'We know that she would never have disobeyed you.' Taita opened his eyes and smiled ironically. Therefore, it seems that she must have misheard you.'
'This is your doing,' Nefer said bitterly. 'You are using her as bait for Trok. You have placed her in mortal danger.'
'Perhaps I can control the khamsin,' Taita said, 'but not even I can control Mintaka Apepi. What she does, she does of her own free will.'
Below them Trok had turned to give the order for his chariots to wheel away, to let the rabble escape, and to seize the fountain and the city of Gallala as Ishtar was urging him. Before he could speak he felt Ishtar stiffen beside him, and heard him whisper, This is something that Taita has conjured.'
Trok jerked around and stared up the long rising valley. He saw the tiny figure in the crimson dress, standing high on the yellow rock platform. He recognized in an instant the object of all his hatred and rage. 'Mintaka Apepi,' he snarled, 'I have come for you, you adulterous little dog-bitch. I will make you plead for death.'
'It is an illusion, Pharaoh. Don't let the Warlock deceive you.'
'That is no illusion,' Trok said grimly. 'I will prove it to you when I bury my prong in her warm flesh, and prod her until she bleeds.'
The Warlock has blinded you,' Ishtar howled. There is death all around us.'
He tried to leap down from the footplate and run, but Trok seized him by his lacquered locks and hauled him back. 'Nay, stay with me, Ishtar the Mede. I will let you have a taste of her sweet crevice before I throw her to my bully-boys to finish off.' He raised his clenched fist high above his head and shouted, 'Forward! March!'
The chariots on either hand rolled forward together, and the ranks behind followed Trok into the valley, the sun sparkling on the javelin heads and the dust rose around them like smoke. The tail of the fleeing refugees was three hundred paces ahead when Trok gave his next order.
'Forward at the gallop! Charge!'
The horses leaped away, and in a rising thunder of hoofs and wheels they swept up the narrow valley.
Trok has committed,' Nefer said softly. 'But at what cost? If he takes Mintaka ...' He could not bring himself to go on, but he stared in anguish at her tall lithe figure standing serenely in the path of the storm.
'Now you have something to fight for,' Taita said gently.
Nefer felt all his love and deadly concern for Mintaka become battle rage, but it was a cold hard rage that sharpened every one of his senses and filled his being to the exclusion of all else.
As the phalanx of chariots swept by below where he stood on the side of the valley, he stepped out from behind the rock that had concealed him. The complete attention of Trok and his troopers was fixed on the helpless victims ahead of their racing chariots. They had no eyes for the tall figure that appeared suddenly high on their flank. But all Nefer's men could see him clearly. They were hidden among the boulders down both slopes of the valley. Nefer raised his sword above his head, and as the last chariot sped past he brought it down sharply.
The wagons were poised on the steep gradient, with their wheels chocked and lashed to hold them. They were screened from view with dried grass the exact colour of their surroundings, and they were so heavily laden with rocks that the axles sagged. At Nefer's signal his wagoners pulled out the wooden chocks and slashed away the lashings that held the wheels. From both sides of the valley the wagons rolled forward, gathering speed, bounding down on top of the massed chariots below.
When Ishtar screamed at his side, Trok tore his eyes from the Mintaka's figure at the far end of the valley, and he saw the huge vehicles tearing down upon his squadrons. 'Back!' he shouted. 'Break away!' But even his bull voice was lost in the uproar. The charge once launched could not be stopped, and there was no space to manoeuvre in the narrow floor of the valley.
The first wagons crashed into the head of the charge. There was the rending of wood, the screams of crushed men and horses, the thunder of wagons overturning and capsizing, shedding their loads of rock.
Suddenly the way ahead of Trok was blocked by one of the cumbersome carts, and his horses swerved into the chariot running beside him. In an instant the magnificent charge was transformed into a shambles of shattered and overturned vehicles, and crippled horses.
The wagons had sealed off the valley at both ends. Even the chariots that had not been smashed and capsized were now bottled up in a struggling mass. The whole purpose of the chariot, its strength and threat, was its ability to run and turn, to charge and pull back at speed. Now they were immobilized, held by walls of stone, and Nefer's archers were on the slopes above them. The first volleys decimated the unprotected charioteers. Within minutes the valley was transformed into a slaughterhouse.
Some of Trok's men jumped down from their trapped vehicles and charged up the sides of the valley on foot. But they were exhausted by the gruelling approach march, and burdened with their armour. The ground was steep and rugged and they moved only slowly. From the cover of the boulders and walls of hastily erected stone zarebas, Nefer's men met them with long lances and hails of javelins. Most were cut down before they had reached the first rank of defenders.
Trok looked around him wildly, seeking some way out of the trap, but one of his horses was dead, crushed by the spilled load of rocks from the wagon that blocked his way forward. Behind him the other vehicles were so crowded that there was no room for him to turn or back up. Arrows and javelins were singing around him, clattering against the sides of the chariot, clanging off his helmet and breastplate.
Before Trok could restrain him, Ishtar took advantage of the confusion to spring down from the footplate and scuttle away between the wrecked chariots and plunging, shrilling horses. Then Trok looked ahead again, and incredulously he saw Mintaka still standing unmoved on the top of the ochre rock pile just ahead of him. She was staring at him with a cold look of revulsion on her lovely face that turned his rage to madness.
He snatched up his war bow from the rack at his side and reached for an arrow from the quiver, but then he changed his mind, threw the weapon aside and shouted at her over the heads of his rearing and plunging horses. 'No! An arrow is too good for a bitch in heat. I am coming to get you with my bare hands, I want to feel you struggling as I squeeze the last breath out of you, you filthy little harlot.'
He drew his sword and sprang down to the ground. He ran forward under the hoofs of his rearing horse, and scrambled over the overturned body of the wagon. Two of Nefer's men jumped out from behind the rocks to oppose him but he hacked them down and ran over their twitching corpses. His eyes were fastened hungrily on the girl in the crimson dress standing tall and proud ahead of him, the flame to the moth.
