Брайан Ламли - Khai of Khem

—But for how long?

Almost three-and-a-half years had gone by since Pharaoh sent his occupying force into Kush. Things had gone badly for him since then, but now at last he was ready to deliver those hammer blows from which, if he were successful, the civilized world might never recover. Now, too, after almost three years of near-continuous rain, his Dark Heptad seemed to have turned the trick and the sun shone over Khem, drying out the mire and turning it to firm earth once more. It seemed to Pharaoh that there never would be a more opportune time—when the Nile’s flooding was at an end and Nubia stood green and inviting across the river; when the swamps of Siwad steamed off their excess vapor and the mists lifted to reveal lands just waiting to be taken.

Moreover, Khem was full of soldiers—the entire Nile valley at arms—and thousands of fierce mercenaries choked the towns and villages and grew bored from lack of work. Even the border skirmishes seemed to have petered out, so that Pharaoh suspected his enemies of having lost their appetite for a war which ultimately they must lose. He waited no longer but hurled one hundred thousand mercenaries across the river into Nubia, and in the south ninety thousand more stormed the swamps to take the island villages of the pallid, morass-dwelling Siwadis. And in a little while, the first reports of these simultaneous assaults were carried home to Khasathut in Asorbes …

... Reports that drove him to the very rim of outright insanity, when his rage was such that Anulep himself fled from him and hid in the pyramid’s most secret chambers, where he shook and trembled until at last Pharaoh’s frenzy had burned itself out. Then, before seeking out his God-king where he lay exhausted and trembling upon the royal bed, the Vizier learned for himself the reasons for Pharaoh’s fit. Not fifty of his Arabban mercenaries had come back across the river from Nubia, and those that did return told tales of formidable impis, trained to a razor’s edge of fighting efficiency and armed with black swords which carved Khemish bronze as if it were green papyrus.

To further exacerbate matters, those mercenaries sent to invade Siwad had found nothing to invade; where for all their wading through crocodile- and leech-infested swamp, they had discovered Siwad empty of life, with the islands scorched and deserted. The Siwadis had forsaken their homeland in a pattern which Khasathut recognized all too well, and even now they were marauding along the border between Siwad and the rebuilt Tanos fort. Even so, the mercenaries had not returned empty-handed, no, for nine out of ten of them brought back the swamp’s fevers which made them useless; and of the rest: they had lost all interest in Pharaoh’s cause and dreamed now only of returning to their homelands. …

And Khasathut’s troubles were only just beginning.

Manek Thotak and his army arrived on the steppes to the west of the Gilf Kebir some hours in advance of Ashtarta and Khai. His warriors, coming from Siwad, had split into two separate bodies to the north of the Gilf. One of these had curved round to the west, climbing onto the plateau-lands from the rear; the other had passed along the front of the Gilf below the looming cliffs. In the night, they had found two small Khemite garrisons, each of about one thousand strong, one on the heights and the other in a keep.

The high garrison had been taken at once, its sentries silenced by a small advance group before three thousand men of the main body rushed the Khemites, woke them, and drove them over the edge of the night-dark plateau. The taking of the garrison in the keep had been a little more difficult, had taken a little longer and had not been accomplished without cost—but only a very small cost. By contrast, not a man of the Khemites had been spared.

Then had the Kushite force down on the plain, all twenty-five thousand men of them, climbed up to the roof of the plateau along paths known of old; and before dawn, Manek Thotak’s army had been on its way westward, completing the final stage of its journey home. On their way, Manek’s men had been rounding up wild horses, offspring of many of their own animals set free three-and-a-half years ago. These would supplement that great herd of animals taken into Hyrksos by Ashtarta’s horsemen, which now they would be herding back again.

It was noon when Manek arrived on the rolling plain overlooking Nam-Khum, and there he camped his army with the sun standing overhead and a warm wind rising from the west. He sniffed that wind suspiciously and smiled grimly. The Khamsin, that hell-wind which would scorch these green slopes brown before it flew down into the valley of the Nile, was on its way. It would be the first time for four years. …

Green fields. Manek smiled again. The last time he had seen these steppes, they had been black, crisped by his own people before they went into their self-imposed exile of war. Well, the fields were green enough now. These last few years, there had been enough rain to grow grass on solid rock!

These last few years…. How had Naomi fared, he wondered. Naomi Tyrass had been his girl when he was a boy, and he had loved her. Oh, he’d had his rivals—particularly Thon Emahl, the son of the chief of Naomi’s village—but he had known that Naomi would one day be his. When he became a captain, however, and when Melembrin began grooming him as a commander, a general, then Manek had let Naomi go.

She had flown to Thon, who by then was a village chief in his own right, and on impulse she had married him. Now Thon was a chief under Manek, a colonel commanding his own regiment, which in effect was his own tribe. Today they were all home from the wars, for a little while, and Thon and Naomi would soon be reunited. Well, good luck to them. Life in a village with a pretty little wife was not for Manek. No, for he knew that the Candaces of Kush were obliged to seek husbands from their generals, and that narrowed down the field considerably.

Oh, there were other generals among the tribes of Kush, to be sure, but these were old men who no longer went to war but sat at home by the fire and told tales of the old days, when they were young. But Manek was young, and a general to boot, and who else could Ashtarta take for a husband? Khai Ibizin? Impossible, for he was of Khemish blood and it would be unheard of for any foreigner to sit upon the throne of Kush. No, Manek would be king one day, which was why he had let Naomi go. It was not that he loved Ashtarta, though certainly she was a beautiful woman, but rather that he did love Kush; so that his one ambition was to be ruler in the land, and his sons and daughters after him….

Musing on thoughts such as these and chewing on dried meat where he sat in the shade of a sapling shrub bearing its first flowers, Manek heard the shouts of his lookout and rose to his feet. He ran up the hillside a little way to where the lookout stood. Beneath him, his men had been taking their rest or eating, but now he was aware that every eye was turned to the west. “There, Lord Manek,” said the lookout, a youth four years Manek’s junior. He stabbed a finger westward. “That will be the Candace. See how she raises the dust!”

“Aye,” Manek agreed, “dust from the hooves of horses. That will be Ashtarta, all right—but your eyes aren’t as keen as they might be.” He chuckled at the youth’s expression. “See there, to the south, climbing the steppes in a long line like a thin, unending snake. Do you see? That’ll be Khai Ibizin. Khai of Khem.”

“I’m told he doesn’t like that name, Lord.”

Manek frowned. “A dog’s a dog no matter his shape, color or size,” he answered.

“It’s just that I thought the General Khai was your friend, Lord,” the younger man shrugged.