''No. I'm after the world's freedom, nothing else. Your freedom, mine, everyone's. An end to religious wars. An end to multiple, fractious divine dictatorship. A better future. Getting the human race up off its knees and standing on its own two feet. We may well die achieving it but I'd prefer not to. I'd much rather live to enjoy the benefits of what I've done.''
''But still,'' David said, ''you're feeling that this is the moment you could back out, if you were going to.''
Through the mask Steven scratched one side of his face, the scarred side, pensively.
''I'm feeling like Caesar must have when he was about to invade Rome and spark civil war,'' he said. ''This is my Rubicon. I have to forge ahead, knowing that there's no real alternative. Happy, in a way, that there's no real alternative. Why are you talking like this anyway? You thinking you'd like to back out?''
''Not me.''
''I wouldn't blame you. I wouldn't hold it against you either. If you want to call it a day, Dave, feel free. I mean it. You've done all that I could have expected or asked for. More. You can bow out now with my complete blessing. I'd be disappointed but I'd understand.''
''No,'' David said firmly. ''I'm here to see this through — all the way through.''
''Spoken like a true Westwynter.''
''Spoken like a true brother, I think you'll find.''
The Lightbringer mask creased into a smile. ''If we were the hugging kind we'd hug right now, wouldn't we?''
''But we're not the hugging kind.''
''I know. Born British, boarding school education, emotionally constipated parents — it's a recipe for repression. I think even a manly bonding handshake is beyond us.''
''How about a clap on the shoulder?'' David offered.
''A mutual infliction of slight pain? That'll do.''
David clapped him on the shoulder. Steven clapped back.
''And don't worry about what's coming,'' Steven said. ''It's like a game of senet. Whatever the other fellow does, there's always at least one move you can make to counteract it. And then there's the throw of the sticks, the element of randomness that can bring you a stroke of good fortune when you're least expecting it and most need it, and hang on a tick, what in the name of hell are those?''
Steven leaned forward, peering at the horizon.
Out of the low orange sun seven black dots had appeared. A sound could be heard, all but swallowed by the vast desert stillness, a throbbing bassy pulse that resonated through the bones of the skull. The black dots grew larger, each taking on a recognisable outline.
''Helicopter gunships,'' Steven breathed. ''Shit. The Nephs aren't messing about. They're coming for us already. Right! We need to get those Scarab tanks front and centre, pronto!'' He snatched the shortwave handset from his belt and switched it on.
''Wait.'' David laid a hand on his arm. ''Just hold on.''
''Hold on? The fucking things'll be on us in no time!''
''They're not Nephthysian. Profile's wrong. No Neph choppers have wheel farings like that. Those ones haven't got camouflage paintjobs either. Not khaki desert-pattern. Plain black.''
''Black?''
''Anubian.''
Steven's next question was ''What the fuck are Anubian gunships doing all the way over here, about a million miles from home?''
David was wondering the same thing, and he was minded to think that Steven was right. The tanks with their ba artillery should be brought into play to defend the encampment.
Instinct was telling him something different, however. The choppers were not flying at top speed and they were taking an all too obvious line of approach. If this were a sneak attack, they'd be coming in from two sides at once and would almost certainly have opened fire already. They were well within range. The element of surprise had been theirs. They had chosen not to take advantage of it.
Why?
David had a sneaking suspicion he knew why.
The gunships roared over his and Steven's heads in a chevron formation, then over the camp. Down there, people were milling about in confusion. David could see armaments being broached, men running to the Scarab tanks.
''Order everyone to stand down, Steven,'' he said. ''It isn't what it looks like.''
''You sure?''
''If it were, we wouldn't be alive and having this conversation.''
Steven barked into the shortwave in Arabic. Then, together, the two brothers set off down the hill at a run.
The helicopters landed a mile beyond the camp, their downdraught kicking up a small sandstorm. Steven and David commandeered a jeep and drove out to greet them. By the time they got there the choppers' engines were powering down, their rotors resolving from disc-shaped blurs to sets of whirling vanes and finally coming to a rest. They were C39 Cranes, superb aircraft, Japanese-conceived and Indonesian-built, sizeable yet agile beasts, sporting a full suite of conventional and ba-tech offensive capability. In design they were all smooth planes and sharp angles. Even their undercarriage was cowled for extra sleekness and aerodynamicity. Viewed side on, their shape was reminiscent of a meat cleaver. Their function was much the same.
David's guess was that they had flown up from the Indian Ocean. Anubian aircraft carriers prowled the international waters there, keeping an eye on things across the way from the Malay Archipelago. Refuelling stops could have been made in Ethiopia and Arabia, at commercial airports and most likely at gunpoint.
This was a rogue unit. The helicopters would not, could not, be here under official sanction. The men in them were deserters.
A door opened outward from one of the choppers and a black-clad soldier emerged. He jogged through the thinning dust clouds holding his hands high to show he was unarmed.
Reaching the jeep, he saluted the Lightbringer.
''Squadron Leader Hideo Nonomura,'' he said, his black leather flight gear creaking as he gave a tiny, tight bow. ''Former subject of the Demigod Emperor of the Anubian States. Former member of the Imperial Navy 'Sea Dragon' Special Airborne Regiment. Now wishing to be a loyal disciple of the Lightbringer of Freegypt. My men and aircraft are at your disposal, sir. We wish nothing except to meet death in your name.''
Steven turned to David. ''What was I saying?'' he said in tones of barely restrained delight. ''The sticks in senet. We've only just gone and thrown a bloody six!''
22. Godsend
The arrival of the renegade Anubians and their gunships buoyed up the Freegyptians' morale, for a time. All at once, the Lightbringer's army had some airpower, an edge that the Nephthysians were unaware of. The convoy of vehicles travelled onward, up through the Negev Desert, up through the Wilderness of Judaea, along the shores of the Dead Sea, and beyond, feeling a little less vulnerable than before. The Anubians kept pace, hopping ahead in their C39s to meet up again at prearranged rendezvous points. If air support were called for, the helicopters could be summoned back at a moment's notice. After all, a Nephthysian attack of some kind was surely in the offing.
But it didn't come. No airstrike on the convoy, no ground assault, no ambush, nothing. The Lightbringer and his band of followers drove unmolested through the western fringes of Arabia, and with every mile their mood began to darken, turning warier and more apprehensive. After the mummies at Suez, why were the Nephs now ignoring them? Were they trying to lull them into a false sense of security? Was a trap waiting for them further up the line?
If the news broadcasts on local radio stations were to be believed, the Nephthysians weren't being anywhere near so canny. Their inactivity stemmed from indecision. The Afro-Arabian Synodical Council was itching to make a move against the Lightbringer, who had had the temerity to march across the border onto Nephthysian turf. The Kommissariat Svyatoy Dyela, however, had begun urging the Nephthysians to bide their time and hold their fire. The auguries received by the Setic high priests were, it seemed, sending a mixed message. There was confusion in the bowels of the animals they cut open, a vatic vagueness. Some of the innards were in good condition, suggesting Set regarded the KSD's original, censorious policy towards the Lightbringer with favour. Others contained horrendous abnormalities, suggesting the opposite. The priests' dream-visions were inconsistent as well, sometimes undeniably in favour of attacking the infidels, sometimes not. For every hierophant who was visited in his trance by the image of, say, a hawk swooping on a rabbit and tearing it to bits, there was another who came round remembering nothing but a flock of doves gliding in the sky.