The skiff struck the boulders with a jolt. Bak dropped his weapon and scurried forward. A spear struck the spot he had vacated, its point buried in the mast, its shaft vibrating from the force of impact. He sucked in his breath, awed by so narrow an escape, and muttered a hasty prayer of thanks to the lord Amon.
Stepping over the side, he eased himself into the water.
Not until he felt the tug of the current and noticed flecks of foam on the surface did he realize how close the vessel had drifted to the churning rapids, no more than three paces away. Both Psuro and Imsiba were paddling now, their faces grim, their muscles bulging from the strain of holding the skiff in place.
Staving off the urge to panic, Bak explored the depths with a foot. He found a submerged rock, slippery but reasonably flat, leaned into the current to maintain his balance, and waded in among the boulders, pulling the skiff after him.
The vessel bucked and jerked, trying to break free. He heaved himself half out of the water and, with a single, mighty tug, lodged the prow in a space between two massive chunks of rock.
While Psuro and Imsiba encircled a boulder with a rope and made the vessel fast, Bak retrieved the bow and quiver and climbed higher onto the mound, hunched over, picking his way through the boulders. Mery followed hard on his heels. Bak swallowed the urge to order him back to the skiff and safety. The boy had proven his worth. He had earned the right to stand as an equal.
From among the higher boulders, they had an unimpeded view of the deck of Wensu’s ship. With Bak and his contingent no longer on the water below them, no longer vulnerable or even visible, the Kushite sailors had grown cautious, giving up the offensive to safeguard their vessel. Hunkered behind bundles and bales stacked aft of the deckhouse, well armed and ready for action, they stared at the mound, awaiting attack. The man with the thigh wound sat inside the deckhouse, staunching the flow of blood with a dirty rag.
The one Mery had clouted on the head had returned to the fray. Six men total, none with a wasted arm and hand. Where was Wensu? Eight men, white-kilted soldiers from the land of Kemet, stood immobilized on the deck, sweating in the harsh sunlight, their hands tied to the lower yard high above their heads.
Bak did not know whether to laugh or rage. “We’ll get no help from Nebwa’s men.”
Mery stood on tiptoe, trying to get a better look. “How many of the wretched enemy do we face?”
Bak knelt, offering a view of the ship over his shoulder.
The question, he felt sure, was a direct quote from the boy’s soldier father.
A scuffling of sandals heralded Imsiba’s arrival and Psuro’s.
They each settled into a cranny from which they, too, could see the ship. Looking out from their natural stronghold, the four men studied the enemy, searching out 234 / Lauren Haney approaches, weighing their chances of taking the vessel.
Imsiba broke the long silence. “I see no man on that deck with a weak and shriveled arm.”
“Nor do I,” Bak said.
“Maybe Wensu’s gone off to meet Userhet,” Psuro guessed.
Bak slipped back among the boulders and drew his small party close around him. “Without a head, a fighting force has no direction. We must take that ship before Wensu comes back.”
Imsiba gave a quick smile of agreement, Psuro nodded his satisfaction, and Mery’s eyes danced with excitement.
Bak slipped the quiver off his shoulder and offered it and the bow to Imsiba. “You’re more skilled at this than I, so you and Mery must stay here, pelting them with arrows and rocks. While you draw their attention and-with luck and the favor of the gods-slay or disable a man or two, Psuro and I will work our way along the ledge and onto that ship.”
Imsiba took the weapon, handing over in return his spear and shield. He clasped Bak’s shoulder. “Take care, my friend.”
“Don’t I always?” Bak turned half away, had a new thought, and swung back. “Do you remember, Imsiba, the day we fought those vile desert raiders who attacked the caravan bringing gold from the mines?”
Imsiba frowned, puzzled by the question. “Of course.”
“Do you remember their war cry?”
“I’ll not soon forget that accursed sound.”
“It was enough to drive terror into the hearts of the gods,”
Psuro explained to Mery.
“The moment Psuro and I show ourselves on the ledge,”
Bak said, “you must sound off as best you can.”
Imsiba chuckled. “You’ve a streak of black in your heart, my friend.”
Bak flashed a smile at the sergeant, squeezed Mery’s shoulder, and beckoned Psuro. Together he and the Medjay worked their way across the mound, ducking low, sidling through gaps between the boulders, taking care not to be seen by Wensu’s crew. A cracked and broken shelf, washed by the becalmed waters on the downstream side, took them to the back of the ledge, which was half-cloaked in drifted sand.
Crouching low, they ran along the slope, their footsteps muffled by the grit.
They had gone no more than a dozen paces when an un-godly shriek rent the air. They stopped dead still, looked at each other, prayed to the gods for the safety of the man and boy they had left behind. The ensuing silence was broken by a long, drawn out moan, the sound of a man in mortal pain. It came from the ship, not the boulders in which Imsiba and Mery hid. Relief flooded through Bak. Psuro mumbled a prayer of thanksgiving.
They ran on along the drift of sand, keeping their heads down, trying not to hear the agonized moans that gradually changed to whimpering as the wounded man weakened.
When they thought they had gone far enough, Bak dropped onto his belly and wormed his way upward. Cautiously raising his head, he looked across the ledge. The ship’s prow, abandoned and forgotten by the crew, rose above the stony formation not ten paces away. He nodded to Psuro, who crawled up beside him.
Imsiba and Mery had been busy, they saw, lowering the odds in an admirable fashion. The dying man lay out in the open, curled around an arrow lodged in his stomach. Another man showing no signs of injury lay crumpled behind piled sacks of grain, downed by Mery’s sling, Bak felt sure. The man with the arrow in his thigh huddled in the deckhouse, spear close at hand but nearly useless if he could not stand.
Three sailors remained on deck to fight.
Well satisfied with the new odds, Bak and Psuro scrambled to their feet. A deep-throated howl filled the cove and the surrounding landscape, silencing the birds and setting the air atremble. The war cry of the desert warrior. Bak’s skin crawled. Psuro looked about to flee. Laughing quietly at themselves, at so irrational a response, they darted across the ledge to the ship. The war cry gained in volume and intensity, setting dogs to baying all along the river. The two men
leaped on board and raced down the deck. The Kushite sailors stood wide-eyed and awestruck, clinging to their weapons as if to a lifeline, their limbs paralyzed by fright.
Nebwa’s soldiers hung helpless from the yard, pale-faced with terror.
Bak and Psuro ran up behind the nearest sailor. The former clamped an arm around the man’s neck and slapped the flat side of his spearpoint hard against his face. The Medjay struck him on the head with his mace, tore the spear from his hand as Bak let him sag to the deck, and jerked the smaller weapons off his belt. Bak dragged him behind a stack of wine jars, where his mates could not see him. He and Psuro split up then, each running cat-footed to one of the two remaining sailors. The Medjay clouted his man with the mace, while Bak made a fist, tapped his man on the shoulder, and struck him hard on the chin when he swung around.