Khai of Khem

I The Iron Invaders

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.”

“Lord, I have not seen you,” the guardsman turned away. “I have neither seen nor heard you. You are a shadow in the night.”

“Good,” said Khai. He turned back to the gap between the tent and the cliff, but again the Nubian caught him.

“Lord?”

“Yes?”

“Should I also be deaf and blind if my mistress calls out in the night?”

“She will not,” answered Khai. “Now get to your duty.” And in another moment the guardsman had melted with the shadows and was gone. But Khai could swear that he heard the man’s chuckle… .

Then … it was Khai’s dream all over again, that recurrent dream of his which seemed to have lasted through several lifetimes, except that this time there was no interruption. All else was exactly as it had been: the sandy floor (for the tent stood on the bed of an old stream which long ago had brought down centuries of sand from the heights), the chest of jewels (which Manek had brought out of Siwad, and which—if things did not go according to plan—Ashtarta would use as ransom money to buy the freedom of her commanders), even the color of the linen walls of the Queen’s bedchamber, which was purple.

As for the Candace: she of course was unaware of Khai’s dream; so that when the time came for her to open her body to him she could not understand the curse that escaped his lips, the gritting of his teeth, the way his face twisted in sudden agony—and his sigh of relief when he realized that the time had come and gone and still there had not been that sudden alarm, that nerve wrenching blast of sound which invariably destroyed the dream at this point.

For it was no longer a dream, it was real, and at last Khai felt that he was a whole, complete person. Time and space and the voids between had come together for him in the here and now. Dreams and fancies were suddenly one with reality, a huge puzzle snapping together, and the universe closed in on Khai and his Candace and took them to its bosom… .

… In the morning, as the sun came up and turned the eastern horizon to mist-haze, evaporating the last of the moisture from the land between Kush and Khem, the wheels of war began to turn against Pharaoh. Rumbling down from the foothills and onto the early morning savannahs, the chariots and carts and armored horsemen were splendid in their color, their eager ferocity, their relish of the battles to come.

Khai drove north—for Manek had not much cared to return to Siwad’s borders, and likewise Khai had had more than enough of Nubia’s jungles— and Manek drove south. The chief Genduhr Shebbithon, now a general in his own right, drove east for the Khemish fort at Pethos; and thus Ashtarta’s army was split into three parts.

Khai took the forts in Kuragh and Ghira in his stride and rushed on north, skirting the edge of the western swamp and heading for Tanos and the forest-land which led to the Nile. Manek took the Afallah fort and wiped out a large body of Khemites west of Peh-il, then rushed into Nubia to reinforce N’jakka’s black legions and slaughter Pharaoh’s forces where once more they had crossed the river. In little more than a week, all of Khem’s armies had turned from their preparations for full-scale assaults on Nubia and Siwad to form a front against Kush which reached from Mylah-Ton in the north to Subon in the south. West of the river, the Khemites camped in their thousands; and in Asorbes, where the Dark Heptad had now been ordered from their interminable task of seeking immortality for Khasathut to more pressing matters, Pharaoh pondered how best to employ them.

He knew now that his soldiers could not stand against the iron swords of Kush, and the chariots of the Kushites were terrible machines whose like had never before been seen in that ancient world. Sheer weight of numbers no longer mattered, for the new weapons of the Kushites made a mockery of all the old concepts of war. And this was where the Dark Heptad came into its own, for the Heptad’s concepts of war were also radically different—as Kush was soon to discover.

Another week passed in which Ashtarta’s armies consolidated their positions, took stock of the territories they had occupied, and deployed in regiments in the forests between the swamps and along the edge of the savannahs east of Daraaf. Nubia and Siwad were well in control of their own territories now and poised to strike when Kush struck; but Pharaoh had not been idle. Ferries had shifted thousands of mercenaries and hastily enlisted youths across the river along a vast front, and these now formed new regiments west of Asorbes, facing the distant camps of the Kushites.

But for all Khem’s might (her armies still outnumbered those of Kush and her allies by more than three to one), Khasathut knew that the actual strengths of his own and Ashtarta’s forces were evenly balanced, that Kush’s weapons had robbed him of his advantage. Hence the hurried intervention of the Dark Heptad. The first weapon those devotees of darkness chose from their arsenal of occult devices was common enough along the banks of the Nile: it was the rat, whose numbers were greater than the armies of Kush and Khem put together.

II Wizards at War

Pharaoh’s black magicians worked quickly and surely, for their new task was more to their liking and well within their capability. “Destroy Kush!” Pharaoh had ordered: “Wipe the Kushites out— Nubia, too—and Siwad! Do what you must, but destroy them. Destroy their armies—and bring their leaders, any that survive, to me!”

If this had been Pharaoh’s wish seven years earlier, then had it been carried out at once; but that would have been to deny him his source of slaves, the raw materials of his pyramid-building, the base upon which his empire was to be constructed. What use to be a ruler of empty lands? Now, however, it was far better to rule empty, destroyed lands than to relinquish sovereignty altogether. To relinquish life itself, before that life was fulfilled, before its ambitions were realized. Now the destruction of his enemies was necessary, essential to his own existence.

So the Dark Heptad invoked the Powers of Darkness and were advised, and accepting that advice, they recruited creatures of darkness to their cause….

Khai had taken Tanos two days ago. Now his army camped in the forest between Tanos and Mylah-Ton, on the edge of swamps which were more desiccated than ever before they had been. The Khamsin lay over the Nile, where a great curtain of dust hung in the eastern sky and darkened the heavens, but the signs of its passing were right here in the forest: yellow grasses and shrubs, trees whose branches and leaves drooped and were utterly dry to the touch.

It was night and Khai lay in his small tent and slept, getting his rest as best he might. Tomorrow he planned to advance on Mylah-Ton, and the day after that he intended to take it. His sleep was restless, however, and not alone from the heat which found its way here from the heart of Khem. No, for a dream kept coming and going, formless as a wraith, so that Khai tossed on his rough bed and sweated in a darkness lighted only by a small hanging fire-pot. Eventually, as the dream took firmer hold on him, he submitted to its spell and so gave it form.

… He stood beneath the stars on a hill in Rush with the Mage of Oneiromancy—the keen-eyed brown mage from Daraaf—and with Genduhr Shebbithon and Manek Thotak. Together they stood and looked eastward, toward Khem.

“You fought me, Khai,” said the brown mage, “with a will whose like I have rarely known. Did you not sense it was I, who not only read dreams but occasionally use them in other ways? No matter, for now you are here and I have a warning for you.”

“A warning?” Khai repeated.

“Aye, and it is this: that Pharaoh’s Dark Heptad have brought a monstrous ally against you, and that even now ten million feet race toward you in the night!”

“Ten million?” Khai gasped in his dream. “There are not so many fighting men in all Khem, Arabba and Therae together!” “Men, no,” answered the brown mage. “Rats, yes!” “Rats?” Genduhr Shebbithon growled. “Rats?”

“Rats, yes—bearing a plague brought up from the depths of hell—for whomever these rats bite, he shall die on the spot, consumed, gone down in liquid corruption!”

“When, where will they strike, these rats?” Manek asked, hand on sword hilt.

“They come now,” answered the mage, “from the Nile. You must get up at once, all of you, and build fires—a wall of fires from the north to south, wherever your men are camped—to drive the rats back whence they came.”

“Fire?” Khai frowned. “But what of the wind? What little wind there is this night, it blows outward from Khem!”

“Faith, Khai,” the brown mage answered with a smile. “Have faith. Trust in the Mage of Elementalism, who sends a wind even now from the hills of Kush.”

Even as he spoke, the hill on which they all stood seemed to whirl beneath Khai’s feet, to dwindle, shrink away; or else he himself was lifted up in a giant’s hand and borne swiftly aloft… to be dumped down on his bed in a tent in the forest.

He awoke with a cry in the night, stumbled from his tent shouting hoarse-voiced orders, roused up his men in a frenzy as he rushed from tent to tent and sent other messengers to do his bidding. Then, east of the camp, he himself set the first fire, and as the forest began to blaze, so there came the first stirrings of a wind from the west, a mournful wind that played with the leaping flames and blew them north and south, set them jumping from tree to tree until Khai and his army drew back in fear. Then, as the wind strengthened, it hurled the fire eastward in a blaze that lighted up the land with a light bright as day.

And it was then that Khai saw the rats and knew that his actions had been just in time. The rats were there, in the fire, blazing as they came through the inferno, flashing into flame as they tried to breach the burning barrier and get at the men where they stood unharmed behind the fiery wall. Some did get through, driven on by the magic of the Dark Heptad, but very few. Bundles of smouldering fur they were, scampering and shrieking, and when they bit—

Khai stood near a man thus bitten, saw him crush the life from the smoking rat before he fell—then saw the flesh melt and slough from his body and the bones come through as all else turned to stinking rot!

“Kill them!” he roared then, snarling his fear and horror. “Kill any rats that break through, but don’t let them bite you!”

The tale was retold in the hills west of Asorbes, where Genduhr Shebbithon sent fire roaring eastward to destroy the gray horde that rushed squealing out from the heart of Khem; and on the savannahs north of the Nubian forests where Manek was now camped; so that the morning sun rose on a scene of black, smouldering desolation. In the north, along a front eighty miles long, it was as if a mighty architect had drawn a straight line—to the east of which, even to the banks of the Nile, all was blackened earth. Likewise in the south, where morning found Manek Thotak gazing east across a wasteland of ashes. In Peh-il, the Khemites had seen the fire coming, had made fire-breaks and flooded irrigation ditches, and by some miracle, they had survived both the furnace and the surviving, fleeing rats; but all else was burned. West of Asorbes itself only the swamps had stopped the blaze, but even the swamps were now little more than vast beds of cracked and dried-out mud.

And so the seven mages overcame the black magic of Pharaoh’s Dark Heptad … for the time being.

As Khai drove on Mylah-Ton—which only the surrounding swamps had saved from the inferno—and as his chariots and men cut a giant swathe through ashes of wasted forests all along the borders of dead swamps, so the Siwadis crossed the river below the delta and headed east into Syra. The Syrans, themselves oppressed for generations without number, took up arms and joined them, pushing southeast for Arabba.

In the south, Manek Thotak took Peh-il and turned north along the river, while to the east of the Nile, N’jakka’s impis marched on Phemor. The Theraens—in the main, a cowardly folk—had already retreated into their hills above the NarrowSea, for they had sensed that Khem’s days were numbered and they wanted no more of liaisons or friendships with Pharaoh. And eighty miles west of Asorbes, Genduhr Shebbithon camped his forces in a vast semicircle at the foot of the hills and gazed east in the direction of Khasathut’s capital. There, like a great cat lying in wait, he licked his lips in dreadful anticipation.

Ohath fell to Khai and he crossed the river to take Béna, and wherever Khem’s soldiers were found, they fell in their thousands; and those who did not desert Khem and flee before the iron invaders were driven back to their country’s heartland. Eight days after the Great Fires, Phemor fell to the Nubians and Pharaoh was now ringed in by the enemy’s forces. Even then he could have fled east—but where to? The NarrowSea would eventually stop him, and then he would be trapped between the water and the pursuing tribes of Rush. No, it would be a better plan to remain here and defend Asorbes, which was thought to be impregnable as the east-facing wall of the Gilf Kebir itself.

Moreover, there had been signs. Signs which told Khasathut he should remain at Asorbes. Shortly after the attack of the Kushites there had been green horizons at dawn and orange horizons at night, and the legends said that just such twilights had been seen before the advent of the God-peoples from the skies. Also, the Dark Heptad had warned that their supernatural experiments were taking them very close to the Great Source of all Knowledge, which was also the source of all evil. They might yet give Khasathut the immortality he so avidly desired, and in so doing, give him ultimate power over all men and creatures. The price, as he understood it, would be the Sanity of the Universe, but to Pharaoh that seemed a very small price indeed….

And so, with Khasathut’s blessing, the Dark Heptad continued with their occult experiments and plotted second and third terrors to hurl against the encroaching Kushites; and the more they worked their dark wonders, the easier it became to commune with the Powers of Evil, the closer those Powers drew to them in their gloomy chamber beneath the great pyramid.

As for Pharaoh: he was in a constant rage and continually issued threats against anyone who strayed too close to him. Anulep now spent all of his time placating, pleading and promising, and in hurrying about his master’s business: either conveying Khasathut’s commands or inquiries to his Dark Heptad or hi, military commanders, or carrying their answers or tremulous excuses back to the God-king.

And so things stood when, not thirty miles away, the General Kha, Ibizin took Wad-Gahar above the cataract—

III The Winged Legions

Wad-Gahar….

The name struck a chord in Khai’s memory, but the note was elusive and soon forgotten in the face of more important things. The taking of Wad-Gahar was easy, for Pharaoh’s regular forces had been drawn back into a circle about Asorbes and they had left the protection of the town to ten thousand Theraen mercenaries. These had literally “occupied” the town, for being what they were Wad-Gahar’s rightful inhabitants had been more at their mercy than under their protection.

Their “protection,” indeed—the protection of Theraens!

Khai killed every last one of them, though that meant digging half of them out from their hiding-holes. And when the old people of the town (for there were only very old people and very young children left) saw that the Kushites would do them no harm, they very soon began to show the invaders just exactly where the mercenaries were hiding.

No treachery this, but vengeance! In the two days since the Khemish regiments had fallen back into defensive positions about Asorbes, the mercenaries had looted everything worth taking and raped even tiny children. Seeing their danger, the townspeople had kept them drunk most of the time, which accounted in large measure for the ease with which Wad-Gahar fell to Khai’s warriors. Toward evening, it was all over and the general issued strict orders that the ordinary folk were not to suffer any further molestation at Kushite hands. There was little worth the taking in the ravished town and its people had already lost more than enough. As Khai watched the townspeople building huge funeral pyres for the dead, his attention was called to evidence of several Theraen atrocities. One of these had been a local brothel, where the women had been beaten and raped repeatedly, even unto death. Arriving on the scene, he found a number of drunken Theraens asleep in various rooms where they were previously overlooked. Each of them he roughly awakened, then personally put to the sword. Passing out of the place into evening air which already stank of burning flesh, he caught sight of a still mop of crinkly raven hair just inside the door. It was the head of a woman whose body lay with a number of other corpses, still and stiff. A tremble ran through Khai’s massive frame then and he leaned weakly against the brothel’s wall. Now he knew why the name of Wad-Gahar had struck that chord in his mind.

Kindu and Nundi were with him—those dear friends of his out of Nubia, whose very lives were his—and now Kindu said: “Lord, something ails you.”

He nodded. “Aye, possibly. There is a woman in there. She is not black, not quite white, and her hair is much like yours. Bring her out here in the light, for I think I know her.”

In a moment, the woman’s body lay upon a blanket for Khai’s inspection. Her eyes were closed forever now, but they were slanted and had known much laughter. Long-legged and dusky, she was that Mhyna whom Khai had known so long ago. Her own dagger protruded from her breast, with her own hand clenched tight about its hilt.

Khai washed her face and cradled her head and said nothing for a long time. His men left him sitting there and went about their work. As darkness crept in Khai looked up, his eyes dull with unspilled tears. His Nubian lieutenants followed him as he carried the woman down to the wharfside and laid her in the finest barge he could find. Then he poured oil on the reed decks and cast off the mooring rope. As the barge moved out into the river, he took a brand and tossed it aboard, then watched Mhyna’s pyre pass down the river into the night.

That night, Khai camped just south of Wad-Gahar, and the next day saw him ferrying his army across to the west bank. This was not such a giant task as might be imagined, since less than half of his men had crossed with him at Ohath. Now, too, his carts and chariots were brought up and prepared for the final stages of the war—which were to be the siege and eventually the taking of Asorbes. It was late afternoon when the last barge came across, and in the final hour before twilight a hush fell over the river and its banks which was quite unlike anything Khai had ever known before.

There seemed to be a premature darkness to the sky, and not in the east but to the south. Yes, the sky over Asorbes was dark—and it was moving!

Khai was one of the first to note the phenomenon. Standing on the bank of the river and watching the darkly mobile mass of sky to the south, suddenly a dizziness came over him that caused him to stagger. Shading his eyes, he leaned against a palm and continued to watch the sky; and as he did so the giddiness came again and he would have fallen. Now, wrapping his arms round the bole of the palm to support himself, he closed his eyes tightly and felt his gorge rising. Then—

“Khai,” an echoing voice said in his head, “do not be afraid, but listen to me. I am the Mage of Mentalism, whose powers were learned as a youth in Syra from an old magician out of the east. I have sought you out to bring you a second warning.”

Khai shook his head and looked wildly about. It was one thing to dream of warnings and such—even to know that such dreams were the work of the seven mages in Kush—but it was quite another to be visited in broad daylight! Shaking his head only made him feel more sick, however, so that he soon desisted and again closed his eyes; at which the voice in his head became much more insistent:

“Do not fight me, Khai, for time is short. My message goes also to Manek Thotak and to Genduhr Shebbithon. Manek hears me and may save himself. Genduhr will not listen—and he is a dead man!”

And now Khai recognized the urgency in the soundless voice and knew that this was no trick of his mind. “Very well,” he said out loud, “say on.”

“Birds and bats and insects, Khai, flies and locusts and wasps. They will devour all that is green, everything that moves. And we seven mages have no power over these, which are not of the elements. The Dark Heptad makes dangerous magics indeed!”

“Are you saying that we’re doomed?” Khai asked, aghast. “All that is green—all that moves!” the mage’s voice repeated, more faintly, echoing as down a long, long tunnel. The giddiness passed and Khai opened his eyes. Now, too, the sounds of his men broke in on his consciousness, their cries of awe as they pointed south and skyward.

For the sky was alive with a great black blot of a cloud that shut out the light even as it descended like a mighty blanket out of heaven. The men began to panic; horses reared and stamped; the heaviness of the air became oppressive, and fear was a living thing which tittered and ran through Khai’s warriors tapping each man lightly on the shoulder.

“Listen to me,” Khai roared above the sudden moaning of his men. “Blindfold the horses. Do it now, and quickly! Let them see nothing. Then, when the horde descends, stand still. Remain still if it lasts all night. If you are stung, do not jump. If you are bitten, do not cry out. This is the word of the seven mages. If you would live—obey!”

His words spread like wildfire through the massed thousands. Blankets were brought out and thrown over hurriedly blindfolded horses; men covered themselves as best they might and sought shelter beneath carts or in the buckets of chariots; for minutes which sped by quick as seconds the army was a scurrying shouting mass of humanity. And the sky grew dark before its time and the air began to hum with a vast stirring of wings.

“Don’t move!” Khai yelled one last time, and his cry was taken up and passed on echoingly in the leaden air. Then he crouched at the base of his palm and covered his head. Nundi, running up to him, threw a horse blanket over him and crouched down with him inside its folds. In another moment the roar of millions of wings blotted out all else and beneath the blanket it grew suddenly black as night.

Things landed on the blanket, many things, large and small, until their weight became intolerable. “Don’t move,” Khai hissed in Nundi’s ear. “Not an inch!”

Then, after a matter of a few moments there came a sound like the trampling of feet, a crunching and sloshing as of an army marching over swampy ground. Amazed and horrified, Khai listened for a second or two, then said: “By all the many gods they’re eating!”

Somewhere a horse screamed, a cry of dreadful fear, of agony. There was a commotion, a wild burst of animal movement, a frenzied whinnying and then another scream—but this time human! Nundi jerked in shock when he heard that hideous, fear-frenzied shriek, and jerked again and began to tremble violently when the scream subsided to a suffocated gabbling which was snuffed out beneath a vast whirring of wings and a more noisy recommencement of the feeding sound.

Khai’s hand found Nundi’s throat and he whispered: “Nundi—be quiet, keep still—or by your teeth you’ll remember why I’m called Khai the Killer!” After that the Nubian grew silent and motionless.

For an hour or more, they crouched like that, until Khai was sure his joints were coming apart and his muscles liquifying. Throughout all of that time, the awful munching went on, and occasionally—sometimes close by, at other times more distant—there would be the screams of a stricken horse, or the nerve-wrenching shrieking of a man in mortal agony. And just as Khai was beginning to believe that he could endure it no longer, then the weight lifted from his blanket and in an instant the sound of millions of wings again filled the air. The intolerable whirring went on for a minute, two, then slowly receded and died away in the distance.

Many more minutes passed in total silence before Khai moved the blanket a fraction and breathed fresh night air through the gap he had made. With arms that creaked like those of an old man he pulled the blanket aside and peered at stars overhead. A thick white mist lay on the river. Silence lay everywhere.

“Get up!” Khai hoarsely shouted, clambering stiffly to his feet. “Light fires, many fires.” His cry was taken up and passed on, and all about him the night stirred as his army came back to life. Nundi stamped about in darkness, pumping blood to legs which no longer had any feeling. There was a vast clearing of lungs, a drawing of air, a concerted sighing of utmost relief.

Close by, Khai found the skeleton of a horse, its bones dry and clean. The white bones of a man, his arm about the horse’s neck, lay intermingled with those of the animal. Moonlight glittered on the remains in their stark whiteness....

One of Khai’s men, drawing close, grasped his elbow and made him jump. “Lord Khai,” the man said in a whisper. “Of what shall we build the fires?”

“Of branches, fool!” Khai snapped, his nerves twanging.

“Branches, Lord?”

“Aye, branches and leaves and—” his words tailed off and he looked all about him into the night. And at that moment Khai knew himself for a very small thing in a very large and largely unknown universe.

“What branches, Lord?” inquired the man….

IV Siege on Asorbes

In the morning, Khai saw the full extent of the horror: where for miles about not a leaf, not a blade of grass, nothing showed green at all, and only the largest branches, stripped even of their bark, remained attached and uneaten on the chewed and pitted trunks of the trees. He could see through the forest of naked, motionless timber for hundreds of yards; and the very soil beneath his feet, inches deep, was powdery, dry and void of life. No foliage showed on the banks of the Nile, no weeds, no fringing ferns or nodding papyrus reeds. A huge ribbon of water, unobstructed as far as the eye could see, the river curled away into the north; while in the south it rolled down silently, no longer green but gray, from mist-shrouded Asorbes. Asorbes… .

Khai gritted his teeth with bitter rage as he thought of Asorbes, of Pharaoh, of Anulep and the Black Guard, and of Khasathut’s Dark Heptad of necromancers. He wondered how Manek Thotak had fared: whether or not the plague of flying death had also found him in the twilight. And what of Genduhr Shebbithon?

Manek had received and reacted to the Syran mage’s warning in much the same way as had Khai, and thus his losses were relatively few. Genduhr Shebbithon, on the other hand, had thought himself the victim of an encroaching madness. A simple man, however great a chief, his reaction had been violent and had taken the form of a fit. His men had seen him rushing to and fro with his sword, cutting at thin air, at phantoms! Those phantoms had become all too real all too soon, however—but far too late for Genduhr Shebbithon.

As fortune had it, ten thousand of his men were away from the main camp at the time, engaging a probing force of Khemites between Phemor and Asorbes. This had left twenty-five thousand warriors in the camp to face the twilight horror ... which had caught them and Genduhr Shebbithon in the middle of his fit. The result was seen the next morning when ten thousand victorious Kushites returned to camp—to find a vast wasteland and an army of skeletal remains! Something less than two thousand horses had escaped the carnage, having fled out of the area of the aerial attack, but many of these had to be destroyed.

Of Genduhr’s twenty-five thousand, however, only one man survived. He had been very drunk, wrapped in a blanket, asleep when the winged death descended. Now he was awake and sober, or as sober as his slobbering insanity would permit. A very young man, he simply sat among the tumult of bones and drooled, or occasionally laughed and shook his shock of pure white hair….

Later that same day, riders arrived at the new camp of Genduhr’s son, Gahad. They came from Generals Manek Thotak and Khai Ibizin, with orders to report back to their commanders with word of Genduhr’s losses. Meanwhile, Khai had moved closer, poising his forces on the river less than five miles to the north of Asorbes, and Manek had deployed his army at a like distance to the south of the city. By mid-afternoon, the armies had taken up positions along a curving front which enclosed Asorbes in a huge semicircle of iron, and Gahad Shebbithon’s numbers had been supplemented by ten thousand of Khai’s men and ten thousand more of Manek Thotak’s. East of the river, having crossed the Nile north of Mer-ow-eh to cut through Khem’s southern forests in a two-hundred mile push, N’jakka and five great impis lay in wait for any Khemites who might choose to flee to the east. And so at last, Asorbes lay under siege. …

It was as Manek Thotak went among his warriors where they were camped that he came across four huge Nubians known to him as one half of Ashtarta’s eight-man guard, brought out of Nubia by Khai Ibizin. Ashtarta had kept the other four with her in Kush, but these men had begged to be allowed to go to war against Khem. Since Manek had been going into Nubia, the Candace had used the blacks as couriers to carry her pledge of friendship to N’jakka and to wish him well in the great war to come. Now Manek spoke to them, and when he would have passed on one of them followed after him and called:

“Lord Manek! Now that we are here in the heart of Khem, will your forces join with those of Khai the Killer?”

“In the final assault, aye,” Manek answered. “Why do you ask?”

The huge black, a man of truly awesome dimensions, grinned his appreciation. “We have many friends among Khai’s impis,” he explained. “Soon we shall share with them stories of our battles.”

“Aye,” Manek grinned. “We Kushites do much the same thing.”

“Waugh!” the black exclaimed. “The Lord Khai will have many marvelous tales to tell his children—when he is King of all Kush!”

The smile slipped from Manek’s face in an instant. He took the Nubian’s arm and stared at him. “Khai? King, did you say?”

“Ah! You need not pretend for my sake, Lord Manek,” the black man whispered confidentially. “Since you are The Killer’s brother-general, you must know well enough that he courts the Candace.”

As best he could, Manek hid the sudden rage that threatened to suffuse his dark features. Somehow he managed to force a smile and answered: “Of course I know, certainly! But now ... how do you know?”

“Why, have I not seen him myself, going to her tent in the night? Indeed I have—and not by the front door!”

“You saw him?” Manek continued to smile, his face frozen in a grin which was almost a grimace. “You saw him—and yet you did not stop him?”

“I guarded the Candace from her enemies, Lord,” the black laughed, “but not from her lover!”

“Her lover. …” Manek slowly answered. “Yes, of course.” Then he laughed a high, shaky laugh. “And I believed that I was Khai’s only confidant. How mistaken I was! … But come, come you must tell me all about it,” and he led the huge Nubian to a place where they could sit and talk in private. Which they did for quite a long time… .

Later that evening, the great gates of Asorbes opened and tens of thousands of Khemish troops and mercenaries moved out from the city for a mile or two and took up defensive positions within the greater circle of the besieging forces, which they outnumbered by at least two to one. Though the Kushite commanders kept a very wary eye upon them, the Khemites made no attempt to attack; so that it looked very much as though they were simply occupying the ground in order to retain it.

When all movement from the city had ceased and the gates were again closed, then the Dark Heptad brought their third occult device into use. This time it came without warning, and Khai was to learn much later why the seven mages had been unable to offer any assistance on this occasion: how the Dark Heptad had worked a spell to counter any possible intervention. As it happened, the new terror was not aimed directly at Khem’s enemies, though certainly it must be effective in the long term.

At first it was thought that the Khamsin had returned, for a great draught of hot, bad air sprang up suddenly from the ground midway between the defending forces and Kush’s encircling warriors and blew outwards in vile gusts that soon had strong men plugging their nostrils and retching horribly. After a little while, as evening drew on, the tomb-like fetor died away and the men in the Kushite lines breathed more easily and were less edgy. Then, just before twilight, the first effects of the Dark Heptad’s injurious magic began to make themselves apparent.

As if the valley of the Nile had not already suffered more than enough, this latest terror seemed designed as one final, crippling blow at a once fertile land. It was a blight—but such a blight as never before had been dreamed of. Slowly at first, but at an ever accelerating rate, the grasses, shrubs and trees where the foul wind had sprung up began to turn yellow and wither. The poison spread rapidly outward, so that the horses of the Kushites where they cropped green grass soon found themselves chewing on stuff which was dry and lifeless. Before nightfall, the trees were so desiccated that many began to snap off at their bases and topple into dust. Shrubs became powder at the merest touch and the very soil seemed turned to sand. As on both previous occasions, the total devastation could not be assessed until the following morning, but when at last the sun rose on Khem the next day—

A desolation of stumps, toppled boles and wind-blown weeds stretched farther than the eye could see, and the only remaining green land lay behind the Khemish positions and beneath the looming walls of the slave city. And not only the forests and grasslands had gone but the animals with them, so that Pharaoh’s design was now clear as crystal. Working through the Dark Heptad of wizards, he had simply reversed the polarity of the siege!

Which is to say that his forces now occupied the only fit ground, and that the only decent supplies of food lay in Asorbes itself. His herds still grazed green pastures beneath the city’s walls, and his soldiers still drank milk and ate meat and honey. But as for the Kushites: when their immediate supplies ran out, then they would have nothing!

It also meant that the siege could not go on as originally planned and that Asorbes must therefore be taken without delay. To this end, before noon, a horseman came and told Manek Thotak that the General Khai was coming to see him. Gahad Shebbithon would also be there, and they must all three make their new plans quickly and effect them without delay.

Manek had meanwhile done some planning of his own, and before Khai arrived, he went forward with a body of his men and called for a parley with the chief of the Khemish commanders. Long, earnestly—and privately— Manek and Pharaoh’s general talked, in a small tent hastily erected on neutral ground, and when at last Manek returned to his own lines he found Khai waiting for him. Since Gahad Shebbithon had not yet arrived, Khai was alone when Manek went to his tent and found him there.

“Wasn’t that a trifle dangerous?” Khai asked after they had clasped arms and exchanged greetings. “Your meeting with Pharaoh’s general?”

“Dangerous? How so?” Manek returned. “There was an honorable Khemish commander, and there was me. We were not armed and I was bigger than he was. In what way dangerous?”

Khai shrugged. “It’s just that you surprise me,” he eventually answered. “Manek Thotak doing a little peaceful chatting with a ‘damned Khemite’— and an ‘honorable’ one at that!”

Manek said to himself: “At least that one doesn’t pretend to the throne of Kush,” but out loud he answered, “There’s been enough innocent blood shed these past months.”

Again, Khai seemed surprised. “Oh? And have you discovered a way to stop the bloodshed ?”

“Aye,” said Manek, “I believe so,” and he paused.

“Well then,” Khai prompted him, “say on.”

“You may take exception to the scheme,” Manek finally warned.

Khai was becoming impatient. “Get on with it, Manek, for you really are beginning to worry me.”

“Well then, what would you say to this—” Manek began, and he quickly outlined all that had supposedly passed between himself and the Khemish commander. Except that every word of it was a lie—but the General Khai Ibizin had no way of knowing that….

V Black Bargain

“I find the thing incredible,” Khai said when Manek was done.

“You say the Khemish soldiers are mutinous and that they demand a military takeover? And that when this is accomplished, they will open the gates and set free all of the slaves in Asorbes?” Manek nodded. “Aye, that is part of it.” “And that then they will hand over Khasathut, Anulep, the Black Guard and the Dark Heptad to us?”

Again the other nodded. “And what do they get out of all this?” “They get their lives, and a better deal under their new ruler—Ashtarta!” Manek answered. “They get rid of Pharaoh, who they all fear desperately for his madness; and also of Anulep the Vizier, whose plotting has threatened all of them at one time or another. They see the end of the Dark Heptad of wizards, whose spells have reduced Khem— and for all we know of it Kush, too—to a wasteland! They will be spared the sack and destruction of their city, spared the inevitable slaughter of innocent thousands within Asorbes and they will once again rise to become a mighty nation—but under Ashtarta’s rule, whose weapons shall make her new empire utterly unconquerable for all time to come. That is what they will get out of it. What more could they possibly ask?”

Khai frowned. “It all seems too good to be true. Are you sure they’re not just playing for time while those damned necromancers of Pharaoh’s work more hell’s mischief? “

“Playing for time? No, for they desire to see you now, as soon as you are ready, to learn of your reactions to their plan. I can arrange a meeting in a moment, as easily as waving a yellow flag, which is the signal I’ve arranged.

As you say, to waste time is simply to give the Dark Heptad an opportunity to make more magic….”

“And you will come with me to speak to the Khernite commanders?”

Khai asked, still uncertain. “Of course.” “Hah!” Khai snorted. “And they will have us both together, caught like rats in a trap!”

The other sighed and Khai began to wonder if perhaps he was being over cautious. “My friend,” Manek said, “even if that were so, still our armies can crush the Khemites without our assistance. There are chiefs enough, as you are well aware. What are we after all but two men? Besides, upon our acceptance to talk they have agreed to a withdrawal of their forces to the very walls of the city! We can ask no fairer than that.”

For a long time, Khai was silent. He got up, went to the door of the tent and looked in the direction of the Khemish defenses. Night would be setting in soon and in an hour or so it would be dark. “If we agree to talk,” Khai said, “when would this withdrawal take place?”

“It would begin at once. Also, Khai, we would go to the meeting-place in a chariot. In the event of any sort of treachery, why!—we’d be back among our own men before any Khemites could possibly reach us.”

He went to stand beside Khai and gazed out upon the evening, unlovely now that the land all around looked like a corpse dead of some hideous plague. “Well, Khai,” he said, “it seems to me we can have done with the thing at a stroke. What say you?”

“I say … that we wait until Gahad Shebbithon gets here before we drive out to this meeting-place. He should be here soon, for I spoke to him when I rode through his camp. Between now and then, let’s see these Khemites draw back their lines, eh? Where’s this flag you mentioned, this signal of acceptance?”

Half an hour later, Khai and Manek drove to a place forward of their front lines where the latter held up a spear draped with a large square of yellow linen. And there they waited as night came on, standing beside their chariot and watching the Khemites draw back under the walls of Asorbes. While they waited Gahad Shebbithon drove up, dismounted and greeted them. Gahad was a man of their own age, strong and capable, and they knew him well. They told him what was happening and instructed him, in the event of anything going wrong, what he must do: namely that he must call the chiefs together and consult with them, and thus decide the best way to deal with the situation.

As the first stars of night appeared, Khai and Manek then drove toward the ground so recently occupied by the Khemites. A lone tent stood just inside the circle of life which surrounded Asorbes, upon the only green grass untouched by the Dark Heptad’s blight. Coming from the opposite direction, on foot, two figures in the garb of Khemish commanders arrived at the tent at the same time. Formal introductions were a little stiff, somewhat stilted, and Khai did not at all like the looks of these two generals of Pharaoh’s army. Manek seemed eager to get on with it, however, and so all four of them entered the tent and seated themselves at a central table.

The tent was lighted by hanging lamps which gave a good, steady light, and Khai saw nothing to account for his steadily mounting feelings of apprehension and nervous distrust. As if sensing his unease, the Khemish commanders produced a stone jar of wine and four silver cups. One of them poured the wine and immediately drained his cup. His friend, Manek and Khai followed suit. As Khai put his cup to his lips, however, he noticed the sheen of sweat on Manek’s brow, gleaming in the lamplight. The wine tasted bitter on his tongue and suddenly he knew that he could not be mistaken. The poison must have been in his cup before the wine was poured!

” ’Ware, Manek!” he cried, starting up from the table. The eyes of the three were hard upon him where he swayed. Then Manek hung his head and looked away, but before he did Khai saw the sickness in his eyes.

The stricken man staggered from the table and slowly his world began to tilt. He fell, and falling saw large sods of grass tossed aside and Khemish soldiers where they emerged from holes in the earth; then there was a whirling and a rushing in his head and he saw no more. Before he passed out completely he heard parts of a conversation. Manek’s voice said:

“Wait for a few more minutes until it’s properly dark. Then you’ll have to give me a good clout behind the ear to raise a bump that can plainly be seen. When I’m stretched out, one of your men should drive a sword through my shirt into the earth. I don’t mind if it grazes me—all to the good—but no more than that. As for the General Khai: Pharaoh must let him live, but that’s all. I’ll not take Kush’s future king home to the Candace, but the merest shell of a man. Is that understood?”

One of the Khemish commanders answered him: “And do you put yourself so completely in our hands, Manek Thotak ? What if we choose to take you also into Asorbes?”

Manek laughed grimly. “And who then would quell the anger of the thousands come here to destroy you Khemites? And who would stay their hands? You’d not only have Kush and a few of her friends on your doorstep but all of Siwad, Nubia and Daraaf, too—and in less than a month, I promise you!

This way Pharaoh keeps Khem, what’s left of it, and I get Kush. There is no other way.”

This much Khai heard, but no more, not for a very long time… .

In the foothills of the Gilf Kebir, Ashtarta had gone wearily to the tent of her handmaidens where she had fallen fast asleep. It was now mid-morning, five days since Manek’s treachery on the approaches to Asorbes. In the Queen’s marquee Khai and Manek lay on their couches in attitudes of death. They had been left alone on the instructions of the seven mages, whose magical efforts for Khai’s recovery had not been seen to work. The seven had seemed unperturbed, however, and had instructed that the generals should now be left alone in peace and quiet. Nothing more could be done. If Manek were successful in some future, as yet unborn world, then he would return with Khai eventually. But it must be soon, before life became truly extinct in the present bodies of the two men.

Thus, when color returned to the cheeks of the two and their eyelids began to flutter—as their chests rose and fell more steadily and with burgeoning strength, and their hearts beat more powerfully within them—none remained to see it. Some minutes passed in this manner and finally Khai awakened. His eyes opened and he stared up at the roof of the marquee above him.

For a mad, fleeting moment he was two men, with the memories of both. He was Khai of Kush—but, he was also Paul Arnott of London. Then, as a nightmare receding, his memories of Arnott dwindled and were gone. His Khai memories, on the other hand, were fresh and vivid in his mind—particularly those memories of Manek Thotak’s treachery!

Khai sat bolt upright then, in time to see Manek awakening where he lay close by. For a moment, they stared into each other’s eyes. Then the blond giant was off his couch in a flash, snarling his rage, dragging Manek by the throat until he had his back across his knee. He could have choked the life from him then, or simply snapped his spine, but he did neither of these things. Instead, he snarled: “Before you die, tell me why?”

“For Kush!” the helpless general managed to choke out. “For Kush?” Khai released his grip on Manek’s throat. “Are you mad?” “No, not mad. I won’t see a Khemite on the throne of Kush, that’s all. Now get it over and done with. Kill me!”

“What do you mean?” Khai asked. “What are you getting at?” “You’re Ashtarta’s lover, aren’t you?”

Now Khai frowned his puzzlement. “Jealousy!” he finally said, his voice flat and disappointed.

“No!” Manek protested. “I’m not jealous. I want nothing of Ashtarta herself—only that when she marries, her husband should be a man born and bred of Kush.”

“You fool!” Khai snarled, his face twisting. “You might very well have destroyed this Kush you love so much! Where are we now? Isn’t this Ashtarta’s tent? You’d better tell me all that’s happened since you gave me over into the hands of those dogs. And you’d better tell me quickly, before I really do kill you.”

He let Manek get up and they sat facing one another. Then Manek told all, haltingly at first but more hurriedly toward the end, eager to get it done with. When he had finished, they sat for some moments in silence.

Finally, Khai said, “Manek, our armies are waiting in Khem. They know nothing of all this. No one does, just we two. Will you come back now with me and lead your men against Asorbes, or do you prefer the one alternative?”

“What?” Manek was incredulous. “I don’t need your mercy, Khai. What’s the alternative?”

“Simply this,” the other answered, “to stay here in Kush—a traitor!”

“I was never a traitor to Kush!” Manek protested.

“Tell that to the Candace—” Khai got to his feet. “Anyway, you will be a traitor if you don’t return with me to Khem. Your army needs a leader and you’re it. Whether you’re worthy of their trust or not, they’d follow you to hell.” He moved toward the marquee’s door.

“Wait!” Manek also stood up. “And would you trust me, if I come with you?”

“It’s your one chance to clear yourself,” Khai grunted. “I would have to trust you.”

Manek looked down at the white sand floor of the marquee and nodded his head. “It will be much more to my taste to double-cross Pharaoh,” he finally said. “And in any case, he failed me miserably. You were supposed to be out of it, and look at you: there’s more fight in you now than ever there was! Very well, Khai Ibizin, I’ll come back with you.” And they left the tent together.

VI Red Arrows

The first Ashtarta knew of the success of Manek’s search down the centuries was when her handmaidens awakened her. By then, Khai and Manek had taken a chariot and pair and were already heading down across the foothills towards Khem. Tethered behind their vehicle, a second pair of horses galloped with them, reliefs for the two in front when they were tired. The men of Manek’s escort had seen them leaving and were now shouting and rushing about the encampment, getting their horses, chariots and carts together so that they could follow their generals back the way they had come.

Within one chaotic quarter-hour, in total disarray, they had all left; and still Ashtarta was at a loss whether to laugh or cry. Imthra, too, had been awakened, and he also was both confused and delighted. Delighted that Khai was returned fit and well from what had seemed certain death, confused at his hurried departure, without a word to anyone. But Khai had his reasons. By now his men must be growing short of food; certainly they would be edgy, spoiling for a fight, squabbling among themselves. And what of Pharaoh? What of his Dark Heptad? What new horrors would they be breeding in that dreadful vault of theirs beneath the great pyramid? To linger in Kush, even for minutes, would have been to waste precious time. There would have been questions to answer and lies to be told. Manek had been spared that much at least—if he deserved to be spared.

Still, he had been the one to come down the centuries searching for Khai, and so save his life—or at least one of them! The blond giant owed him that much at least.

Now Khai lashed his horses to yet more speed and lifted his voice above the rush of air and the rattle of the chariot.

“Manek,” he cried, “what do you remember of that other world?”

“Very little,” the other yelled back. “Only that I found you there. It seems like a dream now.”

“A dream?” Khai repeated him. “Yes, I suppose it does. But I’ll tell you something—from now on it’s no dream. I have a feeling that as of right now it’s going to be purest nightmare!”

Two days later, with the sun just beginning its downward glide, Khai and Manek reached the place where the latter’s men were camped. By then Manek’s escort was within sight but still had not quite managed to catch up with the two generals. Khai waited at Manek’s camp long enough to see him take charge and begin issuing orders—which were for the organization of an immediate return to Asorbes—and then he drove off alone in the direction of his own camp. To get there he had to drive through Gahad Shebbithon’s positions, and though the sight of him in his chariot drove Gahad’s men into a frenzy of delight, still he did not break his drive. His reception at his own camp was similar to that accorded Manek by his men: a wildly excited melee of hoarsely shouting chiefs and cheering warriors, so that weary as he was from his journey, still he found himself uplifted and filled with a fierce pride. The uproar became louder still when he let it be known that he intended to take Asorbes the very next day.

Later, having rested for a few hours, he gave audience to a number of slaves recently escaped from Asorbes. There were six of them, young Nubians who wore their ankh scars not with shame but pride. Those marks burned in their foreheads were symbols of the oppression they had known in Asorbes; but they would paint them blazing red before they returned as soldiers of Kush, so that every Khemite soldier who saw them would know that these men would show no mercy. Khai applauded their savage determination, but he was more interested in the manner of their escape and asked them how they had managed it.

He was told that on the second day after Manek had taken him back to Kush, Khem’s soldiers had once again come forward from the city to deploy in their former positions. With Manek’s army out of the way, the Khemites had seen that they now held the upper hand. The Kushites were short two generals and one third of their warriors, and the balance had swung again in Khem’s favor. Before they could join battle, however, Adonda Gomba—the old Nubian King of Slaves—had organized an uprising against those overseers and guards who still remained within the city’s walls. To quell the rebellion, Pharaoh had been obliged to bring his troops back into the city. There they had remained until this very afternoon, and only now were they redeploying. The situation in Asorbes must therefore be well under Pharaoh’s control once more.

As for Adonda Gomba: when his uprising failed, he had gone into hiding somewhere in the slave quarters; but during the course of that diversion and in the general melee, these six Nubians had managed to shin down a rope tossed from the north wall and so make their escape. There had been a dozen of them in all, but the others had been only halfway down the rope when a Khemish soldier parted it with his sword.

“So,” said Khai when he heard this news, “the old slave-king is still alive, is he?—And creating mischief for the Khemites as of old.” And his eyes narrowed in deep thought. For memories of Adonda Gomba had given him the inkling of an idea, and the more he considered it, the more it appealed to him. He called several of his men to him and told them to find him an artist, then tore three small squares of fine white linen from the door-flap of his tent. When the artist, a youth of one of the tribes appeared, Khai bade him draw the following symbols on each piece of linen in its turn:

First—Adonda Gomba’s sign, which was a circle contained a triangle; next—a sketch of Asorbes with the north, south and west gates broken down; thirdly—a yellow sun rising over a green Nile; and finally Khai’s signature, which was a pyramid with a twig figure sliding down its side. To ensure that there could be no mistake as to the author’s identity, he had the artist sign the message yet again, this time with a blue eye. Then he quickly trimmed sections from the shafts of three red-flighted arrows and wrapped his messages about them, gumming them firmly in place.

All done, he called forward one of his best charioteers and they set off at a gallop westward, curving around Asorbes and passing back through Gahad Shebbithon’s camp, then turning eastward again and driving down onto that land which Manek Thotak’s forces had held. The slave quarters of Asorbes lay on this side of the city, and in his mind’s eye Khai clearly could see those dirty, vermin-ridden streets as he had known them so long ago. If he could put his arrows into the slave quarters, one of them was bound to find its way to Gomba. Then, when the armies of Kush drove against the city’s gates at dawn of the next day, perhaps Gomba and his army of slaves would be there to help—and on the inside, where they would be of greatest assistance.

The first companies of Manek’s army were just beginning to arrive and take up their old positions as Khai’s chariot turned in toward Asorbes and sped directly for the slave city. The south gate was open and Khemish soldiers were hurrying out into the pastures beneath the walls. They had withdrawn when Manek took his army away, but now that he was returning they were preparing to defend the city as before. They saw Khai coming and many of them stopped to watch him, possibly in astonishment. Whoever he was, he was either a very brave man or utterly insane; for on he came, unswervingly toward the looming walls, as if he intended to take on the whole city single-handed.

A few moments more and Khai was within bowshot of those soldiers outside the gate, and still he came on. The Khemites began to shoot their arrows at him, but uselessly for the chariot was still a very small and awkward target. Then, close to the walls of the city, less than one hundred yards from Asorbes itself, Khai ordered the chariot turned and made his run parallel with the wall and in a westerly direction. As arrows began to fall about the thundering vehicle, he jammed himself firmly in position behind his driver and loosed his three arrows over the wall. He used his finest, most powerful bow and sped each shaft with every ounce of strength he could bring to bear; and all three were in the air together, flying up and over the wall and into Asorbes.

Many enemy arrows were falling now, singing as they buried themselves in earth or feathered the wooden car of the chariot. Khai held up a shield overhead, protecting himself and his driver, then ordered the man to make for Manek’s lines. Moments later, they were out of range of the Khemish defenders and a few more minutes took them to where Manek was setting up his command tent. Khai told Manek his plan: how with the dawn they would take the city, and what must be done before then. He wasted few words but nevertheless left no detail to chance. When he was done, Manek immediately called his chiefs together around a fire, passing on Khai’s instructions and issuing orders. Teams of men would work late this night.

Then Khai drove north to Gahad Shebbithon’s camp where he repeated his instructions; and finally he hurried back to his own warriors where they camped on the northern approaches to the city. From there he sent his two Nubian lieutenants and a small body of men across the river to talk to N’jakka. By morning, having crossed the river during the night, two of N’jakka’s impis would be camped on the west bank, ready to tackle any Khemites who might choose to flee Asorbes by the east gate. This would be the only gate Ashtarta’s forces would not attack—but certainly it would be defended. Pharaoh might waste as many as one sixth of his forces defending that gate, which should make the going easier at the breaking of the other three.

By the time all was done, night had fallen and so Khai retired to his tent. There he sat for a while and drank red wine before lying himself down and trying to rest. His head was bursting, which was most unusual for he was not normally given to headaches. Before falling asleep the pains in his head lifted and it seemed to him that a small voice whispered to him, saying:

“Good, Khai, good! There has been much on your mind and your riding has wearied you. You have not been receptive. Now sleep, sleep and let the Mage of Oneiromancy specif to you in dreams. There are things you should know—things you must do. So sleep, Khai, sleep—and hearken well to your dreams this night, if you would live to dream again!”

VII Green Fire!

Khai slept for several hours before he once more found himself standing beneath the stars in Kush, this time on the rim of the Gilf Kebir with all the valley of the Nile beneath him, stretching away eastward toward a dark horizon of star-strewn, indigo night. The brown mage was with him, and the Mage of Elementalism, but on this occasion his fellow generals were absent.

As soon as he had greeted the mages, Khai inquired as to the whereabouts of Manek Thotak and Gahad Shebbithon: why were they not present to hear the words of the mages.

“We have no need of their presence, Khai,” answered the Mage of Oneiromancy, “for if we were to tell them what we must tell you, it would make little difference. No, they sleep a dreamless sleep this night, and that is good, for tomorrow will be a day of great taxation. What will be will be, however, and there is no changing it.”

“Your words are ominous,” Khai answered, frowning.

“Aye, ominous—for we know that with the dawn, the Dark Heptad will send a fresh terror against you.”

Khai’s scalp prickled. “A fresh terror? What form will it take?”

The Master of Dreams shook his head; but now the spindly mage of Siwad spoke up. “I am the Mage of Elementalism, Khai, and while I am unsure as to the nature of tomorrow’s terror, I believe it will be of the elements, which are Earth, Fire, Wind and Water. One of these, but which one I cannot say.”

“Then tell me what I must do?” Khai said. “How may I avoid this elemental terror and take Asorbes?”

“You can do nothing, Khai,” answered the Mage of Elementalism, “but I can do much. This is why we have brought you here, so that we might warn you. For until I know which power the Dark Heptad will use, I can do nothing. When I do know, however, then … no man is my master in elementalism. No seven men may best me, and I shall have the combined will of my colleagues behind me.”

“Then all will be well?”

“Of this you may be certain: that whichever elemental power Pharaoh’s necromancers use, I shall bend it to my will and send it back against them—to your great benefit!”

“That’s good to know,” Khai answered; but then, sensing that there was more, he asked: “And?”

“And there is another matter,” the Master of Dreams told him. “A matter of great urgency.”

“Say on,” said Khai.

The brown mage nodded. “Very well. When you enter Asorbes, Khai, then you must find the Dark Heptad of necromancers and destroy them without delay. It must be your first priority. Their dark dabbling has brought them to the very portals of hell—portals which they would open! Indeed, they will commit the direst necromantic sin as soon as they know the slave city is doomed. Pharaoh has ordered it: universal insanity if Asorbes falls!”

Khai felt doubt gnawing at his insides. For the first time he was unsure of himself, of the seven mages. “How can you know these things?” he asked.

The mages smiled and nodded their great heads. “How can you doubt us, Khai, when you yourself have communed with the Mage of Mentalism in broad daylight?”

“The yellow mage ?”

“Aye, and he has listened to the thoughts of the Dark Heptad, which are black as the pit. Have faith, Khai, and believe. But for now, sleep. Sleep and grow strong in mind, body and faith. The dawn is not far away, and this day shall be one of the most important days that ever men have known....”

Rough hands shook him awake. He started up, gazed into the brown eyes of Kindu. “Lord, dawn will break within the half-hour,” the Nubian told him. “The eastern sky has a bright edge to it, and Asorbes is waiting. The men are being roused and the horses paw the ground. Your battering rams are ready, and N’jakka’s impis have come across the river in the night.”

“What of the Khemites?” Khai asked.

“They are ready, Lord. Their armies on the ground outside the city are half as strong again as ours, and surely many more remain within. The gates are closed and heavily defended: and the Khemites mass beneath the east wall, too, perhaps fearing an attack from N’jakka. Waugh! And they are right to fear him. He is an excitable man and Pharaoh owes him a great deal. Perhaps he will decide not to wait but simply take what he is owed!”

Khai offered a grim smile. “I could not blame him,” he answered.

He went outside into the cool predawn and splashed a few drops of water onto his face. The crack of light glowed stronger in the east and the breeze from the north was gradually strengthening. Khai sniffed the air, lifted his head and stared through the dawn’s half-light. It was strangely still. Dim figures moved as in a mist. Sounds were muffled, dull. Chill fingers seemed suddenly to tickle Khai’s spine. He shuddered.

“It’s coming… .” he half-whispered.

“What’s coming, Lord ?” Kindu’s eyes were round.

Khai did not hear his Nubian lieutenant. He looked at the sky, at faint wisps of cloud which seemed to be revolving, spinning slowly in a vast aerial wheel above Asorbes. The silence deepened and all eyes followed Khai’s skyward. The clouds thickened, turned an angry blue, then black. Their vast circular rush accelerated.

“Don’t panic!” Khai’s voice rose in the preternatural stillness. “Keep the horses calm. And when it comes—whatever it is—then look after your own skins. But whatever you do, whatever happens, don’t panic! The seven mages are with us. Remember that: the seven mages are with us!”

His cry was passed on down the line, thrown from throat to throat, audible to tens of thousands of warriors. “The seven mages are with us! The seven mages are with us!” They shouted it… they believed it—and in this way, though unbeknown to Khai and his army, the strength of the seven mages was made stronger yet. …

Gahad and Manek saw the aerial harbinger of horror at the same time as did Khai, and while they knew less about it, still they recognized it as the Dark Heptad’s work. For now the racing clouds were black as night, and bright green traceries of electrical fire stabbed here and there between arms of the spiraling mass. With the sun rising over Asorbes and setting the city ablaze beneath its own infernal halo, and the disk of cloud spinning madly above and glowing with its burgeoning energies, the scene was fantastic and awe-inspiring. And frightening—

Especially when the energies of the rushing cloud began to expend themselves downward!

And now Khai knew what elemental power the Dark Heptad had brought against him. It was fire … but not clean red roaring flame. No, for this was a darkly necromantic fire—a fire bred of hell’s own breath—green lightning that lashed out of a throbbing sky and walked the earth on stacatto stilts of death!

Asorbes was enclosed behind a dancing screen of lashing bolts, forks of green fire that walked outwards from the city and advanced on the lines of the besieging armies. The front ranks drew back, their faces flashing green to the rhythm of the advancing bolts, their mouths open and gaping, screaming horror at the emerald inferno. Tree stumps burst into flame at the touch of the terror and steaming craters leapt open with each blinding stab. The ring of fire advanced, the green stilts lifted and came down in hissing, crackling fury; lifted and came down—

And came down among the massed ranks of Ashtarta’s armies!

Three times the myriad bolts struck, rods of fire that fell in unison, tearing earth and men and horses and chariots, turning them to charred ruin. Three times and then—

Then they paused, withdrew, flickered back into the clouds like the tongues of startled snakes. The heavens became tumultuous, tossing and boiling in their anger, their indecision. And slow but sure, the spinning stopped, reversed itself, and the clouds began to turn in the opposite direction— against the will of the Dark Heptad!

“The seven mages are with us!” Khai sang out in sulphurous air. “They are with us!” And again his cry was taken up by a thousand, a hundred thousand throats.

Now the lightning walked again, and more purposefully—but now it walked back the way it had come, on forked stilts which strode devastatingly through the massed ranks of the Khemites. For minutes the slaughter went on, until Khai thought that he and his entire army with him must surely be deafened and blinded. Then, in one final burst of fire, the howling clouds expended the last of their energies on the gates of Asorbes themselves.

And the gates fell. In gouting ruin, they fell. Blown asunder and smashed flat, destroyed by that very power which the Dark Heptad had thought to hurl against Kush.

Khai turned his face to heavens which already were clearing even as he gazed. “Thank you, you seven mages!” he cried, his teeth white and wide in the glowing dawn. “Thank you....”

He dragged a half-stunned driver into a chariot and handed him the reins. “Let’s go,” he yelled in the man’s ear. “Now!”

And with a roar and a rumble only a little less loud than that of the now silenced lightning storm, the armies of Kush drove down on Asorbes.