Servant of the Gods (19 page)

As for Irisi? That remained to be seen.

Banafrit was caught, though. And if Irisi was the One of the prophesy?

In the face of that how could she deny Irisi this solace, or Khai? There was nothing in the prophecy that said she must stand alone…

She tucked those thoughts away. There was no time for such things now…but later, if they survived…

In answer to Akhom’s question, though, Banafrit shook her head.

“I’m sorry I can bring you no better news. There’s no other than what you know, sword and salt. They bleed. They can be killed like men, depending on their form. They’re just stronger and harder to kill. Deal them a mortal blow and they will die. If there’s another way we haven’t yet found it.”

Akhom’s heart sank as he looked out at the darkness that rolled steadily toward them over the dunes against the sun’s light and his men standing before it. Fight, then, they must.

He lowered his head, accepting it. “We’ve sent for reinforcements but it’s unlikely they’ll reach us before the Djinn.”

He looked to Khai and Baraka for confirmation. He nodded in confirmation at what he saw in their eyes.

“It’s time, then,” Akhom said.

Both Khai and Baraka acknowledged Akhom’s command with a salute. Khai swung up into his chariot to take the reins, turning it toward the front lines as Baraka mounted his, taking up his bow as he gave his charioteer a glance. The man snapped the reins.

Seeing Irisi without her swords was strange but a relief for Khai. At least he wouldn’t have to fear for her. She wouldn’t be among those who fought at the front.

If there had been time... but there wasn’t, there was only time for that one brief meeting of the eyes. He saw hers warm at the sight of him.

Irisi’s gaze met Khai’s for an all too brief moment, but it was enough. It had to be enough.

‘Be safe,’ she prayed silently as he went past, his horse’s hooves driving into the sand.

She noted he still wore her charm as he’d promised. That was something. She didn’t know if it would protect him here, but it gave her some comfort to see it on him.

“Nebi, my friend,” Irisi whispered, looking to the lion in the distance, “keep him safe.”

Somewhere out on the field of battle, she heard a coughing roar in answer.

It was all she could do.

Glancing over her shoulder, Banafrit saw where Irisi’s gaze wandered but kept her smile to herself. So it wasn’t Khai alone in that…

She looked beyond them.

The flood of Djinn paused only momentarily on the rise of the nearest dune as they saw what awaited them.

Undaunted, undisciplined, with a great blood-curdling howl made of equal parts fury and hunger, the Djinn broke like a wave on the shore and raced toward the army, their ancient enemy, brandishing stolen swords to make them glitter in the sunlight.

An answering scream came from high above as with a gesture Kahotep set the falcons loose.

The birds tucked their wings close and stooped.

“Irisi,” Banafrit said, gesturing. “Call up the wind…”

Nodding, Irisi spread her arms like Isis’s wings as she chanted the spell, her hands snapping backward to their greatest reach and then she swept her arms forward.

A great gust of wind caught up the sand in front of the army and flung it toward the oncoming horde of Djinn to blind them and smother those who burned.

Summoned by Banafrit, serpents boiled up out of the sand to bite and tangle the feet and ankles of the Djinn.

A few screamed in fury and frustration, some tumbled and fell.

Still they came, undaunted, seemingly unstoppable…

All the defenders knew the Djinn must be stopped, and here, for behind them, defended only by the city guard, was only Thebes and then all of Egypt.

Signaling his men, Khai commanded his archers to let fly. With a sound like a thousand wings, arrows rose into the air. The falcons followed them down to savage the Djinn with claw and beak. As if commanded, the lions leaped forward at the same moment, bounding over the sand to tear into the oncoming horde, lashing out with their teeth and claws to ravage any of the Djinn within reach.

With a roar, the army of Egypt ran to meet their enemy.

The two armies came together with a great shout and a sound not unlike thunder, a great meaty crash, accompanied by the clash of steel against steel amid cries of pain and fury.

It was terrible, making normal battle seem almost clean by comparison as swords flashed and slashed. Claws raked and blood sprayed while swords hacked at creatures that looked like men save for their claws and teeth, some with hyena heads, their hideous laughter ringing over the sand. Screams echoed and a great ululating wail rose to freeze the blood.

In those first few moments, the front line of the army disappeared like grain before the scythe. It simply vanished before the juggernaut that was the Djinn. It was a bloodbath. They were savaged. Some of the Djinn stopped to feed on the dead…and the living…

Screams rang out, terrible in their fear and horror.

The archers aimed for their fellows in revulsion, to put them out of their misery…and Khai couldn’t blame them.

For a brief moment one solitary man stood in the fore, fighting like a man possessed, and yet he wasn’t. His sword glittered as he hammered at the creatures before him.

Then he vanished before the onslaught of the Djinn.

Akhom closed his eyes briefly in disbelief and then opened them again.

Suddenly the front of the line was in front of Khai.

He shouted to his men, exhorted them to greater effort, knowing they were already giving it. They were giving everything they had. Their lives, their very souls, depended on it and he knew they knew it.

A Djinn ripped the head off one of Khai’s men.

In return, one of Sekhmet’s priestesses put an arrow into it. When it didn’t fall with a scream of fury he watched as she leaped for the thing, taking it down with her bare hands. Both disappeared among the struggling fighters.

Hacking and slashing, Khai battered at the horrific things that assaulted his men. One leaped for him, only to be met in mid-air by a mass of golden fur and feline fury. The young lion savaged the ifrit, leaving it bloodied on the sand before turning on his haunches to swipe at another of the creatures with one big paw, hamstringing it.

Snarling, the ifrit squirmed on the sand, turned into a huge snake to strike at the lion. Nebi feinted aside, his great jaws closing over the snake’s throat to shake it viciously.

Worse for Khai was to watch a sila overwhelm one of his own men, possessing him. That one attacked his fellows. He found himself forced to kill his own man to keep him from slaughtering the others.

Another Djinn charged a chariot, leapt for it, its claws sinking into the wood. It threw itself backward, taking the chariot, the charioteer and bowman with it. The harness tangled the feet of the horses to take them down as well. The Djinn threw itself on the hapless archer, as others savaged the horses and the charioteer despite a hail of arrows.

Others of the Djinn changed shape and form, from some lion-faced thing to something that resembled hyena, savaging his men even as the archers filled them with arrows and swordsmen hacked at them.

Khai laid waste around him liberally, his sword cutting at any Djinn that came close.

His horses – trained to fight – lashed out with hooves and teeth, defending themselves as much as him from those that attacked him. He could see their hides twitch instinctively in reaction to the unnatural creatures…

Then one went down as a Djinn ripped its throat out and Khai was falling. He rolled, tumbled clear…

On the rise by the command tents, Irisi saw Khai go down, her heart in her throat.

She summoned up her quiver and called the wind. No one had said anything about her bow.

With a gesture, she sent the arrows up into the air like falcons, launching them one after another into the eye or throat of any Djinn near Khai that she could see and take with a clear shot.

Nebi leaped over Khai’s head to take a ghul and Khai rolled away to face another of the Djinn. He swung at the marid, carved a slash across its chest… It glanced down and snarled in fury at the damage done to its perfection. Khai drove his sword into the thing’s throat as it looked up, its face transforming into a hideous snarling mass of flesh.

Banafrit called up the wind.

Djinn were fire elementals, creatures of that element. They wouldn’t like water.

As Isis had once upon a time, Banafrit called up a storm and brought it raging from the Nile to batter the battlefield. There wasn’t much water, it being the wrong season for it, but it was something.

Unshifted marid gave out an unearthly wail as the cool liquid struck their heated, friable skin. A chance strike by one of the fighters hit one. The creature’s arm shattered with a sound like a shriek of stone over metal.

Pain wasn’t something marid Djinn knew well, she knew, and they didn’t like it.

It infuriated and frightened them, their shock clear. In the next moment they were gone, leaving their brethren.

The disappearance of the marid clearly heartened the army. With a roar they attacked the other Djinn with renewed enthusiasm.

Startled by the desertion of their compatriots, the remaining Djinn wavered reluctantly, obviously confused, as if they fought some compulsion. Snarls of fury and wails of helpless rage echoed as they looked at the army in frustration and hunger. With no more warning than that with which they’d come, the remaining Djinn disappeared into the deep desert.

A gust of wind scattered the smoke and with it the enemy.

Left with no one to fight the army stood stunned, bewildered and confused by the sudden withdrawal. Confounded, all they could do was stare at each other in amazement and then in growing relief as they realized they’d survived.

Djeserit called back one of her people from pursuit of the enemy even as some of the captains of the army did, bloodlust nearly overtaking both priest and soldiers.

With a shake of his head to clear it, the priest bowed to her somewhat shamefacedly as he returned.

Across the battlefield the bodies of the dead and the wounded lay strewn in a great crescent, dotted here and there by staggering wounded, limping horses and shattered chariots. The sand drank up the blood as some of the survivors found their feet again. A moment of shocked silence held, before the cries of the wounded and dying lifted up to be carried away by the breeze.

Men had been ripped to shreds. Some held their viscera in their hands, shock and dismay on their faces as they looked at the end of their lives.

Healers ran to give what succor they could to both the wounded and the dying, and to give passage to the Afterlife to those who’d been tainted by the Djinn. Cries of denial and grief echoed across the dunes.

Irisi looked out over the field of battle, searching for Khai, and to her relief saw him in the midst of his men. Something within her eased… She thanked the Goddess for that small favor as she summoned her cats back to her side.

Watching the lion go, Khai followed its path back to its mistress, to Irisi, with his eyes.

As always her golden hair blew like a banner in the sunlight, marking her presence as it waved in the breeze.

She, too, was safe, was still alive.

Even at that distance their eyes found those of the other and met. Khai bowed his head a little in relief, and in thanks for his four-footed guardian.

With a small smile, Irisi let out a breath and lowered her head just a little in return. Small gestures. It was all she could do for him, to keep him safe from Kamenwati.

Then, along with the others from the temple, she turned to set herself to healing the wounded as best she could.

Most of the wounds would putrefy as hers had; they knew that now. Even Healing wouldn’t stand against it. With so few of Sekhmet’s priests and priestesses at hand there was only one solution for many of the wounded – cauterization, burning out the infection so it didn’t spread. It was agonizingly painful to receive and heartbreaking to do. And there was the horrific smell of burnt human flesh.