Then she smiled and went on, ‘Ganord suggested to you that it was by witchcraft, but as ever he was wrong. The ancient peoples used simple common sense. As I know you do also.’ She straightened up from the tree against which she was leaning and walked to the edge of the cliff. Then she stepped off it and dropped lightly as a falling leaf to the surface of the river far below. She walked away across the wavelets, and the silver river mist rose in a cloud to envelop her.
Now that we are at last all assembled, my first and only duty is to thank all sixteen of you for standing by your oath of An offence to one is an offence to all. We are here to overthrow a monstrous tyrant who has seized the throne of the Pharaohs …’ Hurotas addressed all the foreign kings on the strip of greensward that lined the eastern bank of the Nile River, opposite the towering fortress of Abu Naskos.
Each one of them was clad in full battle array. Behind them were massed their troops, all ten thousand of them. They stood shoulder to shoulder in seemingly endless ranks: shield touching shield on either side, grim-faced beneath their brazen helmets, their shields aglitter and their bows as yet unstrung, but the quivers slung on each shoulder bulging with arrows.
Drawn up against the bank of the Nile facing them was their fleet, with oars shipped but all their pennants and ensigns streaming, a bold and unequivocal declaration of their warlike intent.
Hurotas ended his speech and turned to face the massed drummers. He raised his sword to demand their attention. In unison they lifted their drumsticks to their lips. Hurotas paused for a beat, and then cut left and right with his blade. The drums rolled like summer thunder, and the files of armoured men peeled off and marched down to where the war ships waited to take them on board and ferry them across Mother Nile to death or glory.
This was an intricate and potentially hazardous manoeuvre. It was our intention to sail a fleet of galleys laden with chariots, horses and men across the Nile and to land them on the opposite bank. Utteric’s squadrons were holding this territory in force. The fortress of Abu Naskos was probably the most powerful citadel in Egypt or in the entire continent of Africa for that matter. We knew that Utteric had had a long time to make his warlike dispositions while Hurotas and his allies had gathered their own forces and sailed halfway across the world to confront them. We had good reason to believe that Utteric had recruited powerful allies of his own from beyond his eastern borders, and the countries scattered farther beyond.
These probably included the Persians and the Medes and any of fifty other tribes and clans. All of these were reputed to be marvellous horsemen and warriors. However, it is my experience that reputation very often falls far short of actuality and furthermore that Persia and Media are much further from Abu Naskos than is Lacedaemon.
Nevertheless I prevailed upon Hurotas and Hui to make a number of probing attacks on the western bank of the Nile before committing ourselves to an all-out assault. We were confident that our chariots were superior to those of Utteric, and we could use them to secure a beachhead upriver from the fortress of Abu Naskos from which we could envelop the citadel itself, and place it under siege.
For five consecutive days we had sailed our squadrons up and down the river in a warlike display of aggression. Some of our vessels were packed with armed men but most of them had dummies and scarecrows lining the deck rails. We watched the dust clouds thrown up by Utteric’s chariots and cavalry as they followed our threatened assaults. We carefully assessed the numbers of Utteric’s troops and chariots. They were far larger than we had anticipated.
Then at dawn on the sixth day we sent a large squadron downriver as a decoy, while Hurotas and I took a smaller convoy loaded with our best chariots and crews five leagues in the opposite direction. Over the previous days of juggling for position we had singled out the best landing ground within ten miles of the fortress of Abu Naskos on the western bank of the Nile. We had chosen a strip of open meadow with a gentle slope into the river. This was where a small tributary stream ran down from the forest and joined the main Nile. This stream had a firm and stony bottom in which the wheels of the chariots would not bog down as we ran them ashore and recovered them at the termination of our foray ashore.
As the rising sun crested the horizon behind us we ran two of our ships into the western bank and beached them there. Each of our vessels was carrying four chariots with the horses in the traces and our charioteers at the reins. We dropped the loading ramps in the bows and the horse teams surged down them and splashed through the shallows and up the banks of the river. Hurotas was driving the lead chariot and I was commanding the last vehicle in the line of eight. All our men were armed with heavy recurved bows which were strung ready for immediate action, in addition to our battle axes and broadswords. This expedition was intended to be a reconnaissance patrol. The object was to make contact with Utteric’s forces, and assess their strength and numbers. Meanwhile our squadron of ships would anchor in the river and await our return, ready to pick us up again if we came under serious attack while we were ashore.
As yet there was no sign of Utteric’s troops. Our chariots fell into close-order formation and, with Hurotas leading, we started forward to follow the track that led across the open grassland into the forest.
We had almost reached the dense treeline when we were assailed by a tremendous burst of sound that echoed down the glade. It was totally alien; I had never heard any like it before. However, I presumed that it was the blast of many war trumpets. Hurotas immediately raised his clenched fist in the signal for our column to halt. Meanwhile our horses danced and tossed their heads against the curb of the bits, arched their necks and whinnied with agitation. We charioteers gazed around us in astonishment, not certain what to make of the commotion.
The uproar died away, but was replaced by the thunder of hooves and wheels so loud that it sounded like the charge of a hundred chariots sweeping down through the forest in full battle array. Instinctively we wheeled into line to receive this charge.
To our astonishment it was a single vehicle that burst out from amongst the trees, but it was like nothing that any of us had encountered previously. It was hurtling straight at us and there was no doubting its hostile intentions. It was twice as wide as one of our chariots, and half again as high. Whereas our vehicles were equipped with a single pair of running wheels, this one had four a side, a total of eight in all.
Our wheel rims were hewn from hardwood and were equipped with six heavy spokes. Each of the enemy’s wheels was a single disc of polished silver metal of a type I had never seen before. From the central hub protruded a curved blade as long as a man’s arm. In addition there were four more blades sited at regular intervals around the perimeter of each wheel. All of them were spinning viciously. Although I had never seen the like before, it was obvious that they could chop into small fragments anything with which they came in contact, including the spokes of our own chariot wheels.
Each of our chariots was drawn by three horses. The enemy vehicle was drawn by eight glossy black animals which stood several hands taller at the shoulder than did any of ours. They each had a long black unicorn horn protruding from the centre of their foreheads. They matched each other stride for stride, jets of steam spurting from their nostrils.
Our vehicles carried a crew of three men each, a driver and a pair of archers. The enemy driver stood alone at the reins, leaning back to hold his team in check. He was driving straight at us.
He was a towering brute of a man. His body armour was simple and lacked ornamentation: polished silver from the throat downwards, obviously designed to deflect the arrows of his enemies. He was unarmed. His unstrung bow stood in the weapons bin beside him, as did his broadsword. He held nothing in his gauntleted hands except the reins of his chariot. However, his helmet was extraordinary. It covered only the right side of his face and the top of his head. His single eye was concealed behind the narrow slit in the gleaming metal.
However, the left-hand side of his face was totally exposed and it pres
ented a horrible sight. It was formed of gnarled and gleaming scar tissue. His mouth was puckered and twisted. The eyelid drooped sardonically but behind it the eye itself glittered with baleful intensity.
As we raced towards each other I snatched an arrow from the quiver under my right hand and nocked it to the bowstring. In the same movement I lifted the fletching of the arrow to my pursed lips and held my aim for the hundredth part of a second before I loosed. I saw it blur across the narrow gap that separated us, flying precisely for the bridge of the left eye in the ruined face.
He was dead. I knew it for a certainty. I expected the arrow to bury itself up to its fletching in his skull. But at the last possible moment he dropped his chin on to his chest. The point of the arrow struck the crest of his helmet at the level of his forehead and it glanced away, whining as it flew into the dense bushes behind him.
The alien charioteer did not even blink at the strike. Instead he focused his full attention on Hurotas at the head of our line of chariots, obviously attracted by the magnificence of his helmet and breastplate. He steered his team of black unicorns directly at Hurotas, who tried desperately to avoid a head-on collision and yanked the heads of his team hard over. The result was that the stranger’s vehicle struck them at an oblique angle. The spinning knives on his wheels ran down one side of Hurotas’ rig, chopping the legs off his horses in a pink cloud of blood and bone fragments. The maimed animals went down screaming and the knives went on through the wheel spokes, hacking them into kindling. The vehicle dropped on its side and somersaulted, hurling Hurotas and his crew overboard. They lost their weapons as they struck the ground and rolled in the dirt.
The black unicorns charged on down the left-hand line of our chariots, striking them one after the other in rapid succession and tearing off the wheels on their near sides, sending them crashing to earth one after the other. By good fortune I was in the right-hand column of four vehicles, so the stranger and I passed each other without me giving him an opportunity to rip off one of my wheels. However, I nocked another arrow and I hauled back and loosed it, aiming into the open visor of his helmet. He was only ten cubits from me, the width of two chariots between us. My arrow was fast enough to cheat the eye. But he lifted one gauntleted hand from the reins and swatted it aside as effortlessly as if it were a buzzing blue fly. For a hundredth part of a second he stared at me from under his drooping eyelid and it was one of the most menacing looks I have ever received. Then we had passed one another.
I dropped my bow and snatched the reins from my driver when I saw Hurotas lying ahead of me where he had been flung by his capsizing chariot. He was trying to get back on his feet, but obviously he was dazed by his fall. He had lost his helmet and his weapons and all sense of direction. One side of his face was swollen and coated with dust and dirt.
‘Zaras!’ I called his former name, and it had the desired effect. He squinted at me as I swerved my chariot to line up on him.
‘Make me an arm!’ I shouted urgently. It was something we had practised endlessly when we were much younger. He pushed himself upright and looped his right arm against his hip, facing me. But he was swaying unsteadily on his feet.
I steered my team of three horses with the reins bunched in my left hand and, leaning far over the right-hand side of the vehicle, I drove at him, swinging my team aside at the last moment, so the right animal brushed past him. As I came level with him still at full gallop I hooked my right arm through his. The shock of contact almost jerked me out of the carriage. However, I managed to resist it and to swing Hurotas off his feet and then haul him aboard.
Now I was using one arm to steady Hurotas, who was still groggy, and with the other hand I was steering the chariot. With a quick glance I saw that the boats that had put us ashore had now become aware of our predicament, and they had turned back towards the landing to take us on board again. However, the current was now against them and they were making slow progress of their return to our rescue. Hurotas was a big man and he was weighing down our vehicle, and the closer we approached the river-bank the softer and muddier became the ground beneath our wheels.
I glanced back over my shoulder to check the whereabouts of our enemy and his team of horned black monsters. I did not have to look far. Having brought down half our chariots with his spinning wheel knives, he had now switched his full attention to my vehicle. I realized that he must have recognized Hurotas as my passenger, and probably he knew who I was as well. Everyone else knows my stature and standing, why not him … whoever he might be?
He was close behind us, and catching up with us rapidly. Those great Stygian monsters of his became more menacing with every stride they gained on us. I had seen what terrible injuries they could inflict with those head horns. However, the bank of the Nile was now less than a couple of hundred paces ahead of us; and the pick-up boats had broken free of the restraining current and were approaching swiftly to meet us.
I had learned that it was fruitless to launch arrows at our scar-faced assailant. Perhaps the strange beasts drawing his chariot were more vulnerable. I thrust the reins of my chariot into the hands of Hurotas, even though he was still bemused and groggy. I snatched up my bow from the bin beside me, nocked an arrow, turned and let fly at the central animal in the team of unicorns which was now very close behind us.
Despite the fact that the chariot under me was bouncing wildly over the rough track my aim was true and the arrow struck it in the very centre of its great heaving chest, and buried itself up to the fletching. I knew that I had pierced its heart. Yet the monster did not falter or miss a stride but bore down on us inexorably. It was then I realized with dismay and horror that the scar-faced charioteer and his team of monsters were from another warp of existence. They were an aberration of the dark gods.
The thought no sooner formed in my mind than Scar-face rammed his team of unicorns into our chariot and our left-hand wheel exploded in a cloud of wooden fragments. Our three horses went down in a squealing heap, blood squirting from their amputated legs. We had just reached the sheer bank of the river when this happened. Hurotas and I were hurled from the chariot like stones from a catapult. We were sent sliding and slithering down the bank into the turbulent Nile waters.
The boats were coming in to the bank to rescue us. They were only twenty paces offshore, but plying the oars like berserkers and yelling at us to swim. I fished Hurotas to the surface and began dragging him out to meet them. Both of us were impeded by our armour, and Hurotas was still dazed. However, we reached the first boat and willing hands stretched down to haul us on board. I darted a quick glance behind me, and saw that our adversary had halted his team of unicorns on the top of the high bank. They were pawing the ground, snorting and blowing steaming breath from their flared nostrils in protest against the restraining harness. Scar-face had snatched up his longbow from the weapons bin and was stringing it, bending the heavy weapon with practised ease.
I stretched over my shoulder and unhooked my bronze shield from its harness. Then I swung it around in front of us to afford both Hurotas and myself some protection from the storm that I knew was about to break over us. Scar-face looked up at the struggling knot of our men around the boat, and then he lifted the bow to draw fully. He smiled, and it was the first emotion I had seen him display. It twisted the scarred half of his face into a cynical grimace as he let the arrow fly.
He was aiming at me specifically, but I was ready to receive the shot. I brought up my shield to cover both Hurotas and myself, but I braced it at the particular angle that would deflect the arrow and not allow it to penetrate even the light alloy from which I had blended it. I felt the jolt of the strike and heard the metallic twang of flint on metal, but the arrow glanced off the shield and I heard it strike the gunnel of the boat behind me. I pulled Hurotas beneath the surface of the river with me, and although he struggled to be free, I dragged him under the keel of the boat to surface on the far side of the hull. Here we were hidden from the scar-faced archer on the bank above us
. However, I could hear his arrows striking fresh victims and the screams of the exposed boat crew as they died choking and kicking in puddles of their own blood.
‘Come on, Zaras.’ I slapped his face to try and focus his attention. ‘Help me to swim this boat across to the far bank, but in the name of great Zeus, keep your head down behind the hull, unless you want an arrow through your eyeball.’
We paddled and shoved the boat halfway back across the river before the pandemonium in the hull above us subsided and I decided to risk a glance back at the far bank, on the assumption that the range was by this time too long for even an archer of Scar-face’s extraordinary skills. A quick scan reassured me that the far bank was indeed deserted of all but the corpses of our dead. Scar-face and his unicorns had disappeared back into the forest. There were an additional five dead bodies in the boat that Zaras and I were pushing. All of them were bristling with arrows.
Hurotas was suffering badly from the injury he had received to his head. His speech was garbled and he barely had the strength to climb back into the boat when finally we reached the eastern bank. I had to get behind him and boost him over the gunnel. Then he collapsed in the bilges. I found that I was unable to row the heavy boat singlehanded against the current, so I was forced drag it along the shoreline on the end of a tow rope. This was a torturously slow business and it was little short of the Hour of the Wolf when I finally reached the camp of the sixteen kings. This is the hour precisely halfway between dusk and dawn. It is the hour when most people die, when sleep is deepest, when nightmares are most convincing. It is the hour when the sleepless are haunted by their deepest fears, when ghosts and demons are most active and powerful. The Hour of the Wolf is when we mourn our dead most bitterly.
However, our camp was fully awake to a man and pandemonium reigned supreme. Three survivors of Scar-face’s murderous assault upon us had fled the field and reached the camp far ahead of me. They carried with them the news that our entire force, including both Hurotas and myself, had been massacred to a man by the dreaded archer. This had plunged the camp, including the royal women, Tehuti and Serrena, the sixteen kings and their royal courts, all our armies and the host of camp followers into dire lamentation. They had been performing the funeral dances to the gods of death and singing the hundred dirges to the spirits of the underworld since the setting of the sun.