“You’ll have to go by yourself,” Nebamon said, hiding a smirk from the victor. “I can’t take the caravan the long way around this trip. We’ve another load of supplies awaiting us on the vessels on which you crossed the sea.”
Bak thanked the gods. If the man he sought had indeed gone to one of the oases and if he saw an approaching cara van, he would slip away faster than a desert fox. “Can you give me a man to serve as a guide?”
“I can send a nomad with you,” Huy said. “One I often trust to carry messages to the port.”
“Such a man would serve me well.” Not merely because he would know the wadis better than any soldier, but because the man he hoped to find would have no reason to hide from one who wandered this land. “I’d like first to see the copper mines. When do you plan to move on, Nebamon?”
The caravan officer dropped his playing pieces into the drawer and smiled. “You’ve had enough of the mountain of turquoise, Lieutenant?”
“More than enough,” Bak said, glancing at his throbbing thigh.
“I thought to leave tomorrow before nightfall.”
“I’ll tell User and the others.” Bak stood up, yawned. “I wish them to travel to the port with you, not come with me. I trust you’ve no objection?”
Nebamon gave him a long, speculative look. The kind of look one man gives another when he suspects him of a hid den purpose. “User’s good company, and so is Amonmose.
I’ll keep them and the rest out of your way.”
“You understand what you must do.” Bak spoke softly so his instructions would not carry to User’s camp or to any soldiers.
He sat on his sleeping mat, his leg stretched out, trying again to ease the ache in his thigh. His Medjays sat around him, leaning close, faces intent. The yellow dog, which had followed him from Huy’s dwelling, lay at his feet. The sky was black, the multitude of stars resplendent, the moon large and luminous.
“I’d rather stay with you, sir.” As if seeking support, Kaha glanced at Psuro, sitting beside him on the sand. “Cannot
Minmose or Nebre deliver your message?”
Minmose squirmed, uncomfortable with the thought, and
Nebre grunted. The sergeant remained mute.
“They can’t speak the tongue of the men of the Eastern
Desert,” Bak said. “You can.”
“They understand no more than half of what I say.”
“As long as you can convince them that you must speak with Nefertem, the rest matters not. Once you reach him, you’ll have no trouble. He speaks our tongue as well as you or I.”
“What if I never get to him?”
Bak’s patience was coming to an end. He understood
Kaha’s reluctance to go off by himself into the wilderness, but an order was an order. “I told you before: seek out a fam ily of nomads, show them the pendant, and say you must go to Nefertem right away. Someone will take you to him.”
The Medjay, who could not have missed the impatience in
Bak’s voice, stared unhappily at the chunk of quartz in his hand. “If I manage to speak with him, what am I to tell him?”
“Tell him I’ll soon cross the sea, returning to the Eastern
Desert. I hope to be traveling with Minnakht. I wish Imset to meet us when we disembark at the quay where our sover eign’s cargo ships anchor at the eastern end of the southern route to the sea. The boy must take us to Nefertem, whom I hope to meet at the place where he found this.” Bak lifted the pendant from Kaha’s hand and held it up, letting the quartz dangle from the leather thong.
Several dogs began to bark, momentarily distracting them, and a sheep voiced alarm. The dog at Bak’s feet raised his head and cocked his ears to listen. Bak guessed a predator of some kind was lurking close by in the dark. A ewe had given birth to a lamb during the day. The fragile creature would be a tasty morsel for a large feline or a hyena.
Bak returned the pendant to Kaha and handed him a tight roll of papyrus. “Take this to Lieutenant Puemre. In it I ask that he rush you across the sea to the Eastern Desert. The traveling ship we saw at the port, which he uses to carry mes sages, is manned by soldiers and is fast. You should have plenty of time to contact Nefertem.”
“Am I to await you at the shore with the boy?” Kaha asked.
“You will stay with Nefertem.”
Kaha gave him a dismal look. “I’m to be his hostage.”
“I plan to give him what he wants. He’ll not harm you.”
“Aren’t you getting ahead of yourself, sir?” Psuro walked with Bak around the walled pen in which the sheep and goats were kept. They looked to be the sole men awake in the warm, still night. “How can you be so certain we’ll find Min nakht at one of those oases?”
The yellow dog, lured by the other dogs who dwelt in the camp, had run off into the darkness, his voice merging with theirs. Their furious barking gradually faded away as they chased the predator away from the camp. The flock, which
Bak and the sergeant had found milling restlessly within the rough stone walls, had begun to settle down. The lamb was safe among them.
“If we don’t find him, if he didn’t follow us as he vowed he would, I must still meet with Nefertem. We alone can never hope to find one man in an area as vast as the Eastern Desert.
We need the help of a tribal chieftain, one whose people can sweep across the landscape, letting no one and nothing slip out of their grasp.”
“They didn’t find him before, sir.”
“They didn’t know what they were looking for.”
“You vowed to tell no one that he still lives. Now you plan to tell Nefertem. Is that wise, sir? What if he’s right and the nomads wish him dead?”
Chapter 17
“You’re staying behind?” User, shaking the dust from his tu nic, eyed Bak with suspicion. “Did you not vow to snare the man who’s been prowling the Eastern Desert, slaying first one man and then another?”
“I will snare him,” Bak stated.
He stood at the edge of User’s camp, studying the men scattered around. He had caught them filling the time with small tasks while they waited for Nebamon’s order to load the donkeys for the short trek to the copper workings and the longer journey to the port. His Medjays were similarly occu pied in their own camp. The sun hung low over the western peaks and the day was beginning to cool, so their departure was imminent.
“Clearly, he followed us across the Eastern Sea,” Amon mose said, looking up from several unusual barbed harpoon points he had received in trade with a nomad. “His ambush on the mountainside left no doubt that he wishes you dead.
Would you not be safer if you remained with us?”
“Four men have died within a few paces of your camp site,” Bak reminded him.
“And yours,” Wensu muttered.
“If the slayer follows us rather than you, more may die,”
User said in a grim voice. “We’ve neither the means nor the ability to protect ourselves, as you well know.”
“Your trek to the port with Lieutenant Nebamon should be safe enough,” Bak said. The cargo ships moored there will sail as soon as they unload the remaining supplies and load the copper and turquoise he’ll deliver to them. I suggest you cross the sea on one of those vessels. If you remain on board all the way to the southern trail, you
