Lauren Haney - Path of Shadows

Darkness descended and the night grew chilly. The moon and stars shone above, a slice of white among chips of light as bright as highly polished rock crystal. The gulls flew off to their nesting places and their raucous calls were replaced by the lonely song of a night bird. Nufer nursed a fire in the ex 280

Lauren Haney pectation that Psuro and the sailors would shortly return with fish. Minnakht waded out of the pool, silencing the bird.

Shivering in his wet tunic, he wrapped his arms around him self and hastened to the camp. He trotted past the fire, head ing toward his meager belongings, and merged into the night.

Bak and Nebre exchanged a glance none but they could see.

The time dragged. The waiting seemed endless.

A long, shrill whistle shattered the silence.

Bak and Nebre scrambled out of the water. Nufer dipped an oil-soaked torch into the fire. While a flame burst into life, the two policemen slipped on their sandals and scooped up spears and shields. A quick glance verified that Minnakht had bolted.

Bak had expected no less.

The sailor plucked the torch from the fire and sped with

Bak and Nebre into the night, showering sparks behind them.

They ran along the base of the stony ridge, dodging rocks that rose out of the sand, splashing through pools of water, crunching across stretches of broken shell as sharp as the best bronze knife. Bak thanked the gods that he had had the foresight to inspect the landscape earlier.

Another whistle told them they were on the right course and bearing down on their quarry. A dozen paces farther, he spotted four men ahead. Psuro and the two fishermen stood around Minnakht, holding him in place with harpoons casu ally held but aimed at his breast.

“I should’ve known my flight was too easy.” Minnakht’s smile was thin, his good humor as shallow as the trickle of water beneath his feet. “You’d see me dead rather than let me make my own way back to Waset.”

Bak, refusing to answer smile with smile, motioned him to walk back toward camp. “Have I not kept you alive and well thus far?”

“You’ve kept me apart from all who might wish me ill, yes, but can you continue to do so?” Minnakht shook his head. “Not on a route as well traveled as the southern trail.

We’ll meet one man and another and another, and word that I live will spread like oil on swiftly moving water. An army couldn’t save me from my enemies.”

“We’ll guard you well, never fear.”

“I’ll wager that the men who wish me ill are the same as those who slew Senna and the others.”

“One man took their lives, not a multitude. If it’s you he seeks rather than me, we’ll snare him when he comes close.”

Minnakht stopped walking and gave a cynical laugh. “So

I’m the goat you’re staking out to attract a hyena.”

Bak took his arm and pressed him forward. “You’ll remain with us. We’ll see that you arrive in Kemet alive and well. Af ter that…” He let the thought hang, leaving the future open.

“Is Minnakht still sulking?” Bak asked. A night and a day had passed since the explorer’s attempt to slip away into the desert.

Psuro shook his head. “He can’t maintain the pose. He’s too genial by far.”

So they could talk without Minnakht hearing, they had walked south along the water’s edge, setting out as the sun dropped toward the western horizon. They were wading through the swells rushing onto the shore, splashing the sand and receding with a whisper. Garish red tentacles reached across the sky to be mirrored on the sea below.

They had camped on a barren shore, where the coastal plain was broad and the escarpment too far away to offer cover to a man attempting to run away. If a wadi drained the higher land, its mouth had widened out and had become lost in the flat expanse of sand and gravel.

“Never let him seduce you with his charm, Sergeant. He’ll flee if he can.”

Psuro frowned, perplexed. “Why he won’t resign himself to our protection, I don’t understand.”

“Perhaps he doesn’t entirely trust us,” Bak said with a wry smile.

The sergeant chuckled, but quickly sobered. “Nufer be lieves we’ll reach the southern trail late tomorrow or early the following morning. What are we to do with him then?”

Bak knelt to pick up the shell of a sea creature new to him.

Smelling the stench of the occupant decaying inside, he flung it into the sea. “I think it best that you hold him on the boat while I go ashore. I must report to the soldiers, and I must see if User and his party await us, as I suggested. I must also look for the nomad child Imset-or Nefertem, but I think his com ing unlikely.”

“Could Kaha have found him so quickly?”

“If Nefertem wanted to be found, I’m certain Kaha reached him. If he believed in my message, he’ll have sent the boy on his way within the hour.”

“The desert is vast, sir.”

“Yes, but one man alone can travel much faster than a caravan.”

They stood together, looking out upon the sea and a flock of squawking gulls swooping down for a late evening meal, flapping their wings and splashing the water while they squabbled for fish.

“What if Imset hasn’t come?” Psuro asked.

“We’ll wait.”

Bak prayed fervently that the child had arrived and even now stood on the shore awaiting them. The amount of food and water they had was limited. They could refill their water jars at the village well, but he doubted they could replenish their food supply unless they met a caravan carrying supplies destined for the mines across the sea.

“Lieutenant Bak!” The voice was childish but bordering on manhood.

Bak stepped away from the stone hut used as an office and storeroom by the soldiers who manned the outpost called

Tjau at the eastern end of the southern trail. A well encircled by a waist-high wall was nearby, and a stone-walled paddock enclosed a small herd of donkeys.

He looked in the direction from which the call had come, toward a dozen rough mud-and-reed huts occupied by no mads. Imset, who had been gathering dead branches from a clump of tamarisks a hundred or so paces away, dropped the bundle of fuel at the door of a hut and loped toward him across the hot sand.

Smiling, Bak strode out to meet the boy, scattering a flock of goats along the way, and clasped his shoulders in greeting.

The woman to whom the animals belonged stood in the doorway of the hut, keeping a close eye on man and boy. A small dark-haired girl clung to her ankle-length tunic and a baby crawled around her feet. A shaggy white dog lay with its head on its paws, watching the goats. Bak wondered if the woman was Imset’s mother or if he had joined her household to make himself less conspicuous while he waited.

Imset tugged from a leather pouch hanging from his belt the quartz pendant and a cloth-wrapped package. With a shy smile, he handed them to Bak. Bak unwrapped a limestone shard covered with writing. The message, written in the carefully formed script of a man who had long ago learned to write but seldom had occasion to do so, was brief and to the point: “I long to meet with my brother Minnakht. And with you, Lieutenant. You must travel west along the caravan trail. Your Medjay Kaha and I will await you at the well mid way between the sea and Waset. From there, we’ll travel on together.”

Bak smiled. The response could not have been more to his liking. Sobering, he stared off to the west, taking a few mo ments to decide what best to do.

“Do you know User?” he asked, pointing toward a camp site shaded by a large acacia some distance away. The ser geant in charge of the outpost had told him the explorer and his party had arrived four days earlier. He had urged them to continue west with the caravan, but they had refused, saying they wished to return to Kemet with Bak.