk they passed.
Catching his look, she said, “Once I was like them, leaving behind everything I knew.”
All that had changed. She had a place now, a home in the temple. She hadn’t forgotten that.
It was late in the afternoon when they came within sight of the tall, thick walls of the fort, slowing to a canter as they approached.
An eerie silence prevailed, unbroken by the sound of the birds that normally scavenged the refuse and detritus of the fort’s dunghill. All that could be heard was the wind blowing over the sand, a soft ominous hiss.
Khai looked to the walls.
They were empty. The gates were open wide, almost in invitation. No one could be seen, within or without.
Something was badly wrong.
Instinctively, nervously, the archers around him strung their bows and carried them at the ready as the charioteers held their horses on a tight rein, the animals tossing their heads restlessly.
At Irisi’s side, the lion Nebi made an anxious noise low in his throat, shaking his mane uneasily as his tail twitched.
With a glance at him, her expression unsettled, Irisi reached behind her to loosen her swords in their scabbards.
The towers at each corner were unoccupied, as was the interior as far as they could see through the narrow aperture of the open gates. Nothing moved beyond them. The garrison should have been bustling with men drilling and patrols coming and going. Especially in light of the stories they’d heard.
Khai’s people looked around nervously as they rode through the gates in the outer wall.
No one challenged their right to enter. Shadows pooled unnaturally beneath the walls.
They passed through the first wall then through the second and into open marshalling yard.
To all appearances, the complex of barracks and buildings was completely empty. The square before them was barren, no soldiers drilled, no one repaired their gear or sharpened their swords, nor did the commandant come to greet them.
It was unnatural, eerie and disquieting. The entire garrison seemed to have vanished.
A silence unlike any other, broken only by the whistling of the wind, surrounded them.
“How many?” Irisi whispered.
“A hundred, p
erhaps more.”
The enormity of it… Khai shook his head in disbelief and dismay.
With gestures, Khai split his people and sent them scouting carefully through the complex.
He and Irisi dismounted to cautiously approach the commandant’s quarters.
They could see nothing within the shadows of the entry but those shadows seemed darker than usual.
Nebi pressed protectively close to Irisi. Out of habit, Irisi rested her hand on his head, her fingers in his mane.
Darkness seemed to press against her, although the sun was still high in the sky.
Something was wrong…
The closer they walked to the commander’s quarters the more disturbed she felt.
She tried to tell herself it was her imagination.
She sensed…something…
Malevolent… Evil… Gathering…
With a great coughing roar, Nebi suddenly crouched.
“Khai,” Irisi shouted and threw herself at him.
Nebi leaped just as something with wicked teeth and claws erupted from within the concealing darkness.
Whatever it was that burst from the cover of the commandant’s quarters was like nothing Irisi had ever seen before… And yet it was familiar in a strange way, something she’d only read about in the scrolls, something to haunt her nightmares.
Nebi met the thing, snarling and roaring.
More of the things bounded out in the wake of the first.
They looked like hyenas but they weren’t. Everything about them was slightly wrong, from their oversized teeth to the too-long claws on their feet, yet the powerful bone-crushing jaws of the hyena they resembled were still very much a danger.
Irisi spun away from Khai, throwing her swords up to defend herself as one of the things launched itself at her.
“Call your people back, Khai,” she cried. “Get them back.”
The thing twisted to evade the iron in the rough steel of her swords.
Khai shouted for his people as more of the things and new, different, ones erupted from the shadows where they’d been hiding.
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