The Age of Ra

19. Sheepdogs

David gunned the throttle, and the trail bike responded with a tremendous tinny roar, fishtailing in the sand as it accelerated. Zafirah was parked ahead, waiting for him to catch up. She sat astride her bike domineeringly, comfortable in the saddle. She rode it much the same way.

David wished he was half so confident. Back home he'd owned a motorbike once, a Norton Mongoose. It was a touring model, sturdy, stately and sedate, a prudent choice of machine, promising a safe level of adventure for the not-very-adventurous. Its 1150cc engine was great for cruising along A-roads and motorways, but around town the Mongoose was sluggish, nothing like as nippy as its animal namesake. At times David, reclining in the seat, felt as though he might as well be at the controls of a car. He'd had no regrets about selling the bike back to the dealership after three weeks.

The trail bike was another story. Lighter, livelier, it skittered around on its narrow, knobbly tyres, sensitive to the slightest shift of its rider's weight. Its unpredictable handling meant you could over-steer without intending to and skid onto your side. You could also, because of its lack of weight, easily over-brake and risk pitching yourself headfirst over the handlebars. In the first hour of riding, David had fallen off three times, much to Zafirah's amusement. He had since mastered the bike but he was still wary of it and would drop cautiously into third or even second gear if the going got rugged.

As the Lightbringer's army trundled north, it was David and Zafirah's job to scoot back and forth alongside the column of vehicles, making sure all was well. If a car broke down, they alerted a mechanic via shortwave. If they found stragglers, they guided them back to rejoin the main body of the column. David likened their role to that of sheepdogs. They kept the flock together and travelling in the same direction. Sheepdogs with two-stroke engines.

It was some flock, too. The column stretched a good five miles from the Lightbringer's lead car to the petrol tankers that brought up the rear. In between was a hodgepodge of civilian automobilia — rusty taxis, vans, pickups, off-roaders, puttering family saloons and station wagons, several motorhomes, a limousine that had seen better days but still exuded an air of battered, imperturbable elegance, and even a couple of buses — all overloaded with passengers, weaponry, plastic water kegs, tents, and non-perishable food. The captured military vehicles rolled in their midst, the half-tracks and the APCs, and of course the Scarab tanks, incongruous in all their roundness and their photovoltaic shimmer. The tanks' whirling drive spheres churned up great gobbets of earth and flung them high, meaning there was a gap of at least twenty yards between each one and the next vehicle in line. Otherwise, people drove pretty much nose to tail.

In all, David estimated that over three thousand people were on the move, perhaps as many as three and a half thousand. It was a fair-sized force. It was also hopelessly ragtag, as ill equipped and under-trained as an army could be. Seen from a distance the column resembled nothing so much as a line of refugees, an exodus from persecution or conflict. Military transport notwithstanding, this looked like a march away from battle, not towards.

He braked to a halt beside Zafirah, switched off the engine, heeled down the kickstand and pulled his riding goggles up onto his forehead. Like her he was wearing a cloth turban, secured under the chin, with a flap drawn across the lower half of the face to act as a dust filter. He pulled this down, to speak.

''Murder on the knees, these bikes,'' he said. ''And the backside.''

''Old man,'' she retorted.

He offered her his water flask. She drank. David then slaked his own thirst, his throat feeling so parched it ached.

Squinting, he surveyed the passing column. ''How far to Suez, do you reckon?''

''Sixty, seventy miles,'' Zafirah replied, with the merest of shrugs. ''Why?''

''Just wondering how long till we get attacked. Suez is where the Nephs will most likely hit us. We're making good progress but we'll have to slow down in order to cross the canal. It's a chokepoint, and we'll be sitting ducks.''

''Why not hit us sooner? Why not now? Aren't we sitting ducks out here in the open?''

''The Nephs aren't sure where we are. They know which way we went out of Luxor and where we're headed, because the people we left behind will have told them.''

''Then surely they're following us.''

''We have a couple of days' head start on them, and the desert's a damn big place and we're out of range of Saqqara Bird surveillance. So all they can do is send warships up to the head of the Gulf of Suez to lie in wait for us, with Saqqara Birds patrolling onshore. Soon as they get a glimpse of us they'll let loose with the heavy artillery.''

''We could cross the canal further inland, couldn't we?''

''Further inland there aren't any road bridges, and then you reach the Great Bitter Lakes and you're virtually at the Mediterranean coast. Suez is the only place where we can get onto the Sinai Peninsula easily, and the best chance the Nephs have of stopping us.''

It had occurred to David, more than once, that he was in the process of retracing the major portion of his journey from Petra to Luxor, and he felt that in a way this was helping him come to terms with the whole dreadful experience. A volunteer now rather than a captive, someone with a purpose more than merely surviving, he was erasing his own tracks, undoing what had been done.

''You've mentioned all this to the Lightbringer, I suppose,'' Zafirah said. ''Of course you have. You two are as thick as thieves. Is that the right saying in English?''

''It'll do. And yes, I've discussed it with him. Last night, in fact. He doesn't seem too worried.''

''He has a plan?''

''He says it's a contingency he's ready for. He disagrees with me about the possibility of a naval bombardment, though. He thinks the Nephs have upset the Freegyptian government too much already with the airstrike on Luxor. He says Prime Minister Bayoumi won't wear another Freegyptian town getting bombed, especially as Suez is so much closer to Cairo than Luxor is — practically next door — not to mention economically vital to Lower Freegypt.''

''The Nephthysians hardly care what Bayoumi thinks.''

''They might now, because he's made a public plea to the Hegemony and the Horusites to do something to help.''

''Help Freegypt? No one helps Freegypt.'' Zafirah said this with pride and some contempt. ''No one's ever given two figs what happens in my country. We've always been an ignorant, infidel backwater republic, and that isn't going to change.''

''But now the Nephs have stepped in,'' David said. ''They've done what nobody else has in a hundred years and invaded. Whatever else Freegypt is, it's a sovereign state, and the Nephs have broken international law. Never mind that they were provoked. They've still done the unthinkable. In crossing the Freegyptian border with a military force, they've crossed a line.''

''The Hegemony will intervene?'' Zafirah sounded doubtful.

''They might. Osirisiacs never need much of an excuse to take a pop at their enemies, and the Horusites will certainly be keen for them to. Jeb Wilkins likes conducting wars by proxy if he can get away with it. No Americans and Canadians coming home in bodybags always plays well with the voters. So he'll be goading the Hegemony on, talking about common interests and the importance of maintaining strategic effectiveness in the Middle Eastern theatre, or some such. If the Hegemony does get involved, that may or may not be to our advantage. We'll have to see. The real question is what the Setics will do.''

''Obvious. Support the Nephthysians.''

''Maybe. There's been plenty of talk coming from the KSD but precious little concrete action so far.''

''Give them time.''

David acknowledged this with a nod, not a full one.

''It's interesting,'' said Zafirah.

''What is?''

''How you've come round to the Lightbringer. How close the two of you have become. He's always conferring with you.''

David nearly blurted it all out then: That's because he's Steven, he's my brother, my long-thought-lost little bro. The secret seemed desperate to leap out of him and latch itself onto someone else, like it was a living entity with a mind of its own, a kind of virus. He only just managed to keep it contained.

''Perhaps he enjoys having someone around he can speak his native tongue with,'' he said.

''He has me,'' Zafirah pointed out.

''Jealous?''

''No. But I remember how sceptical you were to begin with. How hostile. Now look at you — his right-hand man.''

David smirked. ''I saw the light.''

This flippant remark drew unexpected scorn.

''Oh, so now you're so cosy with him, you can make fun of him behind his back,'' Zafirah snapped. ''Is that supposed to impress me?''

''I didn't mean anything by it. It seemed like a witty thing to say.''

''Some of us respect Al Ashraqa deeply, you know. Even revere him.''

''I know.''

''He may be a man, not a god, but this is a land where idols have been in short supply.''

Again the secret squirmed within David. Again he fought to hold it in.

''I meant no offence,'' he said. ''Sorry.''

''Apology accepted — just.'' Zafirah frowned. ''What is it with you, though? I don't get it. Most of the time you're so self-assured, completely in control of whatever you do, and then all of a sudden you're this awkward little boy who doesn't know how to act around grown-ups.''

It stung, because it was true.

''Aren't all men that way?''

''Perhaps, but with you the difference is so marked.'' She fixed her jade-and-topaz gaze on him. ''All I'm trying to say is, I can't figure you out, David Westweenter.''

''But you want to?''

''I think so. For a long time I've felt like I shouldn't be interested in you. I've needed to keep you at a distance. I don't know why. In denial, I suppose.''

''In de Nile,'' David said, regretting it the instant he said it.

''That's just it!'' Zafirah exclaimed. ''That — that pathetic schoolboy humour of yours. Here I am, trying to say something serious, and you just make a joke. I don't know why I bother.''

''No, please bother.''

Somewhere inside herself she found the reserves of tolerance she needed to keep going. ''All I want is for you to understand that I know I have been difficult with you. I admit it. Standoffish. That's a real word, right? I have been that way. But I don't think I can do that any more. I don't think I want to. You confuse me, you infuriate me sometimes, but…''

That was his cue. That was a come-on line if ever David had heard one. And all at once he was reminded, acutely, how good Zafirah looked. Even with her features hemmed in by the turban and seamed with road grime, she was nothing less than striking. And the way she straddled the bike — arms folded, legs straight out in an inverted V, holding the machine upright with the clench of her thighs — was impossibly sexy. He felt a bead of sweat trickling down his torso under his shirt, working its way from collarbone to crotch.

He could reach out to her now. Should. Must. This was it. Now or never.

But then Steven's admonition flashed through his head: Zafirah isn't for you. He could see the words in his mind's eye, as though they were written in letters of fire ten feet tall. They formed a barricade in his thoughts. He couldn't seem to push past them. Steven had put Zafirah off-limits, had made her forbidden territory for him. The two of them could still work together, that was acceptable to him, but nothing more. And somehow David couldn't help but comply with his brother's wishes.

Why? he asked himself as his arms remained limp by his sides and the bead of sweat was absorbed untraceably into his waistband. Why am I letting Steven dictate what I can and can't do regarding this woman?

Zafirah was watching him, waiting for him to make his move.

David felt abject. Helpless.

Seconds passed.

Zafirah turned her face away. Something in the middle distance caught her attention.

''There,'' she said coolly. ''Look. A car in trouble.''

A dinky little runabout had strayed off the hard-packed dirt track the column was following. It had driven onto the soft sand at the edges. It had become bogged down.

Zafirah lowered her goggles and stamped down on the kick-starter. David did the same. He rode after her towards the stricken car, steering his bike along the snaky double-groove her tyres left behind.

The car had to be unloaded. They dug the wheels out. It still couldn't free itself. They used planks so that it could gain traction. Finally, revving hard, the car lurched clear.

An hour's work in the blazing sunshine, David and Zafirah barely exchanging a word.

And that was how it remained with them for the rest of that day and into the next, all the way to Suez. Awkward. Strained. The air between them heavy with silence and disappointment.

Then came the Nephthysian attack. Not the naval bombardment David had predicted. Something much more insidious.