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 in 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, luckily, 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.
Kheti and Rahotep backtrailed for a space, climbing a hillock to look over the countryside. They sighted a detachment of warriors doggedly following the trail they had left, just as they had planned.
“Wah!” The Nubian gave credit where it was due. “They know the desert land, brother. See the pace they set.”
“So now it is for us to spread wings and fly,” commented his captain dryly. “Have you a magic for the growing of feathers, Kheti?”
The Nubian chuckled. “Nay, but a magic for the growing of new feet, as you shall see, brother. Let us go!”
They returned to find the Scouts slashing at their water bags with their daggers, having poured all the remaining liquid into one container. With the flatted pieces of hide they had the means of confusing their back trail--an old Kush trick. And only those who had fought against those wily raiders an
d knew all their methods would be able to guess what had been done.
In turn two archers formed a rear guard as the small party made a sharp turn to the south at the edge of a bare space where no prints would normally show. As they kept to the sand, those in the rear beat at the loose earth with their leather flaps, erasing the tracks.
And it seemed that their ruse was successful, for, though they had to slacken their pace for the sake of the horses now suffering from heat and lack of water, they saw no other signs of pursuit. If they could reach the river without any interference, their expedition could claim a clean victory.
Grueling hours went by. It was a long time later that the largest stallion’s drooping head came up. He sniffed eagerly, his nostrils flaring red. Then he gave a high whinny and reared, tearing his lead rope from the astonished archer’s grasp. And his fellows bucked and plunged until the men, in self-defense, had to free them.
“Water!” Kheti’s voice was a hoarse croak, and they quickened their own pace, though there was no hope of retaking the now galloping animals.
They came down a cut in the limestone escarpment and saw that this was one of the places where the horny hills that walled the valley pinched in upon the bottom lands. The oily sunken stream of the Nile curled through baked mud flats less than a quarter of a mile away.
But they saw something else. A cluster of domed storehouses stood there, the harvest center of some nome. And back to back among these a party of bowmen were making a stand against odds. They were besieged by a small squadron of chariots, now driving in a ring about the buildings, while those who manned them used spears and arrows against the defenders. And so fast did that circle of vehicles move that it was a moment or two before Rahotep could see that there were only four of them, each with both a driver and a warrior.
One of the horses in that mad whirl gave an uncanny scream of pain and terror, and rose, pawing the air, the shaft of an arrow protruding from its barrel. It crashed back upon the chariot it drew, smashing the unfortunate driver in the wreckage. The warrior passenger sprang free at the last moment, just escaping by inches another form of death as a second Hyksos vehicle, unable to avoid the wreck, crashed into the crumpled chariot and still kicking horse.
There was a shout from the besieged bowmen. And two men who tried to crawl out of the tangle were shot. It would appear that the party by the storehouses was giving excellent account of itself. Only the enemy was about to receive reinforcements.
Those four chariots, which had pinned the bowmen down to their improvised fort, were but the scouts of a greater squadron. The drum of unshod hoofs on the baked clay, the rattle of turning wheels, the war cries of drivers and warriors, came like a roar from the north as another body of the Hyksos swept down, just as a scythe might slash across a field of ripe and ready grain.
The lead chariot had a standard planted in it from which whipped the coarse strands of a horsetail dyed black and red. And it was plain that the warrior in it, a throwing spear ready in his hand, was no common soldier of the host.
An arrow from the storehouses sheered off part of that flaunting plume. Two more horses in the charging line went crashing down, and one of those also fouled its right-hand neighbor in the bargain. But in return one of the archers reeled back with a spear in his shoulder.
The three stallions that had broken free from Rahotep’s men came pounding across that end of the battle ground with but one thought--to reach the water beyond. And when one foolhardy charioteer attempted to drive between them and that water, they crashed him.
Rahotep’s sistrum swung in a buzzing circle, and his men spread out in a gradually widening line. The chariots were now between them and the storehouses--they were beginning the same sort of encircling movement their scouts had used to keep the fugitive footmen pinned down. He glanced along the line of his own men. The range was great, almost beyond their best efforts. But to go farther into the plain was to ask to be ridden down before they had struck any sort of blow at all--as the Egyptians had been beaten in their first battles with these foes.
Arrows rested on bow cords. His line of archers was as steady as it had been before the Pharaoh two days earlier. The captain gave the order to fire. And the first shafts were still in the air as archers reached for their second. The rain of arrows clipped into the outer circle of chariots, bringing down both horses and men.
That sudden attack from a new direction came as a complete surprise, and the moving line of Hyksos tangled. It was then that their commander proved his worth. The chariot with the standard slewed around under the expert management of its driver and a shouted stream of orders sent men spreading out and away, breaking up the knot in which the arrows had been striking home.
Though they had now lost their initial advantage of surprise, the archer Scouts still possessed their training and their hard-won battle knowledge. Those by the storehouses were letting fly enough shafts to sting the enemy steadily from the other side.
There was one point in the Hyksos commander’s favor--he cut off the party by the cliffs from the water they must have--he might even force them back into the desert lands for a distance they might not be able to retrace. Then the other party at the storehouse could be picked off with ease as their arrow supply was exhausted.
“Arrows?” Rahotep shot that demand at Kheti. He had some ten shafts left in his own quiver, but he knew that, in spite of his training and will to battle, he could not possibly equal the Nubians in the effectiveness of their shots.
“Eight!” “Five!” “Nine!” The count came back to him, man by man.
“Now if Dedun but smiles.” Kheti bent his giant bow. “Let this fly straight, O Guardian of the Upper Ways and the Lower Paths!” His aim had no fault but that of ill luck, for the commander of the Hyksos was saved from death merely by the action of his horse. That animal swerved to avoid a broken chariot and Kheti’s shaft went between the officer’s outflung arm and his body, instead of into the flesh below the short ribs as intended.
Perhaps his leader’s near escape disconcerted the driver, for the horse plunged forward in a mad dash straight for the waist-high wall that bounded a now barren threshing floor. And seeing no avoidance of a crash, the Hyksos officer leaped free, landing on hands and knees within the storehouse enclosure.
He was on his feet again with the litheness of a man well schooled to chances of battle, only to front a shorter, younger man half crouching behind the shelter of a shield, a mace swinging in his hand.
The Hyksos officer gripped a battle ax, though he had no shield, and his footwork was clever and quick. But he was not speedy enough to sidestep the rush that drove him away from the open space and the backing of his men, back toward the knot of the besieged.
Deprived of their leader, the enemy tried to re-form, to start the drive toward the cliffs and Rahotep’s party. The drive began, and then it broke, for the Nubians held their fire until their captain’s signal and then tore the air with a volley aimed breast high at the animals.
Men jumped or fell from the chariots; some gained their feet to come on at a run, with ready slings and spears.
“Down!”
They had met that kind of warfare before. The line of bowmen fell to earth escaping the ragged shower of those mixed weapons. Rahotep winced as a sling stone struck the cliff wall and ricocheted against his tender shoulder. He dropped his bow; his dagger was out and ready, as were the belt axes of every second man along that line. Then they were on their feet, springing out to meet the rush of the Hyksos while the other four archers covered them, picking off attackers.
The captain saw a bearded face, a horn-set helmet, looming over him, and ducked to avoid the thrust of a spear, stabbing up almost from knee level under the other’s guard. The man roared in sharp pain and dropped his spear, clasping his hands to his middle as he went down. Rahotep stumbled, recovered, and leaped to the right as he caught sight of another metal blade.
“Ho!” That was Kheti’s shout. “Back, brothers, back w
ith you!”
Rahotep retreated with the others, their weapons to the fore, as snarling leopards might retreat to gather distance for another spring. Over them whistled arrows.
Three of the attackers were down and still. A fourth drew himself along by his hands, his legs trailing behind him. Two more pitched to the ground under the volley Kheti had directed. There were shouts, but the Hyksos drew back. The savage fury of the Nubians in battle was new to them.
Archer and spearman glared at each other across the black earth beaten into dust by their trampling. For the moment their own portion of the fight comprised the whole world. But they were shaken out of that preoccupation by the skirl of the same commanding horn Rahotep had heard sound in the horse camp. And, startled by the urgency of that call, he looked up--to see a haze of dust in the south and, through its curtain, horses coming at a gallop.
His first flare of despair changed to wonder and then to a warm rush of exultation as he sighted the standard in the lead.
“Scouts!” He turned to his own small command. “Out upon these sons of Set! Let them taste blade and bow!”
But the Hyksos, already disorganized by the mishap to their leader and sharply bitten by such bowmen as they had not met before, were withdrawing. Some five chariots turned northward, their drivers lashing the horses into a gallop.
Rahotep led his men across the flats as the rescuing Egyptian force broke into two parties, the larger pursuing the fleeing Hyksos, the other wheeling to the storehouses, while a second dust cloud heralded the arrival of footmen to police the field and drag the wreckage apart in their search for surviving enemies. His own command gained the small domes just as a figure, disheveled and bleeding from the shallow gash across the upper arm, put out a hand to the wall of the threshing floor and so pulled himself up to his feet.