by Wilbur Smith
Mintaka. The name formed silently on his swollen lips. Then another voice. This time a man's. He could not make out the words or recognize the speaker, but if he was with Mintaka he must be one of the fugitives Trok had been pursuing. The enemy.
Trok looked down at himself. His sword-belt was gone, and his weapons with it. He was unarmed, dressed only in his tunic, which had so much sand in the weave that it chafed his skin like a hair-shirt. He looked around him for a weapon, a stick or a stone, but there was nothing. The scree had been covered by sand.
He stood undecided, and the voices came again. Mintaka and the man were in a gully among the rocks. While he still hesitated he heard the sand crunching like salt crystals under someone's feet. That person was coming down the gully towards where Trok stood.
Trok shrank back against the stone wall and a man emerged from the mouth of the gully, twenty paces from where Trok hid. The stranger set off with a determined stride into the dunes. He was strongly familiar, but recognition eluded Trok until the man turned and called back towards the gully, 'Do not tax yourself unduly, Mintaka. You have come through a trying ordeal.' Then he walked on.
Trok gaped after him. He is dead, he thought. It cannot be him. The message from Naja was clear ... He considered the possibility that a djinn or some evil spirit was impersonating the young Pharaoh Nefer Seti as he watched the young man go out into the desert. Then, through eyes bleary with sand, he saw him join three others, among them the unmistakable figure of the Warlock, who, Trok realized, must be responsible, in some strange and miraculous way, for the resurrection of Nefer Seti. But now he had neither the time nor the inclination to ponder this further. There was only one thought in his mind and that was water.
As stealthily as he could he crept forward into the gully where he had heard Mintaka's voice and peered round the corner of the cliff. He did not recognize her at first: she was as bedraggled as a peasant. Her hair and her tattered tunic were stiff with sand, and her eyes were sunken and bloodshot. She was kneeling at the head of one of a small herd of horses, holding a water bucket for it to drink.
Water was the only thing Trok could think about. He could smell it and his whole body craved it. He staggered towards Mintaka. Her back was turned to him and the soft sand covered the sound of his approach. She was not aware of him until he seized her arm. She turned, saw him, and screamed. He snatched the bucket from her hands and knocked her down. As his arm was useless he knelt on the small of her back to pin her down, while he drank from the bucket.
He swallowed huge gulps, gurgled and belched, then drank some more. Mintaka was wriggling under him and screaming, 'Nefer! Taita! Help me.'
He belched again, pushed her face into the sand to silence her, and swallowed the last drops from the bucket. He looked around him, still crouching over her like a lion on its kill. He saw the waterskin against the wall of the gully and the javelins and swords stacked beside it.
He stood up quickly and started towards them. Instantly Mintaka tried to jump to her feet, but he kicked her down again. 'None of that, you bitch,' he croaked, and seized a handful of her thick sand-drenched hair. He dragged her after him through the sand until he could reach the waterskin. Then he had to drop her. He placed one huge sandalled foot on her back again, reached for the waterskin and held it between his knees while he unfastened the wooden stopper. He lifted the nozzle to his lips and let the warm, brackish liquid flow down his throat.
Although she was face down in the sand Mintaka realized that Trok was engrossed in his craving for water. She must act before he had satisfied it and turned his full attention on her. She knew that he had suffered more humiliation than he could bear and that he would kill her now rather than let her escape him again.
Desperately she reached out to the bundle of weapons stacked against the rock. Her fingers closed around the shaft of a javelin. Trok was still drinking with his head thrown back, but he felt her movement and lowered the waterskin just as Mintaka twisted to stab up at his belly and groin with the short but deadly weapon. However, the blow was aimed from her prone position under him and lacked force.
Trok saw the bright bronze point flash and, with a startled exclamation, jumped back to avoid it. 'You treacherous little slut!' He dropped the waterskin and lunged for her, but the moment his weight was off her Mintaka jumped up. She tried to slip past him and run out of the gully into the open desert, but he cut her off and reached for her with his long arm. He caught the hem of her tunic, but she leaped aside. The linen tore in his fingers and she twisted away from him, but he still had her trapped in the gully.
He lumbered after her but she ran to the cliff wall and started to scale it, lithe and quick as a cat. Before he could catch her she was out of his reach. She went up swiftly and he could not hope to follow her. He picked up the javelin she had dropped and hurled it up at her, but he was using his left hand and there was little power in the throw.
Mintaka ducked as the javelin flew over her head and struck the rock in front of her face. She climbed faster, driven by fear. Trok staggered to where the other weapons were stacked, and grabbed another javelin. He threw again. It missed her by a hand's width.
Trok grunted with fury and frustration and snatched a third javelin, but at that moment Mintaka reached a ledge in the cliff and crawled over it out of his sight. She lay there pressing herself to the rock. She heard him raving and swearing at her. Even in her distress she was sickened by the filthy words he sent after her.
Then another javelin flashed over where she lay and clattered against the rock face above her. It dropped back on to the ledge and she grabbed it before it could fall back to the gully floor. She peered over the edge of the ledge, ready to duck back.
Trok was staring up at her uncertainly, his injured arm dangling at his side. When her head appeared his face contorted with rage and the pain of his injury, and he started forward as if to climb up to her.
She showed him the point of the javelin. 'Yes, come up,' she hissed at him, 'and let me stick this in your great hog belly!'
He stopped. He would have to climb and defend himself with only one arm. He saw that her threat was real. While he hesitated, Mintaka began to scream again. 'Nefer! Taita! Hilto! Help me!'
Her voice echoed off the cliff and rang down the gully. He looked about him nervously, as if expecting to see a rush of armed enemies coming at him. Suddenly he reached a decision. He picked up the waterskin and slung it over his shoulder. 'Do not think you can evade me for ever. One day I will sample all the delights of your body and afterwards I will give you as a plaything to my troopers,' he shouted up at her. Then he tried to mount the mare, but she was still too weak to support his bulk and collapsed under him.
Trok hauled himself to his feet and lumbered away down the gully.
Mintaka feared that his withdrawal might be a trick. She dared not descend from her perch on the cliff. She screamed wildly, 'Nefer! Help me.'
She was still screaming when Nefer came racing back to her down the rocky gully, a sword in his hand, Hilto and Meren close behind him.
'What is it?' Nefer demanded, as she slid down the cliff into his arms.
'Trok!' She sobbed with relief to feel him hold her safely. 'Trok is alive. He was here.'
She blurted out an account of what had happened, but before she had ended Nefer was giving orders to the others to arm themselves and prepare to go after Trok.
--
Taita had come back to join them. He stayed with Mintaka while the three men followed Trok's footprints in the sand as cautiously as if they were tracking a wounded lion. They moved along the base of the cliff until they reached the fissure where Trok had weathered the fury of the khamsin. Nefer examined the disturbed sand and interpreted the signs. Two of them,' he said. 'They were buried by the storm, as we were. They dug themselves out. One waited here.' He picked up a thread of wool that had adhered to the rock, and held it to the light. 'Black.' It was a colour seldom worn by Egyptians. 'Almost certainly the Mede.'
Hilto nodded agreement. 'Ishtar would have the witchcraft to survive the storm. ''Tis certain he saved Trok, just as Taita saved us.'
'Here.' Nefer stood up and pointed out the sign. 'Carrying the waterskin, Trok returned to find the Mede, and they went this way.'
They followed the footprints a short way out into the desert. 'They have gone west. Back towards Avaris and the Nile. Will they ever reach it?'
'Not if I catch up with him.' Nefer said grimly, and hefted the javelin he was carrying.
'Majesty.' Hilto was respectful but firm. 'They have the waterskin and a long start. They will be well away from here by now. You dare not follow without water.'
Nefer hesitated. Though he saw the sense in what Hilto said it galled him sorely to let Trok escape. From what Mintaka had told him, Trok was injured and would not be too dangerous an opponent, even though Nefer himself was still weak.
In the end he turned aside and ran to the top of the nearest dune. Shading his eyes he looked westward, along the string of footsteps on the pristine, windswept sands until in the distance, half a league or more away, he made out two tiny figures moving steadily towards the west. He watched them fiercely until they disappeared in the wavering heat mirage.
'There will be another time,' Nefer whispered. 'I will come for you.
I swear it on the hundred sacred names of Horus.'
--
They found and uncovered another sixteen of the buried chariots. With such an abundant supply of water and food, horses and men recovered swiftly. In addition, they had uncovered many more corpses of Trok's troopers. From these they were able to dress themselves. Nefer altered a pair of sandals to fit Mintaka, whose injured feet were almost completely healed.
By the tenth day they were ready to move. The four remaining horses were not strong enough to drag the chariots back through the loose sand, so Nefer decided to use them as pack horses, and load them with as much water as they could carry.
At nightfall, leading the horses, they started out across the dunes. Although the mare could not carry Mintaka's weight as well as its load, Nefer rigged a leather strap around its shoulders and insisted that Mintaka hang on this to help herself through the soft footing.
The khamsin had altered the landscape so greatly that Taita had to navigate by the stars. They kept going steadily through the whole of that night, and the one that followed. Before dawn on the second day they reached the old caravan road. It had been obliterated in places by the khamsin, but before they had gone much further the light strengthened and they saw the cairn of stones that marked the crossroads ahead. They discovered that, since the storm had ended, someone had been on the road before them. Two pairs of footprints led westwards along the road, heading back towards the Nile valley and Avaris. One pair was large, the other smaller. Taita and Nefer examined them carefully.
'This one is Trok. Nobody else has feet like that, the size of a Nile barge. Mintaka was correct. He is injured, on his right side. He favours it as he walks.' Taita read the sign. 'As yet I cannot be certain about the other. Let us see if he leaves some clue as to his identity.' They followed the tracks as far as the marked cairn.
'Ah! There!' Close by the cairn someone had recently arranged an intricate pattern of stones in the sand. 'No doubt now. It is Ishtar the Mede.' Angrily Taita scattered the stones. 'This is an invocation to his foul Marduk the Devourer.' He hurled one of the smaller stones down the road that Trok and Ishtar had taken. 'If Ishtar had an infant with him, he would likely have sacrificed it. Marduk thirsts for human blood.'
Here, at the marker cairn, Nefer had a difficult decision to make. 'If we are to make the long journey to the east, we will need supplies and gold. We should not arrive at the court of the Assyrian as indigent outcasts.'
Taita nodded. 'There are many powerful men in Egypt who would lend us full support if only they could be certain that their pharaoh was still alive.'
'Hilto and Meren must go back to Thebes,' Nefer said. 'I would go myself but all the world will be searching for Mintaka and me.' He removed one of his royal finger rings and handed it to Hilto. 'This will be your token of recognition. Show it to our friends. You must return bringing us men and gold, chariots and horses. When we go to King Sargon we must arrive in some state to show him the support we still command in Egypt.'
'I will do as you command, Majesty.'
'Almost as vital to us will be intelligence. You must gather news. We must be informed of every action of the false pharaohs.'
'I will leave at nightfall, Pharaoh.' Hilto agreed.
They spent that long hot day lying under the shade of an awning they had salvaged from one of the buried chariots, discussing their plans. When the sun sank towards the horizon and began to lose its heat they parted company, Hilto and Meren to head back west towards Thebes, and Taita, Nefer and Mintaka to go eastwards.
'We will wait for you at the ruins of Gallala,' were Nefer's last words to Hilto. Then they watched him and Meren take the high road and disappear into the gathering dusk.
Taita, Mintaka and Nefer took the caravan road towards Gallala. Twelve days later, with only a few drops remaining in the waterskins, they reached the deserted ruins.
--
The weeks became months, and still they waited at Gallala. Taita spent days at a time in the hills that surrounded the city. Nefer and Mintaka caught occasional glimpses of him from a distance as he prowled the valleys and harsh gullies. Often they saw him tapping and prodding the rocks with his staff. At other times he sat by the almost dried-up wells outside the city walls, staring down the deep shafts.
When Nefer questioned him obliquely, he was distant and evasive. 'An army needs water,' was all he would volunteer.
There is hardly enough water for us,' Nefer pointed out, 'let alone an army.' Taita nodded, stood up and walked away into the hills with his staff tapping against the rocks.
Mintaka set up quarters for them among the ruins, and Nefer roofed them over with the tattered tent. As a royal Hyksosian princess, Mintaka had never been called upon to cook a meal or sweep out a chamber, so her first efforts were disastrous. As he chewed a charred mouthful Taita remarked, 'If we want to destroy Trok's army the most effective way would be to send you to them as a cook.'
'If you are so skilled, then perhaps you might honour us with your great culinary skills.'
'It is either that or starve,' Taita agreed, and took her place at the hearth.
Nefer resumed his old role of hunter, and after his first day out in the desert returned with a plump young gazelle and four marvellously patterned giant bustard eggs that were only slightly addled. Mintaka sniffed her share of the omelette Taita made and pushed it away. 'Is this the same man who complained of my cooking?' She looked across the fire at Nefer. 'You are as guilty as he is. Next time I will go with you to make sure that what you bring back is edible.'
They lay side by side in one of the shallow wadis that cut through the hills and watched a herd of gazelle feeding towards them.
'They are dainty as fairies,' Mintaka whispered. 'So beautiful.'
'I will shoot if you have qualms,' Nefer told her.
'No.' She shook her head. 'I did not say I would not do it.' Her tone was determined, and by now he knew her well enough not to query hear decision.
The ram moved ahead of his herd. His back was a delicate cinnamon shade and his underbelly was the silvery white of one of the thunder-heads that rose above the horizon. His horns were lyre-shaped and polished between his pricked, trumpet-shaped ears. He turned his head on the long curved neck and gazed back at his small herd. One of the lambs began to stot, bouncing on stiff legs with its nose almost touching its bunched hoofs. This was the alarm behaviour.
'The little creature is just practising and showing off.' Nefer smiled.
The ram lost interest in this juvenile display, and came on towards where they lay in ambush. He picked his way over the stony ground with studied grace, stopping every few paces to look about warily for
danger.
'He has not seen us, but he soon will,' Nefer whispered. 'We do not have Taita to gull him.'
'He is out of range,' she whispered back.
'Fifty paces, no more. Shoot or he will be gone in an instant.'
Mintaka waited until the ram once more turned away his head. Then she rose slowly to her knees and drew the bow. It was one of the short recurved weapons they had salvaged from a buried chariot. She released the arrow and it rose in a gently arc against the pale desert sky.
With those huge dark eyes, the gazelle had instantly picked out her small movement of rising. His head switched round and he stared at her, on the point of flight. At the twanging release of the bowstring he leaped forward while the arrow was still in the air. He skimmed away, tiny puffs of dust rising where his hoofs touched the earth. The arrow rattled against the stones, where moments before, he had been standing. Mintaka jumped to her feet and laughed to watch him go, showing no sign of chagrin at having missed the shot.
'Watch him run, like a swallow in flight.'
Taita had taught Nefer that the true hunter loves and honours his quarry. He admired Mintaka the more for her compassion towards the creatures she hunted. She turned to him, still laughing. 'I am sorry, my heart. You will go hungry to bed this night.'
'Not with Taita at the cooking fire. He will pluck a feast from the very air.'
They raced each other to retrieve her spent arrow. She had a head-start, and reached it ahead of him. She stooped to pick it up, and the back of her short tattered skirt flew up. Her thighs were smooth and brown and her buttocks perfect rounds, the skin pale and unblemished where the sun had never touched it, lustrous as precious Oriental silk.
She straightened and turned in a flash to catch the expression in his eyes. Though she was virgin and unversed in sensuality, her feminine instincts were full blown. She could see what passion her innocent gesture had roused in him, and the knowledge stirred her too. Seeing how he desired her made her want him with an intensity that was painful. She felt her loins melt with love for him, overflowing sweet and viscous like a honeycomb left in the heat of the midday sun.