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
