The man froze, his gaze fastened on Merys. Gesturing in her direction, he yelled orders in a guttural language.
Merys screamed and ran wildly toward the path to town. I must warn my people!
Four or five of the enemy warriors moved to cut her off. Merys looked from one pitiless face to the next as they advanced to grab her and knew she was in terrible peril.
A major sandstorm had created a sandbar in the center of the river. Flotsam and jetsam drifted onto the sand, building an impromptu dam. Fully engaged in his task, Bek toiled to clear this portion of the Nile. Clogged with sand, Mother River spread out aimlessly across the nearby plains where her bounty did no good. The fields downstream would suffer if this wasn’t corrected, diminishing the annual harvest and resulting in famine.
Bek strove and worked with his powers but a nagging sense of unease plagued him. Something is wrong.
The feeling persisted until at last he had finished, and the Nile flowed serenely on its appointed course again. Bek shifted from his crocodile form and stood on the bank as a human, trying to understand where this foreboding came from, what it could possibly signify. He eyed the skies above, sent his thoughts questing along the channels linking the world of the Great Ones.
Nothing.
Only one thing in my life might affect me in this fashion—a threat to Merys. Sudden, raw fear stabbed his heart.
As quickly as the thought arrived, he stood on the bluff overlooking their small beach. Although it was full daylight and Merys’s daily routine had her arriving at the shore near twilight, he was drawn to this spot. Marks scored the sand where small boats must have beached fairly recently. With growing apprehension, he assessed tracks covering the entire beach—a large party of men. The main column of footprints headed off toward the village over the dunes.
Readying himself to go check on the village, Bek caught a flash of blue from the corner of his eye. A torn scrap of fabric. Appearing on the beach in the blink of an eye he plucked the remnants of a dress from the damp sand. Merys had worn this dress often. He recognized the border print of shells and flowers.
His gut clenching, he scanned the area and at last found her, lying under the palm trees. She was naked, bruised and bleeding. Terror for her flooded his mind as he ran to her side.
Falling to his knees beside her, he held her in his arms, infuriated by the awful bruises all over her body, the blood, even bite marks. Her wrists were cruelly bound and he shifted one hand to claws in a blaze of green fire and slashed through the ropes. Hugging her close to his chest, rocking back and forth in the sand, he offered what comfort he could. She drew a shallow, rasping breath and opened one eye—the other was too swollen to lift the bruised lid. She tried to smile for him. “Bek.” Her voice wasn’t even a whisper, but he heard it and his heart ached as if it were cracking into pieces.
He summoned his powers, attempted to heal her, but her injuries were far more severe than the wound his crocodile had inflicted. I’m no healer of humans like other Great Ones. I’m only a clumsy animal. Useless to her right now. All he could do was hold her and gently smooth her hair.
“Enemy…enemy soldiers. Tried to run. Tried to warn the village,” she whispered.
“Shh, don’t talk. Save your strength.” He kissed her cracked and swollen lips.
“I wouldn’t tell them anything. Made them angry. Then they said they wanted some sport after—after long voyage. Said there would be other women to take as slaves.” Tears crept slowly down her bruised cheek. “I called for you. I screamed for you.” She raised a shaky hand to touch his face. She couldn’t seem to catch her breath properly. Bek sensed her heart was slowing, missing beats. Merys managed a half smile. “And you came.”
He bowed his head, closed his eyes for a heartbeat in pain, whispered, “Not soon enough. Not nearly soon enough, beloved. Can you forgive me?” He opened his eyes and met her broken gaze. “I love you.”
She died in his arms.
He threw back his head and screamed his rage and frustration with such force the ground trembled and the Nile ran in fierce waves.
“I’ll fix this. I’ll take care of you,” he pledged, broken. He placed a preservation spell over her poor, abused body and conjured a soft blanket to wrap her. Taking her in his arms, he stood and dematerialized.
Bek appeared in the throne room of the Great Ones, cradling Merys protectively. One glance told him the throne stood empty. He wouldn’t be pleading his case to Osiris, then, man to man. An answer in and of itself. I’ll have to face the queen. She isn’t noted for mercy and she warned me once. Dismay swept over him.
The entire room was vacant, no courtiers, musicians or servants. Only thin mist swirled above the mosaic floor and writhed between the columns ascending to the heavens.
After a moment, Isis strolled forward from the mists. She was dressed in a pleated black sheath dress, her jet-black crown atop an elaborate wig. Her pale face was solemn, her unblinking eyes rimmed in kohl and marcasite powder. Silent, she walked past him and ascended the steps. She didn’t sit on the throne but pivoted to stand next to it, resting one hand on the arm.
Bek knelt, placing Merys’s swathed body on the broad platform step with reverence. This isn’t going to go well.
“You shouldn’t ask what is on the tip of your tongue.” Her voice was low, and she raised her hand to forestall his words.
As if expecting a physical blow, he squared his shoulders. “I must ask,” he said. “Merys deserves her life.”
Isis shook her head. “You have foolishly gone and fallen in love with a human, Sobek, thereby breaking a law for our kind and hers. This doesn’t mean other laws can be broken. It is forbidden to return a human to life. Her spirit is fled. It hovers in the between. Her death was hard, but it was caused by humans. There is no wrong to be redressed.”
He swallowed against the lump in his throat. He wouldn’t accept defeat so easily, not where Merys was concerned. “I know I don’t stand in the company of favorites, my Queen. I know I’m but a humble servant nowadays. I don’t ask this for myself.”
Isis descended the stairs to stand beside him, setting her hand on his shoulder, stroking his hair with her other. Sobek refused to look at her. “This has nothing to do with rank at the court of Osiris. You are a good and loyal warrior, you carry out whatever task you are given. What you ask is simply not allowed.”
He pushed himself to ask one more time, even though the wrath of Isis was a fearsome thing. She has the power to freeze me, to crush me, to kill me. But if I truly love Merys, then I must have the courage to protest, to remind Isis of old debts between us. Nothing she can do to me will hurt as much as this agony—losing my soul mate. I would rather die of the bitter cold than go on without Merys in the world. “With my help, you brought your husband back to life after Set had killed him—”
“And we are all Great Ones.” Her voice was stinging, harsh. “That example does not apply to you and this human woman.” Isis paced along the bottom of the stairs, toying with her golden necklaces. She glanced at him. “I sense your pain and genuine anguish, so I’ll forgive you for comparing a mortal to those above her.”
Bek rose. He bent to lift the body of his beloved and then turned to Isis, bowing his head to hide tears. “Then let me die as well. I don’t wish to live without Merys.”
“You explained to this woman how there was a structure even in our world,” Isis said, returning to his side. “There are rules we must follow. I can’t revive her, I can’t kill you. Yet I am not heartless.” She studied his face, raised a delicate hand to flick away the tears on his cheeks. “I’ll grant you one thing, in recognition of all you have given to my husband and me. If Merys is sent into the Afterlife properly by her people and if her heart is as true as you believe it to be, then at her turn in the Hall of Judging, she may have two choices.”
The queen raised two fingers. “One. She can choose the joy of the eternal Afterlife. Or two, she can choose to be reborn into a better life cycle wi
th high rank, happy marriage, children. All the things she longed for in the life that just ended. But in neither case—” Isis set her hand on his shoulder and tightened her grip until Bek felt real pain, her fingernails digging into his bare flesh like knives. “In neither case will she remember you, Sobek. Nor will you attempt to see her.”
“I thank you for a concession on Merys’s behalf, Great One.” His throat was bone dry. More than I hoped for, after the queen’s first refusal to help us. His next words were croaked out in a choked voice. “I won’t seek her out.”
Isis walked away and vanished in the swirling mists. Bek blinked hard against the tears burning his eyes. He traveled to the little beach below his abandoned temple. Tenderly, he laid Merys on a bed of soft scented pillows and silk scarves in the shade of the palms.
He dematerialized and flashed to the village behind the dunes, which he had never actually visited in all his long life. He arrived in his human form, garbed as a warrior of the town. In a short kilt and leather breastplate, sword at his side, shield slung across his shoulders, he strode through the chaos, taking it all in. Many houses were burning, dead men and women lay in the streets. People ran here and there. Bek passed through the square, noting with bitter amusement that the Temple of Horus had apparently been looted. Three of its fat priests lay sprawled on the steps, dead.
Bek found the headman leaning against a pillar in the center of the square. He had been wounded—a slave bound a bad slash on his arm—but was taking command of what resources he had left. He talked with his captain of the guards. A few other more or less able-bodied men stood at parade rest nearby. Bek paused to listen.
The captain was arguing passionately to follow the Hykso raiders. “We must rescue our people before they are sold into slavery overseas.”
“You talk nonsense, man. How can we follow them? The enemy is many leagues away by now, sailing the Nile to pillage somewhere else.” Wearily, the headman shook his head. “We have to accept our losses and count ourselves lucky.”
Apparently trying to maintain his calm, the captain took a deep breath and let it out. “My wife is among those taken away.” He threw his arms wide. “Yet you expect me to stand idly by and do nothing? What kind of man are you?”
“A practical one.” The village leader rubbed his forehead and leaned against the pillar. “There’s nothing we can do.”
“What of the children they took? You know the Hykso sacrifice our children to their hideous god.”
The official made a dismissive hand gesture and walked away. The captain half drew his sword, then rammed the weapon back into its scabbard. “By the talons of Horus, I’d disobey your orders, you old coward, if I didn’t have to admit that we have no way to catch the enemy ships.”
Bek regarded the captain as he organized his depleted troops to begin clean up duties. This is the man who scorned my Merys because she had no dowry. Much as I want to hate him, at least he wishes to rescue the woman he did choose, and the other innocents.
Bek strode away, seeking the home where Merys had labored unappreciated. With his keen senses, the place was easy for him to recognize. He followed the faint perfume of the scented floral oil she favored on her skin after a bath.
The house had been sacked but not set on fire. An elderly man with a head wound wept in the front courtyard, cradling an obviously dead woman in his arms. The woman was fatter than any human Bek had ever seen, more like the hippopotamus goddess Tawaret. Her face bore the remnants of elaborate makeup and a complicated wig lay on the ground beside her.
Delicate, my Merys said, with poor health. Bek frowned. She was being kind, as usual. This woman was spoiled and selfish. Her heart won’t win her entrance to the Afterlife.
“What losses have you suffered here?” Bek asked, hand on the hilt of his sword.
The man focused on him blearily, tears running down his wrinkled and dirty face. “My wife, my grown daughters carried away to be slaves, my youngest taken to be a sacrifice for their unspeakable god. All the valuables of the household taken as well. They ran out of time before they could set fire to my library of scrolls and tablets, thank the gods.”
Bek turned slowly on his heel, surveying the damage. A well-to-do household indeed. Yet they’d no pennies to set aside as a dowry for Merys, made her a servant. Hot anger rushed through him at the thought. He grabbed the old man’s shoulder roughly. “Why were you spared?”
“The Hykso captain said I was too old to be of use as a slave.” Tears tracked down the grime and ash on the man’s cheeks. “He thought it amusing to leave me behind, to mourn, with none to care for me.”
“And what of Merys?”
The old man rubbed his red-rimmed eyes, coughing. “Merys? Why do you ask about her? Who are you, soldier? I don’t recognize you.”
“I’m new to this town. What of your daughter Merys?”
“I have no daughter of such name any longer. She whored herself out to some man, though she denied it, claimed the god Sobek had come to lie with her, as if anyone would believe such a tale. My wife said we must throw her out lest she corrupt the other girls. We drove her from the house and into the street where she belonged.” His face crumpled and he wept.
Rage gripped Bek, a rage so deep he thought for a moment he would obliterate the entire village. The ground shook under his feet as he called power to him. Cringing in terror, the elderly village scribe tried to shield his wife’s body while chunks of brick fell from the roof and walls.
She must have been living in the temple ruins, trying to survive until I came. No wonder she was on that beach at daylight. Would she even have told me of her family’s betrayal or would she have been too proud to ask for help? Bek took a deep, calming breath. He was thoroughly disgusted with the humans. They got what they deserved. Some other Great One can watch over this place now. I’m done. Destroying the village with his anger wouldn’t bring Merys back to him.
As he turned to leave, his eye fell on a child’s doll, lying crumpled by the door. He nudged the toy with one foot, then bent to retrieve it, remembering how Merys had spoken tenderly of her youngest half sister, Tyema. Maybe there is one thing I can do for my beloved.
He dematerialized.
Reappearing on the beach, Bek roared and ran toward the Nile, transitioning effortlessly into his crocodile form as he did so, sliding into the waters as a jet-black harbinger of death and destruction. He mustered his subjects as he swam up the Nile, until he had an army of a thousand of the fearsome creatures gathered in formation, with himself at the lead.
When they sighted the three Hykso ships, Bek issued crisp orders.
No Egyptian shall be harmed. I want all of them carried safely to the beach. All the Hykso shall be food for you this day, my children. Attack and show no mercy.
Dimly, he heard the Hykso lookouts shouting a warning as the crocodile armada approached the vessels. His mighty subjects slammed into the wooden boats again and again, creating holes, slithering inside the vessels, leaping onto the decks to wreak mayhem, dragging men under the roiling surface of the Nile to their deaths.
Bek himself attacked the lead vessel, biting a huge hole in the bow at the waterline. His jaws sliced easily through the timbers, shredded the stout planks into kindling. Catapulting onto the deck he reverted to human form, looking for the Hykso commander. Ignoring the slaughter around him, he stalked through runnels of blood, two crocodiles at his heels until he found the captain cowering below decks in his cabin. Bek crashed through the barricaded door. Desperate and afraid, the Hykso captain clutched at a young girl. He laid his knife at the girl’s slender throat. Bek noticed her twisted leg, lame foot. Tyema.
The enemy settled into a battle stance, pale, jaw set, eyes riveted on Sobek. Clearly, the man intended to fight for his life. “Keep your distance, I warn you,” he instructed in bad Egyptian, “or I’ll sacrifice this child to my god, who will immediately strike you dead.”
Bek motioned his crocodiles to remain in the corridor. Then he lo
oked at the terrified child. “Don’t be afraid, Tyema. Merys sent me to bring you home. You won’t be hurt.”
She nodded. Tears trickled down her grubby cheeks and she raised one hand to brush them away.
Bek made himself smile. “Close your eyes, sweetheart.”
She lowered her eyelids and moved her chubby hand to cover her eyes.
Moving inhumanly fast, Bek snatched the child from the Hykso’s grasp and set her aside on the narrow bed. Assuming partial crocodile form, Bek snapped the man nearly in half with his powerful jaws, throwing the corpse violently against the bulkhead, hard enough to crack the timbers. Blood coated the splintered cedar planks as the body slid to the deck. Bek spat out the metallic iron taste of his victim and swore as he became human.
Marching to the bed where Tyema sat, eyes scrunched tightly closed, Bek knelt and spoke in a low voice. “I’m going to pick you up now, sweetheart, and get you to the beach. Don’t look till I tell you.”
“Merys told me about you, a little. I trust you.” She raised her arms and he gathered her in, running his fingers through her downy hair in a reassuring gesture. Tyema nestled close. Realizing she was shaking, he wrapped her in the blanket from the bunk.
Bek dematerialized and reappeared on the beach, close to a crowd of weeping, terrified Egyptians. Ringed by a force of his biggest crocodile bulls, they cowered, clinging to one another. The group was mostly women and children, a few older boys and two or three able-bodied men. Bek glanced over them with no emotion, then at the little girl in his arms. “All right, sweetheart, you can open your eyes now.”
Priestess of the Nile Page 5