Bak squeezed the boy’s knee and backed off. “Go with haste, little brother. Userhet has defied the lady Maat, making light of right and order. He must not be allowed to get away.”
The importance of the task stiffened Mery’s spine, the term of affection drew forth a faint smile. “I’ll do my best, sir.” He jerked the rope halter, pulling the donkey’s head around, and kicked it in the ribs. It plunged down the ridge and trotted toward the river, boy and baskets bouncing to the animal’s gait.
Bak armed himself with spear and shield, while Imsiba shouldered the quiver and carried the bow. With their quarry in sight at last, they hurried south along the base of the ridge, following the dual channels left by the sledge. They lost much of the breeze, but were less likely to be spotted by the man ahead. For the first time in many hours, they dared hope for success.
When they reached the trail of smudged footprints joining the ridge to the cove, the twin depressions left the well-beaten path and continued south, straddling the prints of a single man. Userhet was heading for his skiff, not Wensu’s ship.
How far away had Ahmose said the backwater was? A half-hour’s walk?
“His sledge isn’t large,” Imsiba said, “but the furrows it leaves are deep. Whatever his load, it’s holding him back.”
“I pray it includes an elephant tusk.”
“As do I.” The Medjay’s face, his voice were grim. “I’d not like to spend the rest of my days, searching every wretched ship and caravan passing through Buhen and Kor.”
“If Wensu hid the tusk on Mahu’s ship, and I’m convinced he did, Userhet told him to do so.” Bak blew a drop of sweat off the tip of his nose. “He’ll confess. He must.”
Imsiba’s strides were long and regular, designed to cover a lot of ground fast. Rivulets of sweat trickled down his breast and back. If his head still ached, he gave no sign, nor did he display any trace of exhaustion. Bak, barely able to keep apace, shaded his eyes with a hand and stared at the distant figure. The haze had been blown away by the stiffening breeze, but heat waves rising from the sand made dunes and rock formations and the man they chased quiver and tremble.
“We’re gaining on him, Imsiba.”
“I’ve never liked him. He’s altogether too fond of himself.
But I’d not have thought he’d take one man’s life and then another and another.”
“He came close to taking a fourth,” Bak said, touching the dirty bandage on his friend’s arm. “That arrow was meant for you, I’m convinced.”
“Me?” Imsiba gave him a startled look. “I posed no threat.”
“Did he not wish to wed Sitamon? He no doubt desired her-she’s a woman of infinite charm and beauty-but he must’ve coveted more the ship she inherited from Mahu.”
A wry smile touched Imsiba’s lips. “To have control of a great cargo ship would certainly ease the path of one who deals in contraband.”
“Not if he must share his authority with a man whose task it is to balance the scale of justice.”
“Look! He’s veering toward the river.” Imsiba clutched his side, which he refused to admit pained him. “We must be nearing the backwater where he leaves his skiff.”
“I thank the gods he’s not once looked back. He must think us still entrapped.” If the big sergeant would not confess to a human frailty, Bak was not about to complain of his knotted calves.
Imsiba glanced toward the lord Re, making his final descent to the netherworld, streaking the sky with gold. “If we don’t snare him within the hour, we’ll lose him to darkness.
He knows this land far better than we. It’s been his play-ground for months.”
“We’re closing on him.” Bak wiped his brow and dried his hand on his kilt, damp with sweat, stained gray by dirt. “Not long ago, we couldn’t see the sledge. Now we can. Nor could we see…” His voice tailed off and he stared at the man ahead.
Userhet had slowed his pace and turned around as if to check the sledge and its load. His head came up. His step faltered. The sledge bumped his ankles, shoving him. He swung around and moved on, his stride longer, faster than before.
“He’s spotted us!” Bak said, breaking into a loping run.
“Who’d have thought a man could run so fast when pulling a laden sledge?” The question was rhetorical, a waste of valuable breath, and Bak knew it.
Imsiba must also have felt the need to talk. “He’s taking advantage of the slope down to the water. Gentle as it is, it’s enough to keep the sledge moving.”
Bak scanned the river, no more than a thousand paces away, with Userhet halfway between. In many places, water lapped the desert’s leading edge, stealing the golden grains, 260 / Lauren Haney yet he saw no reed-filled backwater. It had to be nearby.
“How a man whose occupation kept him inside and inactive day after day manages to maintain so hard and fast a pace, I can’t imagine.” Imsiba forced the words out between breaths. “His nighttime excursions as the headless man must’ve hardened his muscles as well as his resolve.”
“The fate that awaits him-impalement, for a certainty-would surely add wings to any man’s feet.”
They ran on in silence, wasting no more breath. Bak’s calves ached, his legs felt heavy and wooden, his mouth dry and his chest raspy. The sledge was like a toothache, a nag-ging reminder of how sure Userhet was that he would elude them. If he feared capture, he most certainly would abandon it. Bak’s sole consolation was the breeze, which was cooler as evening drew near, chilling the sweat pouring from his body.
Evenly matched with the man they chased, but un-burdened, Bak and Imsiba slowly, gradually, shrank the distance separating them. About three hundred paces from the river, Userhet swerved, taking a diagonal path across the sands toward a curving row of trees. A break in the foliage allowed a glimpse of water and a thick stand of reeds.
“Spawn of Apep!” Bak cursed. Userhet was practically within their grasp. He could not slip away now.
Without warning, a nearly naked man stepped out from among the trees to stand on the sandy verge. He carried a sickle, its sharp flint blade sparkling in the long rays of the setting sun. A woman dressed in a colorful ankle-length sheath came forth from the trees a half dozen paces downstream. In her hand she held a long-bladed knife. A second man emerged a few paces upstream, and a third and fourth spread equal distances apart. Each carried a sickle, an axe, or a mallet. Common farm tools. Weapons in the hands of men who chose to use them as such.
Bak and Imsiba slowed to a walk. They stared dumbfoun-ded.
“Have they come to help him?” Bak asked.
Userhet, less than fifty paces from the trees, slowed as his pursuers had done. Instead of waving and smiling and hurrying toward men he knew were friends, he looked back and forward as if trying to decide what to do, how best to pass them by and reach the river.
Bak offered a silent prayer of thanks to Amon and to any other god who happened to be listening.
Two men stepped forward, both armed with sickles. A youth carrying a knife. Another holding a spear. A woman and man, each carrying axes. A boy with a sickle. Others appeared farther along the line of trees. A wall of humanity, ominously silent, between Userhet and the reedy backwater.
The overseer broke into a trot, running parallel to the double row of men and trees, dragging the sledge behind him, searching for a way through.
“By the beard of Amon!” Imsiba exclaimed. “Where did so many people come from? What brought them forth?”
“There!” Bak pointed. Mery stood midway along the line of defense, holding a reddish shield that came close to hiding his small frame and carrying a long spear that towered well above his head. “He must’ve come by skiff-the breeze is right-and summoned all he met along the way.”
“A most resourceful child,” Imsiba grinned.
Spurred on by the boy’s ingenuity, Bak forgot his aching muscles and heaving chest. He ran full tilt, Imsiba by his side. Hearing their pounding feet, Userhet glanced around and saw how close they were. He dropped the rope, grabbed a bow and quiver lying on top of the load he had been pulling, and ran, abandoning the sledge.