Lynda Robinson - Drinker Of Blood

Returning to the staircase, he whispered to Abu, "He's not coming. We'll try again tomorrow night."

He slipped out of the passage with Abu at his heels. Traveling as a wanted man meant skulking down foul alleys and over the rooftops of buildings when he could be sure a family wasn't sleeping outdoors. He couldn't hop and clamber over roofs in this crowded district, however. With reluctance, Meren picked his way through side streets and alleys, trying not to step in dog and goat dung or pools of muddy piss. He made it through several noxious passages before his sandal landed in muck that oozed between his toes. It was as black as night in the netherworld, but Meren recognized that unpleasant, slimy texture. Abu stopped beside him and made a noise of commiseration.

Cursing, Meren lifted his foot and sniffed. He sniffed again. No acid odor. He smelled dirt mixed with a coppery scent he knew from the battlefield and practice yard. Forgetting his foot, he squatted and reached out. His fingers touched skin slick with blood, and then he heard a whimper.

Memphis, reign of Tutankhamun

Meren slid his hand along an arm, up a shoulder, to a neck damp with blood. Abu reached past him, searching, and found a dagger beneath the victim.

A faint voice made harsh with effort sounded loud in the blackness. "Finish it, and may the gods damn you."

"Yamen?" Meren's searching hands encountered others clamped over Yamen's belly.

"Who is-" Yamen broke off to laugh, and the laughter turned to wet coughing. "My lord Meren, by the light of Ra. You're not dead yet?"

"Rest yourself," Meren said. "I'll send for help."

"No!"

With a bloody hand Yamen grabbed Meren's and dragged it to rest on a gaping hole in his gut. There was no need for argument. The wound was deep, and of the kind for which there was no remedy. Meren freed himself and placed Yamen's hands over the wound.

"I haven't long," Yamen said, his words growing more and more indistinct. "What a fool I was to trust-"

Meren squeezed Yamen's arm to keep him alert. "Trust whom?"

The soldier began to laugh again. "I was so pleased to come to your notice. Then he came and warned me. Should have known then. Too confident."

Hearing a cough, Meren lifted Yamen against his leg, and the gasping eased.

"Who did this? Who killed the queen? Yamen, there's no time. Tell me before it's too late, and I'll avenge you."

There was a weak chuckle. "Queen? Should have known he wasn't helping me out of friendship. Stupid…"

Meren felt Yamen's body go slack. Desperate, he slapped the man's face. "Yamen!"

He heard a cough and felt blood splatter on his wrist. Blood from the mouth. There was no time.

"Yamen!"

Abu had been keeping watch. "Lower your voice, lord."

Meren bent close to Yamen and hissed, "Speak, you sodding whoreson."

Yamen gave a choking cough and garbled his words. "Avenge me? No, sacrifice me. He learned that when he… He'll sacrifice you as he does all who know him."

Uncontrolled laughter bubbled from wet lips. Meren started when Yamen grasped his wrist with a bloody hand and pulled him close to hear a harsh whisper.

"He is in my heart. There is no other who knows him." This time the weak laughter was mocking, malevolent.

A wet hand fastened on Meren's neck and pulled him to within a finger's width of Yamen's lips. If he hadn't been so close, he couldn't have heard the man's last words.

"All perish who threaten him."

"Damn you, Yamen, tell me his name!"

Meren felt the gory hands slip from him and heard the final hiss of escaping breath. Behind him Abu muttered prayers and spells against evil. Meren crouched beside the body, head bowed, frustration and rage rising in his heart. Because of this man he was an accused traitor and his family in danger. Kysen, Bener, Tefnut, Isis, all could lose their lives. He wanted to chase Yamen into the netherworld, wrap his hands around the man's neck, and wring it until he got the answer he wanted. Months of apprehension, of looking over his shoulder, of fearing for the king, for Kysen, and all the others rushed upon him, and Meren's long-held temper snapped.

"Come away, lord. He has become mut , one of the dangerous dead. His spirit is evil."

Meren grabbed Yamen's body and shook it. "Tell me his name, you mother-cursed ass!"

He kept shaking Yamen until he was jerked away from the body and shoved against a wall. His head hit the mud brick. The pain jolted Meren from his rage, and he lapsed into silence, breathing rapidly.

After a while Meren said, "You can release me, Abu."

Stepping back from Meren, Abu turned his head. "Listen."

"A patrol?" Meren shoved away from the wall. "We can't be caught here."

Without a thought for the body or ka of Yamen, Meren darted down the passageway and swerved around a corner into a crooked path between houses and the city wall. Walking rapidly, he headed toward the Caverns. They hadn't gone far when they heard cries of alarm from a city patrol.

"They found him," Meren said. "Hurry."

He sped up, stepped into a street of beer houses and taverns, and almost collided with someone. Meren shrank against a wall, trying to become one with the shadows cast by a torch set in a sconce beside a door. He glimpsed a cloaked man and caught a dizzying whiff of wine fumes.

"Miserable peasant," the cloaked man muttered as he wove his way down the street.

Abu, who was holding Yamen's dagger at ready, relaxed and came over to Meren. "Allow me to go first, lord. This night's deeds have upset you."

"I'm not upset, I'm furious."

"Indeed, lord." Abu set off without further discussion.

They reached the Divine Lotus with no other encounters and approached the rear entrance. The guard stared at them briefly but allowed them to enter the courtyard. Othrys's celebrations were still going on and had reached a gleeful loudness that irritated Meren. He drew his aide to a corner of the courtyard beside an ornamental pavilion.

"What should we do now, lord?"

"Listen to me carefully, Abu," Meren whispered. "The danger is even greater than we supposed. All who know the identity of this murderer perish, even warriors like Yamen. The only way to guard against such power is not to work alone. You and Reia will have to contact Ebana."

"But Ebana hates you."

"Perhaps. But we were brothers once, and I know him as I know myself. He loves me, though he has tried to cast me from his heart. He wouldn't have gone to my house if he weren't trying to help me. Go to him. Tell him what has passed, and tell him this from me. The guilty one who attacked the king must have met with Yamen immediately before we left on the raid. He probably has been known to have dealings with Yamen before. Tell Ebana he must find this man, quickly, before the hidden one who killed Yamen finds me."

"Yes, lord."

"And Abu-" Meren hesitated. "If you should hear that I'm captured or killed, you must decide whether it is safe for Kysen and the girls to remain in Egypt."

Abu grasped Meren's forearm in a warrior's clasp, which Meren returned.

"It shall be done, lord. There will be no need to leave Egypt."

"I pray to Amun you're right," Meren said wearily. "Take great care when you leave this place. I'll get Ese to give me a room for the night. I must cleanse myself, and it's too dangerous to leave with the patrols aroused by Yamen's death."

"Blessings of the gods be with you, lord."

"They haven't been of late," Meren said.

Once more keeping to the shadows, Meren gained the door to the tavern and stepped inside. The stairwell was empty, so he ascended to the second-floor landing, where he waited while several patrons passed by with Egyptian women dressed in Greek clothing. When they vanished into a bedroom, he continued to the third floor and eased open one of a pair of doors made of the finest cedar. Looking through the crack, he found the room beyond empty and went inside. As he shut the door, a woman came into the antechamber through an archway. It was Ese, the owner of the Divine Lotus. A woman of middle years and a youthful body, she had luxuriant, curling brown hair and an air of promised pleasures. When greeting customers, she exuded the mysterious attraction of Hathor, goddess of love. When she was not on duty, however, her dark, heavy-lashed eyes lost their light and became the flat, pitiless orbs of a serpent. As far as Meren could discern, her distinguishing characteristic was an abiding resentment toward all men.