With the last man disabled and disarmed, Imsiba ceased the howling. While he and Mery rushed to the ship, Bak cut the ropes binding the soldiers to the mast and restored their weapons. They were shame-faced at having been taken prisoner by common sailors, and they cringed at the very thought of having to explain their capture to Nebwa. Psuro tied the prisoners along the yard where the soldiers had been. The dying man pleaded for death, and the Medjay obliged. The man with the thigh wound was bandaged and bound and tied to the mast with the unconscious man.
Bak stood before the bound prisoners. “Where’s Wensu?”
One man shrugged, another appeared confused, the third looked sullen. With the sun midway to the western horizon, Bak had no time to waste. He turned them over to Psuro, who spoke a halting version of their wretched tongue.
He sent Imsiba off to search the water’s edge for Userhet’s skiff or some other sign of the overseer’s presence, and he sent Mery up the rocky spine to look for footprints. After they set off, he examined Wensu’s ship and its cargo. Instead of the exotic products he expected to find, objects imported from far to the south, he found fine linens and wines, weapons, several stone statues, and two empty man-shaped coffins. Products of the land of Kemet. Exports not imports, none listed on a manifest. Illicit goods bound for the land of Kush. These items, he suspected, explained why Wensu had not fled up the Belly of Stones when he had the chance.
He must have been waiting for them, unable to pick them up as long as traffic stood at a standstill at Buhen and Kor.
Mery burst in on his thoughts. “I’ve found footprints, sir!
A single set, where a man walked up the ledge and struck off into the desert.”
“The tracks must be Wensu’s,” Imsiba said, following close behind the boy. “I found no sign of Userhet-or anyone else, for that matter. Either he hasn’t come yet, or he left his skiff in the backwater Ahmose described.”
Bak stared westward, looking up the gently rising slope of sand to the ridge beyond. “Why would Wensu go into the desert to meet Userhet? The cove-or almost any other spot along the river-would’ve been a more convenient place to meet. Certainly an easier place from which to flee, should the need arise.”
The trail was easy to follow, too easy perhaps. Could a trap lay ahead? With a wariness built on experience, Bak followed with his eyes the footprints along the base of the ridge, a low wall of dark, weathered rock cloaked as often as not by windblown sand. The tracks in the soft, loose surface were deep indentations having no distinct shape and no peculiarities. One man could have left them-or a second could have followed, taking care to walk in the first man’s footsteps.
“Psuro’s competent and careful. He’ll not let those soldiers walk into another snare.” Imsiba shifted the coil of rope hanging from his shoulder. “But once again we’re stalking our prey short-handed.”
“Someone had to stay behind.” Bak glanced back at the sturdy black donkey trudging through the sand behind him, its back laden with the tools, weapons, food, and water they had taken from their skiff. “Should Wensu and Userhet be leading us on a merry chase, thinking to swing back around to the cove, we could lose them both and the ship, too.”
“Too bad we couldn’t move it to the island.” Mery spoke deep within his throat, trying to sound as manly as they.
“Who among us knows how to sail a ship that size?” Bak shuddered. “I can see us even now, standing helpless on the deck while the rapids lure the vessel to its death-and us to certain destruction, our bodies lost forever, our kas given no sustenance through eternity.”
Imsiba rubbed his arms, chilled by the thought. “It should be safe where it is. With Ahmose keeping watch from his island, Psuro will have ample warning of intruders.”
“And it can’t go far with no rudder,” Mery added, giving Bak an admiring glance. “How did you think of that, sir?”
Bak preferred not to dwell on the source of his idea, a memory from the recent past: his rudderless skiff drawn into the most dangerous stretch of rapids in the Belly of Stones and his life or death swim through the maelstrom. The landing on the mound of boulders, with the raging waters so near, had brought forth memories he had hoped forever to forget.
He nodded toward the ridge along which they walked.
“You mustn’t allow your attention to falter, Mery. Wensu could be meeting Userhet anywhere, but I’d bet my newest pair of sandals we’ll find them at the tomb we seek.”
A hint of pink touched the boy’s cheeks. “You can rest assured, sir, if there’s an old tomb, I’ll find it.”
“We’d not have brought you if we didn’t believe you would.”
Appeased, the boy grew expansive. “Some of the local people, those whose families have lived near Buhen for many generations, tell tales of powerful lords who ruled this land for southern masters, but kept the customs of the land of Kemet. If that’s the case, the tomb we seek might well be deep within a ridge like this. But if the tomb is that of a man who followed the customs of the south, his house of eternity would be a pit dug in open land, covered by a vast mound of rocks and sand.”
“Intef was slain near this ridge, and the bracelets I found hidden on his donkey were those of a man of Kemet.”
Mery gave him a quick look. “He was slain nearby?”
“At least a half hour’s walk to the north,” Bak said, shaking his head, “and on the back side of the ridge, where the sand blown in from the western desert has covered much of the formation’s face.”
Imsiba nodded agreement. “Too far away, I’d think, for Userhet to drag a laden sledge.”
Bak looked back the way they had come and tried to imagine a man leading an ox through the night, after the moon and stars had turned the sands from molten gold to silver gray. They had not come far, but the familiar landmarks had already fallen away. The cove had disappeared beyond a swelling of the desert floor, and he could not distinguish the spine of rock from other, similar formations. At the foot of the long, gradual slope to the river, he could see the swollen waters flowing among dark and rugged, mostly barren islands, all much alike in the distance.
The undulating landscape, a desolate world of yellow sand, increased his feeling of unease. Like the few dry watercourses that had long ago been filled to the brim, the higher formations were slowly being consumed by the constantly moving, greedy sea of granules.
The footprints drew them on. Mery stopped now and again to examine a wall smoother than nature usually offered, or to climb onto a ledge that could hide a tomb entrance, or to explore a crevice in the eroded wall of rock. One ledge, he insisted, had been carved by man, but the rock face at the back had fallen, cluttering the ledge with close-packed boulders that would surely have sealed any cavity that might have existed. Bak, very much aware of the passage of time, refused to tarry.
While Mery chattered about the possibilities the ledge might offer, they climbed a low rise. Near the top, Bak dug the goatskin waterbag from among the food stowed on the donkey and passed it around. Imsiba, the last to drink, returned the bag to its proper place, while Mery poked around in a basket in search of grapes. Walking on ahead, Bak eyed the trail of footprints in the distance-a trail that abruptly vanished. He stood quite still, searching for an explanation.
240 / Lauren Haney
A fissure cut the rock face at the point where the tracks ended.
A fault in the rock. Soft or crumbled stone, most likely, providing an easy place in which to cut a tomb.
“There,” he said, pointing.
Mery ran up beside him, laughed. “We’ve found it!”
Imsiba slapped the donkey on the flank and followed the creature up the rise. He took in the scene with a glance, studied the empty landscape, frowned. “We’d best take care, my friend.”