“How many more?” User called from above.
Bak glanced back at the animals yet to be urged to safer ground. “Four.”
Nebenkemet plunged down the slope. Sweat poured from him as he stopped beside the first donkey in line and began to tie the rope around it so he could haul it up the gap while the other men urged the remaining animals up the easier paths.
Catching the halter of the second donkey, Nebre urged it up a sloping rock along which, six or eight cubits above the wadi floor, a diagonal channel filled with sand made an easy path to the shelf. Just below the channel, the animal’s hooves slid on the granite and it fell to its knees. Amonmose climbed up to help pull it erect.
Wensu started down the hillside to get another donkey.
Bak heard what at first sounded like a child rolling rocks around the inside of a pottery bowl. To the southwest, some where up the dry watercourse. The sound became a faraway rumble, which steadily grew louder.
“Go back, Wensu!” he yelled. He grabbed the rope halter of the third donkey and flung it at Kaha. “The water’s coming!”
Terrified by the sound, which had grown ominous enough to frighten the lord Set himself, the donkey bolted, practi cally dragging the Medjay up the slope. A wide-eyed Wensu met him part way, let him pass, and stood in the one spot as if turned to stone. Amonmose and Nebre got their donkey on its feet and urged the frightened animal onto and up the diago nal path.
Flinging a quick look up the wadi, Nebenkemet tied the fi nal knot and hurried to the head of the donkey he meant to haul upward. Bak slapped it hard on the flank, getting it started, and swung around to grab the halter of the last ani mal. The creature, terrified by the rumble of rocks, which had swelled to a dreadful roar, swung away from his hand. Bak caught the strap holding the water jars in place, halting its flight. The donkey flung its head and kicked out, trying to break free. Staying well clear of those mean little hooves,
Bak dragged it to the slope up which Kaha had gone. Amon mose met him, managed to catch the halter, and began to pull the animal upward.
Bak glanced up the wadi and saw, coming around a bend, a wall of water taller than he was, gulping up rocks and boul ders, dead brush and trees. Its roar was horrendous. The don key, white-eyed with fear and braying wildly, fighting to free itself of Amonmose’s grip, blocked his path. He slapped it hard, hoping to get it moving. It kicked out, forcing him to duck onto the slope covered with rock chips.
Senna came down the incline above him, half-running, half-sliding on the loose surface. To slow his headlong plunge, he grabbed hold of a projecting crag, his feet slid out from under him, and he kicked Bak into the wadi.
Bak fell against the wall of water so hard it knocked the breath from him, and he thought his back was broken. The flood sucked him up, tumbled him like the rocks and debris around him, and swept him downstream. The rumble of the rushing water and rolling, twisting rocks was deafening, the sand swirling around him blinding. Trying not to breathe, forced to close his eyes, he was caught up in dead brush and pelted by rocks, chunks of wood, and the lord Amon only knew what else. He was too shocked, too paralyzed by fear, to think. Unable to tell up from down, one side from another, he curled into a ball, trying to spare his face and chest from the battering, and let the current carry him downstream.
Along with a craving for air, the will to live rushed through him. He recalled falling against the wall of water, the trememdous impact. Could he save himself?
Praying to the lord Amon that his back was not broken, he uncurled his body and stretched full length. He was sore but uninjured. Vastly relieved, he looked as best he could through the swirling sand. What he had thought was the wadi floor below was brighter than the water above. Pushing away the dead, spiny limb of an acacia, he rolled over and fought his way toward the light. He broke the surface, gulped air, and took in some gritty water with it. Coughing, he tried to see over the roiling surface, searching for the nearest land.
The leading edge of the flood had passed on down the wadi, which was filled with swift-moving, turbulent water from wall to wall as far as he could see. Each small wave glistened in the moonlight, a gleaming silver shard that shat tered as fast as it formed. Stones rumbled over the floor of the wadi beneath him, driven by the water, while brush and trees, dead lizards and birds and insects, were swept downstream on or near the surface.
He was about twenty paces from a hill that looked much like the one on which the caravan had found shelter. He was not surprised to find this slope empty of life. At the speed he was moving, he had to have been swept a considerable dis tance downstream.
Twenty paces to dry ground. An easy swim at the best of times. An intimidating expanse with the surface so rough and the current so strong, with so much debris floating around him and so many rocks and boulders tumbling below him, their clatter muted by the water to an ominous growl. With no other choice, he set out, swimming diagonally across the cur rent. He could and he would save himself.
A large water jar bobbed past him, caught in the limbs of a dead bush. It had to be one of the vessels the caravan had brought into the desert. It reminded him of that wretched donkey. And of Amonmose. They had surely been swept away as he had been.
Praying they, too, had survived, thanking the gods for so bright a moon and starlight, he looked around, searching for donkey and man. Fifteen or so paces back and about halfway between him and the shore, he spotted the donkey, its muzzle held above the dirty, choppy swells. The jars and supplies were gone from its back and it was swimming with the cur rent. Would its burden have come loose without the help of a man? Promising himself to wring the creature’s neck if it had brought about the merchant’s demise, he scanned the choppy water around the beast. He thought he saw a human head on the far side, but could not be sure.
Praying he had found Amonmose-or Senna; he had for gotten how close the nomad guide had been to the wadi floor-he swam across the raging waters to intercept the donkey. He fought the pull of the current, the tumbling debris and brush. He could see that the initial force of the flood had lessened, but not enough to ease his journey. Slowly he ap proached the animal. The filthy and sometimes foaming swells marred his view, preventing him from verifying whether or not he had seen a man.
As he drew close, the donkey flung its head and thrashed around, afraid of what must have seemed to it another of many threats to its safety. Bak let the current carry them on a parallel course, giving his tired muscles a rest, and spoke to the creature, trying to reassure it.
“Lieutenant?” Amonmose, peering over the donkey’s back, had to yell to make himself heard. “I thank the gods. I thought never to see you again.”
Bak swam closer to the donkey and clutched its brushlike mane. “When I thought of you and this wretched beast…”
He gave the trader a rueful smile. “I must admit I feared the worst.”
“If I hadn’t been holding onto him when the water struck,
I’d not be here now. I’m not much of a swimmer.”
“I’m surprised you both didn’t drown.”
“He fought me and for a while I feared he’d fling me away.
But I held on tight. I knew I’d never reach safety in these un 158
Lauren Haney tamed waters without help.” The need to speak loudly failed to check Amonmose’s garrulous tongue. “Fortunately, as afraid as I was, I had the good sense to unload him. He was having trouble staying afloat with those big jars on his back.
He must’ve realized I’d helped him. He grew more sedate and let me stay with him, clinging to his neck.”
Bak nudged the donkey toward the nearest hillside, a steep slope of rough and broken rocks. “We may not be able to get ashore right away, but at least we’ll be close if we find a likely place.” Or if we get desperate, he thought.
“Where are we, do you know?” Amonmose asked.
The hill looked no different than any of the others. The moonlight had stolen away the reddish color of the land scape, turning the rocks gray and the intervening spaces black. He had no idea how fast they were moving or how long they had been in the water.
“Not so far, I pray, that the caravan won’t come upon us early tomorrow.” Thinking to lighten the situation, he said with an exaggerated sadness. “I fear our fellow travelers will eat the remaining grouse, Amonmose, leaving none for us.”
The trader flung a very wet but wry smile across the back of the donkey. “One thing we know for a fact: we
