On this occasion, however, the slavers had overestimated their own strength. They had taken so many prisoners that they soon found themselves short-handed, and during the final leg of the march along the forest trails to Phemor more than a hundred blacks had managed to free themselves and make their escape. Since then, in groups large and small, they had been pursued by enraged slavers and many had been taken a second time. Kindu and his friends had been recaptured only an hour or so before Khai had stumbled across them. . . .
After a while, breaking out of the forest and starting across a wide band of savannah, the blacks indicated their desire to call a halt for the night and Khai was only too glad to concur. The muscles of his calves already felt like water and he dreaded the thought of how they would feel the next day. Now the three male blacks went off in different directions and left Khai with the girls. In a little while, there sounded a series of whistles and birdcalls, and some moments later, the blacks returned. One of the young men had found a camp for the night—a patch of thorn bushes hidden in tall grasses less than a hundred yards away.
The Nubians used the swords of the Arabbans to cut a way into the otherwise impenetrable barrier of thorns. They cleared a boma big enough to use as a sleeping area. Then, as night set in and distant sounds of nocturnal predators began to fill the shadowy air, Khai’s new-found friends beat the grass about until a small deer was startled into flight. Despite the poor light, Khai managed to bring the animal down with a single arrow.
By the time they had a fire going outside their thorn bush refuge, its smoke could not be seen against the darkening sky. Khai had not eaten since Myhna gave him a crust of bread aboard her barge, and as choice cuts of meat began to sizzle on the ends of pointed sticks his mouth watered with anticipatory relish. The only thing they were short of was water, but they decided against seeking a stream in the night. They must simply go thirsty until morning; then they would be able to drink their fill of dew from the broad, dish-shaped leaves of certain large plants, many of which grew in large patches on the savannah.
Beneath a sky full of stars and the soft glow of a rising moon, Khai drew straws for night-watch with the black males. He drew the shortest straw and so took first shift. Worn out, nevertheless he sat alone outside the clump of thorn bushes with a curved sword in his hand, and all he could think of in the star-bright night was sleep and how wonderful it would be when it was his turn to crawl under one of the large Arabban blankets scavenged along with the other possessions of the slavers. Soon, despite a firm resolution to stay awake, he nodded off to sleep where he sat; and slow but sure the pitted face of the moon slid across the sky.
An hour went by, and another, and intermittently Khai would start awake at the cry of some creature of the night; so that when Kindu gently shook his shoulder, he jerked upright with a small cry of alarm.
“Shh!” whispered the black. “All is well, Khai, and it is my turn to keep the watch. You can crawl under the first blanket beside Nundi, where I have left a warm space, or beneath the second blanket and warm a place for yourself. Sleep well.”
A mist had drifted over the long grasses, wreathing them in slowly swirling tendrils that glowed silvery-gray in the moonlight. Moisture dripped from Khai’s nose and his flesh felt cold and numb. Without a word, he handed Kindu his sword and crept through the gap in the thorns. He stepped around the first blanket, a dark lumpy mass on the bare ground, and got down on his knees beside the second. Whoever slept beneath it, more than sufficient blanket had been left over to accommodate Khai. With a sigh of relief he slipped under the rough weave, curled up and almost immediately began to fall asleep.
A moment later, in his final seconds of awareness, he felt a warm hand touch his cold arm, then the warmth of soft breasts against his back and rounded thighs against the back of his own thighs. And when his body was as warm as her own and his breath had slowed into sleep, then the girl carefully wrapped her arms round his neck and hugged him close in the cradle of the night. Sobbing quietly, she rocked him in her arms as if he were the young husband whose body the slavers had tortured and hung from a tree in the clearing where Khai first found them. . . .
Morning came with a golden glow low on the eastern horizon. With that, and with a warning of the terror to come.
Nundi, hearing an excited babble of human voices, the whining of dogs and breaking of branches in the forest close by, quickly woke up the others and breathlessly chivvied them into activity. With the sounds of pursuit moving closer, they left the patch of thorn bushes and headed out across the mile-wide strip of grassland toward the wall of forest on the other side.
Long before they could gain the cover of the trees, a cry went up behind them and they heard the high, nervous barking of saluki trackers. Looking back, Khai could make out not only the brightly colored garb of slavers as they burst from the forest wall in a long line, but also the dull yellow of Khemish soldiery. It fully appeared that the slavers had asked for military aid in rounding up the runaways, and that Arabban numbers had been heavily supplemented with troops out of Phemor.
Moreover, when he had looked back, Khai had been astonished to glimpse, at a distance of some three hundred yards along the grass-belt, a second party of Nubian slaves. There were at least a dozen of them and in all probability they, too, had spent the night in thorn-bush bomas. They had been sufficiently far away from Khai’s party, however, that their presence had been unsuspected. Now, flushed into flight, they too raced for the green and protective wall of the forest.
As Khai bounded through the last of the long grass and plunged headlong into the shade of the trees, hot on the trail of his more fleet, completely panic-stricken companions, suddenly he found his mind working overtime. There had been something about the shape of that curved line of pursuers glimpsed at the far side of the grass-belt: a crescent-shaped formation closing like a net. He had seen it before: it was the formation used by beaters when they were beating up game for the hunting nobles of Khem. And Khai knew at once that he, his friends and the larger party of Nubians on their right flank were all being driven into a trap!
Actually, the trap had been set for the larger group of escapees, so that the smaller party was a bonus for the jubilant slavers, but Khai could not know that. He only knew that there was danger up ahead, and a cry of warning was already growing on his lips when disaster struck. He tripped on a root and flew forward, the side of his head glancing against the bole of a tree, his body thrown down on springy ground in a crumpled tangle. For a moment, his senses continued to function—if in a sort of slow-motion—and he stared dazedly into the heart of the forest, where the forms of his black friends were already disappearing into shrubs and undergrowth.
Kindu had seen him take his tumble, was heading back for him when two Arabbans sprang out from the bushes. The black gave a cry of fury and gutted one of the slavers with a single stroke of his sword, then smashed the hilt of his steaming weapon into the face of the other. But his efforts were useless and he could do nothing for Khai. As the bushes seemed suddenly to teem with slavers and soldiers coming on the scene from the flanks, so Kindu threw a last despairing look at the white boy where he lay, then turned and hurled himself after his black companions. That was the last Khai was to see of Kindu for almost four years. . . .
III
BACK TO THE RIVER
Khai regained consciousness to the sound of feet trampling leaves and grasses. He remembered enough of what had gone before to know that he must keep his eyes closed. There was a rocking motion and his body swayed in a sort of hammock, so that he soon came to realize he was being carried on a makeshift stretcher. When he finally did open his eyes a fraction, it was to squint up through high treetops to an evening sky. A breeze moved those high branches—a familiar wind from the north—and it brought to Khai a smell he had not expected to know again for some days: the smell of the Nile, which he recognized as surely as the lines in his own palm.
As he closed his eyes again the soldiers who carried
him began to talk to each other, confirming the fact that indeed he had been transported many miles back toward his starting point. “Fifteen, sixteen miles at least,” the man at the head of the stretcher complained. “Sixteen miles through the forest and the heat of the day—and for what?”
“Don’t ask me,” the one at the back grunted. “Those damned Arabbans get all the fun. We round up their runaways for them . . . they carry ’em off to Asorbes and sell ’em! What justice is there in that?”
“Not a lot, I’ll agree,” the first voice replied. “They get the black wenches and we get a white boy! And he gets, uh!—heavier with every mile, damn his hide!”
The one at the back stumbled a little and cursed, then answered: “Aye, and I rather fancied a firm black tit to chew on. Huh! Some hope. . . . Who do you reckon the lad is?”
“Well, it’s obvious he’s no Nubian. A hostage, that’s what he was—like Captain Pan-em said—or a prisoner, at any rate. Maybe there’ll be something in this for us after all. I mean, we saved his life, didn’t we? Took him off that bunch of blacks before they made off into the forest. The slavers got the main pack, but not that lot. There’s no telling what sort of tortures those blacks would have worked on this poor lad but for us.”
“This poor lad? You were complaining about how heavy he is a minute ago! And anyway, what was he doing with that bow of his—and the knife?”
“Look, he was running, wasn’t he?” the man in front answered with a patient sigh, as if he were explaining to a small child. “We must have come on them just as he’d made his escape. My guess is that he was probably out hunting yesterday with his father or friends, and the runaways picked him up as a hostage on their way home. Pity we didn’t get the black dogs!”
“Your guess—huh!” the other snorted. “You’re just repeating what Captain Pan-em said before he sent us backtracking. ‘Follow their trail backward,’ he said, ‘and you’ll probably find the lad’s father—or some friends of his at least—butchered!’ he said.”
“Well, and he was right, wasn’t he?” the leading soldier snapped. “We did find something, didn’t we? Those Arabban carcasses chewed up by lions, and the remains of those two slaves. A funny thing, that. What d’you suppose happened there?”
“Damned if I know. But since then there’s been nothing and we’re getting mighty close to the river. I can smell it.”
They came to a halt and Khai heard a saluki bark in the near-distance. “Here comes Khon-arl and Taphan,” said the man at the front.
“About time, too,” remarked the other. “It’s their turn to carry the boy. Here, let’s put him down for a minute. My hands are a mass of blisters.”
A moment later Khai felt his stretcher lowered to the forest’s floor. The ground took shape beneath his body and gave it weight. Then he heard the soldiers move off a few paces through the undergrowth. “Here!” one of them yelled. “We’re this way! Did you find anything?”
“Found the damn river, that’s all!” came an answering cry from not too far away. “The dog must be crazy—took us right to the water’s edge, he did. Seems to have his nose full of scents—birds, snakes, buffalo—anything but men! Crocodiles, too, I reckon. Why, if we’d let him, I’m sure he’d have gone for a swim!”
Now there came the sound of twigs and branches snapping and the swish of foliage shoved aside. Khai’s stretcher-bearers moved toward these new sounds and one of them called: “What are you doing there?”
“The dog’s in a bush now!” came the answer. “I reckon he’s just playing around. He’s putting us on, that’s what. Needs a good kick in the arse!”
Khai rolled off his stretcher and got to his feet. His knife was still in his belt and his bow and quiver lay where one of the soldiers had thrown them. Bending low, he snatched up his weapons and crept into the shadowy undergrowth. Keeping as quiet as he could and taking care not to step on any twigs, he stole away between bushes and shrubs and put distance between himself and the soldiers.
His head ached horribly and he felt stiff and hungry, but clear in his mind’s eyes he could see his new escape route. It lay across the river, through the forest belt to the savannah, then south down the edge of the grasslands into Nubia. The distance was half as far again as his first choice but the going should be easier and the land very sparsely populated. Better still, there’d be no chance of any dog following his scent across the river! As to how he would make the crossing: that would not be easy, but it would not be impossible. For one thing, the night was on his side and already the shadows were lengthening.
He was running now and the voices of the soldiers were rapidly receding. For a hundred, two hundred yards he ran through twilit underbrush, then turned through a sharp right angle and headed for the river. It all depended upon how accurately the saluki had retraced his steps. His scent could in no way have been fresh, and the way the soldiers had talked their tracker-dog was hardly dependable.
A few minutes later, coming out of the trees onto the grass of the riverbank, Khai’s heart gave a great leap. The soldiers had been wrong about the dog! Less than one hundred yards upriver, he could see a nest of tiny islands which he recognized immediately. This was where Mhyna had put him ashore from her barge. Without pause, he moved through the willows and shrubs of the riverbank toward the nest of islands, and as he ran so there came to his ears a sudden uproar from the forest on his left flank.
His absence had been discovered. Now he heard the high-pitched barking of the frenzied saluki, and the steady cursing of the soldiers as they plunged after the dog along Khai’s new trail.
The sun was low on the western horizon as Khai drew level with the tiny islands and made a clean dive into the water. In another moment, he was swimming for the southern point of the nearest island, and a few seconds later he had let the slow current drift him down behind the island and out of sight. Beyond this first small clump of reeds and water-lapped bushes, only a dozen or so yards away, lay the papyrus- and willow-grown sandbar of silt and boggy soil where Mhyna had grounded her barge to set him ashore. There, in the reeds, Khai remembered seeing a pair of waterlogged fishermen’s boats. Using one of these, he would attempt to cross the river . . . tonight, if that were at all possible.
As the whining of the tracker-dog and the shouts of his handlers came closer along the riverbank, which was now separated from the fugitive by some twenty-five yards of fairly shallow water, so Khai swam through thickly-clumped reed stems until he found one of the two derelict boats lying low in the water. Making as little noise as possible, he pulled himself up onto the boat and stretched out in the damp hollow formed of its reed hull.
There, totally invisible from the riverbank, he lay low and watched through a curtain of foliage as the sun touched the treetops of the western bank. The crocodiles would be in the river now, but they would be sluggish with the cool of evening. He shuddered as he pictured the scaly brutes in his mind: their gaping jaws and voracious appetites. And still dwelling on visions of silently gliding monsters in the dark water, he started violently as close by a human voice said:
“What was that, Gon? That splashing, like a swimmer. . . .”
“Shh!” a second voice cautioned. “It was a swimmer, Athom, you fool! A croc, I should think, what else? You want to tell him we’re here, invite him up onto the island? Or maybe I should stick my head out and take a peep at what he’s doing, eh?”
“Oh, very fun—” the first voice started to say, only to be cut off by:
“Shh!” Quiet, you idiot! Listen—they’ve come back with that damn tracker of theirs!”
By this time Khai had traced the source of the voices to a clump of reeds on the island itself. They were Theraens by their accents, and they were obviously on the run—but from what? Khai was soon to find out.
There were two dogs whining on the riverbank now and a regular babble of voices that came drifting across to Khai where he lay barely afloat on the tiny derelict boat. He listened to the conversation and gradually beg
an to understand what was going on. His own soldiers—those who had borne him through the forest all the way back to the river—had now joined up with a second party out of Phemor. The newcomers were tracking a pair of Theraen mercenaries who last night, after a long drinking session, had entered the house of a Phemor noblewoman and raped her. Typical of Theraens, when they were done with the woman, they had slit her throat; but her husband, coming home in the early hours, had seen them as they ran off. His description had been enough to start a manhunt which eventually led the soldiers to the river. Finally, their dog had tracked the Theraens to this spot on the riverbank.
Now there seemed to be something of an argument going on:
“I tell you we’ve seen no Theraens,” one of Khai’s soldiers was saying. “That dog of yours must be as crazy as ours! I mean, what man in his right mind—even a damned Theraen—would swim out to those islands, with the river alive with crocs and all? And even if they are out there, who’s going to follow them? Not me—not tonight—that’s for sure.”
“Oh? And what do you suggest we do then?” asked an unknown voice. “There’ll be the devil to pay if we all troop back into town empty-handed. And how will you explain this boy you’ve lost? Do you suppose he could be the boy from Asorbes—” (Khai’s ears pricked up) “the one Pharaoh is looking for? You’ll be in for it if he is!”
“Damned if I know,” answered the fretful voice of one of Khai’s bearers. “He could have been. . . . I suppose we could tell ’em he was delirious and ran off. Then that he fell in the river and a croc got him—perhaps?”
“Yes, well, that won’t work for us,” said someone else. “No, we’d best leave a couple of men here overnight with a dog. In the morning, we’ll come downriver in a boat and give the islands a going over. Right then, all that remains now is to decide who’ll stay. . . .”