Servant of the Gods

by Valerie Douglas

  There would be little or no rest for either of them until they reached Thebes, not with their new responsibilities, and even then there would be very little for a time as they had yet to report to the King.

  She was Isis’s High Priestess now, Banafrit’s chosen successor. The truth of that still hadn’t quite penetrated but the weight lay as heavily on her shoulders as a wool blanket.

  It would be she now who would speak to the King. High Priestess of all the Gods.

  So much.

  Irisi sighed. Someone had to do it, though, and they all looked to her.

  Like Khai, she had her responsibilities. Not least of which was the wounded.

  What little sleep she or Khai had that night before would have to suffice until it was all done. Whenever that was or would be.

  Only the lions had gotten any rest; they lolled limply in the sand, asleep.

  Irisi envied them. Weariness weighed on her heavily. Healing, with or without magic, was exhausting work by itself, much less after all that had been done and happened the previous night.

  So much information rattled around her mind, too, none of it assimilated. There just wasn’t time.

  “My lord Kahotep,” she began until Kahotep gave her a gently chiding look.

  They were equals now. She didn’t have to use his title. She’d forgotten. It was a fact she would have to get used to, along with the knowledge that now crowded her mind.

  Rolling her eyes in exasperation at herself, she said, “Kahotep, will you and Djeserit see to the preparation of Banafrit’s body for her return to Thebes. I need to speak to General Khai and tell him the wounded are ready to be moved.”

  She wished she could do that duty herself, a last honor to her friend and mentor but there was no time.

  They both nodded.

  “It would be an honor,” Kahotep said, gently. One final duty he could do for his old friend before they prepared her for her final rest and for her passage to the afterlife.

  Irisi bowed her head gratefully, grief in her eyes.

  With a squeeze of her shoulder from each of them, Kahotep and Djeserit left.

  Making her way through the breaking camp, Irisi went to Akhom’s tent, finding Khai still there as his men gave their reports.

  He looked tired and worn, as much so as she knew she did, spattered as she was with the blood and dirt of battle. Neither had had the chance to get clean.

  “My lord General,” she said, softly, to let him know she was there.

  Khai turned his head to look at her.

  Just seeing her standing there, her sky-blue eyes warm and soft, eased something within him. In the soft thin light that pierced the sides of the tent she looked ephemeral, her golden hair glowing softly in the thin light within the tent. She looked as tired as he felt but she was still lovely to his eyes.

  “My Lady,” he said formally, in front of his officers. He glanced at the men. “Dismissed.”

  As soon as the tent flaps closed behind them, Khai drew Irisi into his arms, resting his head on top of hers.

  He needed it, as no doubt they both did. This was all the time he dared to take for himself and her, these few moments of comfort and peace. That was what he found in the scent of her hair, the feel of her as her arms slipped around him and her cheek came to rest against his chest. She smelled of sweat, blood, and Irisi. It didn’t matter.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “For what?” she asked.

  “For caring for my men,” Khai said. “Living and dead. Mine and yours.”

  So, he’d seen.

  Her chin quivered and she bowed her head against the strong muscles of his chest, remembering…

  Here she wasn’t the new High Priestess Irisi. In Khai’s arms, she was simply Irisi. Tears stung her eyes, tears she dared not shed, for once begun they would be difficult to stop. It had been a terrible duty, one she couldn’t bear to ask another to do, determining which had been wounded how and what needed to be done for them. To fold the arms of the dead across their chests or to give peace to those who were apparently, but not truly, alive.

  Leaning gratefully against him, she simply laid her head against the solid muscles of his chest and listened to the steady beat of his heart beneath her ear, his skin warm against her cheek. Solid, warm, and alive.

  A solitary tear slipped down her cheek. It was all she would allow herself. She took a breath. She dared not stay here too long or people would talk, they would wonder. Kamenwati awaited, in Thebes.

  “The wounded are safe to be moved,” she said, finally, lifting her head to look up at him, cupping his cheek in her hand to look into his eyes. “And you?”

  Khai loved the color of her eyes, they were like the finest lapis.

  He smiled a little. “Thanks to my four-footed guardian, I took only a few scratches.”

  She smiled a little as she extended her senses and eyed him. There was a scrape across his ribs that she could see, another across the back of one shoulder but neither gave sign of wound fever.

  Irisi gave him a chiding look all the same and gestured for him to show her.

  Obediently he stepped back, let his kalasaris drop from his shoulders.

  As always she sucked in her breath just to look at him, really look at him.

  He was so beautiful in face, body and in spirit. She would never grow accustomed to it. Never. Almost involuntarily, battling her own attraction to him, she skimmed a hand lightly across the strong muscles of his chest just for the pleasure the gesture gave her, before she gathered her wits about her once more.

  She couldn’t get enough of looking at him, brushing her thumb lightly across his lips. He kissed it. Beneath her fingers she could feel the contrast between the wiry hair of his beard and his smooth skin.

  Khai’s body grew taut as she touched him. The look in her eyes was more than gratifying as her fingers drifted over his skin, sending a shiver through him. He caught her hand beneath his, pressed it over his heart. He was completely unaware of the stinging of his ribs or the pain in his shoulder. There was only her touch. She lifted her free hand to his jaw once again, her fingers skimming over the line of his beard.

  “If there were more time,” Khai said, quietly, as he caught a lock of her silky hair in his fingers.

  He would have taken her right then and there on the sleeping pillows in the other section of the tent. So he could hold her, touch her…affirming life. Both his heart and his body tightened at the thought.

  Irisi quivered at his words and the intensity that lay behind them. She needed this as well, his touch…the comfort it would give both her and him.

  There was the pain in him; she could feel the sting of it.

  Her gaze flicked up to his for only a moment but Khai caught a glimpse of the heat in them before she mastered herself once again and turned to the task at hand. She curled her fingers carefully around the scrapes over his ribs. Healing warmth flowed into him, including the one in his heart, the grief and sorrow for the people he’d lost.

  Irisi forced herself to concentrate. Khai’s wounds weren’t deep, but they would be painful with each and every movement of his arm, every twist of his torso.

  It took only a little magic to Heal them.

  Khai admired her profile with his lips, keeping them soft on her cheekbone by her eye. Her lashes brushed against his own cheek before he ran a trail of kisses along the line of her jaw.

  The light touches sent a flood of warmth through her, even as she moved around behind him to address the wounds on his back.

  Irisi was standing behind him working on his shoulder when Baraka burst into the tent unannounced, his expression furious at the request Khai had sent for him to join Khai in Akhom’s command tent when he had a moment.

  It was poor timing.

  Khai felt Irisi go still and then the warmth of her Healing began to flow once again.

  It was clear she knew of Baraka’s ties to Kamenwati.

  Only Khai knew the light caress that drifted d
own his back as she finished, Baraka couldn’t see it from where he stood.

  Looking at the other General, Khai said, “The Lady Irisi informs me the wounded are set to travel. Will you arrange it?”

  Baraka looked mutinous – without the King’s approval, Khai had no real authority to command him, not yet – but the request was reasonable and the wounded needed to be transported, as well as the dead. Baraka’s surviving chariots, men and horses were the only transport available. The spare space on the supply wagons would be taken by the dead.

  The man fought a battle within himself, his expression eloquent, but then he lowered his head in acquiescence. “My men will be ready to leave as soon as the wounded are loaded.”

  Khai nodded in return.

  Turning abruptly on his heel, Baraka left.

  Quickly Khai caught Irisi as she went to follow, drawing her back into his arms if only for a moment.

  Irisi looked at him, torn between her desire and her fear for him.

  “Khai,” she said, softly, half in protest, half in need, knowing Baraka might be outside, watching and waiting for her to leave.

  Whatever Baraka saw, Irisi knew, he might report to Kamenwati.

  Still, she couldn’t resist touching Khai’s mouth, her fingers tracing his full lower lip once more.

  Just a taste, that was all Khai wanted, all he could dare ask for in this moment, to taste her, to feel her body turn lithe and liquid against his. There would be a time when he might take more, somehow, and soon, but this was no more the time than there had been the night before.

  He lowered his lips to hers as he drew her tightly against him, nearly crushing her against his body to feel every inch of her sweet body pressed close, the swell of her breasts, her hips pressed against his.

  Only a moment, long enough for her hands to close around his face in a wonder he could sense as he kissed her, her eyes slightly dazed and unfocused when he released her.

  She let out a breath as she looked up at him.

  Khai touched her cheek, and she turned it into his palm wistfully, smiling slightly.

  He felt her gather herself and let her step back.

  Irisi looked at him a moment, then let herself out.

  Baraka watched as she stepped out of the tent. Irisi gave him a cool nod as she went past, her face composed but her heart had been eased, if only for the moment…

  It would be a long journey to Thebes.

  The King stood on the veranda outside his rooms, looking out over the sun-lit city and country that he ruled. The buildings of his palace spread around him while those of the city reached beyond the high walls of his compound. Smoke from dozens of cooking fires rose into the midday air. It looked peaceful, serene. He was too far away to hear the sounds of life and living, but he knew it went on out there.

  Nearby his beloved Paniwi reclined, her dark eyes enigmatic as he and she listened to the reports of General Khai and the various priests and priestesses.

  Not least of them, the new High Priestess.

  The numbers were daunting. More than half the force they’d sent south had been wiped out. Their losses had been heavy, in more than one way. General Akhom, High Priestess Banafrit… With them a number of officers.

  He looked back at those who awaited his command. All looked weary, some more so than others.

  General Khai stood patiently among the priests and priestesses at one side, while General Baraka paced somewhat apart.

  Narmer didn’t miss the implications of what he saw.

  He had yet to name either man to lead the army in Akhom’s stead.

  It seemed, though, that Banafrit had had her wish in the end. The Goddess had chosen the foreigner to follow her. Even could he have argued that choice – although not even a King could gainsay the will of the Gods in that matter except at his peril – he wasn’t certain he would have.

  For all her apparent youth, there was an agelessness to the new High Priestess’s face and eyes that had been there from the first moment he’d met her, a stillness and wisdom he found remarkable.

  Mercenary and slave, warrior and priestess, she had those experiences on her side as well.

  He looked to Khai, feeling Kamenwati’s heavy presence at one side of the room, knowing his cousin’s preference in the matter. Once, Narmer might have given more weight to that opinion, for his love of his cousin.

  Those blinders were off, now.

  That preference didn’t serve Egypt well. Only Kamenwati.

  For all that Khai’s people were not of Egypt, the man himself had been born within its borders. His skill, experience and knowledge had earned him the right to lead. He’d also faced more real combat where Baraka had not.

  “So,” Narmer said, “it’s over then?”

  Khai took a breath. “For now. They appear to have withdrawn.”

  It was all he or the priests and priestesses could be sure of.

  “Your pardon, my lord King,” Baraka interrupted, tensely. “Lord Akhom led us bravely and we routed the enemy.”

  Narmer looked over the others waiting.

  “My Lady Irisi?” Narmer asked, of one who’d fought with mercenaries. “What does the High Priestess say?”

  Eyes the unearthly color of Nut’s sky met his evenly.

  Irisi felt Baraka and Kamenwati’s gazes settle hotly on her, as did the King’s. And Khai’s.

  She glanced at Kamenwati briefly, her gaze on his level, even, unchallenging and undaunted. The Grand Vizier narrowed his dark eyes in answer to her look. His jaw tightened.

  His anger didn’t matter. It was she, Irisi, who was High Priestess to Isis now, and as such, High Priestess over all the Gods save for Isis’s husband Osiris and her father Ra. Whatever his threats, Kamenwati dared not touch her directly, and his wishes or threats couldn’t and wouldn’t have any effect on the decisions she made. Lives depended on her. She wouldn’t allow it.

  “With all due respect to Lord Akhom,” Irisi said, looking once again at the King, “he led well but died before the battle was over. General Khai did his best to organize and rouse the troops and very nearly might have won if the enemy hadn’t quit the field rather than be beaten.”

  Khai had been in the thick of the battle while Baraka had stood back.

  Narmer’s glance at Kahotep and Djeserit confirmed they agreed with her assessment.

  Khai looked at his King, the man he willingly served. He couldn’t escape the feeling this war wasn’t yet over. In fact, it had hardly begun.

  “That’s the source of my concern. Djinn have never fought together,” he said. “In all history there’s no record of anything like it. Now they have and we were very nearly defeated.”

  If Banafrit’s dying spell hadn’t done as much damage to the enemy as it had they might well have been and he knew it.

  “We don’t even know why they chose this time to move against us,” Khai said. “Djinn have always been solitary. How could we move against them? And so we didn’t. There’s been no threat to them. Why did they attack?”

  That worried him. What had been their purpose? He could see none.

  Egypt sent her armies out for a reason – because she’d been attacked, to conquer and claim valuable land or resources – but never on a whim. What had triggered this? For what had the Djinn come? What had they to gain? They seemed to have gained nothing and lost much. It made no sense.

  “However, now they’ve learned how to fight together, and learned that they can. They’ve discovered that as a unit they can conquer whole villages. Even a Kingdom. The question isn’t whether they will try again, but rather when and in what numbers.”

  Narmer understood Khai’s his concern. In fact, he shared it.

  He had another fear, as well. The Kingdom of Kush, to their south. A neighbor, but not always a friendly one. They were weak there now. Should Kush learn of it…?

  And there were other enemies as well.

  “General Khai, the southern fort leaves us vulnerable. It must be remanned. In
this you act in my name.”

  It was tacit acceptance of Khai as his new chief General.

  Khai caught the dark look on Kamenwati’s face, the quick flash of fury in the other man’s eyes.

  Stiffening a little, he saw Baraka’s mouth tighten, too, but it was the King’s will.

  In time, Khai knew, Baraka would come to accept it. He wasn’t a bad man, just an ambitious one. Khai could understand that although ambition wasn’t what drove him.

  The weight of command settled over him, the pressure of the responsibility for all the armies of Egypt at those times when the King himself didn’t lead them into battle.

  Nor was the staffing of the southern fort something that could wait. As Narmer had stated and he well knew. If their enemies learned of its fall, they might have another threat on their hands.

  And there were still the Djinn.

  Irisi’s eyes met his as the King dismissed them. What little hope they’d had of time together was gone. Once more they were forced apart.

  Resigned to it, Khai nodded as well.

  He caught up to her in a corridor, drew her into an alcove and his arms.

  “Khai,” she said, half in longing, half in fear, glancing back over his shoulder even as she touched his cheek.

  “I must go south,” he said, his hand in her silken hair.

  He had to leave, and immediately, as he knew she knew. They were too vulnerable in the south, and he didn’t know what to expect there. The King would expect him to, given their defenselessness there. Neither he nor the King knew how long the fort could remain unstaffed before their enemies – and not just the Djinn – discovered it. He had to gather the necessary men and go, swiftly.

  Irisi’s breath caught, even though she’d guessed as much. “And I must yet take Banafrit home to Awan and then prepare her for her journey to the Afterlife…”

  They’d come first to the palace, their first duty to speak to the King, to inform him of what had passed in the desert. Each had their responsibilities.

  She couldn’t leave Thebes. Khai couldn’t stay

  Khai’s mouth closed over hers hungrily, his need for her drawing her against him even as he held her close.

  “When I return…,” he said.