Lauren Haney: Flesh of the God

Imsiba had to be close by on the stairs, but Bak doubted the Medjay could help. With him and Paser pressed so tight together, limbs entwined, one looking much like the other in the shadow, none but a creature of the night could tell them apart. He had to help himself-and soon-before he had no strength left.

He let himself go limp. His knees buckled. Paser clutched his neck tighter but, unable to support his weight, let him slide down the wall. Suddenly, before the caravan officer could drive his weapon home, Bak shot upward, smashing the top of his head into his captor’s chin. Paser grunted and staggered back. His fingers slid from Bak’s neck.

Gasping for air, Bak stumbled a couple of steps along the stairway, stretching the distance between them. He heard the rustle of sandals on the stairs and glimpsed through a blurred halo the point of Imsiba’s spear above him. Common sense told him Paser would accept his fate and give up. Instinct told him to breathe as deeply as he could, to stiffen his wobbly knees with air.

Paser shook his head to clear it. His eyes darted upward. He bared his teeth and uttered a sound somewhere between a moan and a growl. His arm shot up and back, ready to heave his weapon.

“Do you want to die?” Imsiba spoke in so ordinary a manner he could have been asking about the weather.

Paser hesitated, neither lowering his arm nor throwing the dagger.

“I suggest you look behind you.” Imsiba nodded toward the stairwell opening.

The caravan officer glanced over his shoulder and spat out a curse.

Nebwa, armed with a heavy spear, emerged from the stairwell and stepped onto the roof. “A dozen Medjays are scattered around this building. If you use that dagger on any one of us, their dogs will tear you to pieces.”

Releasing a hard, bitter laugh, Paser slowly lowered his weapon. “When first I laid eyes on you, Bak, I thought you a simple soldier. Never would I have guessed you’d make a fool of me.”

“Drop your dagger, Paser.” Bak’s voice was hoarse, lacking the authority he intended. “We want you living, but we’ll take your life if we must.”

Paser charged at Nebwa. Swinging his spear to impale the approaching man, Nebwa stepped sideways so the impact would not drive him through the opening behind him. His sandal skidded on the grain, and the spear point leaped upward. Before he could regain his balance, Paser rammed into him, knocking him off his feet, and grabbed the weapon. The burly officer fell with a solid thud, but had the presence of mind to seize Paser’s leg.

A light flickered in the stairwell and brightened to cast a golden glow over the pair. Paser shoved his dagger into the sheath he pulled around to his hip and raised the spear to plunge it into the man who held him. Bak grabbed the only object close by, the jar of grain. Not much of a weapon, but all he had.

A torch followed by a head and shoulders appeared in the opening. Bak stared, appalled, at Kames, the highly placed civilian he had recruited to hear Paser’s admission of guilt. The chief scribe had been told to stay in the courtyard until all danger was past, yet here he was.

“You’ve got him!” Kames said. “I heard every…” The torch wavered and the reedy old man gaped at the spear suspended over Nebwa’s chest.

Bak threw the jar. Imsiba hurled his spear an instant later. The jar hit the butt of Paser’s weapon and burst apart, spraying shards and grain over his head and shoulders. The weapon was torn from his hand and its deadly point slid past Nebwa. Imsiba’s spear, its path deflected by a shard, sliced through the flesh of Paser’s right shoulder and struck the edge of the opening where Kames stood. The old man cringed, wrapped his arms around his head. Nebwa released Paser’s leg and tried to grab the weapon, but it slid down Kames’s back and clattered to the steps below. The old man ducked out of sight.

Bak, running toward them, saw Paser glance at the lighted stairwell which promised a way out. “Stop!” he croaked. “My men surround this building. You’ve nowhere to go.”

Paser leaped past Nebwa’s grasping hands, through the opening, and down the stairs. Cursing the villain’s obstinacy, Bak raced into the swath of light. He heard Kames cry out, the thud of a fallen body, and Azzia shrieking angry words in her own tongue. Bak turned his curses on himself. She had vowed to remain in her bedchamber with her servants. He should have realized she would do no such thing with her husband’s slayer close by.

Dreading what he would find, he plunged down the stairs. The old man lay crumpled in the doorway of Nakht’s reception room, his long white kilt bunched around his knees, the torch lying on the floor, sputtering. As Bak leaped over him, he saw Paser just outside the courtyard door, struggling with Azzia for possession of Imsiba’s spear. The caravan officer spotted Bak. He jerked the spear, and her with it, out of sight. Her screams ended abruptly.

A frigid hand clutched Bak’s heart. “Azzia!”

No answer.

He ran to the door and peered around the jamb. Azzia stood chalky-faced midway across the courtyard. Paser stood behind her, his left arm holding her close, the dagger in his bloody right hand much too near her white throat. The blood dripping from his wound was smeared across her bare shoulder. Smoke drifted over them from a torch mounted beside the door leading to the stairway and the audience hall below. Imsiba’s spear was nowhere to be seen.

A soft moan drew Bak back away from the door. Kames had regained his senses. Bak thanked the gods that at least his witness was all right. Imsiba mounted the torch in a bracket by the door, preventing a dreaded fire, and was raising the old man to a sitting position.

“Come out where I can see you, Bak,” Paser called. “Bring no weapon. I’ll not take her life or yours, that I promise. I need you to clear my path to the river, and she’s my guarantee that you’ll cooperate.”

“No, Bak!” Azzia cried. “I’d rather die than see the swine go free.”

“Silence! Do you want me to run my blade down your pretty face?”

Imsiba spat out an oath in his own tongue.

“May all the gods of the ennead lay misfortune on his shoulders,” Kames muttered bitterly.

Bak’s thoughts tumbled over each other. He dared not help Paser leave Buhen. Once outside the walls, the officer would take a skiff from the quay and sail off with Azzia. The moment he no longer needed her, he would slay her. She had to be torn from his grasp.

He glanced around, seeking a weapon. Something small, something he could somehow conceal while he waited for Paser to lower his guard.

“I know you’re there, Bak,” Paser called. “Show yourself!”

Nakht’s iron dagger! Bak swung toward the inlaid cedar chest, where he had placed the weapon the night Heby had ransacked the room. Praying Azzia had not moved it, he lifted the lid. The dagger lay exactly as he had left it. Withdrawing it from the sheath, he noticed for the first time the blood coagulating on his left hand, more than he would have thought possible from a wound that barely stung. An idea took form, a way of concealing the weapon.

“Nebwa is on the roof above us, Bak.” Paser sounded grim and a bit desperate. “If you don’t call him off, this foreign bitch will never again look in a mirror without shedding tears for her lost beauty.”

Bak dropped the dagger where he had found it, squeezed the cut to make it bleed more, and smeared his chest. Praying he could deceive Paser, he held the injured wrist in front of the stain, making the wound appear far more serious than it was, and stepped into the courtyard. Azzia gasped at the sight of him. Nebwa, peering down from the roof, expelled a breastful of air and a curse.

Paser, who had taken shelter among the potted plants, his back to the wall, pressed his blade to Azzia’s cheek. “Call off your dog. Now!”