“Where are they?” Mery fretted. “Should not they have returned by now?”
“They’ll come.” Bak’s voice betrayed no hint of his own worry.
“You don’t think they’ve been captured, do you?”
Bak scowled at the young officer, whose anxiety had begun to wear on everyone around him. “Imsiba is too clever by far to allow himself and the others to be caught.”
A donkey brayed as if mocking his words.
Cursing the beast, he pulled his wrap closer around himself and stepped out of the black shadow of the escarpment into the lesser darkness filling the mouth of the dry watercourse. The night was cold, the air so clear the stars seemed close enough to touch. The indistinct figures of men and animals bobbed and shifted in the eerie light before daybreak. The drovers swore at the fractious donkeys, their voices rising above the thunk of hooves on sand, the blowing and squealing and braying. Paser walked among them, overseeing the loading for the morning march. Harmose had drawn his archers aside to issue last-minute orders.
“What if we’ve guessed wrong?” Mery asked. “What if the raiders plan to attack at the first bend in the wadi?”
“What if the lord Khepre fails to rise above the horizon?” Bak snapped. “What if the world is shrouded in darkness forever more?”
Mery recoiled at the sarcasm. “It’s the waiting,” he mumbled. “The thought of battle, the anticipation, makes me babble.”
A sharp whistle pierced the night. Silence enveloped the camp, then the sounds of men and animals gradually resumed. The voices had changed pitch, quickened with tension.
“They’ve come!” Bak let the wrap fall from his shoulders and sprinted up the wadi in the direction from which the whistle had sounded.
Mery raced after him. Paser and Harmose broke away from their duties to join them. As they neared the apex of the wadi mouth, Imsiba emerged from the shadows. The two Medjays he had taken with him straggled behind, each holding a rope looped around the neck of a nearly naked tribesman with his hands bound behind his back. One prisoner grimaced with every wheezing breath; ribbons of torn flesh crisscrossed his back. The other walked with a limp, and dried blood coated the side of his face. They stood as erect as their injuries would allow, their pride damaged but apparently not crushed. They were not the pair who had prompted Nebwa and his infantry to go into the desert, but they were as tall and rangy, as caked with dust.
Bak clasped Imsiba’s shoulders. “We expected you long ago. What kept you?”
Imsiba smiled. “We let the men we followed lead us to their camp, as you suggested. It was farther than we thought, but well worth the patience it took to get there.”
“And you found…?”
“Many men, not an honest shepherd among them. They were resting amid a scattering of boulders about three-fourths of the way along this wadi but to the north. Far enough from our path so any scouts we might send ahead would fail to find them.” In a more ominous tone, he added, “Thirsty men they were. They drank all the water Nebwa sent, saving none for later.”
“Which leaves no doubt of their intent,” Harmose said grimly. “They expect to drink from the jars we carry.”
“Did you get close enough to hear what they plan?” Paser asked. “Could you understand their words?”
“We understood enough.” Imsiba nodded toward the prisoners. “With a small amount of persuasion, those two told us the rest.”
“Why did you bring them here?” Mery’s voice was taut, anxious. “Their companions will miss them, will come looking for them.”
“They were sent to watch us”-Imsiba gave Bak a quick smile-“so I thought to give them a firsthand look.”
“But what if…?”
Bak raised a hand for silence. “We’ve not much time, Imsiba.”
The big Medjay glanced around, spotted a patch of drifted sand a half-dozen paces away. He knelt beside it and the others hunkered around him. With a few deft strokes of his finger, he drew a rough map of the wadi, identifying verbally the landmarks they had passed on the journey from Buhen.
“Here,” he said, driving his finger into the sand, “is the place where the wadi narrows to pass through a granite inclusion. We should reach it by late afternoon.” He broadened the line, forming an oval. “Beyond, the wadi opens into a bowl longer than its width. This wider place is where the boulders have rolled down from above, with no clear path for the donkeys and walls difficult if not impossible to climb. Farther on, the wadi narrows again and turns to the right.” He glanced at Bak. “There they mean to block our path with sand and rocks.”
“And while we take the time to clear it,” Bak said in a grim voice, “they’ll close the path behind us.”
“Trapping every man among us, every donkey, in their snare,” Paser added, though the conclusion was obvious.
Bak cursed beneath his breath. He had spent much of the night working out various schemes designed to capture a band of unruly tribesmen, men of action rather than thought. He had, it seemed, underestimated them.
He glanced at Imsiba. “Many men, you said. How many?”
“They outnumber us, I think, but not by much. In the dark, with most of them lying among the boulders and others scattered as sentries, it was impossible to count their numbers.” Imsiba eyed the prisoners. “Those two claim they’ve two men to our one. I think they lie.”
“A number we can’t ignore,” Bak said, thinking aloud, “a formidable force, but with our superior weapons and discipline…”
“Must we face them?” Mery asked.
“If we evade them now, they’ll attack us somewhere else. With so large and ungainly a caravan…” Paser shook his head, cursed. “I fear many of us will be slain or injured and we’ll lose many animals.”
“I say we wait here for Nebwa,” Mery said. “He’ll not be gone for long. He took only enough water for two days.”
Paser snorted. “Each day we wait, our supplies dwindle. Would you have us cower here, and march on to Buhen with no food or water?”
“I’d rather die in an honest battle,” Harmose said.
While they argued, Bak stared at Imsiba’s map, letting their words drift around him. He visualized the wadi from end to end as he remembered it from their outbound journey. A clever man, he thought, should be able to turn the situation to the caravan’s advantage. Yet try as he might he could think of no way to do so. He had no training in this type of warfare, no concept of fighting with so few spearmen and archers and no chariotry, no knowledge of battling the enemy in a confined space with limited means of escape. Should he try to draw the tribesmen into the open, where he could plan a battle in the manner he knew? No. As Paser had said, too many lives would be lost and there’d be no way to protect the donkeys.
He thought of the raiders’ chieftain, a man he felt sure was very clever indeed. What would he do if he walked in their sandals? Attack from a secret place. What secret place? Bak turned his thoughts upside down, shoved aside his knowledge of conventional warfare. The voices ebbed and flowed around him, with only Imsiba sitting silent and expectant.
“We must walk into their trap.” Bak’s eyes, glinting with conviction, swept around the ring of men. “They’ll attack, intent on their prize, and give us the chance to take them, each and every one.” “Have you gone mad?” Paser exclaimed. “The instant they close the wadi behind us, we’ll be as helpless as ants in a bowl of honey.”
“I know of what I speak. Have you forgotten? I trained as a soldier, not a policeman.”
Paser arched an eyebrow. “You learned the arts of war with the regiment of Amon, where five thousand men fought mock battles in the open desert. In these wadis, warfare is reduced to little more than brawls. More deadly, to be sure, and with more to lose, but all the training in the world can’t take the place of experience.”
“Hear me out,” Bak insisted. “If you think I err, we’ll work out another way.”
“There’s no other way,” Mery said. “We must stay here and wait for Nebwa.”
“We can’t stay,” Paser snapped. “We’ve just enough supplies to get us back to Buhen with no days wasted. We’d do better to climb out of this wadi and follow its course well to the south across the plateau. We’d have a battle, I’ve no doubt, but at least we’d be out in the open and they’d not be able to approach by stealth.”
“We’d lose half the donkeys and supplies in the dunes and wadis we must cross.” Harmose shook his head. “I say we listen to Bak. We’ve nothing to lose, maybe much to gain.”
“To deliberately walk into a trap?” Paser barked out a cynical laugh. “It makes no sense.”
“Both your plan and Mery’s would be costly, too costly,” Bak said. “My plan, should we carry it through to success, would save the caravan and would also gain us prisoners, men we can send to Waset to serve our sovereign and the lord Amon.”
“Nebwa thinks us poor soldiers.” Imsiba spoke to Harmose, but Bak was sure his words were meant for Paser. “To win a battle and take prisoners while he follows the wind would fill my heart with joy.”
Paser eyed the Medjay a moment and a smile spread across his face. “All right, Bak. Let’s hear what you have to say.”
Bak glanced to the east, where a faint glow in the sky announced the coming of day. He swept his hand across Imsiba’s map and in its place began to draw another.
A man coughed, a tribesman hidden on the clifftop fifteen or so paces above Bak. The man’s proximity worried him. As long as he remained where he was, crouched in a cleft of the broken wall of rock, he could not be seen. Later, when he had to leave his hiding-place, he would be an easy target for a man with a bow looking down upon him.
Sweat poured from Bak’s dirt-stained body. His mouth was so dry not even the stone he held on his tongue could slake his thirst. His over-taxed muscles knotted each time he sat still for any length of time. Yet as he eyed the wadi below, his discomfort seemed a small price to pay for the sense of satisfaction he felt.
From his perch high above the elongated bowl, he could see to his left the place where the ancient channel sliced through the granite inclusion. Paser would soon lead the caravan through the narrow cut. To the west, below the glaring orange sun, he could see the mouth of the outgoing trail, which vanished at the right-hand bend. He and his men had found it blocked when they arrived.
The bowl itself, three hundred paces long and half as wide, was ringed by sandstone cliffs. Their high rock faces, battered by sun and wind, had broken away through the ages, forming huge solidified piles of debris which sloped diagonally to the wadi floor. Sharp, treacherous shards of stone paved the incline on the side of the bowl where Bak waited. Fine sand blanketed most of the opposite slope. Recently fallen rocks and boulders dotted the surfaces of both. The wadi floor was a maze of boulders, many larger than a man. A dozen pale, snakelike fingers of sand marked the course of the water that surged through the boulder field on the rare occasions when rain pelted the surrounding plateau.
The wadi was empty, silent except for the sporadic chirping of a kite. No creature moved. No breath of air rippled the sand on the opposite slope, which was unmarked by feet or hooves.
The quiet, the serenity were a sham. The raiders had gathered at the top of an ancient landslide which broke through the cliff not far from the outgoing, westbound trail. From there, they could swoop down on the caravan, protected by the glare of the sun at their backs. Others, armed with bows like the man above, were scattered along the clifftops.
The bowman coughed as loud as before, affirming the raiders’ confidence that they alone occupied the area. The sound, worrisome as it was, brought a smile to Bak’s face. His Medjays and most of Harmose’s archers, forty-five men in all, were concealed in the cracks and crevices along the base of the cliffs. Pashenuro and another man were hidden on the plateau above, serving as lookouts.
Each time he thought of the day’s effort, his heart swelled with pride. The men had outdone themselves, as he was sure they would in the heat of battle. He, Imsiba, Harmose, and the others had left the caravan at daybreak. With no animals to slow their pace, they had reached the bowl before midday. A thorough search had revealed no tribesmen near the wadi. They had gone back to their camp, confident the caravan would walk into their trap.
Bak had sent a couple of his Medjays to keep an eye on that camp, a couple more to make sure no other tribesmen came to relieve the men Imsiba had captured, and two others to search out hiding places along the cliffs. The rest of the men had toiled in the boulder field, shifting the heavy stones a quarter-cubit here, a cubit there, making enough space among the boulders to admit all the laden donkeys, taking care that the wadi floor appeared undisturbed from above. Rocks of a more manageable size had been stowed near the periphery, where they could be quickly lifted in place to form a breastwork. Bak’s final act when he learned the raiders had left their camp had been to send his men to their battle stations and dispatch a messenger to Paser.
A large rock fell from the cliff somewhere to the left and clattered down to the slope below. The sound was followed by the quick chirp of a startled kite. Pashenuro’s signal. The caravan was approaching. Grabbing his spear and cowhide shield, Bak scrambled to his feet. He leaned forward, careful to keep his head in the shadow, and peered toward the cut through the granite inclusion. The time crawled. He shifted his weight, wiped the sweat from his face. The man above him coughed. How, he wondered, am I going to get out of here?
Paser strode into the sunny bowl and followed the broadest stream of sand into the boulder field. A couple of soldiers, a drover, and a gray-black donkey followed close behind. The men were talking among them selves, laughing. Other men and animals appeared, Mery among them, forming a procession behind the caravan officer. Paser walked tall and straight, chatting with the men at his heels. He never hesitated, never gave a hint he expected an attack. Nor did Mery or any of the other men. Bak watched their performance with admiration. For so many to knowingly walk into danger and give no sign of the fear they undoubtedly felt touched him deeply. He offered a fervent prayer to the lord Amon that their faith in his plan would not lead one man among them to the netherworld.
Paser disappeared in the mouth of the outgoing trail. More than half the column was plodding across the boulder field; the remainder had yet to pass through the cut. Bak willed them to hurry, prayed the raiders would not attack until every man and animal had entered the bowl. So intent was he on the scene below, he barely noticed the pebbles rattling down the cliff face from above.
The drover who had followed Paser led the gray-black donkey back into the bowl. Mery intercepted him at the base of the landslide where the raiders were waiting. The watch lieutenant may have felt fear, but he played his part to perfection. He stood with his back to the tribal army, heard the drover out, issued orders. His words were lost in the distance, but his gestures were clear: the trail ahead was blocked; the members of the caravan should disperse among the boulders and rest.
The message was passed on, rippling along the length of the procession. Those at the front turned around, forming a knot of men and animals among the boulders. Bak held his breath, expecting the tribesmen to recognize their vulnerability and take advantage. Mery, standing firm, bawled an order that quickly untied the knot and spread the men out, making room for the rest entering the bowl. Releasing the air in his breast, Bak eyed the young officer with a new respect.
The caravan broke apart. The men with laden donkeys drifted toward the center of the boulder field. Those entering the bowl through the incoming cut joined them one after another. Mery’s spearmen and the few archers Harmose had left with the caravan flopped down in whatever patch of shade they could find. As if by chance, most collected at the end closest to the concealed raiders.
Bak forgot his physical discomfort, the bowman above him, everything but the upcoming attack. Though he had never engaged in actual combat, he was not afraid. Rather, he felt the same sense of anticipation, the same excitement he had felt each time the regiment of Amon had practiced the arts of war. Those mock battles had been as hard and dangerous, as deadly to careless men, as facing a real enemy.
A white jenny cleared the cut. Her color signaled to the men concealed around the bowl that she was the last animal in the procession. A half-dozen men brought up the rear, all of them dark skinned. Bak smothered his laughter. One was a Medjay, the man he had sent with the message. The others were men of Kemet, their bodies smeared with charcoal. He wondered who had thought of that. Paser, most likely.
A muffled cough swept the smile from his face. He had told the men to remain hidden until he emerged from the cleft. But as soon as he stepped out where they could see him, the man atop the cliff would sink an arrow into his back. He hefted his spear, testing its balance. To drop an enemy on level ground was easy, to heave the weapon fifteen paces at a man almost directly above was an impossible feat.
A single blood-curdling yell ruptured the quiet.
The raiders swept down the landslide, dark silhouettes pouring forth from the glare. They screamed like wild men to make themselves seem fiercer. Ten or more broke to their right to seal Paser’s small band in the narrow, outgoing trail. The rest raced at the boulder field. Dust rose around their pelting feet, enveloping all but the leaders in a pale roiling cloud. Donkeys brayed, terrified by the clamor.
Bak had to show himself. He shifted the spear to his left hand and scooped up a rock bigger than his fist. Muttering a hasty prayer to the lord Amon, he dove out of the cleft and swung around, raising his shield against the arrow he expected. He spotted the tribesman above, could see the surprise on his face as he realized Bak had been below him all along. The man swung his bow down and pulled the string taut. Bak heaved the rock, striking the bowman’s chest. The arrow flew wide. The raider jerked another missile from his quiver, recoiled, and collapsed on the rim. Bow and arrow fell from his hand and clattered down the cliff-face. Bak gaped at the man, who was trying to scramble away. An ax was embedded in his shoulder. Pashenuro peered over the edge, waved, and grabbed the injured man’s wrist to pull him out of sight.
Bak pivoted to face the bowl. The men he commanded had left their hiding places. A few archers had taken a stand to pick off bowmen who dared show themselves on the rim above. The rest were working their way down the slopes all around the bowl, darting from one bit of cover to another. Each time they stopped, they fired arrows into the cloud rising around the raiders, who were trying to penetrate the western edge of the boulder field, their wild shouts spreading terror among the donkeys. The creatures screamed, reared, fought to break free.
Fine sand whirled around the men on the opposite slope, making them hard to see. The incline where Bak stood was a mixed blessing. No dust filled the air to offer cover, but at least the descending men could see and breathe.
He dashed toward the wadi floor, setting off a miniature slide of loose, chattering stones. More than a dozen archers were spread across the slope, racing downhill, ducking into shelter, firing their weapons. Bak thought he saw arrows strike home, but the whirling dust made it impossible to be sure. About halfway down the incline, a shower of missiles rose from the enemy ranks, pelting the slopes around Bak and his men. He threw himself behind a thick stone slab. The archer to his left fell beside an outcropping rock, moaned. Other men dropped, whether to save themselves or from injury, Bak could not tell.
Across the bowl, he identified Harmose, zigzagging through the sand, raising a vaporous trail behind him. An archer flopped onto the sand, which erupted around him, and dug himself in behind an outcrop too small to shelter a hare. Kasaya darted to a fallen man, grabbed his arm, and pulled him to safety. A cloud rising at the west end of the bowl signaled heavy fighting. Bak assumed Imsiba and a handful of men were trying to relieve Paser.
In the dry streambed below, the tribesmen’s charge had been halted by the spearmen who stood behind the crude, hastily constructed breastwork. The yelling had ceased with the need to save every breath for the labor of combat, but the donkeys, terrified by the clash of weapons and the smell of blood, refused to be quieted.
Bak doubted the raiders would stand and fight for long at a location impossible to breach. They would spread out, working their way around the boulder field in search of another, weaker point to attack. He was certain they would find one. He had been an officer long enough to guess that, soldiers being soldiers, many of the men assigned to guard the flanks had been drawn by excitement to the forefront of the battle.
He no sooner had the thought than a stream of tribesmen emerged from the cloud and began to work their way along the outermost boulders under cover of their shields. He glanced toward the outgoing trail. The sun lay squashed on the horizon, its orange glow veiled by the rising dust. The mouth of the trail was shadowed, almost lost in the haze. Imsiba, he prayed, had relieved Paser, and their men had entered the fray.
Bak stood up and gave a piercing whistle to attract the attention of the men he commanded. Arrows flew from below, one nicking the edge of his shield. Those who heard his signal passed it on from one man to the next around the bowl. Harmose, half enveloped by dust, waved an acknowledgment. Bak raised an arm and swept it in a semicircle, motioning the men to his left to move down the slope. They ran in fits and starts from one stony refuge to another, forming an arc across the hillside with Bak at one end, the man farthest to the left at a point near the boulder field. Harmose’s force on the opposite incline performed the same maneuver.
Bak whistled a second time, and, as the sun shrunk to a sliver, he swept both arms forward, ordering an advance along all fronts. He and his men began to move, closing on their foes. The men across the wadi did the same. Forced to make a stand on the lower slopes, the raiders were caught between Mery’s spearmen inside the breastwork and the archers on the slopes above. Abandoning their offense, they turned around to retreat. They had nowhere to go. The route they had used to enter the bowl, the landslide, was blocked by Paser and Imsiba with their joined forces.
Some of the tribesmen surrendered, a few lay where they had fallen. The rest broke ranks and took off in all directions. Mery’s spearmen scrambled over the breastwork to give chase. The line of archers swept friend and foe alike toward Imsiba and Paser. The battle deteriorated to a free-for-all, with pockets of men battling face-to-face.
Bak raced toward them, infected by excitement, drawn by the clatter of weapons striking shields, the grunts of fighting men, the cries of the wounded. A spear-wielding tribesman streaked with sweat and dust broke away from his fellows and charged him. Bak sidestepped and deflected the deadly point with his shield. Too close together to thrust their weapons effectively, they leaped forward, shields clashing. Bak pressed his assailant backward with the strength of a victor. The tribesman, with the desperate tenacity of the vanquished, twisted away and leaped to the side, ready to drive his spear home.
Bak raised his shield to ward off the thrust. An arrow sped from out of nowhere and lodged in the wooden frame. His assailant’s spear splintered the shaft, driving the arrowhead deeper. The tribesman, looking as startled as Bak, jerked his weapon back to strike again. Bak danced half around, feinted with his spear. A second arrow flew over his shoulder and lodged in his opponent’s upper arm. The tribesman gave a strangled curse; the spear slid from his hand and rolled downhill out of his reach. He let his shield fall and slumped to his knees in a gesture of surrender.
Bak dropped to a crouch beside the man and swung his shield around to protect them both should another missile fly their way. None came. The battle was over, the dust settling, the donkeys quieting down.
Clusters of men were descending the slopes, soldiers bringing in tribesmen who had tried to run away. The men in and around the boulder field were disarming captives and binding their arms. Others had begun to collect the weapons strewn across the battleground. A few soldiers, a far greater number of raiders, sat on the ground, trying to staunch the flow of blood. The more badly injured lay among them, moaning for relief from their pain. A dozen or more lay motionless, enveloped in the silence of death. Bak saw a couple of his Medjays among the wounded, but neither looked badly hurt.
Imsiba, standing low on the opposite slope, waved to attract Bak’s attention, then clasped his hands high above his head in celebration of victory. From his broad grin, Bak guessed the men in their company had suffered no serious casualties.
Delighted with their good fortune, he stood erect, let his shield slip to the ground, and raised his spear high, acknowledging their triumph. His prisoner yelled and lunged toward the shield, plowing into Bak and knocking him off his feet. As he toppled, something scraped his shoulder blade and he lost his spear. He rolled away from the tribesman, grabbed the weapon close to the point, and scrambled to his knees, ready to brain the man should he attack again.
He glimpsed Imsiba, running toward them through the boulder field. He waved the sergeant off, for the man posed no threat. He lay sprawled on the ground, holding his right shoulder. Blood flowed between his fingers. The impact of his fall had torn the arrow from his flesh. The man spoke a few urgent words in his native tongue, his voice choked with pain, and stretched an arm toward the shield.
He wants the shield! Bak thought, and something struck me as I fell!
Cursing his slow wits, he spun around, caught the edge of the shield with one hand, and reached back with the other to touch his shoulder blade. His fingers came away bloody. The sweat from his hand made the open wound sting.
A cold chill raced up Bak’s spine. If this man had not knocked him over…he dropped low beside his prisoner and held the shield upright in front of them both. Tense, wary, he glanced at the spent arrow and followed the course it must have traveled from the western end of the bowl. The dust was slow to settle there, making it difficult to see. A large group of men were milling around the wadi floor, too many for one among them to use a bow without being seen. He concentrated on the higher elevations, staring so hard his eyes watered. His patience was rewarded. A figure emerged from a clump of rocks near the landslide and scuttled through the haze to the denser cloud below. The grunt of his prisoner indicated that he, too, had seen the bowman.
Bak sucked in his breath and let it out in a long, slow hiss. The figure had been clad as a man of Kemet, not wearing the colorful leather kilt of a tribesman. The man who had stolen the gold had tried once more to take his life.
Harmose, whom he had already concluded was innocent, stood in the boulder field, supervising the men who were tying up the captives. Nebwa was far away in the desert. Which left Paser and Mery.
Not until he was sure the danger had passed did he stand up and help his prisoner to his feet. He placed a hand on the man’s shoulder and smiled to reassure him. The look he got in return was wary and a bit puzzled. Bak wished with all his heart he could speak the man’s tongue, could thank him properly.
As he led his prisoner to the boulder field, he examined the dry watercourse below, looking for Mery and Paser. He spotted them both in the thinning dust near the mouth of the outgoing trail. Neither held a bow, but such a weapon could have been easily enough disposed of. One of them, he was convinced, was the murderer he sought.