“They’re the nearest thing to a guide that we have.”
“You said yourself that you should be able to lead us to the
Eastern Sea. Senna told me that once we reached this gorge, all we had to do was follow the wadi to its outflow.”
“We need these men to set me straight should I err.”
Bak wanted to shake him. “I doubt they know this part of the desert any better than you do.”
User’s expression grew more stubborn. “They agreed to care for our donkeys throughout our journey. I insist they do so.”
“Here’s Kaha.” Bak stepped aside and urged User to come away with him. “We must let them talk.”
The Medjay spoke with the drovers for some time. He stumbled and fumbled and searched often for words but per sisted in a sensible, calm voice no matter how angry and in sistent the nomads became. At last he turned away and shook his head. “They refuse to stay with us, sir. They fear they’ll be slain in the night as Dedu was, and as Rona and Senna were.”
“Tell them I doubt their lives are at risk,” Bak said, “but since I can’t guarantee their safety, I’ll do nothing to prevent their leaving. They can collect half what User owes them in
Kaine, but not until this caravan returns to Kemet.”
Kaha explained. With obvious relief, the drovers picked up their scant possessions and hurried away. They climbed the gravel bank to the south, veered around the dead men and the unfinished graves, and hurried on across the ridge as if they intended to retrace the caravan’s path. Bak hoped they had kin in the area who would see they reached Kaine safely.
“What are we to do without them, Lieutenant?” User shifted his angry gaze from the drovers to Bak. “Travel south along the sea until we reach the southern route in the faint hope that we’ll find men there to replace them?”
“We can’t turn back now!” Ani stared at the explorer, ap palled. “We’re too close to the mountain of turquoise.”
“I plan to cross the Eastern Sea with Lieutenant Bak,”
Amonmose told the jeweler. “He’s convinced me that my men will be safer fishing out of the port that serves the mines than remaining here with a slayer on the loose. I must see that they get official permission. Nebenkemet will travel with us.
Why don’t you come, too?”
“Should you wish to travel with us,” Nebenkemet said to
User, “I can take charge of the animals.” He glanced at Ani and Wensu. “I’ll need help gathering food for them and with the loading and unloading, but that shouldn’t be too great a burden.”
“I’ll be glad to help,” Ani said, flinging a defiant look
User’s way.
“I’ve come too far to turn back,” Wensu agreed, “but you must show me what I’m to do.”
User scowled at the men around him, but made no com ment. Whether he would continue on across the Eastern Sea, remain in the Eastern Desert, or return to Kemet, Bak could not tell.
Bidding a grim farewell to the stone-covered graves in which Rona and Senna lay buried, the caravan set out an hour before dusk for the Eastern Sea. Bak led them down the wadi, stopping each time the way grew confusing to consult with User, whose sense of this desert was much better devel oped than his. Pacified by the show of trust, the explorer’s anger abated.
Though the water jars were filled to their brims and the donkeys were fully loaded, they behaved well for their inex perienced drovers. The trek through ever lower elevations in the cool of night was swift and easy. They left behind the high reddish mountains and surrounding peaks and passed through an equally barren but less rugged land of gray gran ite. Ahead lay the coastal plain, a broad expanse of sand and rocks that dropped toward the Eastern Sea. Far down the wadi, where the stars vanished on the horizon, Bak imagined he could see the sea. User swore he could hear the sound of water splashing the rocky shore and smell its salty-fishy odor.
The sky was brightening and the stars fading into its pale yellow expanse when they reached the fringe of the high lands. The wadi broadened out. On either side rose chains of hills that looked small and insignificant, mere mounds of rock when compared to the heights they had left. Acacias and silla grew in the shallow watercourses that spread out across the plain. By User’s estimate, they were less than two hours’ walk from the sea.
Bak had dropped back to speak with Psuro when he spot ted Kaha coming around the southernmost of a cluster of hills off to the left. The Medjay raced toward them, bow in his hand, quiver slung from his shoulder. A man in a hurry with news to impart. Nebre, who had gone with him to scout ahead, was nowhere in sight. They should have remained to gether. Spitting out an oath, fearing another man had been hurt or worse, Bak and Psuro dashed out to meet him.
“Sir!” Kaha stopped to stand before them, his breath com ing in quick gasps. “We found a man. Nebre said to tell you…” He bent over, hands on knees, trying to breathe more evenly. “He’s the man you saw two days ago in the mountains. Not the one you followed, but the second man.
He wishes to speak with you.”
“Nebre’s all right?” Bak demanded.
Kaha nodded. “He’s holding the man at arrow point, un willing to trust him.”
“Where are they?” Psuro asked.
“Around that hill,” Kaha pointed. “The man wishes to speak with you and you alone, sir, with none other than us to see him.”
Bak knew Nebre would take no unnecessary chances, but one man alone might not be able to face the unexpected.
Fearing for the Medjay, he ordered Psuro to stay with the car avan and strode rapidly down the wadi, with Kaha by his side. “This isn’t a trap, is it?”
“We saw no one else throughout the night, but Nebre told him that if any stranger came near, he would shoot him in the stomach so he would die a painful and lingering death.”
“The man asked specifically for me?”
“Yes, sir. He said your name. Lieutenant Bak.”
Bak’s steps faltered. “He knows who I am?” Eyes nar rowed, and not from the brightness of the sky, he stared thoughtfully toward the hill around which Kaha had come.
“Did he offer a name of his own by chance?”
“No, sir.” Kaha slung his bow over his shoulder. “There’s something else, sir. He’s a man of Kemet, not a nomad.”
“Lieutenant Bak.” The man stood at the base of the gray ish rocky hill, looking out across the sand toward the ap proaching men. Nebre had placed himself ten paces to the right of his prisoner, too far away to be leaped upon in a sur prise attack.
Bak stopped the same distance away. “How do you know my name?”
The man was taller than he but not as broad across the shoulders, and was about the same age. He was slender of build, with muscles that looked solid and well honed. His dark hair was cropped short, his skin darkened by the sun to a golden brown. Like everyone who walked the paths of this wretched desert, he was none too clean, but his tunic and kilt retained some semblance of white and his sandals ap peared to be fairly new. His back was to the bright splash of orange reaching into the eastern sky, making his features difficult to see.
“Senna told me. You’re a soldier, he said, sent by your commandant into this desert to search for Minnakht.”
Bak’s suspicions sharpened. He thanked the lord Amon that he had never entirely trusted the guide and had not revealed that he was a policeman. Could he trust this man? Had he rather than the nomad they had followed pushed the boulder over the cliff above their resting place? “You knew Senna?”
“Your Medjay told me he’s been slain. He was a good man, dependable to a fault and exceedingly loyal. I shall miss him.”
“How long have you known him?”
“Long enough to trust him. Unlike you, so he told me.”
Bak took a couple steps forward and off to the side, hoping to turn the man more toward the rising sun, making his face easier to read. “You’ve talked to him since we left Kaine.”
The man bowed his head in amused acknowledgment.