But as the houndboys, beaters, and the rest of the huntsmen drew in, Rahotep recalled earlier suspicions. This indeed was an over-manned party. The number of beaters was twice what was needed, and all of those he saw were seasoned fighting men. Only Sebni, his charioteer, and the groom and two runners who had trailed the civilian on the field were nonmilitary.
As he reclaimed his bow from the trampled dust, thankful to discover that that had not been a casualty of his mishap, Rahotep wondered anew at the purpose of the party. They had hunted lions, true enough. He flexed his bruised arm ruefully. He'd remember that hunt with a twinge in his healing shoulder for some days to come. But he couldn't escape the belief that the hunt was only a screen for something very different.
And he was sure of that when, instead of returning to Thebes with their trophies, the prince detached a runner to the nearest village to bring up men to take care of both dead lions and the captive until their return.
As they pushed on, still northward, Ahmose did not repost the beaters, or send men to quarter the reed beds. Midday and the heat found them in the lee of a ruined temple, and they sheltered from the sun in the nave of the sanctuary that had been despoiled by the Hyksos many years earlier. They had bread and onions, which were common field fare, along with a thin warm beer—such rations as might be served out on the march, but certainly not the usual food of the court. And Rahotep was not surprised to see that Sebni made a pretense of eating, but no pretense of enjoying the few bites he choked down, while the prince, on the other hand, munched away with the same hearty appetite as the archers and spearmen whose food he shared in equal portion.
The Nubian archers were trained to keep apart when they stretched out in strange surroundings to take what ease they could, their bows to hand, their belt axes turned so that they could be seized upon at the first alarm. Kheti nodded in one corner and at last snored peacefully. But Rahotep could not find any position that eased his bruises, and at last he gave up all efforts to rest and sat with his back against the wall, gazing toward the mutilated inner shrine, trying to reconstruct the place as it had once been.
Then his hand was on the hilt of his dagger, though he did not turn his head or breathe any faster. That faintest of sounds from the corner of the wall against which he rested was warning enough to one who had lain in spy outposts above a Kush hold. Someone was approaching from that direction and taking every precaution against sound—such stealthy creeping was a warning in itself. The captain moved away from the wall and brought his knee to the floor so he was half turned in a crouching posture to face the skulker.
But at first sight of the other he remained where he was. Ahmose, regarding the captain so ready on the defensive, blinked and then smiled. He beckoned with a finger, and Rahotep slid around the corner as the prince retreated, until they stood together in what had once been the inner sanctuary of the temple. Why the prince should take such a way to speak with him secretly, the captain did not know. But that it was of importance he did not doubt.
"Can you bring out your men without its being noted? Much depends upon our leaving here unobserved—though I have those to cover our trail as best they can."
"That I can do, Royal Son," Rahotep replied confidently. He dared ask no questions as to why this was necessary.
Ahmose's smile grew wider. "We go to a task which, I think, will please you and your men well, kinsman. I had thought to take those of my own command, but now I would see how the Scouts work alone. However, we can only go unremarked—"
"By Sebni, Lord?" asked Rahotep.
"By Sebni!" The answer was delivered grimly, and the smile disappeared from the prince's full lips. "Be swift, Captain. Bring your men this way without notice if you can."
Rahotep flitted back to the group of archers. He knelt beside the nearest. As one hand slid over the man's mouth, his other tightened on the bowman's upper arm and shook it ever so slightly. Eyes opened, looked at him with quick consciousness, and Rahotep released the alerted man with a small gesture, so that the archer turned to arouse his next comrade after the same silent fashion.
The priests who had once served this forsaken temple had had their own private passages, a fact that Ahmose appeared to know. Almost, Rahotep thought, as if the Royal Son had made previous exploration here with some plan in mind. One by one, the archers stepped through a low door, bending nearly double, into a windowless, narrow space that must run between double walls, until they moved out into the sun through a square from which a block of stone had been recently removed.
Ahmose, himself, was the last through. And he moved briskly with little of the caution he had displayed inside the temple.
They had come out behind the building, well away from where the horses had been picketed and the chariots parked. To the captain's surprise, Ahmose made no move in that direction but, motioning them to follow, led the way directly from the temple toward the barren hills, which, with their yellow- brown walls, marked the end of cultivated land. They entered a gorge that cut back into the desert like the pointing finger of a hand, and there the prince met a man who arose out of the ground—or dodged into their path from behind the fallen rocks.
The newcomer wore only the twist of cloth that was the usual garb of a field worker, but he saluted Ahmose as if he were one of the prince's officers.
"They have gathered the horses by the river, Royal Son. There has been a delay in the coming of the ships—" He accented the word "delay" with a meaning laugh.
"What forces have they?"
"Fifty. Mostly slingers, a few bowmen—but only officers' chariots since they return by the river. They are picked men though, Lord, and not to be lightly challenged, for they are led by the Commander Horfui—I have seen him with my own eyes!"
"Fifty—and Horfui—" Ahmose drew his hand down his chin as one who is working upon a problem. Then he turned to the yet unenlightened Rahotep.
"They say that the archer Scouts not only hunt the desert for raiders, but that they like high odds when the sticks are tossed in the battle game. How be it, Captain? Dare we go up against fifty of the Hyksos under a commander who has won his gold of valor a hundred times over?"
Rahotep made an answer dictated by the belief he had had in this leader since his first meeting with Ahmose.
"Prince, I do not think that you go into this without a workable plan—"
The Royal Son nodded. Rahotep thought the prince understood his trust in him. He began to explain the ordering of a battle plan, squatting on his heels so that he could trace in the dust, with the end of his baton, a crude map.
"The Hyksos have come to gather their horses—those which are put out to pasture on the lands of those subject to them, to be fed and tended until they are needed. They have them here, at the wharf of the old nome. But the ships to take them north have been delayed. Should the horse fines be raided and as many driven off as possible, it would cause great difficulty. So—I think they shall be raided! And this very night. They will not expect trouble from the desert side, since their patrols make a curtain between the Two Lands and the Bwedanii, and to their minds there is no danger to be faced from us—" He said the last words with controlled anger. "Thus if we circle about, coming in upon them from the northeast after nightfall—"
Rahotep could grasp the possibilities. It was the sort of foray that suited the Nubians, not too many generations removed themselves from the activities of the Kush they had more recently fought to control. Cattle raiders, border thieves —they knew the tricks of old on both sides of the Pharaoh's law. And he caught fire from the complete confidence the prince displayed.
The small force circled out into the desert, striking away from the temple in an eastward line and then slowly turning back toward the river. Once in the line of march, Rahotep found himself being edged into command, the prince leaving to him the ordering of the Scouts. But Ahmose watched keen- eyed as the Nubians fell into action such as they had known hundreds of times before. He copied their loping stride, showing th
at while he was a master of chariots, he did not disdain the pace of the infantry.
It was after nightfall, and they had kept to a brisk pace that had covered ground when they saw the torches of the Hyksos' camp. The missing cargo ships had not yet arrived and the horse guard was still waiting with the herd picketed out in lines along the bank. The failure in transportation must be making problems for the enemy. They would have to feed the animals, keep them secure, and stand guard, though both the prince and his spy seemed certain that the Hyksos did not fear an Egyptian attack here.
The captain split his already small party into three. Kheti with three Scouts was to angle south and work his way up along the riverbank. His party had two purposes, to take care of any sentries who might be posted there, and to secure one of the torches that were fixed at the end of each picket line.
A second force with Rahotep himself in command, was to duplicate the same maneuver to the north, while the remainder of their party was to gather, as well as they could in the dark, all the dried grasses, reeds, and other combustibles they could lay hands upon, making up fire arrows ready for use.
Much of that journey on the riverbank had to be done on hands and knees or on the belly, serpent fashion. Rahotep hoped fiercely that the presence of the camp had frightened away any crocodile that might choose to rest along here. He had no desire to meet that death unaware. And he kept sniffing for the warning musky odor of the reptiles.
Instead he breathed in the strong smell of horses, a scent from cooldng fires, which made him run his tongue across his lips enviously, and then the aroma of body oil warmed by flesh. At that moment Hori rose from beside him and threw himself forward. There was a queer little catch of breath, close to a sigh, out of the night, and Hori lowered a body carefully to the ground. The archer hissed a signal, and they moved on, Rahotep detouring about the form of the sentry who had never known from whence his death had come or why.
There were men passing up and down the picket lines, carrying hides of fodder to their charges. Most of them were Egyptians, slaves, he judged. He drew close to Hori, stripping off his headdress and his arms belt, pressing these into the archer's hand. The Nubians with their superior height and darker skin might be noted by any keen-eyed officer. But the captain would merely be another Egyptian laborer among all the rest.
Rahotep dodged into the edge of the lighted camp area, then walked forward at a slow pace, as if both sullen and weary, toward the last torch that burned nearest their lurking place. He dared not be furtive or hurry, and his palms were sweating as he worked the lighted brand from its pole holder, expecting any moment to be hailed. Then, holding it so close to him that it scorched his skin, with his body between it and the camp, he struck out once more for the dark, leaping for the dip in the ground from which he had emerged.
Chapter 8
PHARAOH'S GUARDSMEN
Arrows bearing tufts of flaming stuff arched in the air above the horse lines. The picketed animals went wild with fear, their terror fed by the shouts and excitement in the camp. Men milled about aimlessly for those first few moments of surprise, but a volley of shouted orders told Rahotep that an officer, or officers, was keeping his head with the steadiness of a veteran.
The raiders had only those first few moments, while the surprise had confused and immobilized the men by the river, in which to deliver their blow. But the archers went into action with the same practiced dispatch with which they would have handled a Kush village. Four of them kept those blazing arrows in flight; the rest infiltrated the picket lines.
They slashed at the restraining nose ropes of the horses with their daggers. And the ensuing confusion of freed and frightened animals added to the general uproar. Though he knew very little about the handling of horses, Rahotep snatched at a dangling rope and held on against the pull of the half-seen animal it had tethered. Luckily the horse was not a fighting stallion, and when the captain retreated into the night, it obeyed his tug readily enough.
In this noisy confusion his sistrum could not signal, so Rahotep threw back his head and, with the full force of his lungs, gave the eerie war cry of a desert raider, such a paean of victory as the Bwedanii voiced when sweeping over a caravan. Let the Hyksos believe that the desert rovers of the waste country had somehow broken through their patrols to raid.
Running, with the horse he had brought out of the camp thudding close beside him, the captain headed eastward to that pinnacle of rock they had earlier marked for a rallying point. And now, in the moonlight, he could see that it was no natural outcrop of stone, but a headless, battered figure, some memorial to that Egypt the invaders had tried to stamp into the dust.
Rahotep was not the only one to return with a horse. In spite of their awe of the animals, three of the archers, among them Kheti, had brought with them four-footed loot. And two of the figures coming in led a double catch. It was when one of them spoke that Rahotep knew him for the prince.
"We have stirred up a nest of scorpions—it is best that we leave it behind us with speed!"
The captain glanced back. Torches were flaming into life, and there were greater spots of illumination where some of the fire arrows must have ignited stores or fodder. A war horn blared out an imperative summons. They could see men assembling, armed and ready. Rahotep, wise in such attacks, spoke to Ahmose as if they were but fellow officers.
"Prince, if they think that we are Bwedanii, they will strike eastward and not to the south where they might cut us off. So let us first lay a trail in that direction—"
"So be it. But they will be eager to reclaim the horses, and those we need. They are worth more now to the forces of Pharaoh than all the gold of Nubia!"
"Only let us reach the desert sands, Royal Son, for in the sand spoor may be more easily left to read falsely."
Ahmose was plainly reluctant to march out of their way, but the wisdom of the captain's argument could not be assailed. Only on one point did he remain firm.
"We have taken five mares—and those are above price, for the Hyksos will not trade mares or let them out of their hands if they can help it. Those must not be lost. The stallions are another matter, and also they are more difficult to lead."
"Prince." That was Kheti, respectful enough, yet with the experience of an accomplished raider to back his advice. "Let us muddle the trail a bit, and when we reach the right place where tracks can be hid, then let the mares be taken while we head on with the stallions. If they can smell out such a track as we shall leave for them, then they are indeed hounds of the Dark One and not men who can be slain with axes! And against the Dark One who can strive?"
So it was done. The moon was both a help and a hindrance, for, while it made clear their own road, it might also betray them to the hunters. Thus they laid a pattern intended to confuse, in spite of the need for haste, setting to use every bit of cover the country afforded—which was precious little—until they came to a line of irrigation ditches, now largely clay- bottomed gashes.
"Your road with the mares, Royal Son." Rahotep pointed to the nearest ditch. "A path may be worked from one to another which they cannot spy out with ease until Re gives morning light, and there are hours before that."
The prince laughed. "Well enough, Captain. How do we separate? Amten and I can manage to lead two each, but we shall have to have at least one more man to take the last."
"Kakaw"—Rahotep told off the best of the trackers—"Ikui, Mereruka, Sahare—you are now men of the Royal Son and under his orders. Prince, I shall join you when we are sure we bring no trail of trouble behind us."
"See that you do join me, Captain!" That had the sharpness of an order. "This has been a good twisting of the sons of Set, but it is not to be a battle. Commander Horfui is no green young officer to be affrighted by a hail of arrows in the night. When he drives forth, it will be for the taking of heads—" Grimly he mentioned that notorious custom of the invaders, the mutilation of their prisoners, that the captives' hands and heads might be offered to their dark god i
n his shrine of abominations.
Having seen the prince's party turn southward by the net of ditches, Rahotep led his own men to the east, bringing with them the three stallions. Two of the horses, lucidly, were young enough to manage easily, but the third was ready to cause trouble, trying twice to rear and stamp upon the man who held its rope. Only Kheti had the strength to handle it. The Nubian underofficer hissed to it, mimicking as best he could the sounds he had heard used by the army grooms as they hitched, unhitched, and cared for the chariot horses. Perhaps it was that which at last made the animal answer the pull of the rope. But as they started on a steady ground-covering lope toward the limestone cliffs and the eastward boundary of the Nile valley, it ran almost abreast of Kheti, as if it, too, could sense the pressure of their flight and was now willing to join in it voluntarily.
The sun was up before Rahotep, under the press of its heat, realized that in their hurried plans they had forgotten one important item—water. Each archer carried slung on his hip the small water bag of the frontiersman. But they had drawn upon those the day before with the belief that their contents could be renewed without difficulty. Now none contained more than a mouthful or two, warm, unappetizing, with the strong smell and flavor of the container. And if they combined it all, the supply could not suffice one of the horses. Any trade-route well of the desert would have its garrison. They must cut back to the bottom lands and the river and do it soon.