“Good food. Good company. Entertaining tales designed to bolster courage and self-worth. What good fortune for us. May we join you?”
Pashenuro’s hearing was as sharp as a jackal’s, Bak knew. With luck, this cursed military adviser had been so preoccupied with planning his own performance that he had heard nothing but the march of his own two feet.
Horhotep glanced at Bak and surely saw him, but his eyes came to rest on Nebwa. He looked down his nose at the more senior officer, assuming a superiority designed to chafe. “First you try to frighten Amonked with talk of im minent attack by Baket-Amon’s subjects, who in truth are nothing but impoverished farmers. Now you speak of rag tag tribesmen as an army. What do you take us for, Troop
Captain? Children who’ll believe any tale you throw at us?”
Lieutenant Merymose stepped back a pace, as if distanc ing himself from the sharp-tongued adviser.
Nebwa stood up, teeth bared in an unfriendly smile. “If we come upon an enemy during this journey, even if only one man with a pole sharpened to a point for use as a spear,
I pray to the lord Horus of Buhen that you’ll be the first to face him.” He spat on the ground, reinforcing the contempt in his voice. “You with your proud bearing and unproven courage. How will you fare when tested?”
“You swine!” Horhotep, forgetting himself, throwing off his haughty indifference, reached for his dagger, drew it.
An archer slipped back, out of range of the flickering light cast by the fire. He took a bow and quiver from among several leaning against the barracks wall and armed the weapon. Two other men followed his example. Aware the situation could rapidly go out of control, Bak scrambled to his feet.
Nebwa, tut-tutting at the show of temper, slid his dagger from its sheath and spat again, barely missing his oppo nent’s foot. Horhotep, his stance, his weapon ready to strike, stood as if glued to the spot.
“What’s wrong, Lieutenant?” Nebwa goaded. “Have you no stomach for combat?”
“Nebwa, no!” Bak shouted. He lunged toward the ad versaries, placing himself between them.
Merymose, leaping forward at the same time, caught hold of Horhotep’s weapon and twisted it out of his hand.
“You cur!” Horhotep screamed at the younger officer. “I could’ve taken him with ease! You’d no right to touch me!”
Merymose stumbled back as if struck and stared at the dagger in his hand. He seemed surprised to find it there, appalled at what he had done.
“Lieutenant Horhotep!” Bak’s voice rang out, hard and cold like the crack of a whip. “Go back to your tent and calm yourself.”
“How dare you speak to me like that!”
Bak pointed toward the archers standing in the shadows, weapons at the ready. “Do you have any idea, Lieutenant, how close you stand to death?”
Even in the uncertain light, they could see the color drain from the adviser’s face. He jerked his dagger from Mery mose’s hand and spun around to vanish in the dark. Mery mose flung Bak a look of apology and hurried after his superior officer.
Nebwa muttered a string of curses, blowing off steam.
The men growled vain threats. Bak bowed his head and offered a silent prayer to the lord Amon that neither he nor
Nebwa nor their men would live to regret this small victory.
Chapter Seven
The double doors of the western, desert-facing gate were spread wide, admitting the soft early morning light into the tunnel-like passage through the twin-towered portal. A long train of heavily burdened donkeys plodded through, drawn by the fresh, clean air outside the walls. Walking in single file, the sturdy beasts set off along the desert trail, following the drover Seshu had assigned to lead the foremost string.
A pack of feral dogs appeared out of nowhere to range alongside, a dozen or so slick-haired, medium sized animals of varying colors.
Drovers cracked their short, stout whips to keep the younger, friskier donkeys in line. Foals gamboled around their mothers. Each time a hoof struck the sand, a tiny puff of dust rose in the animal’s wake. Soon a thin cloud formed above the caravan, tinting the sky a dull gold.
Bak, who had climbed up to the battlements to watch the first animals set out, eyed that golden cloud as he would a pennant held aloft above a unit of his own troops hiding in ambush. It was pleasant to look at but a dead giveaway to an enemy force-and within the hour would be visible from a long way off. A beacon inviting attack.
A shout rent the air, drawing every eye within and with out the fortress. A sentry raced along the parapet atop the southern wall, heading toward the corner tower. Bak burst into a run and sped along the walkway atop the western, desert-facing wall, thinking to intercept him. He could see nothing amiss, but the sentry was responding to what was clearly an urgent problem.
Then he saw a man heave himself into a crenel near the tower and scramble through the opening. At the same time a large gray bird rose into the air. It flew a distance several times the height of a man and stopped abruptly, as if held in place by a god. Wings beating the air, crying a frantic kek-kek-kek, it struggled to free itself from what looked like a long cord binding it to the parapet.
The sentry, with the shorter distance to travel, reached the empty crenel ahead of Bak. He peered through, yelled.
The bird’s actions grew more frenzied. Bak dashed through the corner tower and came out beside the soldier. Looking out the next crenel, he saw a man climbing rapidly down the wall, finding easy handholds among the eroded mud bricks.
Snarling an angry curse, the sentry thrust his spear through the crenel and flung it at the fleeing man. The spear struck the fugitive’s shoulder, drawing blood, but the wound failed to slow him. He dropped the last few cubits to the sand below and swung around to face the desert, poised to flee in that direction. Spotting several men racing toward him from the caravan, he pivoted and headed full tilt toward the river. He vanished among a stand of trees at the edge of the water.
Bak turned away to look at the bird, frantically flapping its wings and crying out for freedom. A falcon, the sacred bird of the lord Horus. A long cord had been tied to its leg and tethered to a spear planted deep within the mudbrick parapet wall. Bak knew nothing of the handling of such birds of prey, but one thing he did know: no man would get close to that frantic creature without protection and knowledge. He leaned over the parapet and called for help to the men below.
A drover from Buhen, wearing heavy leather gloves and using the patience and gentleness of a man long accustomed to handling such birds, brought the falcon down and cov ered its head to quiet it. Bak stood with Nebwa, looking it over before he set it free. It was a magnificent creature, more than a cubit long from head to tail, with pale feathers below and darker gray above, a hooked beak and long curved talons. Sharp-eyed and deadly when hunting, gentle and loving when satiated. Or so the drover said.
“Why, in the name of the lord Amon, would anyone tie a bird up here?” Nebwa demanded.
“The deed was done deliberately,” Bak said. “The man came, left it in the most conspicuous place he could find, and ran away. We were meant to see it now, as the caravan moves out.”
“Why?” Nebwa repeated, glaring at the falcon.
Bak had had plenty of time to think while he waited for someone to rescue the bird. “The falcon is a creature of the desert, Nebwa, a creature of Horus.”
His friend, quick to understand, glared. “You can’t be thinking what I suspect you’re thinking.”
“Hor-pen-Deshret. Falcon of the desert. I think this bird was meant to announce his return.”
“No. I don’t believe it.” Hebwa hesitated, then said more thoughtfully, “He is a man who likes to show off, to prove himself braver and more clever than others. But…” He shook his head. “No, it can’t be true.”
He spoke, Bak noticed, with less assurance than he had when first he had heard the rumors of Hor-pen- Deshret’s return.
Bak thought of the many desirable objects he had seen in Amonked’s pavilion, with far more hidden behind
