Andre Norton - Shadow Hawk (12 page)

Papyrus plumes were agitated, snapping off as the smoke of the torches showed the path of the beaters. But there was no other sound from the aroused lion. Had they not known the habits of the beast, those waiting in the chariots might have been disastrously off guard when a tawny shape, magnificently maned, snarling with rage, burst through the last screen of dried herbage in a bound, which carried it between the chariot of the prince and the one in which the civilian balanced his spear.

A bowstring twanged sharply, and the lion came to earth in a smashing somersault, tearing at the brick-hard clay with frenzied claws.

"Ho!" They raised the cry of congratulation, and Ahmose, with a boy's glee—the very first really youthful gesture Rahotep had seen him make—waved his bow over his head, while two of the spearmen trotted forward with a rope to drag the trophy to where it could be skinned.

But the beaters had disturbed a second beast in the reed jungle. There was another roar, and then a flurry among the reeds. The yap of a dog became a scream of agony. Against all nature some lion must have turned at bay, refusing to be driven from its chosen place, and was now about to fight it out with the men on foot. Rahotep levered himself up an inch or two against the side of the chariot, striving to see more of the melee than just the wildly agitated reed tops.

Such dried-out land contained, as he well knew, traps. Hard as the sun cooked the earth's crust, there were places where some moisture lingered underneath. And anyone breaking through the flinty upper surface might well be engulfed in the mud beneath, entrapped past his own efforts to escape. Rahotep had seen a cow so caught once—until it had had to be killed because it could not be drawn forth. Intent upon a lion at bay, any one of the beaters might be so caught before he realized his danger.

The chariot horses were affected by the clamor, and both Nereb and the prince put aside their weapons to control the nervous animals. Ahmose's black reared with a scream of stallion rage until Rahotep feared for the safety of the light vehicle it drew. The prince was talking to it soothingly, his voice steady, as he gripped the reins with sure knowledge.

A shout arose from the reeds, and out of that dried morass shot a dun-brown streak, skidding almost under the feet of Nereb's horse, sending it plunging ahead. Rahotep's grasp on the rim of the bucket was broken with that jerk, and he fell backwards, landing on the ground with force as the chariot bowled away, the horse momentarily out of control.

Gasping, watching the sky spin dizzily from right to left and back again over his head, the young captain suddenly knew that he had not landed flat upon the earth after all, that under his shoulders something squirmed vigorously, squalling in rage and fear. Hardly knowing why, but with some dazed memory of past wrestling bouts in which he had striven so upon the ground, Rahotep threw himself over and flattened down that wriggling body, feeling coarse fur under his hands and the hot breath of a flesh eater upon his face.

He held on because he had to. Only so long as he kept those kicking limbs pinned to the ground could he hope to escape a wicked mauling from the claws. Luckily his captured beast was but little more than half grown, or he could not have held it for more than a moment past its initial surprise and panic.

The captain was holding on grimly when another form plunged through the dust. Rahotep sat up, coughing hollowly, his eyes streaming, as he made futile motions to rub them free of dust. Kheti's big hands, with the full weight of the Nubian's great strength, pinned the snarling young lion flat. He grinned at Rahotep through a mask of dust and sweat.

"Ha, brother, this is a catch! Somewhat larger than Bis, but of the same spirit. Did he mark you?"

Shaken, Rahotep inspected the damage. His kilt bore a ruffle of tatters down the thigh, but there was no mark on the skin beneath to overlay the older scar there. He had indeed been lucky, for it was well known that a lion's claws were unclean and the wounds dealt by them healed slowly and painfully, if at all.

Two of the spearmen came running up, a coarse net between them. And by the efforts of all four the lion was made captive just as the prince reached them on foot. He touched Rahotep on the shoulder, bringing the captain around to face him.

"Have you taken a hurt, kinsman?"

Rahotep laughed, a little unsteadily. "By the favor of Horus, no, Royal Son. And it seems that you have now the cub you wished to serve you. Nay"—he inspected the still writhing body more closely—"more than a cub. If one taken so well grown can ever be tamed—"

"Never have I seen or heard of such a happening!" The concern faded from the prince's face. "It shot under the chariot close to the ground, and in the same moment you landed full upon it! Who would believe such a tale if he did not witness it with his own eyes? Truly you are one favored by some Great One—"

But they were not yet done with the hunt. Perhaps the vocal fury of the captive drew its companions from the reeds, or perhaps they only fled before the beaters. Two more tawny animals erupted from cover, another yearling cub and a lioness.

The cub ran straight, a flitting brown shadow, belly fur brushing the ground between leaps. But the female showed fight, speeding for the men clustered about the captive. There was no time for protocol of the hunt. Kheti's ax went up, a spear pointed—and both weapons struck home.

Ahmose drew a deep breath and stirred the now limp body with the toe of his sandal. Then he eyed the reed screen.

"It would seem that there is more than one surprise for us this day. But since even the favor of the Great Ones can wear thin in time if one stretches it too far, it would be well to be satisfied with one's luck to this point." He signaled for the groom to lead up his chariot.

"Nereb"—he hailed the other vehicle pounding up to join them—"so that red one of yours has answered at last to his nose reins? But then, I do not think even Moonrunner"—he drew his hand in open affection down the arching neck of his own horse—"would stand for a lion beneath his feet, a living lion, that is. You were prudent to stand aloof, Sebni." He spoke now to the civilian. "Horses and attacking lions do not love one another—"

The man in the third chariot smiled thinly. "So it would appear, Royal Son. And may I suggest that it would be well for you, Prince, to be more prudent—"

There was a chill in his tone that matched the thinness of his smile. Rahotep eyed him covertly, surprised by the underlying note of disapproval in his speech. Could he be a tutor, attached by court custom to the prince's household? But surely Ahmose was of an age to claim, as a man and a warrior, freedom from such restraints.

Sebni, too, could not be old enough to have fostered the prince from infancy as the overseer of his household. Though it was difficult to judge the courtier's age, the man could not have been more than ten years older than the prince he served. And he was not the type to fit well among a fighting man's company—not with his fine robes and air of fastidious detachment. Who was he and what position did he hold that he accompanied Ahmose in a sport he could not find to his liking?

But as the houndboys, beaters, and the rest of the huntsmen drew in, Rahotep recalled earlier suspicions. This indeed was an over-manned party. The number of beaters was twice what was needed, and all of those he saw were seasoned fighting men. Only Sebni, his charioteer, and the groom and two runners who had trailed the civilian on the field were nonmilitary.

As he reclaimed his bow from the trampled dust, thankful to discover that that had not been a casualty of his mishap, Rahotep wondered anew at the purpose of the party. They had hunted lions, true enough. He flexed his bruised arm ruefully. He'd remember that hunt with a twinge in his healing shoulder for some days to come. But he couldn't escape the belief that the hunt was only a screen for something very different.

And he was sure of that when, instead of returning to Thebes with their trophies, the prince detached a runner to the nearest village to bring up men to take care of both dead lions and the captive until their return.

As they pushed on, still northward, Ahmose did not repost the beaters, or send men to quarter the reed beds. Midday and the heat found them in the lee of a ruined temple, and they sheltered from the sun in the nave of the sanctuary that had been despoiled by the Hyksos many years earlier. They had bread and onions, which were common field fare, along with a thin warm beer—such rations as might be served out on the march, but certainly not the usual food of the court. And Rahotep was not surprised to see that Sebni made a pretense of eating, but no pretense of enjoying the few bites he choked down, while the prince, on the other hand, munched away with the same hearty appetite as the archers and spearmen whose food he shared in equal portion.

The Nubian archers were trained to keep apart when they stretched out in strange surroundings to take what ease they could, their bows to hand, their belt axes turned so that they could be seized upon at the first alarm. Kheti nodded in one corner and at last snored peacefully. But Rahotep could not find any position that eased his bruises, and at last he gave up all efforts to rest and sat with his back against the wall, gazing toward the mutilated inner shrine, trying to reconstruct the place as it had once been.

Then his hand was on the hilt of his dagger, though he did not turn his head or breathe any faster. That faintest of sounds from the corner of the wall against which he rested was warning enough to one who had lain in spy outposts above a Kush hold. Someone was approaching from that direction and taking every precaution against sound—such stealthy creeping was a warning in itself. The captain moved away from the wall and brought his knee to the floor so he was half turned in a crouching posture to face the skulker.

But at first sight of the other he remained where he was. Ahmose, regarding the captain so ready on the defensive, blinked and then smiled. He beckoned with a finger, and Rahotep slid around the corner as the prince retreated, until they stood together in what had once been the inner sanctuary of the temple. Why the prince should take such a way to speak with him secretly, the captain did not know. But that it was of importance he did not doubt.

"Can you bring out your men without its being noted? Much depends upon our leaving here unobserved—though I have those to cover our trail as best they can."

"That I can do, Royal Son," Rahotep replied confidently. He dared ask no questions as to why this was necessary.

Ahmose's smile grew wider. "We go to a task which, I think, will please you and your men well, kinsman. I had thought to take those of my own command, but now I would see how the Scouts work alone. However, we can only go unremarked—"

"By Sebni, Lord?" asked Rahotep.

"By Sebni!" The answer was delivered grimly, and the smile disappeared from the prince's full lips. "Be swift, Captain. Bring your men this way without notice if you can."

Rahotep flitted back to the group of archers. He knelt beside the nearest. As one hand slid over the man's mouth, his other tightened on the bowman's upper arm and shook it ever so slightly. Eyes opened, looked at him with quick consciousness, and Rahotep released the alerted man with a small gesture, so that the archer turned to arouse his next comrade after the same silent fashion.

The priests who had once served this forsaken temple had had their own private passages, a fact that Ahmose appeared to know. Almost, Rahotep thought, as if the Royal Son had made previous exploration here with some plan in mind. One by one, the archers stepped through a low door, bending nearly double, into a windowless, narrow space that must run between double walls, until they moved out into the sun through a square from which a block of stone had been recently removed.

Ahmose, himself, was the last through. And he moved briskly with little of the caution he had displayed inside the temple.

They had come out behind the building, well away from where the horses had been picketed and the chariots parked. To the captain's surprise, Ahmose made no move in that direction but, motioning them to follow, led the way directly from the temple toward the barren hills, which, with their yellow- brown walls, marked the end of cultivated land. They entered a gorge that cut back into the desert like the pointing finger of a hand, and there the prince met a man who arose out of the ground—or dodged into their path from behind the fallen rocks.

The newcomer wore only the twist of cloth that was the usual garb of a field worker, but he saluted Ahmose as if he were one of the prince's officers.

"They have gathered the horses by the river, Royal Son. There has been a delay in the coming of the ships—" He accented the word "delay" with a meaning laugh.

"What forces have they?"

"Fifty. Mostly slingers, a few bowmen—but only officers' chariots since they return by the river. They are picked men though, Lord, and not to be lightly challenged, for they are led by the Commander Horfui—I have seen him with my own eyes!"

"Fifty—and Horfui—" Ahmose drew his hand down his chin as one who is working upon a problem. Then he turned to the yet unenlightened Rahotep.

"They say that the archer Scouts not only hunt the desert for raiders, but that they like high odds when the sticks are tossed in the battle game. How be it, Captain? Dare we go up against fifty of the Hyksos under a commander who has won his gold of valor a hundred times over?"

Rahotep made an answer dictated by the belief he had had in this leader since his first meeting with Ahmose.

"Prince, I do not think that you go into this without a workable plan—"