by Mike Lee
Hekhmenukep glanced up from his work just as the messenger wound his way nimbly past the parked wagons and raced past the watchful Ushabti into the king’s court. The Lybaran king glanced bemusedly from Rakh-amn-hotep to the wide-eyed boy.
“Yes? What is it?” he asked.
“There is a sun-sign from Shesh-amun,” the boy said, referring to the Lybaran champion in charge of the allied vanguard. “He says: enemy horsemen east of the sacred springs.”
“Damnation,” Rakh-amn-hotep growled, his scarred hands clenching into fists. “Is the enemy present in strength?” The messenger took a step back at the king’s fierce tone.
“A thousand pardons, great one. He did not say.”
“Shesh-amun wouldn’t have reported otherwise,” Hekhmenukep said calmly. The news did not please the Rasetran king. He turned to Hekhmenukep.
“I thought you said that the Bronze Host was drawing Nagash’s army to Bel Aliad,” he said.
“Indeed,” the Lybaran king replied, and then gave a thoughtful shrug. “Perhaps Nagash chose to split his forces instead. If so, that could still work in our favour.”
“If we were in possession of the sacred springs, I would agree with you,” Rakh-amn-hotep growled. “As it is, our stocks of water are very low. If we don’t get to the springs very soon, the heat will kill our troops quicker than Nagash could.”
Hekhmenukep frowned. “How long?” he asked.
The Rasetran king bit back a surge of irritation. How could he not know the needs of his own army?
“A day or two. Certainly no more,” Rakh-amn-hotep declared, “and it’s nearly mid-afternoon now.” The king began to pace across the rugs, considering his options. If they were very, very lucky, the enemy cavalry was nothing more than a scouting force, or the vanguard of the Khemri army. Reaching a decision, he glanced back at the Lybaran king. “I’m going forward to take command of the vanguard and see what we’re facing,” he declared, and then turned to Ekhreb. “Gather up a mixed force of light infantry and bowmen, plus all the horsemen you can lay your hands on, and join me as quickly as you are able,” he ordered. Ekhreb nodded, rising swiftly to his feet.
“What is your plan?” the champion asked.
The question seemed to amuse the Rasetran king. “My plan?” he said. “I’m going to head down the road with all the warriors I can muster and kill every living thing between me and the springs.” He slapped Ekhreb on the shoulder. “Don’t tarry, old friend,” he said, and hurried from the camp, shouting for his charioteers in a gruff voice.
Warning shouts rose above the clamour as trumpets wailed across the battlefield and Bel Aliad’s barbarian troops let out a ragged, hungry shout. Akhmen-hotep hefted his notched and bloodstained khopesh and bellowed hoarsely, “Here they come again! Make ready!”
Horns blared, signalling the Bronze Host and the distant priests, and with a clatter of metal and wood the infantry companies made ready once more. The battle had raged for hours, ebbing and flowing across the corpse-strewn plain. Akhmen-hotep’s plan to put the barbarian mercenaries to flight with a single, swift charge had failed, and despite heavy losses the barbarians had refused to break. They fought with a reckless courage that bordered upon desperation.
More than once over the course of the bloody battle, the king wondered what fearful things the merchant princes had told them about their overlord in Khemri. Had it not been for a timely charge by Pakh-amn’s chariots on the left flank, the army would have been surrounded during the first attack. The Master of Horse had proven his worth time and again over the course of the day, driving off cavalry attacks and saving the light infantry on his flank from utter destruction.
Except for the discipline and skill of the veteran companies of the Bronze Host, the battle would have already been lost. Time and again they withstood showers of deadly arrows and the crushing weight of the barbarian infantry attacks. The enemy mercenaries had been reduced to four ragged companies, and the fire from the Zandri archers had dwindled, suggesting that they were running low on arrows.
A unit of light horsemen still lurked at the edge of the enemy’s right flank. They had already caught Akhmen-hotep’s light infantry in two surprise charges and mauled them severely, and were watching for another chance to strike. The king regretted having sent the Bhagarite horsemen to the rear and had despatched a messenger to recall them, but that had been nearly two hours ago, and they had yet to reappear.
As the weary veterans closed ranks and readied their spears, Akhmen-hotep caught sight of a ripple of movement across the battlefield. Bel Aliad’s chariots and its two City Companies, which had been held in reserve since the battle began, were marching forward in the centre of the enemy battleline. It was late in the afternoon, and his troops were exhausted, as were the enemy mercenaries. The merchant princes had come to the conclusion that the next attack would decide the battle. Looking over his battered troops, the king thought that they were probably right.
“Messenger!” Akhmen-hotep cried, and a boy dashed up to the side of the king’s chariot. “Tell the archers to concentrate their fire on the City Companies,” he ordered. The runner repeated the order word-for-word and dashed off to the waiting bowmen. For a moment, the king debated on sending another messenger back to the priests, to beg for one more appeal to the gods, but he changed his mind with a shrug. The gods were not blind. They could see how desperate the situation was. If they withheld their power the war was already lost. The king swept his blade down in a wide arc.
“Forward!” he called to his men, and the formation of chariots began to move. They were a few dozen yards behind the main battleline, positioned between the two veteran companies. The gap was currently being covered by a small company of light infantry the king had shifted over from the left flank. The weary aspirants felt the chariots approaching and gratefully withdrew. Their capes were torn and bloodstained, and many of them carried bent or splintered javelins recovered from the bodies of the slain. A few raised their weapons in salute to the king as they filed past the advancing chariots and went into reserve.
The clamour of the enemy troops grew louder as the barbarians picked up the pace. Their savage nature drew them to battle like moths to a flame, and they began to outstrip the measured pace of the City Companies. Then the first volley of arrows from the Ka-Sabar archers hissed overhead, plunging in a deadly rain among the enemy infantry. Men staggered, pierced through their thin leather vests or bronze skullcaps. The screams of the wounded galvanised the mercenaries, who had suffered one terrible volley after another for most of the day. Their hoarse war cries turned to frenzied screams as they broke into a wild charge, hoping to come to grips with their enemies before the archers could fire again.
Men shouted orders among the veteran companies, and the Bronze Host steeled itself to receive the charge. Akhmen-hotep felt a glimmer of hope as the mercenaries broke ranks with the city troops. He watched the advancing chariots carefully, waiting to see how the merchant princes would react. The line of war machines hesitated for a moment, and then a ragged chorus of war-horns sounded and the chariots surged forwards, trying to lend their weight to the mercenaries’ attack.
Akhmen-hotep smiled fiercely. It appeared that the gods were smiling on them after all. The king studied the pace of the charging enemy troops, waiting for the moment when the mercenaries had committed to their attacks.
The enemy infantry swept in from left and right, converging on the solid ranks of bronze-armoured spearmen. They ignored the aspirants, having learned from bitter experience that the javelin men would only fall back in the face of their charge and leave them exposed to further arrow fire. For their part, the aspirants waited patiently, hefting their barbed weapons. Once the melee began, they would rush in and hurl their shafts point-blank into the mercenaries’ flanks.
The two forces came together in a thunderous crash of wood and metal. Both veteran companies staggered under the impact, but the strength of Geheb filled them, and they bore up beneath the assa
ult. Barbarians fell beneath the Host’s stabbing spears or were dashed to the ground by bronze-rimmed shields, but they pressed forwards in a bestial frenzy, hacking with notched axes and blunted blades. Though their limbs were hard as teak and their bodies clad in fine bronze scales, here and there a foe-man’s weapon would find its mark, and a warrior of Ka-Sabar would topple to the ground.
In that moment of contact, while the barbarians were focused on the enemies before them and the City Companies were struggling beneath a hail of arrows, the chariots of the merchant princes were in the middle ground between the two forces, alone and unsupported. Akhmen-hotep grinned fiercely and raised his sword.
“Charge!” he ordered.
Trumpets wailed, and with a fierce shout the heavy chariots of the Bronze Host thundered forwards, passing between the struggling infantry companies and crashing into the mingled flanks of two barbarian companies. Heavy, bronze-rimmed wheels and scythe-like blades tore through the milling troops, crushing limbs and splitting torsos. Bowstrings hummed as archers fired into the howling mass of warriors. At such close range the powerful arrows punched clean through their targets and often struck the man next in line. Noblemen and Ushabti lashed out at the mercenaries with their curved swords, striking down at their exposed heads and shoulders and inflicting terrible wounds.
The barbarians gave way before the fearsome charge within moments, retreating away to either flank of the terrible chariots, and Akhmen-hotep drove them onwards, through the enemy battleline and directly at the advancing merchant princes. The nobles of Bel Aliad saw the huge bronze war machines bearing down on them and their formation came to a panicked halt, like a caravan in the face of a sudden, vicious sandstorm. Though greater in number than the chariots of Ka-Sabar, they were far lighter and no real match for the veteran warriors of the Bronze Host. Several noblemen around the edges of the formation tried to turn their machines around and scurry out of the way of the oncoming wall of flesh and metal, while others surged forwards in a bold display of resolve. The result was disorder and chaos, robbing the formation of much of its strength at a critical moment.
Arrows snapped back and forth through the air as bowmen of both formations traded shots. One arrow struck the lip of Akhmen-hotep’s chariot and ricocheted, striking him in the hip. The king swatted the arrow away as though it were a stinging fly. Horses and men screamed as other arrows found their marks, but the sounds were lost in a swirling, crashing roar as the formations came together.
Akhmen-hotep heard his charioteer let out a warning yell, and the chariot swerved to the right. An enemy chariot swept past, almost too fast to follow. The scythe-like blade fixed to the hub of the heavier Ka-Sabar chariot struck the enemy machine in the flank and ripped the wicker hull apart in a shower of splintered reeds. The bowman in the chariot let fly a wild shot that snapped past the king’s head, and then they were lost in the dust of the swirling melee.
The battlefield shook with the clash of arms and the screams of the dying. To Akhmen-hotep’s left, the Ushabti in his chariot lashed out with his ritual sword at a passing enemy machine, his fearsome strength slashing open the enemy chariot’s hull and chopping apart its driver. Off to the right, lost in the haze, there was a splintering of wood and a broken chariot wheel soared through the air behind the king’s speeding chariot.
Akhmen-hotep leaned against the front of his chariot and tried to make sense of the confusion around him. He searched for the blurry shapes of banners, trying to find Bel Aliad’s leader. One quick challenge could end the battle, if the merchant princes still possessed a shred of honour.
A rumble of wheels thundered in from the right, and a Bel-Aliad chariot charged out of the dust. The charioteer angled his machine expertly, passing the king’s vehicle on the right quarter. The archer in the back of the chariot drew his bow and fired, just as Akhmen-hotep lashed out with his sword. The arrow struck the king at the rounded part of his shoulder, punching through the bronze scales and sinking deep into the flesh beneath, but not before the king’s sword had sliced through the charioteer’s right arm. The man let out an anguished scream and fell onto his side, causing the horses to veer suddenly to the left and flip the chariot over.
The king pulled the arrow free with a snarl and cast it aside, feeling hot blood spread across the inside of his armour. As near as he could reckon, they had penetrated nearly all the way through the enemy formation. He heard a distant, surf-like surge of noise, to his left, but it was too far away to matter to the king at that moment. He glanced wildly in every direction, looking for a sign of the enemy leader.
There! Off to the right and a few dozen yards ahead, he spied a knot of stationary chariots flying a profusion of brightly coloured banners. It had to be the enemy prince and his bodyguards. Akhmen-hotep brought them to the attention of his charioteer by gesturing with his sword, and the man swung the war machine around. They bore down on the enemy like a hurled spear, aimed directly for the chariot in the centre of the group.
The prince and his retinue saw the danger at once, but there was little time to get their horses moving. Two of the bodyguards tried to push forwards and bar Akhmen-hotep’s path, but their horses could not get moving quickly enough. Instead, the king’s chariot struck the prince’s machine like a thunderbolt, smashing the wicker hull to pieces and flipping it onto its side.
Akhmen-hotep leapt from the still-moving chariot and rushed towards a tall, lean warrior clad in burnished bronze armour and desert robes of brilliant yellow and blue. His men, an archer whose arm had been clearly broken in the crash and his unarmed charioteer, both threw their bodies into the king’s path, but Akhmen-hotep hurled them aside like children. Still, it bought the prince enough time to draw his blade and prepare for the king’s attack.
The prince of Bel Aliad was a brave man, but no warrior. His scimitar slashed at Akhmen-hotep’s face in a clumsy, backhand blow that the king smashed contemptuously aside. His return stroke blurred through the air and came to rest against the prince’s throat.
“Yield to me, Suhedir al-Khazem,” Akhmen-hotep growled, “or prepare to greet your ancestors in the afterlife.”
The prince swayed on his feet. His sword fell from his trembling hand.
“I yield. By all the gods, I yield!” he said, sagging to his knees, as though overcome by a terrible burden, and reaching up to pull away his yellow head scarf. The prince’s face was youthful but haggard, gaunt and pinched with strain. “Spare my people, great one, and all the riches of Bel Aliad will be yours!” Relief washed over the King of Ka-Sabar, but he kept his expression stern and inscrutable.
“We are not monsters,” he said to the prince. “You have dealt with us honourably, and we will treat you in kind. Signal your men to cease fighting, and we will discuss terms of ransom.”
The prince called to his trumpeter, and gladly gave the order. From the look on the man’s face, Akhmen-hotep thought that he was happy to have lost the battle. He no longer had to heed the orders of the monster that crouched on the throne at Khemri.
Horns sounded again and again, cutting through the din of battle. It was several long minutes before the clamour subsided and the dust began to settle. A cheer went up from the Bronze Host, and then was suddenly cut short by confused shouts and angry cries. Bemused, Akhmen-hotep looked to the prince, but Suhedir al-Khazem looked mystified as well.
The rumble of a chariot approached hurriedly from the north-west. Within moments Akhmen-hotep spied Pakh-amn’s battered chariot racing towards them across the battlefield. As he drew nearer, the king could see the stricken expression on the young noble’s face.
“What is it?” Akhmen-hotep cried as the chariot rumbled to a halt. “What has happened?” Pakh-amn looked in dread at Suhedir-al-Khazem, and then addressed his king.
“The messenger has returned from camp,” the nobleman replied. Akhmen-hotep frowned.
“Well? What of it?” he asked.
“He could not find the Bhagarite horsemen,” Pakh-amn said in a gr
im voice. “The camp guards said they never arrived.”
The king was confused for a moment.
“But where else would they go?” he began, and then his blood ran cold. Slowly, he turned, casting his eyes to the north, in the direction of Bel Aliad. Suhedir al-Khazem, listening to the exchange, let out a despairing cry.
The first tendrils of smoke were rising above the distant City of Spices.
FIFTEEN
Lessons in Death
Khemri, the Living City, in the 45th year of Ptra the Glorious
(-1959 Imperial Reckoning)
The great architects of Khemri had spared no expense to provide for the late King Khetep’s every spiritual need in the afterlife. They built vaults within the Great Pyramid to hold tall jars of grain and dried fish, candied dates, wine and honey. There were rooms filled with luxurious furnishings, and chests of cedar wood packed with rich garments for the king to wear. Another chamber held a brace of mummified falcons and the king’s favourite bow, in case he wished to go hunting in the fields of paradise. Still other chambers contained the king’s mummified horses, and a great chariot made of bronze and gilded wood.
There was even a long, low chamber containing a fine river boat, complete with mummified oarsmen, in the event that the mighty king desired to ply the great River of Death.
The finest chamber of all was built far above the king’s burial vaults, set in the very heart of the Great Pyramid. There, the architects had built a glorious throne room, complete with soaring columns and flagstones of polished marble. A noble dais stood at the far end of the throne room, and upon it stood a single throne, wrought not of wood but of darkest, polished obsidian. Flanking the throne stood towering statues of Ptra and Djaf, their faces stern, but their hands raised in welcome.