No man would choose the much more difficult path over the sandy floor of the dry watercourse without good reason. He did not like the implication. “You say a multitude. Can you be more specific?”
“Fifteen to twenty men,” Minmose said. “Possibly more.”
Kaha’s expression was grim. “Men alone, with no women or children.”
Bak muttered an oath. “Warriors, do you think?”
“It would appear so.”
“Nomads?”
Minmose nodded. “Most were barefooted. A few wore sandals that were old and worn.”
“Was the watching man among them?”
“No, sir,” Kaha said. “I looked specifically for the print of his sandal, but never found it.”
“Our caravan is small,” Bak said, thinking aloud. “Fifteen men total, with just six of us equipped and trained to fight.
Why did they not wait for our approach? I wonder.”
“They may have thought our force stronger than it is,”
Minmose said. “Maybe they went off to get more men.
Kaha broke the long silence that followed that dire predic tion. “We thought to follow them, to find their camp, but af ter leaving this wadi, they scattered. None took the same path as any other, but in general they went in a northeasterly di rection. Heeding your orders not to go too far afield, we fol lowed none for longer than an hour. Each time we had to return to this wadi to pick up another trail. With so much go ing and coming, we were able to follow five men, no more.”
“No wonder you came back exhausted.”
“One thing we know for a fact: not a man among them re mained behind.”
Bak thought of the falling pebbles Rona had heard and was not so confident.
The wadi narrowed further. The pale glow of sunset faded from the sky, replaced by the light of the moon and a magnif icent display of stars. Bak, walking with Senna at the head of the caravan, felt as if he were traveling up a river of silvery sand running between high walls of sandstone whose stria tions had lost their color with the setting sun, turning to shades of gray. Boulders and stones fallen from above were islets rising from the streambed, and wind-formed ripples in the sand had become minute swells whose form was fixed in time. The soft plop-plop of the donkeys’ hooves were like bubbles bursting in water.
The section of wadi through which they were walking was beautiful, magical almost, but he looked forward to a safer stretch of landscape. The men who had left the footprints
Kaha and Minmose had found had come to the wadi for a reason. That reason had to be the caravan. Since they had not shown themselves, he had to assume the worst.
“We must camp tonight well out in the open,” he said,
“where alert guards can spot in the moonlight any approach ing men and where boulders can’t fall from above. How long must we travel to find such a place?”
He had earlier told his Medjays, User, and both nomad guides of all Kaha and Minmose had seen. Senna had evi dently given some thought to their situation:
“In a half hour or so, we’ll reach a long bend in the wadi. It gradually widens out until we come upon a line of trees.
They grow along the latest channel to be cut through the an cient streambed, near the center of the wadi. We’ll sleep there, where…”
The guide’s words were lost to the rumble of a falling boulder and a smattering of smaller stones. A huge rock struck the wadi floor not ten paces ahead of the two men, sending a burst of dust and shards into the air. Other rocks began to fall, thundering down the cliffside and crashing onto the wadi floor. Senna froze. Bak grabbed his arm and hustled him toward the opposing cliff. The foremost donkey, not far behind, cried out in fear and tried to jerk away from
Minmose, who was leading the string of animals. The Med jay whacked it on the shoulder with his short whip, frighten ing it further.
Shoving Senna forward, Bak grabbed the rope halter and shouted at Minmose to use the whip on the animal’s flank. As the lash snapped against its flesh, the donkey shot across the sand, nearly running Bak down and half- dragging the six an 100
Lauren Haney imals roped together in a line behind. Rona grabbed the hal ter of the last donkey, urging it forward, and screamed a blood-curdling cry to keep the string moving. Within mo ments, they reached the center of the wadi and safety.
By this time, boulders and rocks were falling all along the southern rim of the cliff above the strung-out caravan. The larger missiles struck the earth with a solid thud, settling into the deep carpet of sand. Others fell with a clatter, striking the boulders among which they fell and the stones scattered along the wadi floor. Many burst upon impact, sending sharp bits of stone flying in all directions. The donkeys in User’s string brayed and snorted and squealed, terrified by the noise, by the heavy boulders crashing down and the bursts of shards. Guide and drovers cursed and yelled at the animals, pulling and shoving and whipping them toward the opposite side of the wadi, away from the danger. Psuro, Nebre, and
Kaha ran to help.
Bak looked upward toward the top of the cliff down which the stones were plummeting. He glimpsed men standing on the rim, pushing the rocks over the edge. The nomads Kaha and Minmose had tried all day to find, he felt sure. They must have come a day or so before to seek out the best place from which to attack. They had gone away, leaving conspicuous and confusing tracks for the Medjays to follow, and had re turned by way of a circuitous route to await the caravan. Were they all above, shoving rocks over the rim? Or were a goodly number waiting around the bend to set upon the caravan?
Fearing another attack from the opposing cliff, Bak yelled at Rona and Minmose to hold the frightened donkeys in the middle of the wadi. Senna ran to help. Bak swung around, thinking to offer aid to User, but the other, larger string of an imals had been brought under control and the nomad drovers and Medjays were hustling them well away from the cliff and the stones plummeting down.
With nothing left below to hurt or destroy, the number of rocks falling from above gradually lessened, and the sounds of impact grew sporadic.
“Help! Help!”
Bak glanced quickly around, fearing someone had been caught in the barrage. The men and donkeys strung along the wadi floor were tense and uneasy, but none were missing and none seemed to be hurt.
“Help!”
Rona, Minmose, and Senna flung him a startled look.
They, too, had heard the call. It had come from up the wadi in the direction they had been traveling.
Bak ran toward the sound and Senna followed close be hind. A third cry for help drew them to a steep and narrow cut in the northern wall of the wadi. The moon beamed down from the far end, throwing its light on the rocky floor of the ravine and pockets of sand that had collected in the low spots.
About midway, a man half-crouched on a strip of sand. He looked to be injured and appeared to be trying to get away.
“I’ll see what I can do for him,” Bak said. “Go tell Psuro where I’ve gone.”
While Senna hurried to obey, Bak climbed upward. The floor of the cut was steep, and a tumble of craggy rocks slowed him down to a hard, fast scramble. He had a vague impression of rough walls to either side and the moon hang ing dead center of the opening at the top. A vague thought struck that this man might be Minnakht, but as he neared the figure, he realized he was a nomad.
He knelt beside the man. “You called for help. What…?”
A blow struck him on the side of the head and the world around him went black.
Chapter 7
Bak heard voices, men speaking softly in a tongue he did not understand. He opened his eyes but could see
