your way. Shortly this quiet valley will be turned into a field of combat!”
Then the man gathered the reins of his horse and galloped off to the commander's tent at Abydos and informed him. Pepi went immediately to Pharaoh and told him the news, which he received with astonishment and distress, shouting, “How can that be? Could Khayan have informed Memphis in so short a time?”
Pepi replied in fury, “There can be no doubt, my lord, that the enemy assembled its army on our borders before sending us its envoy. They set a trap for us and only presented their demands in the hope that we would reject them. When Khayan crossed our border on his way back, he gave the order to the assembled armies to attack. This is the only reasonable explanation for such a violent and rapid assault.”
King Seqenenra's face turned pale with anger and fury and he said, “So Panopolis and Ptolemais have fallen?”
“Alas, yes, my lord. The valor of our small garrison alone was not sufficient to defend them.”
The king shook his head in sorrow and said, “We have lost our best fighting ground.”
“That will have no effect on the courage of our magnificent fighting men.”
The king thought for a moment, then said to the commander of his armies, “We must evacuate Abydos and Dendara completely.”
Pepi looked questioningly at the king, who said, “We cannot defend these cities.”
Pepi grasped what his lord meant. He asked, “Does my lord wish to meet the enemy in the valley of Koptos?”
“That is want I want. There, the enemy can be attacked from many directions. There are natural forts in the sides of the valley. I shall leave bands behind in the cities that we evacuate to harry them without engaging them in combat. This will hold up their advance until we have strengthened our positions. Come, Pepi. Send your messengers to the cities to evacuate them and order the commanders to retreat at once. Lose no time, for the end of one of the ropes of the swing in which the destiny of our people is balanced is now in the hand of Apophis!”
9
The crier called out to the peoples of Abydos, Barfa, and Dendara, “Take your belongings and your money and go south! Your homes have become a battle ground that will know no mercy.” The people knew the Herdsmen and their ways. Fear seized them and they rushed to get their money and possessions, which they piled onto carts pulled by oxen, and to gather their cattle and flocks, driving them fast. They sorted themselves out and hastened southward, leaving their lands and homes, brokenhearted. The further they went, the more they threw dark looks behind them, their hearts tugging them toward their homes. Then fear — would seize them and they — would hasten on toward the unknown that awaited them. On their — way, they would pass divisions of the army and their hearts would feel easier in their breasts. Hope — would toy — with their painful dreams and their lips would part in a smile of joy that would shine in the sky of their woes as the sun's rays light up a gap in the clouds revealed for a second on an overcast day. They would wave to them and many would call out, “The lands entrusted to our keeping have been wrested from us. Restore them to us, brave soldiers!”
While this was happening, Pharaoh was overseeing the distribution of his forces in the valley of Koptos, watching with sad eyes the bands of fugitives whose stream surged endlessly past. He felt their sorrows as though he were one of them, his pain redoubling every time the wind brought their acclamations of his name and their prayers for him to his ears.
Commander Pepi was in constant contact with the scouts, receiving news from them and then passing it on to his lord. Thus it was that news of the enemy's attack on Abydos and the obstinate resistance of its small garrison reached him, brought by their last survivor. On the morning of the following day, the messenger brought news of the Hyksos attack on the city of Barfa and of the stratagems and dogged maneuvers to which its defenders had resorted in order to delay the enemy's advance as much as they could. At Dendara, the garrison had stood firm against the advancing enemy for many long hours, forcing it to use large numbers of troops against them, as though it were attacking an army fully manned and equipped. The scouts and some officers who had escaped from the garrisons of the invested cities put the enemy's forces at between fifty and seventy thousand, with a chariot division of not less than a thousand vehicles. The king received this last intelligence with surprise and dismay, as neither he nor any other member of his army had expected the army of Apophis to possess so many. He said to his commander, “How can our chariot division overcome this terrible number?”
Pepi was at a loss as he asked himself this same question and he said to his lord, “The archers’ division — will take on the task, my lord.”
The king shook his head in astonishment and said, “In the past, chariots — were not instruments of war that the Herdsmen used, so how is it that their army has many times more of them than ours?”
“What pains me, my lord, is that the hands that made them are Egyptian.”
“That, indeed, is a painful thought. But can the archers resist a flood of chariots?”
“Our men, my lord, do not miss their marks. Tomorrow Apophis will see that their forearms are more powerful than his chariots, however many they may be!”
That evening Pharaoh withdrew on his own, feeling helpless and oppressed. He prayed long and ardently to the Lord, imploring Him to send him cheer, steady his heart, and make victory his and his army's lot.
Everyone could feel the closeness of the enemy. They raised their level of alertness and passed the night anxiously, longing for the morning so that they might throw themselves into the battle of death.
10
The army roused itself a good while before daybreak. The doughty bowmen took their fortified places in the field with a small force of chariots to assist each. Seqenenra stood before his tent with his commander Pepi in the middle of a ring of the men of his stalwart guard. He was saying to them, “It would be unwise for us to fling a division of chariots into a confrontation with forces it cannot overcome. However, these scattered chariots will help our fortified archers to wound the enemy's horsemen and their horses. Apophis will doubtless begin his attack with the chariots, because the other divisions of the army cannot engage until the outcome of the chariot battle is clear. So let us direct our attention to disabling the Herdsmen's chariots, to allow the invincible divisions of our army to enter the battle and destroy the enemy.”
Destruction of the enemy's chariots was the dream in which he dwelt. With all his heart he pleaded with his Lord Amun in prayer, “O God, decree that we may overcome this obstacle! Take the part of your faithful sons, for if you forsake us today your name will go unspoken in your noble sanctuary and the doors of your pure temple will close!”
The king and Commander Pepi mounted their chariots and the royal guard surrounded them, while two hundred war chariots stood behind them. Then the javelin division advanced and formed two lines, to the king's right and left. All were waiting for him to give the call to battle, once the archers and the chariots that supported them had carried out their first task.
As first light began to appear, a scout came and informed the king that the Egyptian fleet had engaged with the Herdsmen's in the battle for the garrison to the north of Koptos. The king said to the commander of his army, ‘Apophis has realized no doubt that he will face fierce resistance. This is why he has ordered his fleet to attack, so that he can drop troops behind our positions.”
Pepi replied, “The Herdsmen, my lord, have not mastered the art of fighting on board ship. The sacred Nile will swallow the corpses of their soldiers and with them Apophis's hopes of besieging us.”
Seqenenra had great confidence in the men of the Theban fleet, yet he recommended to the commander of the scouts that he stay in constant contact with the naval battle. The darkness started to dissipate and morning to come and the battlefield started to reveal itself to the watching eyes. Seqenenra beheld his archers, bows in hand, with the few chariots readying themselves to fight beside them. And on the other side he saw the Herdsmen's army spreading like churned dust. The enemy was waiting for the morning to appear and as soon as it did so, the chariots moved in readiness for the battle. Then some of them swooped down on some of the forward fortified positions and
