NAWIDEMAQ SAW THE gods take his friend. He watched how they emptied his limbs of strength so that he dropped like a stone. The old priest toppled soundlessly with his eyes rolled upward, for it was the nature of certain deities to draw the life essence from a man’s pupils and up into their dwelling places in the stars.
“Ermun!” Pisaqar hurtled for the broken portal, his beer cup spilling forgotten from his fingers to shatter on the floor.
Nawidemaq hugged his captain tightly. “Do not go near! You will die!” The captain, in the first throes of grief, tried to break his grip.
“I must help him!”
“He is gone,” Nawidemaq told him sadly. Pisaqar’s struggles ceased. Only then did the medicine man release him. He warned, “The pit is death. Do not go in.”
Pisaqar knelt at the edge of the blackened trench, crestfallen. Thick ash dissolved in his bunched fists. Tariq took his side, tears flowing down his cheeks. How many times had Ermun mended their wounds? Calmed their hearts in times of trouble? A good man, one who always sought to give more than he received. Now he lay folded in the ash, and they couldn’t help him. They could not even close his eyes.
“How will I tell Kalab?” Pisaqar whispered.
Eleazar came up, his expression deeply disturbed. “What happened to him, Nawidemaq?”
“I hear tales of this,” the medicine man whispered to him. “In the deepest south are lakes that turn to poison in the night. I know a story of a man and his son who go to fish. At the lake shore, the son falls dead. The father bends to help him. He dies also. I hear of villages punished by the lake gods for laziness. Those who oversleep die in their beds. Those who awake with the sunrise live, but are not permitted to sit, or they too die.”
Eleazar nodded slowly with dawning comprehension. “This is no divine punishment. It is a trap.” He fixed his eyes on Ermun’s corpse. “A pit filled with invisible poison.”
Pisaqar got up, wiping his eyes. He reached out to the Israelite. “Torch,” he said tightly. Eleazar handed one over. Pisaqar sidestepped close to the pit and lowered the torch in headfirst. Soon after it passed the lip, the flame went out. “Oh, my poor friend,” Pisaqar told Ermun. “You could not have known.”
Tariq sniffed and let out a thick wheeze. “It was quick. He didn’t feel a thing.” He looked up at his captain. “We have to get him out somehow.”
“We use a rope,” suggested Nawidemaq, miming a pulling motion.
Pisaqar growled, “I will not have my friend dragged on a noose like hunted game.”
Eleazar rubbed his beard. “Perhaps we fashion hooks out of some spears. Little more dignified than a noose, I admit. But Pisaqar, I must say that no matter how we extract your friend, we are still left with the problem—”
“—of how to get across ourselves, I know.”
The redhead paced along the lip of the trench. “Gods know we have plenty of rubble. Why not fill it in?”
Nawidemaq shook his head in earnest. “It is the same as dropping a rock into a full cup of water. The water flows out.”
Pisaqar and Eleazar seemed to come to an identical realization, because they exchanged a look.
“The poison behaves the same way as water,” the Israelite said.
“We can scoop it out, as if drawing from a well,” finished the captain. “Tariq, go after Amani. Gather the Mice. Have them load the cart with every amphora, every vessel you can find.”
“Qorobar still has that stupid sack of helmets,” said Tariq.
“That as well. The rest of you, go with him. I will stay here.”
Tariq was clearly perturbed. “I don’t like the idea of leaving you alone in this place.”
“Then you will understand how I feel about leaving my oldest friend here. I will not do it. And there is little purpose in any of you loitering when there is nothing to accomplish. Leave me.” He returned his gaze to Ermun, lying contorted in his open grave. “The worst that can happen already has.”
* * *
Tariq burst into Set-Ma’at. His sandals flapped about his ankles, ruined after a dead sprint down the rocky trail. It wasn’t yet dawn, and Amani was the only one he found. She was sitting on Nibamon’s doorstep while she waited for him to get dressed. Between gulps of air, he gave her the news.
Amani blanched. She rushed from door to door to wake the others. They were sleepily emerging just as Nawidemaq and Eleazar got there.
They took it well. Qorobar dashed his water jug against a wall, raging at the departed pharaoh’s greed. Yesbokhe wept in silence. Amani held Kalab’s hands while he numbly absorbed what he could only see as his own failure. His teacher was dead, and he hadn’t been there to protect him. His twelve years as an acolyte were at an end.
But there was still work to do. Nawidemaq woke his bull and hitched the cart, where they loaded every conceivable water vessel they could get their hands on. Tariq found himself repeatedly trying to explain the nature of the task before them, but only received uncomprehending looks. He wasn’t certain he understood, himself. Ramesses had played a trick on them all.
And the pharaoh wasn’t done. As they started loading the cart, the wind began to stir. It came from the north, feeding on itself, gathering force as it spilled through the gaps between the hills.
Senet rushed out of her house. “It’s a sandstorm coming! You must get inside!” she cried.
Tariq was vehement. “We can’t leave the captain alone in that tomb!”
But then the wall of sand erupted over the mountains and hurtled into the valley. Its blast knocked Tariq off his feet. Flying granules stung his face and forced themselves between his pressed eyelids, into his ears, up his nostrils. The others were similarly afflicted. Even Qorobar had to fight to remain standing. Their albino bull, stalwart as he was, brayed loudly and sought escape.
In the end, the question wasn’t of willpower. It was a matter of physical endurance, and theirs was no match for the raw strength of the elements. Left no choice, they retreated into Senet’s house, the only intact building in the village. She graciously allowed the bull into her parlor.
“This storm can’t last,” Tariq said. “Pisaqar won’t know what happened to us.”
Amani handed him a beer. “He’ll know we have a good reason for not coming.”
“That won’t be much comfort to him. The poor man’s stuck in a dark tomb with at least two corpses.”
“Tariq,” she hissed angrily, “fucking stop it.”
Only then did he remember Kalab. The acolyte—no, priest—set down his fresh cup and disappeared into a back room, his expression murderous like Tariq had never seen, not even in the heat of battle.
“I’m sorry,” he told the group at large. “But really, how long can this storm go on?”
Senet shrugged hopelessly. “A few hours. Days, if the gods aren’t good.”
Eleazar said, “There is plentiful food and water in the entry hall. He will survive.”
A terrible thought struck Tariq. “There aren’t enough torches to last another day.” The image of their captain groping blindly through the silent, pitch-dark tunnels was too awful to dwell on.
Nawidemaq glowered at the pile of trinkets he’d emptied in front of his stool. “The gods of the sea send a mighty wind. It will be a terrible storm.”
* * *
The awful wind howled through the village. The gusts were not merely air, but sand, even rocks—and that transformed the storm into a physical obstacle. It blasted the ruined walls and ripped away chunks of mud brick, adding these to its strength. As Kalab struggled down the street, rocks the size of marbles pummeled his shins, and the gritty wind stabbed at his exposed hands like innumerable needles. But if he let go of the grain sack that covered his head, it would be torn away in an instant, and the sand would soon blind him.
Through the rough fabric, he could see little. There was only shrieking brown nothingness. The best he could do was keep sidestepping along the street and have faith that Qorobar was still ahead of him. Behind, Nawidemaq would be in the same predicament. Kalab was left to wonder how they would all fare once they left the dubious shelter of Set-Ma’at’s walls.
And that was if the storm would allow them that far. For a moment, the shrieking dulled, and he caught a glimpse of the axe man’s bulk. Gladdened, he quickened his pace to close the distance. But the storm had deceived him. An almighty gust caught him mid-step and smashed him into the wall. Dazed, breath knocked from his lungs, he crumpled. The wind tried to whip off his hood and almost succeeded, but he pulled it back below his chin and hunched there, rasping, until rough hands hauled him standing again.
“We must go back!” Even though Nawidemaq bellowed the words into his ear, his voice was barely audible.
Kalab gestured hopelessly in front, where Qorobar had just been. Turn away or forge ahead, they had to stay together. They couldn’t risk losing anyone else.
“Find Tariq,” he yelled. He had to repeat himself twice more before the medicine man understood him. Nawidemaq pulled on the bull’s lead line and drew the animal alongside them, shielding them from the worst of the wind. Kalab huddled against its white hide, and they resumed their way, heads bent against the raging sandstorm.
Even with the bull’s bulk to protect him, the storm found ways to multiply his woes. Sand forced its way beneath the scales of his Assyrian armor, where it crawled incessantly like the lice he’d once burned from the seams. Particles got into his sandals and rubbed his feet raw. Every crevice of his body was invaded. Sand stung beneath his nails, lined his gums, slithered into the crack of his ass. Every step forward was a battle against the wind, and the price of success was pain.
Neither Ermun nor Pisaqar would have asked this of them, Kalab was certain. But they needed them. Until the task proved impossible, the Mice needed to make the attempt.
As Kalab passed the hollowed-out gatehouse, he realized once and for all that they were doomed to fail. Unhindered by walls, the sandstorm redoubled in strength, its winds so pernicious that even the doughty bull now strove to keep its footing. The swirling sand was a near solid mass that no longer dulled the sunlight, but blocked it altogether, swathing the land in darkness. Kalab felt, rather than saw, that his exposed hands and feet were crisscrossed with tiny cuts.
Out of the roaring darkness staggered Qorobar, with Tariq clutching his belt, his hood torn away, eyes and mouth all stuffed with sand. The big man was waving for them to go back. The acolyte turned around, filled with guilty relief. His only comfort was knowing that his teacher would have wanted no one else to die for his sake.
The wind let up again. Kalab, knowing this meant it was about to shift once more, set his stance and doubled over—only for the new wind to sweep up from directly behind him. The strength was terrifying. There was no chance even to stumble before he was blasted prone. His teeth clacked together as his jaw was driven into the rocky soil. He spat out rocks and perhaps teeth, and haltingly pushed himself back up.
He could see again. Then he realized, dreadfully, that he shouldn’t have been able to. His grain sack hood was gone.
No, not gone. Flapping at his shoulder, its drawstring tugging at his neck.
He snatched at it. Too late. The wind got hold of it first.
With a jerk, the string whipped tight around his neck, and his world became a blur of multicolor and screaming darkness. Between bursts of awareness, in which he clawed frantically at the tugging string, he keenly felt the sharp rocks raking his body as he was dragged, gyrating, across the ground. Knobs of stone punched into his armored torso, bruising his ribs. He dug in his heels but only managed to tear off his sandals. Even as the earth sought to bludgeon him to death, his loose makeshift hood did its utmost to strangle him. He managed to roll to his knees, only for the storm to blow him back down. But in the process, he got his fingers around the string, and after much desperate tugging, the bag came away with a ripping of fabric. It flapped off into the storm and left Kalab to pant in great sobs.
He was alone. There was no way of knowing how far he’d been dragged, or in which direction. “Help! Anyone!” he screamed into the surrounding darkness, which was broken only by the glitter of swirling sand. Already, the stuff was forcing itself into his eyelids, cramming his sinuses. It hurt. He knew without doubt that he was meant to feel this pain. The gods had brought him here to sentence him.
On his knees at the mercy of their hateful storm, he found he could recall none of the prayers Ermun had taught him. Instead, he thought of the words on Ramesses’ walls, the Book of the Dead—the Forty-Two Judges he would face as the god Osiris weighed his heart, the Negative Confession he was expected to give them.
I have not stolen, he would falsely claim. I have not lied. I have not slain. I have not raped. I have not slain. I have not stirred up strife.
Morosely, he came to the recognition that he would not pass the Judges’ scrutiny. Despite a dozen years at good Ermun’s side, he hadn’t troubled himself to learn anything valuable. He would go to the Lord of Life with a heavy heart, and his ka would be annihilated.
“Spare me,” he pleaded to the storm. Sand coated his tongue, his teeth. He didn’t care. “Let me be who my teacher wished me to be. Show mercy. I beg you.”
The wind blew his tears dry as he shed them, turning the sand in his eyes to crust. And then, as blindness began to overtake him, Ermun walked from the swirling sands. He wore all white, and his arms were spread wide in greeting.
“Teacher!” Kalab cried. He labored to his feet. The wind tore at his clothes, forgotten in his exultancy. As he rushed to embrace his true father, Ermun’s pale shape resolved itself into that of a white bull with its broad horns. He stopped in amazement. The bull plodded up to him and nudged his heart with its enormous snout, snuffling in greeting. The lead line was strung on the ground behind it. Nawidemaq was nowhere in sight, but the bull didn’t seem troubled. With a snort, it turned its head as if to offer the acolyte one of its vast horns.
“You truly are a divine beast,” he said wonderingly as the gentle bull led him away, though the storm deafened his words.
The journey back was agony, but the bull stayed with him every step, guarding his battered form against the brutal wind. They battled together through the murky, stinging brown until at last, through a gap in the billowing sands, Set-Ma’at came into view. Of the other mercenaries, Kalab saw no sign. Not until they rounded the second corner of the main street, where Senet’s house was. Two human forms rushed from the doorstep where they’d been huddled. With hurried hands, they took hold of Kalab and the bull, hauled them to the door, and shoved them through.
He staggered into the parlor. As his legs gave way and he sank to the floor shaking, the combined efforts of half a dozen straining people succeeded in pressing the door shut. The storm lashed apoplectically at the planks, infuriated by their escape. Gusts vied to suck the rattling shutters off their hinges. Senet ran from one window to the next with an armful of damp rags, which she stuffed into the cracks in an attempt to keep out the sand. It was a valiant struggle, largely in vain. She stabbed the mercenaries with brittle-eyed glances as they clustered at her front door, having ruined her home and exhausted themselves into uselessness.
Tariq crawled up to Kalab. “We thought you were gone,” he panted.
The acolyte would have agreed, but a violent fit of coughing interrupted his reply. Someone handed him a waterskin, which he alternated between gulping and pouring over his face.
“The bull, too,” continued the redhead. “The damn thing broke loose. It just ran off. How’d you get hold of him?”
Kalab pointed a trembling finger at the albino animal, where it sat peaceably in the foyer while Nawidemaq rinsed its eyes. “That’s no bull.” The others gathered as he recounted how it had rescued him from certain death. “It’s not an ordinary beast of burden. It’s Apis himself.”
A small voice asked, “Is that a god?” The little boy—Yem, Tariq thought he was called—had emerged with his sister from the back of the house. Hugging their dolls, the children gazed wonderingly at the blessed bull.
“Yes,” said Kalab. “Or if not Apis, a herald, at the very least.”
With a clatter of hooves, the white bull lurched standing—and, swishing its tail, shat on the floor.
Qorobar laughed with all the rest. “The gods work in mysterious ways.”
Senet wasn’t entertained in the least. The woman squealed in outrage and whacked the bull with a broomstick, god-sent or no. Intrigued, it chomped speculatively at the bristles, at which point she gave up and swept the mound of bullshit away.
A fresh outburst from the sandstorm rattled the door, stilling the group’s chuckles. The children cried out, and Nibamon drew them to him.
“Will you try again?” The foreman hadn’t gone with them into the storm, which was just as well. Tariq and the other Kushites had plenty of sand crammed up their nostrils, but noseless Nibamon likely would have been smothered to death.
“Yes,” said Tariq.
There was an immediate uproar. “Tariq, no,” Amani asserted over the various shouts. “We aren’t chancing it again.”
Qorobar agreed. “It took Apis himself to get us out of that shit. We have it from a priest.”
“What about the captain?” demanded Tariq. He looked at Kalab. “What about your teacher?”
“They’re in the gods’ hands.”
Tariq barked a laugh. “Why does that answer fail to surprise me? Leave it to Kalab to wash his hands of doing the right thing.”
The acolyte launched at him, only for Qorobar to shove him back on his ass. Then the big man spun around and shoved Tariq against the wall. “Take that back,” he snarled.
“I won’t,” gasped Tariq.
“The two of you, always with the bickering. Like Osiris and Set. Except with them, it was clear which was the bad one. Then there’s you, both of you, taking turns being wrong. Just stupid boys. Amani would be better off without either of you. Say you’re sorry.”
Tariq sucked in some breath. “Sorry,” he said to Kalab without quite looking at him.
“Now you!” Qorobar snapped at Kalab.
“What for?”
“Gods’ sake! Apis gave you a second go, and you’re just going to keep acting like an ass?”
Kalab breathed deeply to calm himself. “Fine. Tariq, I’m sorry.”
Qorobar lumbered off. The redhead hunched, holding his ribs. Amani stomped over, gave him the briefest of inspections, and went to sit on the other side of the room, plainly furious at the situation they’d collectively foisted on her.
“Now,” said Qorobar, “let’s all sit in peace while we wait for this shit to blow over. No one’s going anywhere.”
* * *
Ashurizkadain had ordered the camp made behind a hillcrest, amid a circle of wind-hewn stones from a savage age long forgotten. The locals seemed to think the ruins cursed and so avoided them, which gave the Assyrians solitude. The Flayer was glad of it. No longer could his men find whores or wine to tempt them. Enfolded within ancient stones, the only means of whiling away the long hours was vigilant duty.
Through the valley below swirled the waters of the Nile’s First Cataract. Clusters of rounded boulders jutted from the river, channeling its flow into fierce rapids, whose black depths and frothing white caps hid submerged rocks that would easily gut any boat foolish enough to blunder in. This Cataract was the first of five infamous obstacles that had stymied glory-seeking pharaohs ever since the birth of Egypt. They were nearly unnavigable, even when the Nile was not at flood. And until just a few days ago, the Inundation season had been at its height. Only now was boat traffic beginning to resume once more.
From his perch in the stone circle, Ashurizkadain watched a team of workers coaxing a vessel through a calm channel using ropes and poles and their own straining bodies. The boat carried mud brick, to his disappointment, but he’d sent men down to inquire regardless, just as he did every time a new arrival was sighted. The Kushites’ boat would be carrying sacks of grain. He knew as much from the wretch he’d left skinless in fat Khaemon’s house. And from his own encounter with the Desert Mice on the Delta, he knew that their boat was far larger than the one he looked on now.
Seven weeks. Ashurizkadain clenched his fists. That made it nearly two months since Pisaqar had slipped from his grasp in that Memphis tavern. How much longer must Ashur’s justice be delayed?
Just as he had done seemingly a hundred times every day, he reviewed what he knew. From Memphis, the mercenaries had fled south by boat. This could only mean their destination was their homeland of Kush. In order to get there, they must pass through the First Cataract. Thus far, they had not. He had pressed enough silver into enough Egyptian palms to be certain of this. A boat as large as theirs would not go unnoticed, and besides that, the inundated river had choked off traffic until recent days.
Pisaqar would come. All Ashurizkadain had to do was sit patiently.
He gnawed his lip until he tasted blood.
Spitting on the foreign earth, he looked to the north, searching the river for approaching boats. To his fury and dismay, the waters were nearly devoid of traffic, except for the occasional fisherman. The horizon yielded nothing but the dirty smudge that had lingered there since the previous sunset—a brown haze whose faded heights were infrequently lit by flashes of lightning. He knew the sight well from Assyria. A sandstorm.
“My lord!” Nimrud was striding up the hill, holding the damp hem of his Egyptian kilt.
Ashurizkadain folded his hands behind his back and stood impatiently while second-in-command struggled up the slope.
“My lord,” Nimrud said with blowing cheeks, “there is a great storm in the north.”
The Flayer indicated that direction with brittle patience. “I can easily see the storm from this vantage. It is one of the tame southern variety. It shall pass soon.”
“Forgive me, my lord, but the men on the boat have told me different. It is a wind of peculiar strength. It has blown stiffly for some days. All Egypt is held in thrall, from Thebes to the Delta. This is to be the last boat for a long while.”
His first urge was to erupt, but he held his tongue and forced himself to think. “The land is brought to a standstill,” he mused.
“That is so, my lord.”
“And thus our quarry is held fast, as well.” Ashurizkadain rang his tongue over his desert-chapped lips. “We may hunt once more.”
Nimrud furrowed his brow in consternation, a state into which the man descended with dismaying regularity. “If I may suggest, my lord… This plan you have already devised is a sound one. The Kushites must pass through this narrow point to journey home. Our men hold the advantageous ground. The enemy shall be penned in the Cataract. They shall make for easy prey. I must recommend that—”
“Nimrud. I am confounded as to the reason you display this incessant need to offer your counsel. I have never asked for it.”
“Of course. I beg your forgiveness, my lord.”
Ashurizkadain inclined his head. “It is yours. Do not place yourself in a position to ask it of me again.”
“Shall I make the men ready?”
“See it done. We ride for Thebes.” As Nimrud retreated with much scraping, the Flayer returned his attention to the north, where the sandstorm was trapping his quarry. No more idle sitting for the warriors of Assyria. They were the hunters, and theirs was to seek.
* * *
The sandstorm howled for a full week.
It was a once-in-a-generation gale. Neither Senet nor Nibamon had seen its like in the Valley of the Kings. Sandstorms were a regular affliction in Kush, and the mercenaries were much better acquainted with them than their Upper Egyptian hosts. But this storm had still made a mockery of their proficiency. They didn’t dare test it again.
For seven days, they stunk up Senet’s house. There wasn’t much option of returning to their own lodgings; the storm had ripped open the makeshift doors and filled the rooms with sand. They passed the time any way they could think of. They sang songs, told stories, played with Senet’s small children. Kalab, when grief loosened its hold on his voice, recited the myth of Osiris—murdered by his own brother, divided into pieces, scattered, reknit, and resurrected. The tale of death and rebirth was a poignant one in the aftermath of their loss, and a reminder of the observances the storm was preventing them from keeping. Even now, Ermun’s ka lay trapped in limbo. It would not find its way to the next world until his body was properly interred.
They, like their departed friend, were captives of events beyond their control. There were nine of them confined to a few rooms, and two children, and a bull. Space was tight. Tempers were short. Scuffles broke out over the shrinking water rations. The few sips they were allowed were barely enough to wash down their bread, and then, they gagged. The overpowering reek of literal bullshit made a chore out of eating.
A bad week. The experience was every bit as awful as roasting in the Sinai, or chasing the Bedouins across Libya, or breaking against the Assyrian lines at Jerusalem. Those shared tribulations had bound them into a tribe. It was the only reason they got through without turning Senet’s house into an abattoir.
When they awoke to silence, they burst outside like men and women reborn. The village was covered in a cubit of sand. They waded into their houses and shook off their scant possessions. Nawidemaq drove the cart down to the Nile as quickly as the bull could trot, and returned just as Amani and Tariq reappeared from a secluded house, having leaped at the long-awaited chance for privacy.
With the group fed and watered, they thanked an exhausted Senet and started their ascent to the Valley of the Kings, where their captain awaited rescue.