Nebre responded with a noncommittal grunt.
Kneeling beside a pool, Bak splashed his face and upper body. The water was clear and warmed by the sun. “Let’s walk to the end of this gorge and no farther. We’ve been away from the caravan too long. Psuro will be wondering where we are.”
“We’re to let the man ahead slip away again?” Nebre asked, chagrined.
“He knows this land. We don’t.” Bak walked on up the gorge. “Would it not be foolhardy to let him lead us to our deaths?”
“If we always turn back, sir, we’ll never lay hands on him.”
The Medjay was like a dog, Bak thought. Once he had scented his prey, he’d risk his life rather than give up the chase. “We must find some other way of snaring him.”
“How?”
Bak flung the Medjay an annoyed look. “If I knew that,
Nebre, we’d not be here now, debating whether or not we should allow our quarry to tempt us deeper into his lair.”
Nebre had the good sense to say no more.
They walked on, following a stream that meandered from pool to pool. Bak feared the gorge would narrow further, forming a trap they could not evade, but around the next bend, the walls spread wider. Wisps of cloud passed across the brilliant blue sky and an eagle soared overhead.
They rounded another tight bend and stopped dead still.
The gorge ended thirty or so paces ahead, blocked by a high wall. The stream poured out of a groove eroded over the top and plummeted downward, a silvery, gurgling waterfall splashing down narrow steps of waterworn red granite, each step taller than a man.
The climb to the top was possible, Bak thought, and tempting, but commonsense prevailed. “We’d best turn back.”
Nebre looked half around, turning a wary eye to the gorge through which they had come. “Could this be the trap we’ve been expecting?”
“I can think of no better place.”
Eyeing the high walls to either side, the steep waterfall in front, not sure if they expected one man to set upon them or an army, Bak and the Medjay eased backward toward the nearest bend in the gorge. Suddenly a solitary man came out from among the rocks at the top of the fall and stood beside the lip over which the water spilled. He stared boldly at the two men on the floor of the gorge, then knelt to cup his hands and drink. The action was deliberate, a gibe at Bak’s decision not to follow, a sneer at their worried retreat.
Bak muttered an oath, echoed by Nebre.
The man rose to his feet, stretched, and yawned, making further mockery of the men below. He was tall and thin and had the same dark skin as Nefertem and his tribesmen. His clothing-a dark brown kilt, probably leather, and a ragged, long-sleeved tunic discolored by age or dirt or both-was that of a nomad. He carried a long staff or maybe a spear, dif ficult to tell which at so great a distance
“I’d like to know his purpose, Nebre. Do you think you can disable him?”
Baring his teeth in a eager smile, Nebre drew an arrow from his quiver and seated it. “I’d rather slay him, sir, but since I’m forbidden to do so, will an arrow in the thigh sat isfy you?”
As the Medjay raised the bow, the man on the clifftop flung himself sideways, out of sight. The arrow sped through the air where he had been, traveled high into the sky, and arced downward.
Nebre spat out a curse and strode toward the waterfall.
“I’ll get him for you, sir!”
“No!” Bak barked out the word, an order meant to be heeded.
“But, sir…” Nebre stared in angry frustration up the wa terfall.
“If he allowed us to climb the cliff unmolested-and I doubt he’d miss so tempting an opportunity-he’d be far away by the time we reached the top.” Bak glared at the Med jay, waiting for him to see reality.
As Nebre turned around with obvious reluctance, Bak added, “We must return to the wadi the caravan is traveling. I, for one, would not like to spend the night in this wretched land, with a man who wishes us dead lurking about.”
“Would you recognize him if you saw him again?” Bak asked.
“He was too far away.” Nebre scowled. He had come to see the sense in their retreat, but his irritation had not entirely fallen away. “Would you, sir?”
“I doubt it,” Bak admitted. “He made sure we got a good look at him, but not good enough.”
He studied the craggy slopes to either side. The sun had dropped behind the mountain, leaving the landscape around them in shadow. Hills and precipices, ledges and steep de files, merged together in the near distance, the loss of light turning them an identical shade of deep red and stealing away depth of vision. Even the patches of sand that had blown into the nooks and crannies had a reddish tinge, as if reflecting the flaming sky.
He guessed he and Nebre were about a half-hour’s walk to the main wadi, which they should reach as darkness fell. The caravan would have moved on an hour or two earlier, but they could easily catch up with it in the cooler hours of night.
Signs of the recent passage of men and animals would be clear on the freshly washed and smoothed sand, eliminating any risk of getting lost.
He eyed the glittering wound on the side of a boulder where, during their outbound trek, Nebre had chipped away a piece of rock to mark their path. “I thank the lord Amon that we had the good sense to leave a clear trail when we entered these mountains.”
Nebre looked back over his shoulder. “I haven’t spotted anyone behind us, sir, which surprises me. If the man we fol lowed is trying to slay us, he’d surely come after us.”
“He has to have guessed the caravan’s destination-and ours. He may know a shorter way than the route we’re taking.”
“If only I’d been quicker with the bow! The threat of leav ing him untended where he lay would’ve set him talking soon enough. We’d have no further doubt as to why he’s been watching us.”
“He probably believes we’ll lead him to the gold Min nakht is rumored to have discovered.”
“We’ve found no gold, and User swears we never will.”
Bak scowled at the landscape around them. “Who knows what we’d find if we’d stay in one place and explore the land all around.”
“The watching man must know we’ve done no searching.”
“The merest thought of great wealth can besot a man far more than the strongest date wine-and a besotted individual is often a man of irrational determination.”
“What of Dedu and the other slain man? Did he fear he’d have to share with them?” Nebre asked.
“What of the man who went missing almost a year ago?
The one Amonmose heard of in Kaine. And don’t forget that
Nefertem swore his father was slain.”
“The foul deed of Senna, you think? To guide Minnakht would’ve been a desirable task, I’d wager.”
“If he slew Nefertem’s father so he might toil for Min nakht, why would he then slay Minnakht?”
While they puzzled over the problem, they turned into a wadi paved with loose stones ranging in size from a man’s fist to his head. They were forced to walk single file along a narrow path the nomads had painstakingly cleared by shift ing the rocks off the sandy bed of the watercourse. Low cairns rose at irregular intervals, marking the course of the track. Out in the open as they were, with no way to go other than the path they were following, they felt exposed, easy game for a man thinking to ambush them.
They hurried along, studying the landscape to either side, tense with anticipation. They must have been a quarter of an hour’s walk from the main wadi when they rounded a bend and saw a man on a hillside ahead, two hundred or so paces away. He was looking toward them across the mouth of an intersecting wadi as if he had anticipated their arrival. He was tall and slender. His kilt and tunic looked white in the uncertain light, making him appear more a man of Kemet than a nomad. Instead of spear and shield, he carried a bow and quiver. His features were indistinct from so far away, and it was impossible to discern the color of his skin in the late evening glow.