by Wilbur Smith
Looking back Nefer could still make out both clouds of dust from the two enemy divisions converging on them from the east and the west. There was not the least chance that, when they reached it, they would not find the place where the three chariots had left the track. Unless, of course, Taita could weave a spell of concealment to outwit Ishtar, but that was a despairing chance. Ishtar had proved that he was not susceptible to such trivial witchcraft and Trok with his own eyes must have seen them turn aside from the track.
Yet when he looked ahead he saw that Taita had the golden Periapt of Lostris in his right hand and around his wrist he had wrapped the necklace that had been the gift of Bay. He was not looking back at the pursuit, but his face was raised to the menacing sky and his expression was rapt.
Their plight seemed hopeless, but Nefer felt an illogical and perverse glow of hope. He realized that, in some mysterious fashion, the gift of Bay had enhanced the old man's already formidable powers. 'Look at Taita,' he whispered to Mintaka. 'Perhaps it is not yet the end. Perhaps there will be one more move of the bao stones left to us before the game is decided.'
--
Trok galloped down the track until he reached the spot where he had seen the three chariots turn aside and head into the dunes. Their tracks were so deeply etched into the sand that they might have been made by a single pair of wheels. At that moment Zander rode up from the opposite direction at the head of the second column.
'Well done! You have turned the quarry. We have them now,' Trok shouted at him.
'It has been a good chase,' Zander roared back. 'What formation do you want me to keep?'
Take the rearguard once again. In column of fours. Follow me.' As he turned off to follow the fugitives, his two divisions of chariots fell in behind him. He looked ahead. Taita and his tiny party had already disappeared into a funnel of high sandhills, whose tops were purple and blue. The depths between them were sombre and shaded under the lowering sky. He had not gone two hundred cubits when the outside chariots of the column were bogged down in the soft sand. He knew then why Taita had maintained such a tight formation. Only in the centre line was the earth hard enough to support a chariot.
'In single line ahead!' He altered his formation. 'Stay in my tracks.' The two combined divisions stretched out over half a league as they followed Trok into the uncharted wilderness, and the troopers looked up with mounting trepidation at the towering sand walls and the ugly sky above. Trok could not press his horses at the same killing pace and they came down to a walk, but he could judge by the tracks Taita had left that he, too, was moving more slowly.
They kept on for almost another league until abruptly the land ahead changed character. From the soft sand waves rose a dark island of rock. It was like some small craft lost in the ocean of the dunes. Its sides were honeycombed and eaten away by the abrasive sand-laden winds of millennia, but the peak was as sharp as the fang of some fabulous monster.
On the peak, tiny with distance, stood an unmistakable figure, sparse and tall with a wild bush of silver hair that glinted like a helmet in the strange and awful light.
''Tis the Warlock,' Trok gloated to Ishtar. They have taken refuge in the rocks. I hope they try to fight us there.' Then to his trumpeter, 'Sound the battle call.'
--
When Nefer and Mintaka saw the rockpile looming ahead they were both astonished. 'Did Taita know it was here?' Mintaka asked.
'How could he have known?' Nefer replied.
'You told me once that he knows everything.' And Nefer was silenced. He looked back to cover his uncertainty, and saw the dust of the pursuit close behind, rising to mingle with the yellow glare of the sunless sky.
'It matters not at all. How can it avail us?' he asked. 'We might be able to defend those rocks for a very little while, but there are hundreds of Trok's men. This is almost the end.' He touched the waterskin that hung from the rail beside him. It was almost empty, not even enough left to keep the horses alive for another day.
'We must trust Taita.' Mintaka said, and he laughed bitterly.
'It seems the gods have deserted us. Who else is there to trust but Taita?'
They went forward, with the horses down to a hampered walk. Behind them they heard the faint sounds of the pursuit: the cries of the captains urging their troopers to keep the line, the jingle of loose equipment and the groan and whine of dry wheel hubs.
At last they came up under the hill of black and ochre-coloured rock. It was a hundred feet high and the accumulated heat radiated from it like a bonfire. Not a single plant had found a foothold on it, but the wind had carved fissures and cracks in its cliffs.
'Drive the chariots close in against the cliff,' Taita ordered, and they obeyed. 'Now free the horses and bring them this way.' Taita set the example by leading his own team around the angle of the rockface. Here there was a deep fissure with sheer sides cutting into the rock pile.
'This way.' He led them as far as they could go along the sandy floor of the deep, vertical crack. 'Now make the horses lie down.'
All cavalry horses were trained to perform this trick. At the urging of their handlers they lowered themselves to their knees and then, grunting and blowing, they went flat on their sides on the floor of the fissure.
'Like this!' Taita told them. He had brought a bedding roll from the chariot. With strips torn from it he blindfolded the horses to keep them quiet and submissive. Then he drove a javelin deep into the loose earth and used it as an anchor to tie down the horses' swathed heads and prevent them from rising again. The others followed his example.
'Now bring what remains of the water. 'Tis a pity there is not enough to give the horses a last drink, but we will need every drop for ourselves.'
Almost as if he knew of its existence, Taita led them to a shallow overhang in the cliff. The head room under the overhang was so low that anyone trying to enter would have to go down on hands and knees.
'Use the loose scree from the cliff to wall this in.'
'A zareba wall?' Nefer looked puzzled. 'We cannot defend this place. Once we are in the cave we could not even stand, let alone swing a sword.'
'There is no time to argue.' Taita glared at him. 'Do as I tell you.'
Nefer's nerves were raw with fear for Mintaka, and he was wearied by the hardships they had lived through these last days. He glared back at Taita. The others watched with interest: the young bull challenging the older one. The seconds drew out until abruptly Nefer realized his own foolishness. Only one person could save them now and he capitulated. He stooped and picked up a large rock from the scree pile and staggered with it to the shallow cave. He placed it in position and ran back for another. The others joined in the work. Even Mintaka carried her share of the rough lumps of schist. The skin of her hands was raw and torn before they had closed in a narrow space behind the wall.
'What do we do now?' Nefer asked stiffly, still smarting from his encounter with the Magus.
'Drink,' said Taita,
Nefer poured from the skin into a leather bucket and handed it to Mintaka. She took a few sips then offered it to Taita.
He shook his head. 'Drink, and drink deep.'
When they had all drunk as much as their stomachs would hold, Nefer turned on Taita again. 'What now?'
'Wait here.' Taita ordered and picked up his long staff, he began to climb the jagged side of the hillock.
'What about this zareba?' Nefer shouted after him, 'What purpose is it to serve?'
Taita paused on a narrow ledge thirty feet above them and looked down. 'Your Majesty will know when the time comes.' Taita began to climb again.
'A hiding-place? A tomb, perhaps?' Nefer called sarcastically after him, but Taita did not answer or look back.
He climbed without rest or pause until he reached the peak of the hillock. He stood there gazing back in the direction from which Trok would come.
The little party in the gully at the foot of the hillock watched him, some puzzled, some with hope and one angrily.
&n
bsp; Nefer roused himself. 'Fetch the javelins and the rest of the weapons from the chariots. We must be ready to defend ourselves.' He ran to where they had left the chariots. He came back with an armful of javelins, and Meren and Hilto following behind him similarly laden.
'What is Taita doing?' he asked Mintaka. She pointed up at the crest.
'He has not moved.'
They stacked the weapons then settled down at the entrance to the rough shelter. All their eyes went up to Taita again.
He was outlined against that dreadful sulphur sky. Nobody spoke, nobody moved, until they heard that dreaded sound again. They turned their heads to listen to the faint rattle and squeal of chariot wheels, hundreds of them, the voices of men, sometimes muffled by the dunes, at others clear and menacing.
Slowly Taita raised both arms and pointed them to the sky. All their eyes followed the movement. In his right hand he held his staff, in the left the Periapt of Lostris, and at his throat he wore the gift of Bay.
'What is he doing now?' Hilto asked, in an awed tone. Nobody answered him.
Taita stood as still as if he had been chiselled out of the living rock. His head was thrown back, his hair fluffed out silver on his shoulders. His robes were belted up, so that his thin shanks were exposed. He looked like an old bird at roost.
The heavens swirled with low, heavy cloud. The light was transient, fading as the hidden sun was covered more heavily, flaring as the clouds thinned and fumed.
Still Taita did not move, his staff aimed at the pregnant belly of the heavens. The sound of the approaching column became clearer still, and suddenly there was a distant blare of a ram's horn trumpet.
'That is the battle call. Trok has seen Taita,' Mintaka said quietly.
--
Trok shouted at his trumpeter, 'Sound the advance!' but the warlike sound seemed to be swallowed up by the empty desert and the low, angry heavens.
'Wait!' said Ishtar the Mede. He was watching Taita's tiny figure on the peak of the rock hill. 'Wait!'
'What is it?' Trok demanded.
'As yet I cannot fathom it,' Ishtar said, without taking his gaze off the Warlock, 'but it is pervasive and powerful.'
The column remained halted, every man in it staring at the figure on the peak with awe. A terrible silence fell on the desert. There was no sound at all. Even the horses were still - there was no rattle or jingle of equipment.
Only the sky moved. It formed a whirlpool over the head of the Magus, a great turning wheel of smouldering cloud. Then slowly the centre of the whirlpool opened like the single eye of an awakening monster. From the heavenly eye a shaft of dazzling sunlight burst forth.
'The eye of Horus!' Ishtar breathed. 'He has called up the god.' He made a sign of protection, and at his side Trok was silent and rigid with superstitious dread.
The brilliant shaft of light struck the peak, and lit the figure of the Warlock like a bolt of blinding lightning. Around his head it spun a nimbus of silver radiance.
He made a slow circular pass with his long staff, and the Hyksosian charioteers cringed like curs under the whip. The clouds opened wider, and the sky was clear. The sunlight danced on the dunes and was reflected like a sheet of polished bronze into their eyes, dazzling and blinding them. They lifted their shields or their hands to protect their eyes from the strange radiance, but they made no sound.
On the peak Taita described another deliberate circle with his staff, and there was a sound at last: soft as a lover's sigh, it seemed to issue from the very heavens. Men's heads turned questioningly as they sought the source.
Once again Taita gestured and the sigh became a soughing, a gentle whistling. It came from the east, and slowly all their heads turned towards it.
Out of that strange, cloudless brilliance, they saw it coming. It was a solid dun wall that reached from the earth to the highest heavens.
'Khamsin!' Trok whispered the dread word.
The wall of airborne sand marched towards them with a terrible deliberation. It undulated and pulsed like a living creature, and its voice changed. No longer a whisper, it became a rising howl, the voice of a demon.
'Khamsin!' The word was yelled from chariot to chariot. They were no longer warriors hot for war, but small terrified creatures in the face of this destroyer of men, cities and civilizations, this eater of worlds.
The column of chariots lost its formation and broke up into fragments as the drivers wheeled their teams and tried to run from it.
As soon as they left the narrow path of harder ground the sand sucked down their wheels. Men leaped from the cockpits and abandoned their vehicles, leaving the horses in the traces. Instinctively the horses sensed the menace and reared and screamed, trying to escape by kicking themselves free of the traces.
The khamsin bore down upon them inexorably. Its voice changed from a howl to a bellow. Men ran before it in mindless panic. They slipped and fell in the loose sand, dragged themselves up and ran on. They looked back and saw the great storm come on apace roaring like a crazed monster, rolling and roiling upon itself, twisting curtains of sand, brazen where the sunlight struck them, dun and sombre where their own mountainous heights shaded them.
Taita stood with his arms and staff outstretched and watched the army below him engulfed. He saw Trok and Ishtar still frozen like a pair of statues in the sunlight, and then, as the front of the storm reached them, they were gone with magical swiftness, they and all their men, chariots and horses, gone in the rolling billows of the khamsin.
Taita lowered his arms, turned his back on the monster and, without haste, started down the hillock. His long legs spanned the difficult places and he leaned upon his staff as he stepped from ledge to ledge.
Nefer and Mintaka were standing hand in hand at the base of the cliff. They welcomed him with a bemused expression, and Mintaka's tone was subdued and incredulous as she asked, 'You called up the storm?'
'It has been brewing all these last days.' Taita said, his face neutral and his tone equivocal. 'You have all remarked the heat and the dolorous yellow mists.'
'No,' said Nefer. 'It was not in nature. It was you. You knew and understood all along. You called it up. And I doubted you.'
'Go into the shelter now,' said Taita. 'It is almost upon us.' His voice was lost in the shrieking cacophony of the khamsin. Mintaka led the way, crawling into the low narrow cave through the opening in the rude wall. The others followed her, crowding into the tiny space. Before he entered Hilto handed in the almost empty waterskins.
In the end, only Taita stood outside the shelter. Almost as though the storm was his creature, his face was intent as it loomed over him. It struck with a force that made the living rock around them seem to quiver and vibrate and Taita was gone, his tall figure obliterated. The first gust lasted only a few seconds, but when it passed Taita was still there, unmoved and serene. The storm gathered itself bellowing, like a berserk monster, and as it hurled down on them in all its terrible majesty Taita stooped through the opening and sat with his back to the inner wall.
'Close it up,' he said, and Meren and Hilto blocked the entrance with the rocks they had placed at hand.
'Cover your heads,' said Taita, and wound his headcloth over his face. 'Keep your eyes closed, or you will lose your sight. Breathe carefully through your mouth or you will drown in sand.'
--
The storm was so overwhelming that its first front picked up Trok's chariot and rolled it over with the horses screaming as the lashing shaft broke their backs.
Trok was thrown free. He fought his way to his feet, but the storm struck him down again. He managed to pull himself up, using all his brute strength, but he had lost all sense of direction. When he tried to open his eyes he was blinded by sand. He did not know in which direction he was facing, or where he should try to escape. The storm was swirling upon itself so that it seemed to be coming from every direction at once. He dared not open his eyes again. The khamsin ripped at his face, and its harsh rush abraded the skin from his cheeks and
lips until he covered them with his headcloth.
In the turmoil of sand and wind Trok screamed, 'Save me! Save me, Ishtar, and I will reward you beyond your greediest dreams.'
It seemed impossible that anyone could have heard his cry in the deafening uproar. Then he felt Ishtar seize his hand and squeeze it hard to caution Trok to hold fast.
They stumbled on, at times sinking to the knees in the sand, which ran like water. Trok tripped over an obstacle and lost contact with Ishtar. When he groped for him in panic he touched the object that had tripped him, and realized that it was one of the abandoned chariots lying on its side.
He screamed for Ishtar, staggering in a circle and Ishtar's hand grabbed his beard and led him on. He was scorched by sand, blinded by sand, drowning in sand.
He fell to his knees and Ishtar hauled him up again, ripping out a handful of his beard. He tried to speak but when he opened his mouth the sand rushed in and he choked. He knew he was dying, that no man could survive this terrible thing that had them in its grip.
It seemed endless, their tormented journey to nowhere. Then, abruptly, he felt the force of the wind diminish. For a minute he thought that the storm had already passed them by, but the roar had not abated - to the contrary, it seemed still to be rising. They staggered onwards, reeling and bumping into each other like two drunkards trying to lead each other home from the tavern. Still the wind force dropped. In a vague and confused way Trok thought that somehow Ishtar had worked a spell to shield them, but then a sudden gust almost lifted him off his feet and broke the grip that Ishtar had on his beard. He crashed into a wall of rock with such force that he felt his collar-bone break,
He dropped to his knees and clung to the rock, like a child to its mother's breast. How Ishtar had brought them to it he neither knew nor cared. All that mattered was that the cliff above them was breaking the full force of the storm. He felt Ishtar kneel at his side and pull up his tunic until it covered his head. Then Ishtar pushed him down flat in the shelter of the cliff and lay down beside him.
--