If the attack hadn’t come at night more might have survived.
An eerie wailing awoke Ashai, horrible cries that chilled his bones. Some intuition warned him this was his last night on earth. Desperately, he bundled up his plans, his notes, and shoved them into the space he’d found behind the bricks of his room. If he didn’t survive this night, if nothing remained to remember him by, there would be this. He scrabbled to scatter sand before his hidden cache.
Behind him, the door burst open.
Seeing what entered, Ashai tried to flee, weeping, but there was no escape.
Nor was he alone.
Shouts and cries awakened Baki from his troubled sleep. As his door crashed open, he leaped to his feet.
“Oba?” he said, at the sight of the man who entered his chambers. A man he’d considered his friend. “What is it?”
Then he saw the terrible red glitter in the eyes of the man who’d once been his friend. His belly went cold. Even before Oba’s sword speared him he knew he would die that night.
Some held, buying others time at the cost of their own lives while a few fought free and raced for Thebes to give warning.
The Djinn had been loosed upon Egypt once again.
It wasn’t Thebes that came under attack next, though, but the town by the first cataract, Aswan.
Unprepared for the assault, the guards at the gates fell first and as silently as those in the villages.
Firelit darkness, smoke and shadow flowed through the streets. Cries and screams of desperation and outrage were smothered by the walls. More followed.
It was a nightmare.
A few escaped northward.
Most didn’t.
The Djinn feasted, grew stronger.
Those who did escape, though, warned those in the villages they passed as they fled. The Djinn were on the move once more.
The exodus began, moving north.
Although he had quarters in the city, Khai spent many evenings with his officers in camp. He was still reorganizing and reassessing his troops. They’d lost so many good officers in their first confrontation with the Djinn. He dared not leave Egypt’s borders so poorly defended.
A commotion in camp brought him out of his tent at a run.
Watching the drivers come through, some bent in their chariots, obviously grievously wounded, a familiar, sick feeling went through him. He recognized the drivers and the desperation in them.
As much as he wanted to deny it, he knew what had come.
“Send to the temples for healers,” he shouted to a messenger.
He took a breath to steady himself and waited for the men to reach him.
Looking at them as they saluted, his heart aching for them he saluted them in return, and said, “The Djinn have returned.”
One of the men looked at him and took a breath. “Yes, my lord.”
The soldier’s eyes were sick and frightened. He swayed visibly in his saddle. Scores were visible over his torso. Fever glittered in his eyes. None of them had wanted to stop to tend their wounded. They’d come straight to him, to report.
Khai signaled for another messenger.
“Go to my Lady Irisi at the temple of Isis. Give her that message as well.”
As much as he wished to tell her himself, he must inform the King first. That was his duty.
The messenger raced away.
It seemed that now they knew what that dark magic in the night had been about.
The guards at the palace doors knew Irisi well and passed her without question into the King’s presence in response to his summons. Awan, Kahotep and Djeserit were beside her. Having received his message as well it was no surprise to find Khai awaiting them, but it was a relief of sorts to see him and her heart lightened a little.
His expression, though, was grim. That didn’t bode well.
Then she felt other eyes on her and turned to find Kamenwati’s black gaze fixed on her, his face impassive. Something dark and unsettling moved behind that gaze.
She met his eyes evenly, expressionlessly, though it chilled her, and lowered her head politely before she bowed to the King.
“My Lord Narmer,” she said as the King inclined his head in greeting.
According to tradition she was considered his equal.
His councilors were arrayed around him, most with expressions as forbidding as Khai’s.
“Lady Irisi,” Narmer said, inclining his head to each of the other priests and priestesses in acknowledgment of their presence.
Irisi had received his summons only a short time after Khai’s message so the summons from the King hadn’t been unexpected.
Nor had Khai’s message been entirely unanticipated.
The first refugees from the south had reached the temple. She’d been about to send a message to both he and Narmer when his had arrived.
“General Khai informs me the Djinn have returned,” Narmer said. “The southern fort has fallen once again, despite all efforts to defend it. Only a few survived.”
Irisi looked at Khai, her heart wrenching for him. Those losses would grieve him. She could see the pain in his eyes.
She turned to the King and his councilors.
Her breath caught as she realized that was all they knew… She glanced at Kahotep and Djeserit, who shared her dismay.
The King didn’t know.
“Have you had word from Aswan?” she asked, her stomach clenching.
A frown creasing his forehead, the King on his throne sat up slowly as beside him Khai stiffened, his gold-touched eyes going to hers.
“Aswan?” Narmer asked, his voice tense. “We’ve heard nothing.”
Irisi dared not glance at Narmer’s advisors, especially Kamenwati. She had little doubt they’d cast the few peasants that reached them aside.
Even so, Aswan, although smaller than Thebes, was no village. It was the southernmost city in Egypt before the first cataract in the south, the gateway into Egypt from the Kush and other nations to the south, and an important trade center.
Slowly, Irisi nodded. “We’ve begun receiving refugees from there…”
Everyone went still. Around the room, there were murmurs of concern from the councilors. Some looked aside, while others were earnest, but none were willing to admit they’d heard the cries of the unfortunate, only to turn them away.
“What have you learned?” Narmer asked, looking at his High Priestess even as his stomach sank.
The look on her face warned him, her azure blue eyes apologetic. It was clear that what she would say would be a hard blow. She gazed at him in return, her eyes shadowed, grief and sorrow clear in them.
“It was falling as they fled. The last they saw smoke was rising from within the city. Not the smoke of the Djinn, or at least, not that alone. A great deal of it, parts of the city appeared to be in flames…”
Given it was the Djinn and they were creatures of fire, it was no surprise.
Narmer’s breath caught, looking first at Irisi and then to the other priests for confirmation.
That glance was telling.
Each priest and priestess met his eyes evenly but the look in them was the same.
Aswan had fallen.
It shook him.
Aswan was nearly as large as Thebes. The loss of life was incalculable.
“Is this then the darkness of which the prophecy spoke?” he asked, looking to Kahotep. “Has it finally come?”
Going still, Irisi felt Narmer’s question echo through and within her.
A breathless silence fell as her eyes went to Khai, to hold his for a moment as they waited for Kahotep to answer in the way she feared, in the way she knew he would, he must. Part of her wanted to cry out in protest. Another knew this was as it must, as it should, be.
She could feel it, as the hands of fate settled onto her shoulders, and not lightly.
Her heart skipped a beat…slowed…
She didn’t want it to be true, but in her heart and soul she knew it was.
&
nbsp; Her gaze went to Kahotep.
The prophecy echoed in Kahotep, too, almost like a death knell as he looked at Irisi, both friend and fellow priest. He was intensely aware of her presence…even as the voice of his God filled him and spoke through him.
The head of the God Horus bowed in return, in honor, and in regret.
Compelled, Kahotep/Horus repeated the words of the prophecy He’d spoken on Narmer’s naming day, the day Narmer had been named to be heir to the throne of all Egypt.
“A darkness rises, O Pharaoh, to be unleashed across the world. It comes as a shadow that rises from the desert to lay waste to all of Egypt, scouring the earth as it passes. Death and destruction follow in its wake, and the cries of the people of the world are terrible. From the north comes a warrior, a crowned and golden Servant of the Gods with eyes like the sky, bearing swords in hand to rise up and drive the terrible darkness out of the world, and to stand against it for all time.”
There was a pause.
Horus’s voice spoke clearly, each word a death knell.
“That time has now come.”
Irisi’s breath caught.
Her eyes were locked on Khai’s as Horus’s words echoed through the room like a great gong being struck.
Khai heard the words, felt them, as all eyes turned to Irisi. As did his.
No.
A golden warrior.
That was how Khai himself had first seen her, his beloved Irisi.
Somehow in that moment he knew the prophecy was true. In the despair and resolution in Irisi’s eyes he could see she did, too. It wasn’t in her to turn away from a fight, any more than it was in him.
The moment of prophecy was upon them.
Irisi let out a sigh as her eyes turned to her King, aware of Kamenwati’s regard once again, the look in his glance speculative, even triumphant.
Narmer’s gaze met hers. She met it evenly.
Slowly, the King nodded.
“There is hope then for Egypt, whom we all serve,” he said. “Eat, sleep. We ride out at first light.”
Time was running out.
The room the King had assigned her was larger by far than Irisi’s quarters in the temple. It was magnificently appointed with fine teak furniture and gilded marble statues of the gods in niches along the walls. A large table to one side held an alabaster bowl filled with fruit.
A huge bed dominated the space.
Irisi barely noticed any of it. She felt numb, oddly still…
“Khai,” she said, turning to him. Reaching for him.
He’d followed her, openly.
Khai looked into her azure eyes as he took her hand.
It wasn’t the warrior who looked back at him but the woman. It wasn’t the one who was prophesied to stand against time and darkness but the one he loved with all his heart and soul.
Not the child of foresight, but the one of flesh and blood.
Irisi. His Irisi.
He tangled his hands in her hair to crush his mouth down on hers in both despair and passion. His mouth was avid on hers as he lifted her from her feet, his arms around her as he drove her back against the cold marble-faced wall while her arms closed around him. She clung to him as desperately as he did her.
Irisi heart shattered as Khai’s mouth possessed hers.
All her fears disappeared in the taste and feel of him against her.
She slammed against the stone, heedless of it as Khai devoured her mouth. She fisted her hands in his thick hair, her mouth wild beneath his, needing the taste of him, the feel of him, something to anchor her to this world. Something to hold her here in this moment, to this place, in Khai’s arms. She wanted that memory.
Khai buried his mouth against her throat to feel her pulse hammer against it, to feel the life there, Irisi’s life.
His hands slid up her thighs, boosted her higher as he drove his knee up between them.
She let her head fall back before his assault, one hand clutching at his shoulders, the other buried in his hair as he devoured her throat.
With both hands, he ripped open the fine, fragile material of her dress.
Jewels spattered across the floor as the fine linen gave way to his passion and need.
And hers.
Irisi cried out as his mouth found her breast and feasted on it, savaged it. Pain and pleasure mixed as his hands closed around her bottom, lifted her higher on his thigh, opening her most sacred places for his invasion.
Clinging to him, she let him ravage her. His mouth was hot and hard on her as he thrust his fingers up inside her, first one, then another, pumping, driving her wild. A third stretched her as her hips thrust. Need and want blinded her to everything but him.
Khai heard her cries and turned to let her fall across the bed. He drove himself up into her tight, wet heat even as she pulsed around him, her hands clutching at him
Another cry burst out of her as Khai plunged into her. Almost of their own will, her hips pumped to take him deeper, to take all of him. She wanted, needed to feel all the long length of him within her.
Thrusting hard, pounding into her, Khai took her, every inch of her his, all his… Not fate’s and not the Gods, but his, his Irisi. He hammered into her as she took him. He battered the very depths of her as she cried out. Claiming her as his.
She was his. His. Not a thing of prophecy but his and his alone.
He bowed his head against her, against the truth, even as he took her.
Struggling to brace herself, Irisi lifted to meet him, frantic for the feel of him…for the sense of being alive, of being loved.
Irisi felt him erupt, pouring into her, his body rigid, vibrating as he emptied, spilling his seed inside her…
Khai collapsed, drawing Irisi’s limp form into the curve of his body, into the protection and safety of his arms. He held her as tightly as she clung to him.
He touched his forehead to hers.
“The Gods be damned,” he said, softly, despite the futility of the gesture. “You are mine. My heart, my soul, and they cannot have you.”
Irisi reached up to touch his face, knowing the truth of it as he did, of all of it and knowing what it was he truly said.
So she gave him the words that would bind her to him as he’d bound himself to her, husband to wife.
It was no little thing to their people, or to those of Egypt.
“And you are mine.”
That was all that was needed. No ceremony could bind them more truly. The Gods understood what was in their hearts.
Her heart ached, knowing what awaited them.
With their arms wrapped around each other, exhausted, they found sleep at last.
Chapter Twenty Eight
It was like looking upon the Nile in flood but it wasn’t water that spread along the bank of the gleaming river but an army, a great wave of warriors, horses and chariots that fanned out across the green riverside. Tall standards marked the regiments as they marched south. Weapons glittered. In the sky above, a few of Kahotep’s falcons soared.
Like a horde of locusts, from the south came the Djinn to meet them, ravaging everything they touched. Behind them they left nothing but devastation. It was disturbing to see, like watching locusts descend upon a field. One moment life, golden, glorious, abundant, the next dark, empty and barren.
The numbers were daunting…They were a great scourge…
Some of their scouts returned, their faces pale, but not all.
Word from behind the lines of the Djinn was scant. Little survived. What did was hunted.
On the highest rise facing them, the King stood in his chariot beside his charioteer, his spears and bow at hand, watching and waiting, poised for war.
Narmer listened to their reports, his expression stern and unrelenting, but there was anger there, too, at the loss of life.
Around him were a number of his Nubian Guard. To one side were General Baraka and the King’s cousin, the Grand Vizier Kamenwati, with their forces arrayed before them. Both were in
their chariots, both armed. To his other rode General Khai and the High Priestess Irisi. Her golden curls blew loose in the breeze, save for thin braids at each side of her fine-boned face. She wore little more than the other soldiers, a short pleated battle kilt and a halter. Leather guards encircled her wrists to protect them from the slip of a blade. Her swords were in a harness at her back, within easy reach of her hands. Her lions lay in the grass beside her chariot.
She looked surprisingly fierce, and Narmer was reminded that once she’d been a barbarian mercenary. He remembered watching her fight.
Flanking her on her far side were the priest Kahotep and the priestess Djeserit. Before them were more of the Goddess Sekhmet’s priests and priestesses, all armed.
All waited as he did for the right moment.
They’d spent hours on the journey here talking tactics, planning strategy, considering all possible alternatives…
Now they would see the fruit of those plans.
Watching the Djinn come, Irisi glanced at Khai.
It was time.
At the sight of the waiting army there was a great outcry from the oncoming Djinn, a sound of joy and hunger.
With a cry the undisciplined Djinn raced to close the distance between them.
“Generals, to your men,” Narmer shouted.
Khai looked at Irisi, his heart wrenching, but the front line was where he needed to be if they were to have a chance to win here.
And there was the Prophecy…however he might wish to deny it.
Their eyes met, held for only a second and then he turned his horses. With Irisi’s lion Nebi running beside his chariot, Khai snapped his reins. His horses surged toward his men as Baraka gave the signal to his charioteer and they raced off, too.
Narmer raised his sword, held it, a signal to all the army.
Sunlight glittered from the blade, as if Ra himself gave his blessing.
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