Брайан Ламли - Khai of Khem

“That is what they say, yes,” she breathlessly answered. “Also that we should first strike in the Siwadi- and Nubia-Khem borderlands. This will mean that—”

“That Pharaoh’s troops, where they gather to hurl themselves against Nubia and Siwad, will turn to face us, trapping themselves between the—”

“Have the mages already spoken to you?” she suddenly snapped.

“No, Candace,” he turned surprised eyes on her. “But it seems obvious to me that—”

“Oh, Khai,” she cut him off again, the words sighing from her, almost pleading. “If you are so wise and if so many things are obvious to you, why is it you have not seen the most obvious thing of all?”

“Queen, I—” he looked puzzled, uncomprehending, and his slowness angered her.

She jumped to her feet and he rose with her. “I remember a time when there was fire in you,” she snapped, stinging him with her words. “You were a man even as a boy, even as … as a Khemite!”

She made to step down from the rock, but her foot slipped and she would have fallen if he had not caught and steadied her. His hands were by no means as gentle as they might have been and she saw anger stamped on his face. His skin was tight with it and his eyes glittered like hard mountain ice.

“You forget yourself, Queen,” he said, his voice harsh. “You can remember when there was fire in me, can you?” He nodded. “Well, and I remember when you were a spoiled brat, but now you are Candace of all Kush! How have I offended you?”

“Spoiled brat?” she raged. “Offended me? Let me go—let me go at once!”

“Damn it—” he said, astonished by her rapid mood changes, “I’m not holding you!” It was true, for he had released her as soon as she was steady. But now it was like one of his dreams of old. It had all happened before—or was yet to happen, he knew not which—but suddenly he knew what he must do, what he must say.

“I should strip you naked as the day I first saw you,” he snarled, catching her hands so that she could not strike him. “I should throw you down on this rock and have you right here, now!”

“What?” she whispered, her eyes wide and amazed. “How dare—”

“What will you give me,” he pressed on, half-afraid that his dream might betray him, “if I free you?”

But now she, too, was caught up in the dream. He knew what her next words would be, but even so breathed a sigh of relief when she voiced them:

“I’ll give you … anything.”

“Then give me that,” he said, “which they would have stolen from you!”

In a voice which she no longer recognized as her own, she answered: “One day, you strange, blue-eyed boy, I might just keep that promise of mine—” And he let go of her hands as she threw them round his neck and sought his mouth with hers.

She could feel him against her, feel the core of him straining for her, and she gasped as their mouths filled with blood from the sheer ferocity of their kiss. His hands had slid down her back, were drawing her irresistibly to him. Her long nails went through the damp linen of his shirt and into his back. She tore his flesh and squirmed against him, unable to get close enough. Then—

“No!” she fought free of him. “No, Khai. Not here, not now.”

“Last night,” he gasped, holding out his arms to her, “I didn’t sleep. Tonight I won’t even try! When, Ashtarta? When?”

“When?” she stepped down, almost fell from the rock. She was flushed, lost for words, and her limbs trembled like the wings of a trapped bird. She turned and ran back the way she had come.

“Sh’tarra!” he called after her, his voice a groan of desperation. “When?”

She looked back. “When we camp beneath the Gilf Kebir,” she panted, “the night before you strike at Khem. Then and not before. You must not even see me. Will you come to me then, Khai, to my room of purple walls? Will you come, unseen in the night, like a thief, to the one who loves you?”

“Whenever,” he moaned, his voice a rattle in his dust-dry throat. “Wherever. To the very gates of hell, if you call me—

“Sh’tarra?” But she was gone.

Time passed all too slowly for Khai from then onward, until at last the day arrived when the armies of Kush were camped below the looming escarpment of the Gilf Kebir. But all talking was done by then and all plans finally sealed and approved. The seven mages were gone up into the plateau-lands, but they had left this promise behind them: that in the battles to come, they would be close, and that when they were needed, then they would come. This had been the seven at their cryptic best, and while Ashtarta’s generals had not understood their meaning—not then—still they had found some comfort in their words.

On the evening before the onslaught commenced, Khai found a quiet pool and washed away all of his worries and tensions as he swam in its cool depths. The Khamsin was gone now, flown down into Khem on furnace wings, but in its wake it had left a heat that came at you from all sides, down from the sky and up from the earth beneath, until the blood seemed to boil in your veins. Khai’s blood boiled ... but not alone from the heat. Not from any sort of heat which might be felt upon the skin or on the soles of the feet… .

By the time night was setting in he had returned to camp, and in his tent he found Imthra waiting for him. The old wizard had simply sought him out to speak with him of nothing important, for they were old friends now and there had been little enough time for talking since the reuniting of the tribes. So Khai relaxed and they talked and drank a little wine, and the night grew very dark as stars began burning like diamonds in the sky. Then Imthra sensed Khai’s impatience. Believing that the general desired his bed, the old man bade him good night and left him. Khai waited a few minutes more then slipped out under the rear wall of his tent and made his way in darkness to the outskirts of the camp.

He hurried through shrubs and tall grasses to where he knew Ashtarta’s tent stood apart from the camp and backed onto the towering wall of the Gilf. Every sense alert—how had she put it? “Like a thief in the night,”—he approached her huge tent of poles and fine linens and made to slip between its rear wall and the face of the cliff behind it. Before he could take a single step into the gap, however, coming out of nowhere and pinning him to the wall of rock, a massive black fist caught hold of his neck. He sensed rather than saw the huge club held over his head and barely managed to choke out: “Hold, man—it’s me, Khai!”

The grip on his throat relaxed and the huge black man lowered his face to Khai’s own and sniffed at him. “The General Khai!” an amazed voice rumbled. “Why, I—”

“Shh!” hissed Khai, rubbing his throat. “Well done. I can see now how well you guard the Candace—only please be quiet!”

“The General sees poorly in the night,” answered the black guardsman, “for the door to the tent of the Candace is on the other side. Come, Lord, and I will show you. …”

“No,” Khai breathlessly answered, taking the other’s huge arm in the darkness. “I… I do not wish to enter that way.”

For a long moment, there was silence and the mighty Nubian guardsman peered closely at Khai. Then the starlight caught his teeth and framed them in a huge grin, and Khai frowned as he asked: “Oh, and do you laugh at Khai the Killer?”

“No, Lord,” the black quit his grinning. “My thoughts were wandering— to when I courted the girls back home.”

“Yes,” said Khai sternly, “but I did not desire to be seen and you have seen me.”