Max Allan Collins

in on them—no escape possible, no fighting a crossbow aimed at the throat, not even if Mathayus had been in his full fighting form.

'I'm alive!' Arpid said, bursting up out of the water, capering like a child.

Then he saw the bandits and stopped splashing.

'For the moment,' Arpid said, as water streamed down his face like tears.

                            _{Cave Men}

M

athayus, Cassandra, Arpid and Philos—that un­likely quartet of desert travelers—were ushered from the oasis to the mountain range that rose from the idyllic water hole's edge. Here, massive rocks combined with the natural camouflage of hanging vines and the drapery of vegetation to shield a siz­able entrance into a cavern. A caravan could spend the night at the oasis, and never suspect the nearness of the mountain lair of these bandits ... that is, the caravan lucky enough not to fall prey to their hidden hosts.

Their scruffy captors led the little party through a dark, dank passageway, lighted by torch, until— astonishingly—the cave opened into a natural open-air amphitheater, the late-afternoon sun dappling an incredible temple-size area playing home to a stag­gering network of tents and walkways, a sheltered world of bare timber, rope, twine, and canvas, en­compassed by greenery climbing, then succumbing to, the cliffsides surrounding. Booty was stacked and stored here and there and everywhere—stolen, no doubt, from Memnon's caravans . . . which to the Akkadian seemed as noble a pursuit as any bandit might choose.

This shared enemy, however, made the assassin and his companions no less prisoners.

Mathayus and his improbable band were led by armed guards to a central place, around which scores of dwellers clustered ever nearer. The crowd con­sisted of warrior-bandits bearing shields and spears and wearing the war paint and leathers of numerous tribes, their women and children mixed in, swarming for a closer, openly suspicious look. Surprisingly, some of the faces—the females and the offspring particularly—were filled with fear; no warrior among this lot could compare in size and physique with the Akkadian ... and no woman could compare with the exotic beauty of Cassandra.

On the other hand, few were as puny as Arpid and Philos.

Nearby was the largest of the tents, a central canvas-timber structure, the door flap of which drew back, revealing a figure all too familiar to Matha­yus ...

... the Nubian giant, Balthazar, with whom the Akkadian had traded barbed badinage—and poten­tially deadly tosses of the kama—at the late King Pheron's tribal council.

Balthazar remained the same formidable figure— ropy dreadlock braids on an otherwise bald skull, massive muscles carved from ebony, ritualistic dec­orative scars on a face dominated by slitted eyes and a broad flat nose, battle beads looped around a tree-trunk neck, shoulders so broad you had to look at them one at a time.

For a moment the Nubian king froze, as dark an­ger rose through him like smoke through a burning building. Then the man mountain's upper lip curled in a sneer.

'Assassin,' he said, his voice deep, resonant. 'The gods are good to me. When last we met, you were so kind as to offer to kill me...' The giant sat heavily on a timber-and-twine throne. 'And now I have the chance to repay your kindness.'

Cassandra glanced at Mathayus, expecting him to respond; but the Akkadian said nothing, keeping his eyes focused straight and unblinkingly ahead.

'My scouts,' Balthazar said, leaning forward, a hand on one knee, 'tell me you have failed in your mission. It is said the sorcerer lives.'

Mathayus did not reply. And Cassandra began to wonder if she would be in danger, should the Nu­bian discover her identity....

'My scouts also say your two brothers were slain... and yet you took the same oath—that as long as blood ran in the veins of any one of you, the magician would die. . . . How is it you survived?'