Even with eyes accustomed to the deep gloom, they had had trouble seeing. Unable to find anything wrong, they had gone back to sleep.
The narrow strip of light between the cliffs told him the lord Re had begun to rise from the netherworld. He rolled over and looked toward the mouth of the gorge. The pools glowed like mirrors in the clear light of dawn. Ordinarily the caravan would have been ready to leave, or already on the way, but User had decided they needed fresh meat. The large numbers of sandgrouse that came to drink offered too tempt ing an opportunity to resist. They would remain until evening.
Bak sat up and glared at the donkeys. They were not go ing to settle down without a gentle touch and soft words of encouragement.
“What’s gotten into them?” Nebre grumbled as he, too, sat up.
The two men scrambled to their feet and walked into the small herd. As they calmed the animals, they examined the ground and the walls of the cliff and probed the supplies and forage scattered around, trying to discover what had made the creatures so restless. A single thought lay unspoken be tween them: a snake. In the better light, they could see fairly well, but were no luckier than before. Whatever the donkeys had sensed had either gone away or hidden itself.
They walked deeper into the gorge to help the drovers with
User’s donkeys. Again, they found no apparent reason for the animals’ distress.
When they returned to their camp, Psuro, Kaha, and Rona were seated around their makeshift hearth, where the long dead fire had turned to ash, eating a skimpy morning meal of bread and dried fish. The sandgrouse would make a welcome change to so dreary a diet.
Psuro glanced out through the mouth of the gorge toward the dry waterfall and the rocky steps on which the men as signed to guard duty often sat. “Someone must relieve Min mose.” His gaze traveled from one man to the next and settled on the slender Medjay seated beside him. “You slept through the night, Kaha, unlike those of us troubled by the donkeys.”
Kaha sighed dramatically. “I thought for a while that I was blessed by the gods. Now I see they favored me through the night to deprive me of the opportunity of slaying a few birds.”
The sergeant rolled his eyes in mock despair. “Leave your spear behind and take a bow and quiver. The lord Inheret might by chance send the grouse flying your way.” Inheret was the god of war and hunting.
With a quick smile, Kaha rose to his feet, scooped up a chunk of bread and a couple of dried fish, and strode to the weapons leaning against the cliff wall.
While the Medjay selected a bow, Bak looked across the pools toward the dry waterfall. The morning was cool, the sun pleasant rather than fiery hot. Why was Minmose not seated on the rocky step at the top the men on guard duty pre ferred? His thoughts returned to the donkeys’ behavior, and concern entered his heart. He picked up a spear and shield and walked with Kaha out of the gorge.
The Medjay scowled at the place where his fellow police man should be. “If Minmose saw or heard anything, sir, he’d have raised an alarm.”
“If he could have, he would’ve.”
Grim-faced, the two men picked up their pace, passing the pools with long, fast strides. They stopped at the bottom of the dry waterfall to study the slopes to either side. Minmose was nowhere to be seen. Exchanging a worried look, they raced up the natural stairway. At the top, a desert lark burst out from among the rocks, calling an alarm, and fluttered up the rocky hillside to their right. Other than the bird, they saw no living creature in the wadi beyond.
Their eyes were drawn to a good-sized patch of disturbed sand that would have been immediately behind a man seated on the top step facing the pools. A shallow hollow in the sand had smudged the vague footprints Bak, his pursuer, and the
Medjays had left the previous day. Traveling in an upstream direction from the hollow was a depression about a cubit wide, cut by two narrow indentations. The wider was the path of a man’s body, the narrow were the marks of his heels dragged along behind.
Praying to the gods that Minmose was unhurt, Bak trotted up the wadi, following the depression, with Kaha at his side.
As they neared the rock formation behind which Imset had vanished the previous day, Bak heard-or thought he heard-a low moan. Kaha sucked in his breath. He had also heard the sound. They broke into a run. Behind the forma tion, they found Minmose trying to sit up, holding the back of his head. Muttering a quick prayer of thanks to the lord
Amon, Bak knelt beside him, while Kaha helped him to rise.
The usually cheerful young Medjay pulled his hand away from his hair and stared perplexed at the rusty red stain on his fingers. “What happened?”
Bak parted the hair, which was matted together with dried blood, and looked at the wound. When he touched the bump,
Minmose flinched. The small break in the skin had bled a considerable amount, but was entirely scabbed over. Bak’s knowledge of head wounds was limited to the few times when his father, a physician, had taken him along when he dealt with such injuries. He had been a mere boy, easily dis tracted, and had not learned as much as his parent would have liked, but he doubted Minmose was badly hurt.
“What can you remember?” he asked.
“I was sitting at the top of the dry waterfall. The moon was high and I was watching a herd of gazelles, seven or eight of them, drinking from the pools.” Minmose wrinkled his brow as if trying to squeeze out what had happened. “I’m sorry, sir, but that’s all I remember.”
While Bak reassured him, Kaha studied the sand up stream. “Whoever did this walked the same path we did yes terday. The sand is too churned up to leave distinctive prints.
I’d wager this weapon…” He touched the bow lying beside him on the sand. “… that he climbed down a hillside close by to leave as small a sign of himself as possible before creeping up behind Minmose.”
Bak’s thoughts leaped backward to the night and to his broken hours of sleep. “And I’d wager that he struck Min mose so he could enter the gorge unseen.” He took up his weapon and walked around the rock formation so he could look downstream. “Stay where you are, Minmose. I’ll send someone to you.” To Kaha, he said, “We must examine the floor of the gorge before the donkeys and men trample any sign he might’ve left.”
“Here you are!” User hurried to the mouth of the gorge to meet Bak and Kaha. “We must get into position before the finches fly in. If we frighten them off, I doubt the grouse will come.”
Signaling the explorer to come with him, Bak called out to
Psuro. The sergeant stood with Senna, Nebre, and Rona, se lecting weapons for the hunt. User had set up a few snares, but the Medjays, proficient archers that they were, preferred the bow.
“Minmose was struck on the head in the night.” Bak quickly explained that the young Medjay was not seriously hurt, told Rona to bring him back to camp, and, paying no heed to the Medjay’s disappointment that he would miss the hunt, explained where the injured man could be found. To
User, he said, “I fear the one who attacked him slipped in among us while we slept.”
“The grouse…” The explorer clearly wanted to go on with the hunt, but was not sure they should.
“Gather together your hunters and go,” Bak said. “Kaha and I will search this camp while you’re away.”
Psuro and Nebre offered to remain behind, but Bak shook his head. “If we’re to have enough grouse for every man in this caravan to get more than a bite, you’ll have to join the hunt. I doubt if anyone else can use the bow to as good effect.”
“I’ll help you, sir,” Senna offered.
Bak shook his head. “The two of us will suffice. The fewer men in the gorge, the more likely we are to find some sign of the intruder.”
User summoned the men traveling with him, who had been standing around his campsite, and strode toward the mouth of the gorge. A drover armed with a bow and quiver and carrying a basket in which to gather up the slain grouse accompanied them. Ani and Nebenkemet took no weapons with them and made no pretense of hunting. They wanted to see the vast numbers of birds Bak had described. Wensu car ried a bow, but Bak suspected the other hunters were in more danger from his arrows than were the grouse. He did not know what to think of Amonmose’s skill as an archer. Since the journey had begun, the man had continually surprised him with his abilities
