clutching his damaged right arm across his chest. In his fall he had lost his grip on the hilt of the blue sword. It had spun out of his hand, and ten paces away from where he stood the point had pegged into the earth. The blade still quivered from the impact, and the wondrous blue metal threw slivers of blue light, and the jewelled hilt whipped from side to side.
Naja staggered towards the weapon, but then he saw Krus bearing down on him, and an expression of utter terror turned his face the colour of cold ashes. He turned and started to run.
Nefer leaned from Krus' back, plucked the sword out of the sand, and turned Krus in pursuit of Naja. Naja heard the rising crescendo of hoofbeats behind him, and looked back. The mascara had run down his cheeks like black tears, and terror distorted his features. He knew then that he could not escape the terrible vengeance that was bearing down upon him. He fell to his knees and lifted both hands in supplication. With a slap across the withers and a sharp whistle Nefer brought Krus to a plunging halt before the kneeling figure, jumped down and stood over Naja.
'Mercy!' Naja sobbed. 'I yield to you the double crown and all the kingdom.' He crawled pitifully to Nefer's feet.
'I already have that. I lack only one thing. Vengeance!'
'Mercy, Nefer Seti, in the name of the gods and for the sake of your sister, the goddess Heseret, and the infant she carries in her womb.' Suddenly there was a dagger in his right hand, and he stabbed up viciously at Nefer's groin. Nefer was almost taken in, but he twisted away only just in time, and the point of the dagger snagged in the skirt of his chiton. Nefer struck the weapon out of his grasp with a flick of the blue blade.
'I admire your constancy. To the very end you are true to your base nature.' Nefer smiled down on him coldly. 'I grant you the same mercy that you showed my father, Pharaoh Tamose.' He drove the point of the blue sword into the centre of Naja's chest, and it came out between his shoulder-blades. An expression of agonized disbelief played over Naja's face.
'You have defiled this sacred blade. Now I will wash it in your blood,' said Nefer, jerked it free, then drove it in again deeply.
Naja toppled face first into the dust, and drew one more ragged breath, but the air from his lungs bubbled out of the wound between his shoulder-blades and he shuddered and died.
Nefer hitched the body by its heels to the traces that dangled from Krus' harness, then mounted and dragged it back across the field. The cheering followed him, wave upon wave, as he rode up to the gates of the fort. He cut the rope and left Naja's bloody corpse lying in the dust.
'Have the usurper cut into separate parts and send them to be displayed in every nome in this land. Let every citizen of this very Egypt look upon the fruits of regicide and treachery.'
Then he looked up to the figure who stood high upon the watch-tower of the fort, and raised the blood-smeared blue blade to him in salute. Taita lifted his right hand in acknowledgement and there was a flash of dark crimson light from the gemstone upon his finger, Naja's ruby ring.
He was on the tower through the whole day. What part did the Magus play in the battle? Nefer asked himself. Would we have triumphed without his influence? There was no answer, and he put the thought aside. He mounted the ladder to the top of the tower and stood beside Taita. From there he spoke to his men. He thanked them for their duty and their bravery. He promised them their rewards, a share of the plunder to all, and the honours of rank and chains of gold and titles of valour to the captains and centurions.
By the time he had named them all the sun was sinking through a low bank of purple thunderclouds towards the horizon. He ended his speech with a call to prayer: 'I dedicate this victory to the golden Horus, the falcon of the gods,' he cried, and as he prayed there was a strange omen. A fleeting ray of the last sunlight broke through the cloud bank and lit the tower of the fort. It glinted on the blue war crown on Nefer's head and on the blue sword in his hand.
At that same moment there was a wild cry from above: every head lifted and every eye turned towards the sky. A great murmur and sigh went up from the multitude. A royal falcon hovered in the air above the head of Pharaoh, and as they stared in wonder it uttered that strange, haunting sound again, then circled three times, and at last shot away in a straight line on rapid, incisive wingbeats into the darkling eastern sky and was gone in the gloom.
'A blessing from the god,' the soldiers chanted. 'Hail, Pharaoh! Even the gods salute you.'
But as soon as they were alone Taita spoke softly, so no one else outside the room could hear his words. 'The falcon brought a warning and not a blessing.'
'What is the warning?' Nefer demanded quietly, but with deep concern.
'When the bird called, I heard Mintaka cry out,' Taita whispered.
'Mintaka!' Nefer had forgotten her in the exigencies of the battle. 'What did Prenn tell me about her?' He turned to the entrance of the tent and shouted to the guards. 'Prenn! Where is the centurion Prenn?'
Prenn came at once, and knelt before Pharaoh. 'You have earned our deepest gratitude,' Nefer told him. 'Without you we could not have prevailed. Your reward will surpass that of all my other captains.'
'Pharaoh is gracious,'
'At the start of the battle, you spoke of the Princess Mintaka. I thought that she was safe in the temple of Hathor in Avaris. Where did you last see her and when?'
'Pharaoh, you are mistaken. Princess Mintaka is not in the temple. She came to me to bring your message. I could not bring her into battle with me, so I left her two days ago in my camp in the desert, on the road between here and the Khatmia.'
A terrible foreboding seized Nefer. 'Who else did you leave in the same encampment?'
'Some of the other royal women, the Princess Merykara, who had accompanied Mintaka, and Her Majesty Queen Heseret-'
'Heseret!' Nefer sprang to his feet. 'Heseret! If Mintaka and Merykara are in her power, what will she do to them when she hears that I have slain her husband?' He strode to the door of the tent and shouted for Meren. 'Mintaka and Merykara are in terrible jeopardy,' he told him.
'How do you know this?' Meren looked distraught.
