Khai of Khem

I Deathspell

As Khai entered the Kushite encampment slumped over the shoulder of Ephrais the sentry, downriver in Asorbes Anulep prostrated himself before Pharaoh in his pyramid audience chamber and suffered a tirade of threats and accusations.

“Gone!” Pharaoh whooshed from behind a smaller, more portable miniature of his ceremonial gown and mask. “The boy Khai, gone?” He sat on a small throne and his impatience and irritation were apparent in the way his robes twitched and shivered. “Missing for several days, you say—and yet I have learned of it only this morning? What sort of intrigue is this, Anulep? I have asked to see the boy—and you cannot produce him!”

“Run away, Omnipotent One,” Anulep gabbled, his bald head close to the floor and his eyes fearfully upturned to gaze at the small but menacing figure of Khem’s God-king. “On the night following the Royal Procession. Run away and fled upriver.”

“But why was I not informed sooner?” Pharaoh whooshed.

“I had hoped to find him, fetch him back,” the Vizier answered. “I would have punished him, made him repent, and the matter need never have concerned Your Most Perfect Being.”

“But it does concern me!” cried Khasathut, “How could he flee? And where is he now? Call the Dark Heptad at once. They will tell me where he is.”

“I have been to the Dark Heptad, master,” Anulep crept fractionally closer. “I have been in constant consultation with them since the boy disappeared. Even they cannot say how he fled—but they do know where he is now.”

“Ah!” Khasathut leaned forward, his octopus eyes boring through the slits of his gilt mask. “And where is he?”

Anulep trembled from head to toe. “He … he has met up with a band of Kushite raiders to the south. They have taken him. The Dark Ones saw it in their scrying, and—”

“Kushites!” Khasathut hissed. “Again the damned Kushites!” His good hand crept out from under his robe to grip the arm of his throne until the flesh of his fingers turned completely white.

“The Dark Ones say,” Anulep gulped, “that Melembrin himself commands this party. As you know, Omnipotent One, the Kushite Fox has been raiding in Khem for months.”

“Months? It seems like years!” came Pharaoh’s answer in a whoosh of rage. “And what have we done to put an end to it? Nothing!”

“Master, the hour of reckoning is surely at hand for Melembrin,” Anulep quavered.

“What? How so? Say on, Vizier, while I yet deign to listen.”

“Why, you yourself have lately ordered troops westward, Son of Re!” Anulep answered, straightening his back a little as he gained confidence. “Those same troops you sent out to protect the forts and reinforce the border with Kush. And they close on Melembrin even now.”

“And you say that Khai is with this Kushite king?”

“So the Dark Heptad tell me, master. The raiders have taken him within this very hour.”

Khasathut sank slowly back into his chair and grew silent. “Kush,” he finally mused, his voice a poisonous hiss. “Always Kush! Must every other word I hear be Kush?” He sat up again and his voice was loud once more. “Let there be an end to it. I want the tribes of Kush destroyed and scattered to the winds. Let my army work for its keep. Khem has suffered parasite neighbors long enough. Let war be waged. I don’t care if it takes ten years and fifty thousand trained soldiers to do it, but Kush must be whelmed. Let Pharaoh’s might be seen!”

“It shall be as you command, master,” Anulep touched the floor with his forehead.

“Get up, high priest, and be about your work,” Khasathut said. “Speak to one of my commanders and tell him what I want. We’ll deal with this Kush once and for all, and after that—who can say? I do not like this black upstart N’jakka. Aye, and there’s gold in Nubia, much gold for my pyramid.”

“Master, I go,” Anulep began to back away. “I go to hasten your word. I—”

“Back here, Vizier,” Khasathut hissed. “On your knees.”

Anulep approached, went down before the Pharaoh who placed his good hand upon his polished, shivering head. “Vizier,” said Pharaoh softly, “if I thought for one moment that you were in any way instrumental in the boy’s vanishment—that perhaps you feared for your own high station and thought to thwart my plans—then it would go very badly for you.” He stuck his nails slowly and deliberately into Anulep’s scalp.

“Master, I—”

“Very badly indeed.” And Pharaoh drew the tips of his nails rakingly forward over Anulep’s head, leaving four thin lines of blood to well slowly to the surface. Then he kicked his high priest away from him and shouted: “Now get out! Begone from me—and let my will be done!”

To go down into the chamber of the Dark Heptad of mages was to enter a pit of snakes, and for all that the Vizier had been there many times before, still he shuddered—even Anulep—and paused briefly before entering that room of bubbling vats, flickering shadows and mumbled incantations. The figures of the seven stirred as he entered and their mumblings ceased. One of them, in the voice of an asp, said:

“Are you come again to speak with us, Vizier? So soon?”

“I am come again, aye,” Anulep answered, dabbing at his head with a square of linen.

“We are not doctors, Anulep,” a second mage whispered. “We may not dress your wounds.”

“Look to your own health, wizard!” Anulep snapped.

“Oh? And is something amiss, Vizier?”

“I’ll not waste your time,” Anulep answered. “The Pharaoh suspects that I have deceived him, which you may be sure I have—with your help!”

Almost as a man, the seven figures began to chuckle and titter. Finally, one of them said: “We have not aided you in any deception, Anulep. That would be a hard thing to prove.”

“Oh? And what of the boy, Khai? You could have found him while he was still in Asorbes, if you had bothered to look for him!”

“We knew nothing of the boy!” a third mage whined. “Not until you told us. What interest have we in mere boys, we who serve the immemorial Gods!”

“But I would say that you knew of him,” Anulep smiled his hideous smile, “if ever I believed you worked against me.”

“You have threatened us before, Vizier,” hissed the mage with a snake’s voice, “we who have always served you well. We will not tell Pharaoh of your deceit.”

“No,” Anulep answered, “you will not, for I would be dead within the hour—and you would not last much longer! Even if Pharaoh let you live, still you would not be safe. It takes a powerful magic to sway a dart loosed in flight, or drain a draft of rare poison from an innocent cup of wine.”

“More threats, Anulep?”

“Listen,” the Vizier snarled. “Listen, all of you. I threaten because I am afraid. You see my head? Pharaoh himself did this! His anger is such that he might well be driven to kill. You know well enough the pleasure he takes in killing, but he rarely kills them that serve him. One word carelessly uttered however, and—” He drew a finger across his throat.

“We understand, Vizier,” said the one whose voice was a whisper, “and you have nothing to fear from us. We wish you a long life.”

“Yes, I’m sure you do,” Anulep sneered. He began to turn away, then paused.

“One other thing. I know you sometimes have the power to influence things to come. Well then, there is something you can do. Less than one hour ago, you told me that the boy Khai had fallen into the hands of the Kushites.”

“That is so,” the shrill-voiced mage answered, his skeletal face half in flickering shadow. “I myself saw it, and no other sees so clearly or so far.”

“Good,” Anulep nodded. “Now listen: Khasathut’s soldiers may well take The Fox this time. If that happens, the boy must die. Do you understand me? Cast whatever spells are necessary—do what must be done—but ensure that Khai Ibizin is not brought back here to Asorbes.”

“And if the raiders are not caught?” one of the seven asked.

“Then I am not interested. Doubtless, the Kushites will kill the boy themselves. I don’t care, except that he shall not grow to manhood in Khem. I will not be replaced by the soft son of some soft architect.”

“We understand,” the Dark Heptad nodded as a man.

“Good, then understand this also: I plotted that Khai should escape. I told him this and showed him that which were designed to make him flee—and flee he did. Except… I had hoped he might die escaping. He did not die, and so I ordered officers of Pharaoh’s Corps of Intelligence into the city’s streets to find him. They were to return him to me and I would then have sought to kill him by another means. They did not find him....”

“We could have found him,” hissed the one with a snake’s voice.

“Aye,” Anulep answered, “and so discovered my plot. I did not want you to know of it. If you had been brought in, perhaps Pharaoh would have learned of my part in the matter. He might even have ordered you to protect the boy, which would be contrary to my plans. Now?” and he shrugged, “now it does not matter. Let me simply remind you that if my part in this thing is discovered, then that your own lives are forfeit. I have given orders to that effect.”

“We can only repeat, Vizier, that you have nothing to fear from us,” assured the whisperer.

Anulep slowly nodded. He dabbed again at his scarred head and peered at the mages one by one where their eyes regarded him strangely. Finally, apparently satisfied, he turned and left them.

Long moments after he had disappeared into gloom and his footsteps had faded into silence, the mage with a snake’s voice hissed: “The Fox will not be taken—neither The Fox nor the boy Khai.”

“True,” answered another, silent until this moment. “And the boy will live.”

“If we allow it,” said a third with a voice which bubbled like the many vats sunken into the floor of the place.

“I do not think we could prevent it,” added a fourth. “There is destiny in that boy. I feel it in my bones.”

“That may well be,” hissed the first, “but we had best be sure. I shall prepare a spell. Then, if the boy is taken back from the Kushites, he will not be taken alive.”

“And is this a measure of your fear of Anulep?” asked the whisperer.

“It is,” came a hiss in the darkness. “I fear him more than Pharaoh himself. Khasathut does the things he does because he is insane. Anulep is sane, wherefore he is far more dangerous....”

When Anulep got back to his own sparsely-furnished apartments, he went straight to a secret nook and took out a small wooden box. Removing its lid, he gazed upon a set of polished bronze teeth. They had been made by a master craftsman three years earlier, after Anulep had suffered a severe beating at the hands of Khasathut. The craftsman had died soon after—very suddenly and mysteriously—and now only Anulep knew about his teeth.

He smiled as he slipped them carefully into his mouth. They fitted him perfectly and it was good to feel their cold metal against his shriveled gums. He had to be careful not to trap his tongue, for these were not ordinary teeth. Their biting edges were honed to a razor’s edge!

For a moment or two, Anulep tenderly fingered his scarred head, then removed the teeth from his mouth and put them back in their box. They were for another day: that day when finally Pharaoh would decide to replace his Vizier with someone new. Anulep knew what such “replacement” meant. Ah, but Khasathut would have good reason to kill him. Indeed he would. Using his bronze teeth, Anulep himself would provide that reason.

He looked down at the awful teeth once again and smiled his monstrous smile, then carefully closed the box....

II Khai…of Kush

Khai had not regained consciousness until the Kushite raiding party set up its camp again in shrub- and grassland twenty miles west of the Nile. He had been bundled onto a travois-like framework amidst assorted supplies, to be dragged along behind a sturdy hill-pony and its bareback rider, and the bruises he discovered when he awoke resulted from a bumpy ride over fairly rough terrain. All of The Fox’s supplies traveled the same way—his wounded, too, when he had any—for nothing so sophisticated as a wheel was yet known in the days when the Sahara was green.

When the new camp was operational, then Khai had sat himself up, rubbed the lump on his head and felt his aching bones; and the girl who called herself Ashtarta had been there to lead him staggering to the tent of the warrior king. Busy as they were with their work in and about the new camp, Melembrin’s guerrilla warriors had taken little note of the Khemite youth as he was guided through their hustle and bustle. They had heard something of his coming and would learn the full story in due course, but for now there was work to be done and a watch to be set. And Melembrin had already mentioned his desire to seek out and destroy at least one more of Pharaoh’s border patrols before making for the keep at Hortaph.

So Khai had followed Ashtarta into the presence of the mighty Melembrin, and from her obvious familiarity with the king he inferred that she was indeed his daughter. Remembering what had transpired on the riverbank and the way he had spoken to the girl, he was uncomfortably aware of her presence where she seated herself on a cushion to one side of the tent while her father questioned him. Now his story had been told in full and he stood as still as he could under The Fox’s bushy-browed gaze.

The youth didn’t look like much, Melembrin thought. A bit thin and pale for your average Kushite. In fact, he looked like nothing Melembrin had ever seen before; not with his blue eyes, fair skin and blond hair. He wasn’t an albino, for a certainty, and his wiriness in no way suggested fragility. At the moment, he was probably underfed, and the bags under his eyes had doubtless resulted through lack of sleep before and during his flight from Asorbes. Actually, he was quite a handsome lad and would soon make a handsome man. His shoulders would broaden out soon enough and his forearms already had a width to them that the Kushite king liked.

He was intelligent, too, and his blue eyes had been full of blood and high-mountain ice when he’d spoken of Pharaoh and the way his entire family had been butchered in the slave city. There had been no tears, only a grim resolve, and Melembrin had liked that, also. This was no milksop, for all his soft looks, and if proof were needed of that, it probably still lay rotting in a certain clump of reeds back at the river’s edge. In disposing of that pair of scummy runaway mercenary dogs, the boy had shown a natural killer instinct which completely belied the soft existence he must have known as the son of a great architect in Asorbes. More than that, without question he had saved the life of the next Candace of Kush!

Finally, Melembrin spoke: “These men you killed in the forest across the river. They weren’t Khemish?”

“They were Arabbans. Slavers working for Khem—and for themselves,” Khai answered.

“You must call my father ‘Lord,’” Ashtarta reminded him for the tenth time from her cushion.

“And the mercenaries on the riverbank,” Melembrin continued. “They were Theraens, right?”

“Yes,” Khai nodded, and winced at the throbbing in his temples which the movement of his head produced.

“Yes, ‘Lord,’” said Ashtarta, softly.

Khai immediately rounded on her. “And shall I call you parrot?” he cried. “I owe no allegiance to your father. If anything, he owes me!”

Ashtarta’s mouth fell open at Khai’s audacity and her eyes went wide. “Ephrais’s clout has addled the boy’s brains!” she gasped.

Melembrin’s face was now black as thunder. “By all that’s merciful!” he roared at his daughter. “You take a lot of interest in this fellow, Sh’tarra. Can’t I talk to him in my own tent without your interference?”

“But he’s only a boy,” she protested, “an ill-mannered, stupid—”

“—And he saved your life, girl!” the king roared. “In my eyes, that makes him a man—and by the same token, it makes you an ungrateful little witch! Damn it all, I don’t know whether to thank him for your life or curse him for it! And you—” he turned his wrathful eyes upon Khai. “Be more respectful or I’ll knock your head off!”

Khai hardly heard him. His ears were still ringing to the sound of the pet name by which the king had addressed his daughter. Sh’tarra!

Sh’tarra ... where had he heard that name before?

“Listen to me, Khai Ibizin, or whatever your name is,” Melembrin continued. “There’s room for marksmen in my army. Since you’re fleeing from Pharaoh and we’re heading for home—and since Nubia’s a long way off and lots of dangers in between—I suggest that you forget Nubia and come along with us. That way you will eventually owe me some allegiance, and sooner or later you may even learn to call me ‘Lord!’ Well, what do you say? Haven’t you been listening to me, lad?”

Dazedly, Khai shook his head, not in answer but as if to clear it. He staggered a little. His ears kept echoing to that name—Sh’tarra!—Sh’tarra!—Sh’tarra!—and each echo made his hair tingle at its roots. There was something important here, something he should know, something he should remember. But what?

He swayed again and put his hand to his head. Ashtarta was up off her cushion in a second, her face full of concern. She sprang to Khai’s side, taking his arm and lowering him to the floor.

He pulled free of her and struggled to his feet. “It’s all right,” he said. “I was dizzy, that’s all.”

Melembrin, too, had climbed to his feet. “All right, lad, take it easy now,” he said in softer tone. “You’ve taken a few clouts, sure enough; you’ve run too far and eaten too little. I reckon I can wait for your answer until you’re feeling more yourself. Meanwhile, Sh’tarra will show you where you can rest.”

“You can have my answer now ... Lord,” Khai answered. “And if you’re worried that I can’t kill Khemites as easily as I can kill Arabbans and Theraens, then you’ve no need to be. I can destroy anything that belongs to Pharaoh, anything! And I can kill anyone who works for him.”

Hearing the sudden savagery in Khai’s voice, a grim smile came to play about the mouth of the Kushite king. “I believe you, Khai,” he said, “and we shall talk again—later. Until then—” he turned to his daughter. “Sh’tarra, take him away. Feed him and see he’s well rested. When someone hates the Pharaoh as much as this one…. Well, that’s the sort of hate we need to nurture!”

Khai slept through the rest of that day and did not awaken until late in the evening. His “tent” was a travois propped against a tree, forming a sloping shelter over his head, and he had been given a blanket to sleep on. At that, he considered himself lucky and was well satisfied. He had left Khem a fugitive, with only the clothes he wore, a bow, arrows and a knife. Now, in addition to these things, he had a job in the army of Melembrin, a blanket, and he seemed to have made a friend in the king himself. And so for the first time in a long while, Khai had managed to sleep a completely restful sleep.

Now, with the night creeping in, he found himself hungry. Since the sky was rapidly darkening over and smoke from the fires was unlikely to be seen, meat was already turning on spits and filling the air with its aroma. Khai drank deep of the evening air and got up. He stretched his limbs and felt good, then groaned as he heard a voice from the shadow of his tree:

“Khai? Are you awake?” Ashtarta stepped out from the darkness and came up to him. “There’s meat for you and a seat by the fire. You can listen to the men talking and learn the ways of the camp. Tomorrow you’ll have to start working for a living, and there’s much you’ll need to learn. The younger men are bound to bully you for a little while, but you’ll have to put up with that.”

“I can put up with a great deal,” he retorted, “but not the prattling of a mere girl—even if she is a princess!”

“You ungrateful—” She stepped up close to him, her blue-shaded eyes flashing fire to match the blaze of the cooking-fires close by. And indeed she looked more like a princess now—a warrior princess! She wore black knee-length trousers of leather and a high-necked shirt of finest green linen tucked loosely in at the waist. Her hair fell in ropes almost to her waist, and in her hand, she carried a small, loosely-coiled whip. It was a horsewhip, whose dark color matched that of her roughly-stitched calf-length boots. Her ears were hung with golden disks and a third disk glowed in her forehead.

Now she thrust her face at Khai and stared at him through the darkness. “You drive my friendship too far, Khemite!”

“And you drive me too far, Princess!” and he spat out the last word as if it were poison. There was something about the girl that got right under his skin, making it impossible for him to treat her cordially. “Why don’t you just leave me alone?” he asked.

Her jaw fell open. “How dare you!”

“No!” he cried. “How dare you! I save your life, and now I’ve dedicated my own life to the destruction of your father’s enemies. All I ask in return is food for my stomach and a measure of privacy. Why, if necessary I’ll even catch my own food, for the meat doesn’t walk or fly that I can’t bring down. But I’ll not be pestered continually by a quarrelsome girl!”

Ashtarta couldn’t believe her ears. “Why, I’ll—”

“You’ll what? You say I’m to suffer some bullying? Good! Better that than be followed around by a spoilt child of a princess with the temper of a crocodile and manners to match!”

“Temper?” she screamed. “Temper? You think you’ve seen the measure of my temper?” Tears flew from her eyes as she shook her head in rage. “I’ll show you temper, you son of a Khemite bitch!” And before he could guess what she was about, her hand flicked back and forward and the metal tipped thong of her whip cracked across his cheek, stinging him but failing to fetch blood.

Off balance, Khai stumbled backward, tripped and fell, and Ashtarta moved to follow him. Again her arm drew back, but before she could use her whip a second time, he put his left foot behind her ankle and lifted his right to plant it firmly in her midriff. She was still coming forward and he took her full weight on his leg—then straightened that leg and drove her into the air with all the strength he could muster. She flew high and fell hard, flat on her back with all the wind knocked out of her.

By now their scuffling had attracted the attention of the men at the fire. A young man who was Khai’s senior by at least two years got up and came over to them. Khai stayed where he was on the ground but the princess got her breath back and struggled to her feet. As she sprang at Khai, the young warrior caught her round the waist and put her behind him.

“Mind your business, Manek Thotak!” she cried. “I’ll fight my own fights.”

“What?” he said. “I should let you soil your hands on Khemish filth? No, Princess, your father would not thank me for that. If your little lash can’t curb this cur, then we’ll see how he answers to a real whip!” As he spoke, the young warrior took a coiled whip from his belt and shook it down like some fantastic snake on the ground. But Khai had not been idle.

He reached into the shadows beneath his travois to find his bow. Now, sitting up, he nocked an arrow and drew the bowstring taut against his cheek. Sighting his weapon almost point-blank at Manek Thotak’s breast, he grated, “Would you like to wager, dog, that you can crack that whip of yours faster than I can loose my arrow?”

“Oh? And what’s all this?” came the deep, gruff voice of the massive Ephrais as he came upon the tableau. “Put up your whip, young Manek. And you—” he addressed Khai, “put down your bow.” He stepped between the two and narrowed his eyes on Ashtarta where she stood, arms akimbo, beside her would-be champion. “Ah! And is that you, Princess? And have you been baiting the boys again?”

She stepped forward, angry words forming on her lips, but before they could be uttered there came the drumming of naked hooves and the distressed snort of horses. A moment later, and three riders entered the clearing. They got down from their lathered mounts and asked for Melembrin. All were disheveled and looked winded through hard riding. Their ponies seemed near-dead on their feet.

“What’s the hurry?” cried one of the men at the fire; and another called: “Are you pursued by devils, you three?”

“Worse than that,” one of the riders panted. “There are thousands of Khemites north and south of here—columns from the forts at Afallah and Kurag, I think—marching through the night. They are closing in a huge pincer. I fear they may already have taken our lads to the north, and those to the south will be lucky if they make it home. As for us: we’d best be on our way tonight, now. Tomorrow will be much too late!”

III Run for the Hills!

In a matter of minutes, Melembrin received and interpreted the grim news. It only remained for him then to gather his men about him and give them their orders. This he did at the main fire, ringing himself about with warriors and explaining the situation to them in short, vivid sentences:

“Men,” he began, “it appears we’ve stung the Pharaoh once too often. Normally, he doesn’t much bother with this side of the river, certainly not this far from Asorbes, but this time he seems determined to have us. As you know, our little party here forms my command post; though we’re also a fast-moving, highly mobile task-force in our own right when needs be. But mainly, this is where the brains are to be found which control our little forays against Khasathut’s forts and border patrols—particularly here!”—and here he put a finger to his own broad forehead.

“Now then, there are only one hundred and ten of us here,” he gazed around the small sea of faces that glowed in the firelight, “and we couldn’t put up much of a fight if Pharaoh hit us with a big posse.”

“We’d fight to the last man!” someone in the crowd gruffly protested.

Melembrin held up a hand. “Of course we would,” he agreed, nodded his head. “To the very last man—and then we’d be overrun. That’s why there are three hundred more of us to the north and another three hundred to the south. And it’s also why they’re the best Kush has to offer! I’m the brain and they’re the fighting body, forming a buffer between us and any troops Khasathut may send against us—at least until now.”

“Brave men all!” someone grunted.

“That they are,” Melembrin agreed, “but against overwhelming odds even the bravest must fall eventually....” He paused and there was complete silence.

“If Pharaoh has sent large numbers of his soldiers after us,” the warrior king finally continued, “then they may already have met and clashed with our lads. If they have—” Again he stared around the sea of faces. “I gave orders that if ever Pharaoh should take after us in earnest, then that it would be every man for himself and full speed for high ground. There’s no shame in flight if it means we live to fight another day.”

“You think our men have fallen then, Melembrin?” this from a huge and glowering chief. “Or that they’re already fled?”

“I didn’t say that,” the king answered, “though I’ll admit it’s not unlikely. Whichever, it means our flanks are now unguarded.”

“Six hundred men—fled?” someone else grunted. “I can see so large a number fighting, but never fleeing!”

“My orders were clear,” Melembrin answered. “If they have not fled, then they are now either dead or captive.”

“Then it’s up to us to pay Pharaoh’s dogs back for their blood!” cried another voice, more passionately.

“Aye,” the king agreed, “but not here. If they’ve come after us in such great numbers, it can only be that they intend to invade Kush herself. Pharaoh’s been threatening that for years. Yes, and it’s something we’ve planned for.”

“That we have!” several rumbling voices agreed.

“But Melembrin, great king,” a younger voice, full of unconscious bravado, called from the front ranks of the crowding warriors. “Are we really going to turn tail like cowards and hyenas? I hate the thought of showing my heels to any dog of Khem!”

“Ah, Manek Thotak!” Melembrin growled. “The voice of experience, eh? And what would you do, warrior? Stay and fight—and die? And who then would carry word of Pharaoh’s invasion home? No, you are brave, but you are wrong! Should we kill a handful of Khemites here and die ourselves when we might run for home and live—and kill thousands of our enemies beneath the towering walls at Hortaph?” “But—”

“But?” Melembrin raised his eyebrows. “But? When you are a captain or a general—which you will be one day, as your father before you—then you may ‘but’ me, Manek Thotak. But even then warily. As a whelp? Do as you are told, boy!” And Melembrin put the matter aside and turned to his men.

“We’ve wasted enough time and there’s work to do. Pile everything in a heap—tents, travois, everything—then mount up. Before we leave, fire the tents and all. Let them burn. Let there be a blaze to draw Pharaoh’s troops like moths. Take only your weapons with you, nothing else. We ride two-abreast, nose to tail, and we carry no torches. The moon will be up soon; the stars are bright; we move carefully, quietly, quickly—but with no panic. Hurry now, for we leave in minutes!”

Silently, swiftly as Melembrin turned away, his men moved to obey him.

They took up sleeping pallets and travois, tore down tents large and small—even the king’s command tent—bundled up blankets and skins and piled the lot close to the central fire. Then, almost before Khai could drag his own crude shelter over to the pile, the ponies were brought forward and the warriors mounted up. Someone took a brand from the fire and tossed it on the heap of flammable materials, and bright flames at once began to light up the night.

In another moment, ponies were being guided out of the camp area and directed toward the west, their riders armed to the teeth and sharp-eyed in the shadows. Suddenly panic-stricken, Khai found himself alone beside the bonfire which now roared up and hurled a pillar of sparks at the stars. In the leaping shadows around the campsite he saw the shapes of animals and men passing into the night, and he stumbled after them with his mouth open but too dry to utter any sound.

Then there came a pounding of hooves and a whinny of fear as a pony drew near and shied at the roaring flames. A grinning girl’s face, all eyes and teeth in the firelight, looked down at him from the beast’s back. “Ashtarta!” he gasped.

“Princess, to you!” she frowned, holding out a hand to him. “Come on, jump. Get up behind me—and hang on!”

While her pony continued to shy, Khai grasped the girl’s hand and jumped, throwing himself onto the animal’s back and almost unseating her. “Careful!” she cried. “Steady, there! Some horseman you, Khemite!”

“There are no horses in Asorbes,” he angrily answered, his arms around her waist and his chin bumping on her shoulder.

“Aye, that’s obvious,” she told him. “Grip the pony’s back with your knees and keep them bent. Grip his flanks with your feet. And watch where you put your hands—Khemite!” And she cantered her mount away from the fire and joined the column as it wound westward.

A moment later and the bulky shadow of the massive Ephrais drew alongside, pairing up with Ashtarta. “I see you remembered the lad, Princess,” he said in a lowered voice. “I went back for him, but saw you pick him up. Your good-luck piece, is he?”

“He is not!” she answered hotly. “But a debt is a debt—and now it’s paid in full!”

“I seem to remember it differently,” Khai grated in her ear, just loud enough for her to hear. “The way I remember it—”

“You’d be well advised to forget it!” she hissed. She dug her left elbow viciously into his ribs and deliberately caused her mount to the rear. Khai hung on for dear life and his hand inadvertently clasped her breast. Her shoulder came up under his chin, rattling his teeth and caused him to bite his tongue. Hearing him utter a colorful Khemish curse, Ashtarta’s anger left her in a moment and she chuckled as she drew her pony back into line.

Ephrais had already guided his mount to one side of the narrow trail and brought it to a halt, but he had seen something of the brief exchange between Khai and the princess. Now he watched the column pass him silently by until he was alone, then he too chuckled. Back along the trail at the deserted campsite, the bonfire’s flames reared high, an open invitation to any of Pharaoh’s soldiers who might be watching from afar. Ephrais stared for a moment longer at that fiery pillar and rubbed his chin.

“That’s not the only fire I’ve seen set today,” he told his mount. “It’s going to be interesting when we get back home—if we’re that lucky—to see how this lot works out. Our little Sh’tarra fancies the Khemite, of that you may be sure—and he fancies her, if I’m any judge. And as for Manek Thotak—”

Ephrais grinned again, turned his mount after the column and urged it into a trot. “Manek, my lad,” he said, “it looks like you have a serious rival!”

Fifteen minutes later, the column began to climb through long grass and shrubs toward the humped horizon of a low ridge. Following the flashes of white paint on the hindquarters of the double-ranked animals ahead, Ashtarta craned her neck to see where the forward part of the column was already cresting the ridge.

“See,” she told Khai. “If there are watchers, it will seem that the silhouette is of just two horses and their riders standing on the ridge. No one would suspect that we are over a hundred strong. And note how the ponies bear spots of white paint, so that we may all follow on like a snake in the dark.”

“I see,” said Khai, but his mind was not altogether on her words. So close to her, with her scent in his nostrils and her backside pressed against him— and the not unpleasant motion of the pony between his legs—he had discovered that his angry feelings toward the princess were melting away.

Suddenly he no longer minded the ache in his ribs where she had jabbed him, or the numbness of his tongue where he had bitten it. Instead, in his mind’s eye, he was distracted by vivid pictures of Ashtarta as he had first seen her. Her little breasts, flat belly and firm legs. And the way she had fought the Theraens… . With Ashtarta it would not be the same as with Mhyna. It would be more like fighting a Nile croc! Ah, but wouldn’t that be a fight to win?

But now, aware of how he was beginning to react to Ashtarta’s nearness and his own imagination, he relaxed his hold on the girl a little and gently drew back from her an inch or two.

“Hold tight to me,” Ashtarta immediately hissed, “and sit close! If we have to make a sudden run for it, I’ll lose you.”

Obediently, but gritting his teeth and hoping she wouldn’t notice, he inched closer. Impatiently, she tut-tutted and pushed her rump back against him. He groaned inwardly as he felt her body immediately stiffen. Beneath his hands the muscles of her stomach tightened, and he gritted his teeth as he waited for her outburst.

That outburst never came, for they had reached the crest of the ridge and the sight that opened to them as they stared across the nighted land ahead was one which shook both of them with an almost physical force.

Whatever it was that Ashtarta might have said or done, now she simply gasped: “Look!”

But Khai was already looking.

IV Melembrin Runs the Gauntlet

Away to the west, at a distance of some two or three miles as Khai judged it, a second line of low hills formed an undulating horizon lit by the residual glow of a sunken sun. Directly in the path of Melembrin’s column, the hills were breached by a deep gash which formed a pass to the west, and this was obviously the war-chief’s escape route. To north and south, however, the hills leveled out until they merged with the shadows and darkness of the lower ground—except that it was not dark now but burning with the light from thousands of torches!

Vast bodies of men were on the march, closing in a massive pincer movement, and already the points of that pincer had passed behind the dark masses of the hills and were doubtless converging upon a meeting place on the western flank—which could only be the far end of the pass. Khai saw all of this in an instant, and as Ashtarta dug her heels in and urged her mount to greater speed, so his eyes went again to the masses of moving lights where they wound like rivers to north and south.

Why, he could almost hear—no, he could hear, even at this distance—a faint blare of brazen trumpets and an even fainter chanting from thousands of throats’ The marching-chant of Pharaoh’s army, the war-chant of a disciplined military machine. Quicker by far than Khai, Melembrin and his warriors had recognized their peril, and as the column sharpened its pace so the chief fell back and hastened his men on, until eventually he spied Ashtarta and brought his massive mount to a gallop alongside hers. Seated bareback astride his great horse—with his naked arms rippling with muscle, his leather-clad back straight and strong, and wearing his horned war-helmet like a metal skull—the Kushite now looked more like some great savage than a wise and respected king, and the flame-eyed beast between his legs must surely be a demon from the depths of blackest nightmare. Khai’s flesh crept and he shrank from the vision; but Ashtarta, reaching out even on the gallop to grip Melembrin’s jacket, merely cried:

“Father, did you see them? How many, do you think?” “Too many, lass,” he barked. “A mighty pride of lions if ever I saw one— and now we must outrun them. If they reach the far end of the pass before we’re through it—” and he left the sentence unfinished. “Father, I—” she began, but he quickly cut her off.

“Listen, Sh’tarra. Whatever else happens, you must get back to Kush. No heroics, girl—though I know you’d fight like a man if you had to—but you must make it home for two good reasons. One: someone has to warn Kush, and you’ve got the fleetest little animal under you that I ever saw. And two: you’ll be Candace one day, and Kush will need you. Are you listening, Sh’tarra ?”

For answer, she nodded, leaning forward as her mount barely cleared a small shrub in its way. “I’ll make it home, father—we all will.”

“We’ll see about that,” he shouted. “We’ll see. But you’re certainly not going to get very far with the Khemite lad hanging on your neck. Give him here—” and he reached out a massive hand and took hold of Khai’s arm near the shoulder. Khai let go of the girl and lifted up his legs, sliding clear of Ashtarta’s mount and cocking a leg over the broad back of the king’s animal. Then he wrapped his arms round Melembrin’s waist and hung on for dear life.

“Cling like a leech, lad,” the king grunted, “and old Thunder won’t even notice he has an extra passenger. And don’t worry if your teeth get rattled a bit. Believe me it’s better than walking! Come on, Thunder—let’s go, boy!” And away they went like the wind, flying up a rise to where the steep sides of the pass loomed like some great dark throat ahead.

Within those walls, which soon towered high on both sides, the pace of the column decreased and the riders began to bunch up. Up front, torches were hastily lit and the pace picked up again. Above, beyond jagged rims of rock that obscured the moon, the sky was a wide river of stars. Khai clung grimly to Melembrin’s back and felt, to his amazement, a wild and savage joy rising inside him as the pounding of hooves became a rhythmic beat like the drums of war. In another moment Khai became one with the mighty rider whose back he hugged, one with the powerful beast beneath him, one with the night and the drumming of hooves.

Strange visions filled his head, of other places and times, of a lance under his arm, a high shield held against his breast and an armored opponent thundering toward him on a field of battle. He felt the curve of a leather saddle beneath him and the weight of the great lance as he tilted it to point at his opponent’s shield. Then—

“There’s the end of the pass up ahead, lad!” came Melembrin’s cry, jolting him dizzily back to earth. “I see none of your countrymen there—but hang on anyway!” And lifting up his voice, the king bellowed: “Arrowhead, men, and the princess in the center. If it gets hot form two ranks, with sufficient room for her to make a run down the middle. Here we go—!”

With the echoes of that mighty cry still reverberating from flanking walls of rock, the column burst out of the pass to flow down onto an undulating plain of scrub and grass. Without pause, they took up an arrowhead formation, with the king in the lead and Ashtarta locked centrally behind three thundering walls of men and beasts.

Now, as those strange visions faded from Khai’s mind—leaving him to wonder what mad recesses of his brain had spawned the idea of a seat for a horse’s back and long spears on which riders might impale their enemies—he glanced off to the arrowhead’s pounding, night-dark left flank and beyond it to the massed might of the Pharaoh’s soldiery. It seemed that the land to north and south was awash with streams of fire—blazing with the light from thousands of torches—while up ahead, mere hundreds of yards away, the nets of flame were quickly closing.

The rapid emergence of Melembrin and his raiders from the gorge had momentarily surprised the Khemites, but they very quickly recovered. Now, along with the blare of brazen instruments, Khai could also hear the squealing and trumpeting of elephants. For the first time, the Pharaoh was using elephants as weapons of war.

The flaring torches that lit the darkness ahead were thinning out, stringing themselves into individual units that moved rapidly to close the gap and cut off the fleeing Kushites. Huge, lumbering shapes there were, too, and the sounds of shouted commands could be heard above the quickening beat of drums.

“Throw down your torches and run blind!” Melembrin roared. “And get your shields up—now!”

His warning came none too soon. No sooner were shields lifted than there came the concerted whistling of flight-arrows and their rattle and thud as they fell upon leather-covered bucklers. The gap ahead had closed now, but as yet only foot soldiers and archers blocked the way.

“Ride ’em down!” Melembrin roared as he sent his horse, Thunder, crashing into a pair of Khemites who loomed up like shadows and sprang at him from the darkness. In another moment Thunder shied sideways and Khai and Melembrin were hurled from his back. Khai leaped to his feet amidst clouds of dust and flying shapes in time to see the war-chief’s great knobbed club rise and fall once, twice, to an accompaniment of gurgling death-screams-then Thunder was pawing the ground and Melembrin leaping to his back reaching down a hand to pull Khai up behind him.

The column had passed on and the dark ground all around was strewn with trampled Khemish corpses; but the war cries of warriors closing from the flanks were loud and the whistle of their arrows shrill and deadly. Digging in his heels, Melembrin sent Thunder galloping after his men, a dozen of whom waited to give him cover. Behind them as they fled, a squad of archers nocked long flight-arrows and aimed them into the night. A single sharp word of command was sufficient to fill the air with speeding shafts.

Pounding westward and slowly gaining on the rest of his men, suddenly Melembrin and his escort found themselves riding through a hail of arrows. Khai felt a heavy blow to his back and a sharp burning agony, and simultaneously saw a shaft appear over his right shoulder where it seemed to grow from the king’s back. A number of horses and men went crashing down uttering their last cries, but Thunder merely reared up and snorted his alarm before continuing his run for the west.

Knowing he was hurt and feeling blood sticking his shirt to his back, Khai clung tenaciously to the wounded king and gritted his teeth. The other riders, wondering at Melembrin’s slackened pace and closing with him, saw the shaft in his back and steadied him where he sat his great horse. Then they were over a low rise and the clatter and clash of Pharaoh’s army was fading behind them. They had run the gantlet and there was no longer any way that the Khemites could catch them.

For ten more long miles Melembrin hung on, until he felt Khai’s hands loosening where they gripped him and realized that the boy had had enough. Then, gentling his great horse to a halt, he allowed his men to lift the boy from him and slid himself down onto firm ground. As soon as he stood alone, however, he staggered and would have fallen. His men lit torches and lowered him to the ground.

“Get the arrow out of me,” he snarled. “Quickly, for we can’t stay here, and—” He paused as he saw Khai slumped on the ground close by, a second arrow sticking straight up from his back. Then the king’s mouth fell open. “So that’s why the lad was weakening! But for him, I’d have two shafts in my back… . Mattas!” he shouted. “Where are you? Where is the damn butcher? I must be mad to trust a doctor who’d rather be out breaking bones than stay at home and mend them! Khai—are you all right, boy?”

Slumped forward, with his wet face hanging down and his palms pushing against the earth, Khai managed to nod his head. By now, the rest of Melembrin’s column had fallen back and dismounted, gathering in a circle about their wounded king. Pushing through their ranks came Ashtarta and the warrior-physician Mattas. Ashtarta flew to her father and kneeled beside him. He pushed her gently away.

“No, no, Sh’tarra. Better you cut the lad’s shirt away while Mattas deals with me.” He glared round about him at the encircling men. “Come on all of you—move! I want a litter made. And make sure Thunder is not used for its dragging. The litter’s for me ... aye, and for the youth there. Mattas, when you’ve done with me and the Khemite lad, then look to my horse. He, too, has an arrow in his shoulder. I tried to draw the thing but only succeeded in … aahhh!” And with that soft sigh of anguish, the King’s voice fell silent as Mattas slit his leather jacket open and without ceremony drew the dart from his shoulder.

Khai saw all of this through a haze of wavering red shot with the yellow flames of sputtering torches; but then, as Mattas turned to him with a grim smile, he too fainted ….

V The Keep at Hortaph

When Khai regained consciousness, it was to the sound of muffled sobbing. Opening one eye, he looked down the length of his raised pallet to where Ashtarta clung tightly to one of his projecting feet and sobbed into the fur which covered the rest of him. His body felt so stiff and bruised that for a moment or two he dared not move. The ache in his back was a slow-burning fire that threatened to blaze up if he so much as twitched, but he knew that eventually he must take that chance.

Still using one eye only, he experimentally turned his head to left and right and took in his surroundings. He lay on his pallet in a tiny, low-ceilinged cave which admitted light through a jagged hole in its roof. More light flooded from around a bend in the wall. Apart from a stone pitcher of water and a small pile of clothes, the cave was otherwise quite empty. Done with his inspection, Khai again turned his eye upon Ashtarta.

“Why don’t you wake up? You... you Khemite!” the girl snuffled into the fur. “If only to let me thank you for my father’s life. For his and for my own. And how might I ever pay my debt to you if you insist upon dying?”

“Oh?” said Khai. “Then you admit there’s a debt, do you?” His mouth was clammy and vile, so that he grimaced as he spoke.

Ashtarta started violently and let go his foot. Slowly she looked up, her mouth open, eyes wide and streaked with tears. An astonished smile quickly spread over her face, then gave way to a blush as she saw how keenly Khai’s eye regarded her. She did not quite manage to disguise either her delight or her blushes as she answered:

“A debt, yes—but not the one you mean. I meant a debt of of … of blood! My father’s blood and mine. You saved our lives, Khai, and that is the debt I meant.”

“In that case,” he answered, opening his other eye, “you can forget it. Both of you. All I expect is a place to live and some food to eat, I’ve told you that already. And as for saving your father’s life: it wasn’t of my own free will. Do you suppose I would have sat still on that horse if I had known an arrow was speeding for my back?”

“Nevertheless,” she told him, “your back took the arrow which would have killed him.”

Khai frowned. “It didn’t kill me,” he said.

“It very nearly did,” Ashtarta answered. “It smashed the arrows in your quiver and they deflected it. It went in close to your spine, but not very deep. Since then you’ve been in a fever. Sometimes violent and babbling crazy things, other times so quiet we thought you must be dead.”

“Oh,” he said. “Well, anyway, I feel a lot better now. My back doesn’t hurt too much and I’m hungry. Is that a good sign?”

“I’m sure it is! You’d like some meat, eh? Better than the slop I’ve been feeding you, when you’d take it. You got more down your front than you got in your mouth!” And she burst out laughing. Khai laughed, too, until his back began to hurt again.

“Where are we?” he eventually asked. “And why is it so quiet? You Kushites are supposed to be a noisy lot, and yet here—”

“Here it is quiet because we wish it to be so,” she said. “We mourn those men of Kush who will never return, those brave men who guarded my father’s northern flank and are lost.”

“What of the others,” Khai asked, “who guarded his southern flank?” Her face brightened. “They are safe. Every one spared. We met up with them beneath the walls, and now it is the lull before the storm.”

“Beneath which walls?” he asked. “And what storm do you speak of?” “Now we are on the heights over Hortaph,” she answered. “The Khemites followed us. We left a trail a blind man could follow. They are massed below, on the approaches to the keep. They’ll attack soon—today, maybe.”

“What?” cried Khai, struggling to sit up. “Hortaph? Isn’t that in Kush? How long have I been here? I have to see what’s happening. I—”

“No, Khai,” she said, placing a restraining hand on his chest, “You can’t get up. I’ve not spoon-fed you for a over a week to see you undo my work in minutes!”

He gritted his teeth, firmly moved her hand aside and finally sat up. The pain in his back did not noticeably increase, despite the fact that his head swam a little, and so he swung his feet out from under the pelt and onto the cool, dusty stone floor.

“You’ll be weak as a kitten,” Ashtarta protested, then shrugged and gave in. “Oh, come on then, but at least let me help you.” She pulled his right arm over her shoulder and let him lean his weight on her as he stood up and stumbled on stiff legs. He was naked apart from a linen loincloth and a swathe of bandages tightly bound about his upper body. He leaned against the wall of the cave and shuffled his feet into a pair of sandals, then allowed Ashtarta to ease a shirt onto his back as he belted a kilt about his waist.

“If I had a stick to lean on, I could manage,” he said.

She nodded. “You shall have a crutch … when Mattas says you’re well enough to be up and about. As for now, you can make do with my shoulder to lean on.” She tossed her ropes of hair. “Or is that too distasteful to you?”

He frowned at her for a moment, then shook his head and slowly smiled. “No, Princess, I don’t mind—as long as you don’t ask me to ride behind you on a horse again.”

“Huh!” it was her turn to frown. “Well, at least I know that wasn’t distasteful to you, you dirty-minded—”

“No, Princess,” he held up the flats of his palms, “let’s not fight. I suppose I should be grateful to you—honored, in fact—to have the next Candace of Kush fetching and carrying for me, as if I too were of royal blood.”

“I only fed you!” she snapped. “Others saw to your other needs. And I wouldn’t have fed you if The Fox hadn’t ordered it.”

“The Fox,” he answered, remembering Melembrin’s wound. “How is your father?”

“He has not youth on his side,” she answered, her eyes clouding over. “Also, the dog who shot him dipped his dart in excrement. The Fox is not well—but he’s on his feet. It was him I was shedding tears for when you awoke. …”

“Ah!” he nodded. “I had wondered about that. And where is he now?”

“You shall see him for yourself if you wish. But mind your tongue, Khai, for he holds you in high esteem. You can do well in his army. Indeed, he has asked after your health and will be glad to see you.”

She half-carried him from the cave out onto a boulder-strewn wasteland of stone and sun-baked earth. A sudden and unusually chill wind blew dust in their faces and made sand devils at their feet. When the wind died down Khai blinked dust out of his eyes and gazed at horizons of sky. On every side there was only the wasteland, reaching away for hundreds of yards to enclosing walls of boulders where they had been piled high.

He looked at Ashtarta. She had said that they were “on the heights over Hortaph.” It seemed more like the Roof of the World to Khai.

“This is the rim of the Gilf Kebir,” she said, “a natural fortress mightier by far than the walls of Asorbes. Ten miles north the heights stretch, and ten south. Full of false passes and gorges. Hortaph is just such a canyon, carved by a stream when the world was young.”

She led him to one side where the boulders were piled highest. If he had wondered where the Kushites were, he wondered no longer: they were crouched behind the heaped walls, looking down through gaps in the boulders. All of them were dressed alike, in brown jackets and kilts, so that they merged with the stones and rock formations of the plateau.

“Look down there,” Ashtarta ordered as a Kushite warrior gave Khai access to an observation point. Khai looked—and grew dizzy at the sight that opened before and below him. He drew back, his head reeling. He had looked down almost vertically into a huge gorge where a rivulet wound its way out from the Gilf Kebir into the foothills to the east. On both sides of the stream, the valley was narrow and flat, grown with grasses and trees, splashed with the colors of flowers and dotted here and there with fallen boulders. From any other viewpoint, it might have looked most inviting.

“You do well to draw back, Khai,” Ashtarta told him. “In many places, these cliffs overhang. But come, quick as you can. Everything is so quiet.” She sniffed the air. “It smells funny to me. Perhaps the Khemites are readying themselves to attack.”

“Here, wait,” Khai answered, stumbling where he leaned on her shoulder. “That dry stick there, the one with the fork. Give it to me. Good! It’s hardly a crutch, but... there, that’s better. Now lead on. And by the way, I saw no Khemites.”

“No, for you looked into the keep. The Khemites are outside in the foothills, keeping their heads down. What did you see when you looked down, Khai ?”

Following her toward the east-facing wall of boulders, he answered: “Mainly, I saw how high it was!” “What else?” she snorted.

“I saw stout gates standing open, and a pair of sentries sunning themselves on large boulders. I saw a shepherd tending sheep, and the smoke from cooking fires. Typical signs of a healthy settlement. I’d suspect that the ravine opens out deeper inside, and that there’s a fair-sized village hidden in there.” “Good,” she said. “That’s what you’re supposed to suspect, as will the Khemites. Except that Hortaph is not the name of a village but of the stream itself. There is no village. The canyon narrows to a defile which finally peters out where the cliffs rise sheer and unassailable. There are ladders, however, which can be drawn up to the top at a moment’s notice. Come, this way.”

As she led him along the base of the piled wall of boulders, past evenly spaced out watchers who all kept their heads down and out of sight, Khai noticed many logs where they were positioned over boulder fulcra. In his mind’s eye, he pictured the devastation below when these avalanche traps were sprung, and he wondered how Melembrin would contrive to bring Pharaoh’s troops close enough to spring them. This was soon to be explained.

One hundred yards south of the Hortaph canyon, they came upon Melembrin where he crouched with a handful of his men and peered out through gaps in the boulders. Khai immediately recognized the warrior king’s tightly-curled beard and bushy eyebrows, and The Fox was not slow to know him.

“Young Khai!” grunted Melembrin in greeting. “Get down here—and keep your head low! I see you’re all strapped up under that shirt? Aye, well that makes two of us. Damn Khemite archers! How do you feel?”

“Hungry, Lord, and a bit stiff in the joints.”

“You’re lucky, lad. They wouldn’t let me rest at all! Still, it’s as well I’m up and about. There was poison on that arrow and this way I may work it out of my system. Now then—look down there.”

For a moment longer, Khai stared at Melembrin’s face, at the puffy flesh about his eyes and the sickly yellow of their whites, before following the king’s gaze out through the heaped boulders and dizzily down to where the foothills of the Gilf Kebir rolled eastward. The lower hills and the valleys between were quite thickly wooded and green with lush grass. The country seemed almost designed to give good cover—at ground level. But from up here?

Khai could plainly see his former countrymen, soldiers of Khem, where they camped in the woods beyond a low rise less than half a mile from the keep’s gates. There were no fires and movement was controlled, no telltale gleam of sunlight struck fire from metal and no permanent works had been built that Khai could see—but simply by gauging the size of the encampment he could tell that there must be a least a thousand Khemites camped below. Even as he watched, he could pick out the covert movements of others through the trees they used for cover as they came out of the valleys to the east. Scanning left and right, he could see still more, at present distant from the massive walls of the Gilf Kebir, but creeping ever closer along a five or six mile front.

“A thousand, two thousand of them!” Khai finally gasped.

“More like three,” Melembrin grunted, “but spread out along a wide front. Don’t worry, lad, the entire wall is defended. We call the plateau’s face a ‘wall,’ you see—a wall against Khem. This is the first time the Khemites have ventured so far in anger, and they’re ignorant of this country of ours. But I tell you now that though our borders lie many miles to the east, there’s not a single Kushite settlement between here and the Nile. No, for we pulled our peoples back into the Gilf Kebir and onto the western steppes years ago—against just such an eventuality as this.”

“Then the plateau’s front is uninhabited?” said Khai. “Oh, there are some villages and small settlements—even a few big ones— but they all have their escape routes onto the heights, and they’re all equally well-defended.”

“Just as well,” came the low voice of one of Melembrin’s warriors, and Khai saw that it was Mattas the physician. “This is only the beginning. And if you’re right, Melembrin, it’s about to begin right now. For look—look there. Here comes our decoy!”

VI Rain of Death

Down below, riding hard from the north along the crest of the low rise that separated the foot of the plateau from the wooded hollows and valleys lying to the east, came a dozen horsemen. Typical of a small raiding party, weighted down with weapons and bundles of loot, they looked for all the world as if just now returned from some successful foray into Khem. They rode arrogantly, shouting and laughing, totally ignorant—or so it seemed— of their peril. Less than fifty yards away from where they rode the crest, Khemish soldiers lay in their hundreds, waiting and watching, screened by trees and long grasses.

Khai could sense the bunched-muscle tension in those watchers and wondered at the audacity of the Kushite riders. He began to fidget as he felt excitement building in him, threatening to spill over. “Don’t they know the soldiers are there?” he nervously, breathlessly whispered.

“Oh, they know, all right,” Melembrin answered, equally breathless. “As Mattas said, they’re a decoy. Until now, to the Khemites, the gorge of Hortaph has been simply a Kushite settlement—concealing a small village, perhaps, or a half-nomadic tribe. But now—now it can be seen that Hortaph is a base for guerrillas. Look—”

And now the horsemen wheeled to their right, rode down from the crest along a well-worn track toward the gates. They were greeted by the sentries sitting on their tall boulders just within the gates, and a pair of them brought their mounts to a halt and began to banter and laugh with these guardians of the keep. The others rode on into the valley, their cries echoing back from the looming walls as they headed deeper into the green gorge.

“See,” said Melembrin. “That was what the Khemites were waiting for, proof positive that there’s more to Hortaph than meets the eye. They weren’t willing to use a boulder to crush a grape, do you see? But now—”

“Here they come!” cried Mattas.

The Khemites rose up in the grasses and trees, rank upon rank of them, and threw themselves up the slope of that final rise. They shouted and banged spears on shields as they came, and those on the flanks funneled themselves inward, crushing toward the gates of the keep. The sentries atop the boulders jumped nimbly down, slammed the gates shut, then leapt up onto the back of their friends’ horses, which were immediately turned into the gorge to follow the path the others had taken. The lone shepherd likewise mounted a horse’s back, and also disappeared along the winding trail of the stream. All of the riders had quickly outdistanced the pursuing Khemites, miraculously avoiding a cloud of arrows which had buzzed around them before they passed from sight into Hortaph’s winding interior.

A moment later and the Khemites were storming the gates, knocking them flat in the sheer weight and crush of their charge. In less than two minutes, a thousand of them were in the keep, streaming deeper into the valley, and half as many again were forming into back-up parties beneath the beetling walls. That was when Melembrin sprang to his feet with a bellow like a bull elephant:

“All right, lads, now!—Let them have it!”

The Kushite warriors crouching behind their boulder walls now threw themselves on the bristling levers of protruding logs. Down below, the first two hundred yards of gorge were crammed with Khemites. They still rushed forward, deeper into Hortaph’s cleft, seeking opposition and finding … death!

It was the earth-shaking rumble of avalanching boulders that first drew the attention of Pharaoh’s soldiers to the heights, and in that same instant, their invasion of the keep became a mad rout of fleeing hundreds. They saw, turned and fled—but too late! There was nowhere to run. The entrance to the keep was jammed with their crowding colleagues; beyond the flattened gates, hundreds more pushed blindly forward, unaware as yet of the terror up ahead; and even those outside the gates were not safe. Not by any means.

Down came the boulders, thousands of tons of them raining from the heights, bringing huge sections of the very cliffs tumbling with them, falling on the Khemites where they milled in mindless confusion and horror. From both sides of the keep the boulders rained down, until the very ground heaved and bucked with the force of their impact. And still it was not at an end. Before the soldiers who crowded outside the keep could draw back, they too were caught in a rain of death, this time from the forward rim of the heights.

The fall of boulders was seemingly unending, and such was the cloud of dust that rose over everything that before very long no detail could be seen of what passed below. Nor did the frantically toiling Kushites on the heights pause until the last pebble had been dislodged and sent plummeting down into that roiling sea of dust.

Finally, Melembrin said: “It’s done,” and he caught Khai’s shoulder in an iron grip. “Now we’ll wait and see how successful our little trap has been, eh?” He looked down at Khai and frowned. “Did I feel a tremor in you there, boy? Is the killing a bit much for you after all?”

Khai shook his head. “My legs feel a bit rubbery, Lord, that’s all. I’ve been on my back for over a week. As for killing: Pharaoh killed my mother, father, sister and brother. His entire army cannot compensate for that. Nothing can, except his own death and that of Anulep the Vizier. Yes, and the Black Guard, too. When they are dead, Lord, then I’ll say an end to killing… .”

“Well said, lad,” the king rumbled. “But look down there. That should compensate a little for your loss.”

The dust was settling. The mouth of the gorge was choked to a depth of almost fifty feet with boulders and debris ripped from the faces of the cliffs. Away up the gorge, for more than two hundred yards, beyond which the stream turned a bend and passed into unseen canyons, the boulders lay deep and silent. Nothing living stirred down there, where already the stream formed a pool because its path was blocked. Along the front of the plateau, Pharaoh’s forces dazedly drew back and shaped themselves into small formations, with their officers counting losses. Little more than half of the original force survived. Some thirteen or fourteen hundred men had been crushed and buried, never to be seen again.

And now, winding its way out along its old bed and gaining in strength even as Khai watched, having found a channel beneath all of those toppled tons of rock, the stream once more appeared. But Khai’s face paled a little as he noted the color of the stream, which was red. It would stay that way for a day and a half....

“Look there!” cried Ashtarta, drawing Khai’s attention elsewhere. “There on that great boulder outside the gates. Father, do you see who it is?”

“Aye,” Melembrin sourly grunted, “and I’d sooner we’d killed him than any hundred of the dead!”

“Who is it?” Khai asked, staring down from the now naked rim at the figure of a man who railed and roared and shook his fists at the massive, impenetrable wall which was the Gilf Kebir. Whoever he was he wore a scarlet turban and shirt, and black breeches of the type favored by Arabbans. His sword was Arabban, too, curving and vicious. He seemed to be in a veritable frenzy, screaming and threatening, and his voice reached almost to the heights.

“It’s Red Zodba,” Mattas answered for the king. “An Arabban slaver in Pharaoh’s pay. He’s the one who organizes the raids on Nubia, but recently he’s spent a lot of time with Khasathut’s border patrols. We know he’s always had a greedy eye on the Gilf Kebir. He’d love to take slaves out of Kush— that’s why he’s here! And those threats he’s making—they’re not idle ones. If ever we do go under the yoke of Khem, be sure Red Zodba will be cracking Pharaoh’s whip!”

“Do you want him dead?” Khai quietly asked.

“Are you deaf, lad?” Melembrin answered. “Haven’t we just said so?”

“Then fetch me my bow and one good straight arrow.”

“Eh?” Mattas laughed. “You’d shoot at him from up here? Are you daft? There’s not an archer in all Kush could—”

“Nor in Khem,” Khai cut him off, “not any more.”

Ashtarta caught Khai’s arm, stared deep into his blue eyes. They were cold as high mountain springs. “I’ll get you your weapon,” she said. “I know where it is.” And she sped away across the roof of the plateau.

“You’ll look a damn fool if you miss,” said Melembrin.

“And if I don’t miss ... Lord?”

“Then I’ll let you train my own archers. There’s not a damn one of them worth his salt.”

“Good,” said Khai. “How high are we, Lord?”

Melembrin shook his great head. “Thirteen, fourteen hundred feet, perhaps. How can you hope to shoot an arrow that far?”

“Most of the way the arrow will be falling,” Khai answered. “I have only to find the target—the world’s pull will do the rest.” He tested the air with a dampened finger. “Did you say you’d make me your Master of Archers, Lord?”

“Eh?” Melembrin frowned. “There’s no such position.”

“High time there was, Lord, if your bowmen are poor as you say they are. And what rank would a Master of Archers hold, I wonder?”

Melembrin joined in the game. “Captain, at least, I suppose.”

Ashtarta was back. Breathlessly, she handed Khai his bow and a single arrow. He looked at her, smiled wryly, strung the bow, nocked the arrow, turned and sighted down the shaft at the red shirt of the figure on the rock far below. Then, standing firm and solid as the Gilf Kebir itself, he raised the bow a little and sighted out into empty air. In another moment, the bow was empty in his hand and the arrow was lost in a sigh of air, a blur that flew out from the clifftop and disappeared in sky and space.

All eyes were on the scarlet figure that capered and roared below like an enraged monkey. Again Zodba shook his fist at the looming cliffs—then seemed to freeze in that position. And slowly he toppled backward and fell from his boulder, then lay still in the grass and the dust. Seeing him fall, several soldiers ran to him. Khai’s arrow transfixed his heart, with only its flight protruding from his breast.

Up on the heights, Khai turned to a voiceless Melembrin and said: “Thus will I serve you, Lord, who am your Master of Archers, your Captain of Bowmen.”

Unashamedly, before her father could utter a single word in reply, Ashtarta grabbed Khai and hugged him to her breast.

Half an hour later when the Khemites had counted their losses, their commander came out and stood beneath the great cliffs near the boulder-blocked gorge of Hortaph. He saluted the watchers on the heights, then fell on his sword. This was obviously vastly preferable to returning to Khem and reporting his ignominious defeat to Pharaoh. His officers wrapped his body in his own standard and bore it away eastward, and for four years no more Khemites were seen beneath the looming walls of the Gilf Kebir….