Khu: A Tale of Ancient Egypt (36 page)

“Attack them!” Mentuhotep shouted as they reached the blockade.
“To their ships! To their ships!”

Mentuhotep worried about the reports he had received regarding Khety and his forces. If his spies had been wrong in their information that the northern ruler was in Nen-nesu, it could well be possible that they were wrong in their estimate of the number of men in Khety’s army as well. Once again, the enemy had the advantage of surprise. Their ambush reminded the Theban king of the battle at Swentet three years before, and Mentuhotep nearly cringed from the memory of that treacherous attack.

“Qeb!” Mentuhotep shouted above the noise, turning to look for his former military chancellor, as a cold fear shrouded the memories of the battle where Qeb had almost died. “Qeb,” Mentuhotep repeated, relieved to find the Kushite warrior nearby. The king placed a protective hand on Qeb’s left shoulder, above the scarred stump of his arm. “You are to remain with the fleet. Guard the ships with the other men.”

Qeb said nothing, letting a moment of silence hang between them. He knew the king meant well, and he regarded Mentuhotep with an unreadable expression, before casting a meaningful glance at his left shoulder, where Mentuhotep’s hand remained. Qeb raised a single eyebrow as he looked at the king’s hand on his left arm. The king followed Qeb’s eyes and let his hand drop to his side.

“Very well,” the king conceded with an exasperated breath, as though reading Qeb’s thoughts.

Qeb gave the king a half-smile in reply.

Mentuhotep set his jaw, drawing his brows together, as he thought again of the reports he had received from his spies. Regardless of their accuracy, this battle was long overdue. It was an unsettled score that demanded payment—the final payment that would determine the fate of Egypt and its divided kingdoms.

Nakhti was among the first of the men to attack the enemy,
as they struck their hulls with their fleet. Together with Khu and some of their men, they charged ahead, climbing aboard their ships, where they were met by a savage defense of spears, axes, daggers and swords. Hand-to-hand combat ensued as more men joined in the fighting when they clambered aboard the enemy vessels. Men heaved, howled, wrestled and roared as they chopped and drove their weapons into flesh.

Mentuhotep’s men swarmed the enemy like an army of ants on a raid. The king
fought to break through the blockade with his fleet and his forces, in order to reach land where he knew Khety waited.

“Father!”
Nakhti waved Mentuhotep over to a boat he secured after slaying the men aboard.

The king joined him and Khu with Qeb and a few other soldiers
, and the boats were poled to Zawty’s shore. Men rushed at them with spears and daggers before they had disembarked. But Mentuhotep and two of his warriors deflected the blows, as the rest of the men hopped onto the ground while striking back. And although the king had wanted Qeb to stay back out of danger, Qeb remained at Mentuhotep’s side, fighting with his favorite scimitar, which he continued to wield expertly, one-handed, despite his handicap.

Several hours passed as the men fought in the chill of the early morning.
Fire was set to some of Khety’s ships, so that those vessels consumed by the flames, spat and sizzled as they sank beneath the water, opening the barrier that had previously barred the inlet. The rest of Mentuhotep’s army eventually broke through the enemy ranks and entered the harbor.

Khu
and Nakhti stayed close to their father’s side in the beginning of the fighting, but were then all separated in the maelstrom. Some of Khu’s own men caught up to him and they ventured through the town, scouring the streets and narrow avenues, hunting down and killing many of the enemy, while rounding up the wounded and those who surrendered.

It was difficult to tell how many men they were up against at first, and neither Khu nor Mentuhotep felt comfortable believing the reports they had received. Although they had heard countless rumors that Khety’s army was smaller than the Theban forces,
the ambush on the river had overwhelmed them, making the opposite seem true. Mentuhotep preferred to err on the side of caution, and assume that they were the ones who were outnumbered.

The Theban king had scrutinized, examined and studied the various battle scenarios
over the last years, carefully weighing all prospects each time he reviewed the reports he had garnered from his informants.

“They will have the advantage of fighting on familiar ground
—in their own territory,” Mentuhotep had warned his men in the preceding season, during one of the many strategic planning sessions with his warlords and generals who would, in turn, pass on the information to their respective battalions. “Because they will not come to us,” he shook his head. “No. They will not come to Upper Egypt.”

“They tried that already,” one of the warlords said, speaking of Swentet.

“They did,” Mentuhotep agreed with a nod, “and they failed. But they will not try that again. The chances of that happening are highly unlikely. We will go to them.”

“Where they will lay traps to ambush u
s in their town,” Khu had added grimly.

“Will it be in Zawty as you originally believed?” someone had asked.

The king had looked at Khu and Qeb, but refrained from answering. Khu shrugged, and Qeb did not reply.

“It may,” Mentuhotep finally said, “or it may not.
We will only know when the time comes. Some things cannot be predicted, no matter how much planning is done in advance.”

So Mentuhotep
had led his army north to fight his enemy on their own soil.

They
had not known it would be in Zawty, especially since Khety had been fighting his own battles in several of the northern provinces, many of which lay along the branches of the Nile Delta. Once Mentuhotep’s informers had confirmed that Khety had returned to Nen-nesu, the Theban king believed he and his army would follow Khety there. But the Seven Hathors devised their own schemes, thwarting the best laid plans, and outwitting men’s orderly objectives. And the Mistresses of Fate led them to Zawty.

The Theban army
did not go with the confidence of men knowing they cannot be defeated. That sort of brashness made one imprudent and careless. They went watchful and wary, with their hackles raised, their eyes open, and their ears perked to the very air around them. No, they were not foolhardy, especially after the sobering battle of Swentet.

Once Mentuhotep’s army
had broken through the blockade, and pushed into the harbor, many of the enemy forces retreated into the town, and most of the fighting occurred in pockets dispersed throughout the settlement, where a deadly match of hide and seek ensued between the opposing forces. Groups of the enemy lay in ambush, waiting for Mentuhotep’s men to approach unsuspectingly, before rushing at them in a frenzy of sharpened blades, spiked maces, spears and battle axes. Others were crouched on the rooftops of mud-brick buildings, their arrows ready to besiege the infiltrating men.

But those men who were with Khu had the advantage of benefiting from his intuition. He would slow down, raise a hand for his men to stop, then point out the location where the ambush awaited them
, all without saying a word. And when he gave the signal, they would charge into the startled enemy who had not expected the counterattack.

At one point
Khu was up against ten men as he and his soldiers were busy fending off a much larger group of attackers. They grinned and grunted as they rushed at him with sharpened blades and savage strikes. With a dagger in one hand and a short sword in another, Khu alternately parried and lunged at his foes. Men bellowed and roared as they speared, chopped and hacked at the air where Khu had stood only an instant before. But each time, he stepped aside and deflected their blows as easily as though their attacks had been nothing but a pantomime of child’s play.

One by one Khu slayed his opponents until a much larger man lunged at him from behind. He was a hulking beast of fighter who was almost three times the size and weight of Khu. His thick skull bore a twisted rendering of frightening scars, yellowed teeth, and bulging eyes that reminded Khu of an angry hippopotamus bull.

His first attack came just as Khu killed an opponent, and he slashed at Khu’s arm, cutting him with an ax. It was a shallow wound that looked much worse than it was. Like a predator whose hunger for the kill is sharpened by the drawing of first blood, the beast bellowed as he swung and hammered his rage at Khu with a surprising agility and speed that were unexpected for one of his bulk.

Khu parried the jarring blows, but his short sword broke cleanly in half from the strength of the impact, and he threw the useless weapon to the ground. He ducked and sidestepped quickly away as the beast advanced howling. And as the man charged, angrily swinging his ax towards Khu’s neck, Khu dove for his beefy legs, slashing through his left knee, instantly maiming him. The beast shrieked in pain, falling to the ground as Khu drove his dagger into the back of his neck, silencing him for good.

Khu’s men were in awe of their leader, and they followed closely behind him as he left the bloody scene and led his men deeper into the town, fighting off adversaries at every turn. It was about two hundred paces away that they ran into Nakhti and a large group of his own men. Khu sensed the presence of his brother as though Nakhti had stepped out in front of his path. He felt Nakhti’s excitement and the adrenaline flooding his veins.

“Nakhti!” he called out as they neared a blind corner where his brother had laid a trap for unsuspecting foes.

“Khu!” Nakhti said happily, stepping around a wall to clap his brother on the back. “It is well that you announced yourself or we would have made a bloody offering of your flesh.” He laughed at his own exaggeration, knowing full well that the opposite was true.

Nakhti loved and admired his brother, and there was no one he would have preferred to have by his side during battle than he. Khu was a formidable warrior with the knack for finding concealed enemy like an eagle spying a hare from a great distance. Nakhti was naturally daring, but he felt invincible by Khu’s side, and they stayed together for
much of the battle until one of Nakhti’s best fighters and closest friends was badly injured.

The man had sustained a stabbing wound
to his lower back, and needed immediate medical attention. Nakhti insisted on accompanying his friend back to the shore himself, by which many of Mentuhotep’s men were stationed, including doctors trained in surgery and the treating of wounds. He left with his men after wishing his brother good fortune and the favor of the gods.

Khu continued combing the town until he arrived to a temple complex dedicated to the jackal-headed god Anubis and the war god Wepwawet who was depicted as a wolf. Wepwawet’s name meant Opener of the Ways, for he was believed to ensure safe passage through life and the Underworld. Khu stopped when he arrived at the
Temple of Anubis, where a large bronze brazier had been lit during the night, and still burned in front of the pylon. Some of his men touched the amulets hanging from their necks, as they beheld the colossal figure of Anubis carved in relief onto the pylon. The jackal-headed god of the dead was shown standing upright with a human body, and he was holding the
Was
scepter in his right hand, and the
ankh
key of life in his left.

Directly over the pylon’s center rested a statue of Anubis in full animal form of a jackal. The oversized stone depiction of the god was facing forward with his front legs stretched out before him, as he guarded the temple’s entrance. And as the smoke of the brazier rose in a grayish cloud, it tricked the eye into thinking that the jackal-god was truly alive. The huge statue seemed to breathe as the air quivered around him, and Khu’s men were momentarily filled with fear. Then Khu waved his men around the temple to prevent anyone who might be hiding within its holy grounds from escaping.

But no one was inside.

“
No one is here,” Khu said, after looking around some more. “Let’s go.” He was going to lead his men toward the town’s wealthier homes where more officials might be lying in ambush, but then stopped to sweep the area one more time before leaving.

Something was not right.

Khu felt the tiny hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. And although he could not see anyone, he felt the presence of something evil. He stepped cautiously down a narrow street, slowing down as he approached a corner. His heart thumped loudly in his chest, and the same sense of dread he had felt in Abdju years before was back. It was a vague and generalized fear that went beyond the immediate moment. It was a kind of preternatural instinct cautioning every nerve in his body to be on heightened alert.

Khu moved farther away from the temple complex and headed deeper into the town where his men had gone before him. The sounds of screams and shouting rose above the settlement, as did the smoke from the remaining ships in Khety’s blockade, which continued to
burn beyond the harbor. He walked slowly, pausing now and again to listen and feel the air around him with that sixth sense he possessed. Every step seemed to take him farther from the evil that had rattled him. He retraced some of his steps in an attempt to near its villainous source, but his efforts were futile. Like the black smoke blown away by the northerly winds, the evil lurking nearby had simply vanished.