Lowering his bulk to the ground, he said, “The men who fish in my fleet know the coast well. They say there’s no fresh wa ter anywhere along this section of shoreline.”
“So I’ve been told.” User tore away a wing and nibbled the flesh from the bones. “We’d be better off traveling north. To morrow we’ll reach a gorge with pools, similar to this one, and I’ve heard of a well three days beyond. It’s near the sea, so they say.” He threw the tiny bones onto the embers dying within the makeshift hearth. “Dedu thought to travel that way and will expect us to. He’ll probably intercept us somewhere along the route.”
Bak prayed to the lord Amon that such would be the case.
“If I’m not mistaken, the well you mentioned is where my fishing camp is located,” Amonmose said. “We could go there, yes, but must we travel so far between sources of water?”
User stared at nothing, thinking. “I suppose we could go straight down the wadi from the pools. The nomads take that path and camp on the shore while they fish and dry their catch.” He focused on the trader and shook his head. “No.
That’s a single night’s march, and we’d still have three nights’ march up a waterless coast.”
“My men have told me of those nomads.” Amonmose picked up a dried twig and prodded the embers, which flick ered to life each time the breeze touched them. “A couple of islands lie offshore, and around them the fish have a tendency to school. A few boats in my fleet usually toil in the area. If such is the case, we should be able to signal them. I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to leave this vile desert, and that might be the way to do it.”
User glanced at Bak. “Well, Lieutenant? Do you agree?”
“We can’t abandon the donkeys on a coast barren of water, and I doubt the nomads can care for so many animals for long. If we find any nomads there.”
A short silence ensued, broken by Amonmose. “Our sov ereign’s ships sail those waters throughout the months when the mines are being worked on the far side of the Eastern Sea.
I could send a boat to intercept one of them. Ofttimes the decks of the cargo ships have empty space, and I’ve found their captains to be an obliging lot.”
“If we must wait more than a couple of days for transport, a few of us will have to return the donkeys to the pools for water.” User flung the last of the bones onto the fire. “To travel both ways will take two nights.”
“If ships arrive while you’re gone, they’ll wait,” Amon mose assured him.
Bak prayed to all the gods in the ennead that User’s knowl edge of the desert and the merchant’s confidence in his fel low men would prove to be accurate. He preferred not to die a slow and lingering death from thirst and hunger on the bar ren coast of the Eastern Sea.
The caravan left the pools and retraced its path to the main wadi, where it turned in a northeasterly direction. Ahead, the red mountain rose into the sky, catching small puffy clouds tinted orange by the sun dropping toward the horizon. Nebre and Rona met them not far beyond the intersection.
“We walked the heights paralleling the wadi all the way from the pools,” Nebre said. “If Dedu came this way, he took care to hide his footprints. We found no sign of him.”
“I’m certain something’s happened to him.” Bak glanced down the broad dry watercourse toward the west, where long fiery fingers of light reached into the sky. “User’s trying to convince himself that he’s not worried, but he’s as concerned as I am.”
The trio fell in beside the string of donkeys twenty or so paces behind Senna. With Dedu gone, Minnakht’s guide walked once again at the head of the caravan. He should have been happy that he had regained his position, but he was sulking instead. He resented the fact that Bak had allowed
User and Amonmose to choose the route they would take to the next well, and took every opportunity to remind him that he was the sole man among them who had earned his daily bread by guiding other men through this barren desert.
Bak had had to bite his tongue to keep from reminding him that he had been Minnakht’s guide when the young explorer had vanished.
“Did you happen to spot the watching man?” Bak asked.
“No,” Nebre said. “Nor did we see another print like the one Kaha found in the gorge.”
“Do you think…” Rona looked at Bak and Nebre. He had no need to finish the question. The glum look on their faces made it clear that they feared the watching man had lured
Dedu out of the gorge and had slain him somewhere in this vast wasteland.
Dusk was falling when three large birds, their calls loud and jarring, drew Bak’s attention. The ravens dropped out of the sky to perch on the tallest of the many craggy boulders that formed a shoulder of rock nudging the south side of the wadi. They cocked their heads, watching the men below and the world around them. Their brownish black neck feathers shone iridescent in the setting sun. Another harsh call sounded at a distance. As if summoned by the lord Set him self, they bounded into the air and streaked up the wadi to swerve into an intersecting watercourse a couple of hundred paces ahead.
When the caravan drew closer to the intersection, Bak heard more birds, their bold, demanding calls carrying across the empty landscape.
“Something has died,” Kaha said.
Bak glanced at the Medjay, whose expression was as grim as his own. “Let’s go see.”
The two men picked up their pace, told Senna where they were going, and trotted up the wadi. To their left, looking in the clear air almost close enough to touch, rose the precipi tous southern side of the massive red mountain that domi nated the Eastern Desert. The birds had flown up a narrow, steep ravine that cut into the base of the mountain. Its slopes rose steeply to either side, intimidating masses of broken and craggy red granite.
Beyond a strip of sand fifty or so paces long, the floor of the defile rose up the side of the mountain in rough and irregular steps. Some distance up and scattered on the rocks to ei ther side were twenty or more ravens. Not far below them, a huge brown-black bird flapped its long, broad wings, trying to frighten the smaller birds away. Each time it turned its back to probe among the tumble of rocks on which it stood, the ravens hopped closer, only to be chased away as before.
“The vulture doesn’t want to share,” Kaha said.
“If that’s what I fear it is, we’d better hurry.”
They ran forward, yelling and waving their arms to scare off the birds. The vulture fluttered awkwardly up the slope to watch them from a flattish boulder. The ravens darted a few steps away to settle on rocks projecting all around and to scold and watch and wait. As Bak and Kaha climbed up to where the vulture had been, they saw among the rocks the right shoulder and upper arm of a man, the flesh torn away by the sharp beak of the bird. Someone had buried him, but not well enough.
Bak handed his spear and shield to Kaha and knelt beside the dead man. He shifted a few rocks off the head.
“Who is he, sir?”
“Dedu. As we feared.” Bak remembered the guide’s denial that he knew the name of the man who had defiled his daugh ter. He regretted his failure to press for the truth. If he had done so, would Dedu still be among the living? Or had the lie been a senseless act, having nothing to do with his death?
“How was he slain, I wonder?” he asked, more to himself than to the Medjay.
He flung more rocks aside, baring Dedu’s torso. Flies swarmed over and around a bloodied wound below the guide’s breastbone. The birds had not been able to get to this part of the body. As he waved away the insects, he felt as if he were reliving the moment when first he had seen the wound of the man who had been slain at the well north of Kaine.
“He seemed a good man,” Kaha said, his voice softened by compassion.
Bak began to replace the rocks he had moved. “We weren’t very careful where we walked, but you’d better look for tracks. I’ll go to the caravan and bring back help. We must bury him here, but not on this slope where a multitude of scavengers can reach him.”
Chapter 10
After burying Dedu deep in the sand and covering him with stones, the caravan continued down the main wadi and around the red mountain. User was very quiet, speaking only when spoken to. The drovers went on with
