But more Scarab tanks came, and still more, bearing down hard on the Lightbringer's front ranks. Under pressure, the Freegyptians responded with street-fighting tactics. They were, many of them, veterans of guerrilla warfare. They knew that what could not be achieved by means of heavy artillery might be done with people on the ground, moving at speed and taking reckless risks. They darted out, scurrying from place of cover to place of cover and lobbing grenades at the ranks or loosing off with ba lances, shrieking battle cries as they went. The tanks' blaster nozzles swivelled in all directions, trying to track and eliminate these new, nimbler targets. Men died, incinerated by blasts of divine essence. But their constant harrying took its toll. Tank after tank ended up a burning wreck, or else lost a caterpillar track or had its drive sphere damaged so that it was rendered immobile, to be picked off at leisure. Several of the tanks destroyed each other, shooting wildly at a Freegyptian and hitting the machine next door instead. Two of them removed themselves from the equation by chasing after the same man so intently that they collided. The driver of another tank became so disorientated by the number of sources of hostile fire that he ploughed his vehicle nose first into a drainage ditch, leaving its drive-sphere high in the air, spinning uselessly.
It was touch-and-go for a while. The Scarab tanks came perilously close to breaking through the Freegyptian lines. In the end, though, the Nephthysian generals saw how their armoured divisions were taking a pasting, and how their numbers were being whittled down by the infidels, and ordered a strategic withdrawal. By now there were perhaps half as many tanks left as had set out, and the majority of them were low on battery power. It was time to get them off the field while they could still move. The tanks retreated, passing among a host of advancing foot soldiers. They limped back to base, drawing on their reserve batteries for the final mile or so of the journey. Several hours of basking in direct sunlight would be called for before they could make a return visit to the plain, and that couldn't even begin to happen while the cloud cover remained stubbornly in place.
Still, the Nephthysian generals were confident. Dozens of infantry regiments were now marching into the theatre of combat. There was going to be no let-up for the Lightbringer's forces, no reprieve. Within an hour of the tanks falling back, the first clashes between Freegyptians and Nephthysian troops had begun.
David wielded his ba lance with precision, firing from behind a whitewashed farmyard wall, making every narrow-beam shot count.
He had fallen in with a small group of Freegyptians, among them Saeed and Salim, the cousins-who-could-be-twins. Together, they had been responsible for the destruction of five Scarab tanks and the crippling of three others.
Now they were holding a farmhouse against the oncoming Nephthysian infantry. The air rang with gunshots and the snap-crackle-zap of ba bolts. Cordite and the burnt-bone tang of ba were all that David could smell.
He was calm, his calmness the kind that often came in the midst of conflict, an eye-of-the-storm tranquillity. Everything outside his head was hellish and insane. Men were slaughtering men. Bodies were piling up in front of the farmhouse. Death reigned. But inside him there was only certainty, a sense of expediency, a simplification of self. He must fight and kill or he would be killed. This was what his world had telescoped down to. A Nephthysian soldier came lurching towards him out of a field of wheat. David took aim, pressed the trigger and the soldier's helmeted head exploded into a thousand fragments, disappearing as instantaneously as a popped balloon. The decapitated body stumbled on for several steps before sprawling flat over the corpse of a colleague. David scanned for the next enemy. A purple ba bolt thudded into the other side of the wall. He flinched and ducked. When the dust cleared, he aimed over the top of the wall and shot in the direction the bolt had come from. There was nothing else to do but this: fire, fire back, keep firing. Battle had such an awful purity to it. The terror and horror were so immense, they were like a flame, scorching existence down to its essence. He did not have to think about anything but the next moment and the moment after that. He needed to live, and stay alive. That was all there was to it.
Soon the gunfire and ba-fire dwindled. The time was coming, that time, the customary phase-shift in modern warfare when the fighting went from ranged weapons to hand-to-hand. David's ba lance was spent. He tossed it aside and reached for the crook and flail. He rose from behind the pockmarked, battered wall. Out in the fields, Nephthysians were approaching, hundreds of them. Literally hundreds. The Freegyptians with David had knives, and some of them had Horusite maces and Setic staves. Whether or not they were competent with these weapons, he didn't know. They had side arms, too. Would they observe the niceties of battlefield tradition and keep them holstered from this point on? David didn't know that either, and didn't care. All that mattered to him now was the enemy. He moved out into the field, wading through thigh-deep crops, crook raised in right hand, flail whirling in left. His heart sang a song of dread and joy. The Nephthysians closed in, short swords drawn. He was numb, contented, and ready.
28. Barque
Ra has summoned them. They come.
Every god in the Pantheon, from the mightiest to the least, travels to the Solar Barque. Ra has sent out a message that has lit up in their thoughts like fire in the sky — an invitation, framed in such a way that it does not brook refusal — and they come immediately, without quibble or demur. For Ra sends out such messages seldom, once in an eon, and great would be his disappointment with those who ignore them, and great would be their shame.
The gods throng the deck of the boat, chattering loudly, full of speculation. Neith moves among them. The goddess of war seems brasher and bosomier than usual, and her armour and arms gleam dazzlingly and clank deafeningly. She boasts to anyone who will listen that she can't remember when she last felt quite so invigorated.
''Feel that,'' she says, offering a flexed biceps. ''Go on. Give it a squeeze. Hard as rock. And the size of it. Put an ox to shame, a muscle like that would.''
When Neith is in such fine fettle, woe betide the world of men.
Osiris and Isis, hand in hand, quiz Thoth about the convocation. What is its purpose? Why has everyone been called here with such haste, such urgency? And where is Ra?
''All will be revealed shortly,'' says Ra's vizier. ''The Sun God awaits below. He will appear once everybody is present and has settled down.''
As he speaks, Set and Horus pass each other on deck, and there is a not-quite-accidental butting of shoulders. Straight away both of them assume an aggressive stance, like tomcats in an alley, and there is name-calling. Threats lace the air between them. All the gods in the immediate vicinity move to one side, anticipating a scuffle. It wouldn't be the first time.
Then Nephthys intervenes, pulling Set away from his nephew. She tries to pacify her husband, but her tone is snappish. It seems she has reached the limits of her patience where Set is concerned. ''Always picking a fight,'' she scolds. ''Always on the lookout for trouble. What is wrong with you? Didn't you promise Ra you would turn over a new leaf? Well, didn't you?''
Set glares at her, enraged. His eyes glitter, hot as coals. He looks as if he might hit her.