River god - Smith Wilbur - Страница 103

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  Somehow the Hyksos had known our battle order, and had recognized the laps in our formation. Their king had planted his pennants exactly between our divisions. The idea of a spy or a traitor occurred to me even then, but in the urgency of the moment I thrust it aside, and it was for the moment forgotten.

  Tanus responded to my warning instantly, and shouted an order for our pickets to race forward and seize the pennants. I wanted him to move them, so that we could receive the enemy thrust on our strongest front, but there was no time for that. Before our pickets could reach and throw down the markers, the spear-head of flying chariots bore down upon them. Some of our men were shot down with arrows from the bouncing, swerving chariots. The aim of the enemy charioteers was uncanny.

  The survivors turned and raced back, trying to regain the illusory safety of our lines. The chariots overhauled them effortlessly. The drivers controlled the galloping, plunging teams of horses with a lover's touch. They did not run their victims down directly, but swerved to pass them at the length of less than a cubit. It was only then that I noticed the knives. They were curved outwards from the spinning hub of the wheels like the fangs of some monstrous crocodile.

  I saw one of our men struck squarely by the whirling blades. He seemed to dissolve in a bright cloud of blood. One of his severed arms was thrown high in the air and the bleeding chunks of his mutilated torso were dashed into the rocky earth as the chariot flew on without the least check. The phalanx of chariots was still aimed directly at the lap in our front line, and though I heard Kratas yelling orders to reinforce it, it was far too late.

  The column of chariots crashed into our defensive wall of shields and spears, and tore through it as though it were as insubstantial as a drift of river mist. In one instant our formation, that had stood the assault of the finest Syrian and Human warriors, was cleaved and shattered.

  The horses spurned our strongest and heaviest men under their hooves. The whirling wheel-knives hacked through their armour and lopped off heads and limbs, as though they were the tenderest shoots of the vine. From the high carriages the charioteers showered arrows and javelins into our tightly packed ranks, then they tore on through the breach they had forced, passing entirely through our formations, fanning out behind us and driving at full tilt along our rear files, still hurling their missiles into our unprotected rear.

  When our troops turned to face this assault on their rear, another phalanx of racing chariots crashed into them from the open plain. The first assault split our army in twain, dividing Tanus from Kratas on the right wing. Then those that followed so swiftly cut up the two halves into smaller, isolated groups. We were no longer a cohesive whole. Little bands of fifty and a hundred men stood back-to-back and fought with the courage of the doomed.

  Across the plain on wings of swirling dust, the-Hyksos came on endlessly. Behind the light two-wheeled chariots followed the heavy four-wheeled war carts, each carrying ten men. The sides of the carts were screened with sheep fleeces. Our arrows slapped ineffectually into the thick, soft wool, our swords could not reach the men in the high body of the carts. They shot their points down into us and broke up the confused masses of our fighting men into scattered knots of terrified survivors. When one of our captains rallied a few men to counter-attack them, the war carts wheeled away and stopped out of range. With their awful recurved bows, they broke up our gallant charges, and the moment we wavered, they came rolling back upon us.

  I was intensely aware of the moment when the conflict ceased to be a battle and became nothing more than a massacre. The remains of Kratas' division out on our right flank had fired the last of their arrows. The Hyksos had picked out their captains by their plumed helmets and shot nearly every one of them down. The men were disarmed and lead-erless. They broke into rout. They threw down their weapons and ran for the river. But it was not possible to outrun a Hyksos chariot.

  The broken troops ran into Tanus' division below the hillock, and tangled with it. With their panicking, struggling masses they clogged and smothered what little resistance Tanus was still capable of offering. The terror was infectious and the centre of our line broke and tried to fly, but the deadly chariots circled them, like wolves around the flock.

  In all that chaos, in the bloody shambles and the tumult of defeat, only the Blues stood firm around Tanus and the Crocodile standard. They were a little island in the torrent of defeated men, even the chariots could not break them up, for, with the instinct of a great general, Tanus had gathered them and pulled them back into the one patch of rocks and gulleys where the Hyksos could not cqme at them. The Blues were a wall, a bulwark around the throne of Pharaoh. Because I had been at the king's side, I was in the centre of this ring of heroes. It was difficult to keep my feet, for all around me men struggled and surged, washed back and forth by the waves of battle, like seaweed clinging to a rock in the full stream of tide and surf.

  I saw Kratas fight his way through from the shattered right whig to join us. His plumed helmet attracted the Hyk-sos arrows and they flew around his head thickly as locusts, but he came through unscathed, and our ring opened for him. He saw me, and he laughed with huge delight. 'By Seth's steaming turds, Taita, this is more fun than building palaces for little princes, is it not?' He was never famous for his repartee, was Kratas, and I was too busy staying on my feet to bother with a reply.

  He and Tanus met close to the throne. Kratas grinned at him like an idiot. 'I'd not have missed this for all Pharaoh's treasure. I want one of those Hyksos sledges for myself.' Neither was Kratas one of Egypt's greatest engineers. Even now he still believed that the chariots were some type of sledge. That was as far as his imagination reached.

  Tanus tapped the side of his helmet with the flat of his sword in greeting, and although his tone was light, his expression was grim. He was a general who had just lost a battle and an army, and an empire.

  'Our work here is finished for today,' he told Kratas. 'Let us see if these Hyksos monsters can swim as well as they run. Back to the river!' Then, shoulder-to-shoulder, the two of them shoved their way through the ranks towards the throne where I still stood.

  I could see over their heads, over the periphery of our little defensive ring, out over the plain where our broken army was streaming away towards the river, still harried by the squadrons of chariots.

  I saw the golden chariot of the Hyksos king wheel out of formation and cleave its way towards us, trampling our men under the flying hooves and chopping them up with the glittering wheel-knives. The driver brought the horses to a rearing, plunging halt before he reached the barrier of rocks which, protected us. Balancing easily on the footplates, the Hyksos drew his recurved bow and aimed at me, or so it seemed. Even as I ducked, I realized that the arrow was not meant for me. It shrieked over my head and I turned to watch its flight. It struck Pharaoh high in the chest, and buried half its length in his flesh.

  Pharaoh gave a hoarse cry and tottered on his high throne. There was no blood, for the shaft had plugged the wound, but the feathers were a pretty scarlet and green. Pharaoh slid sideways and collapsed forward towards me, and I opened my arms to receive him. His weight bore me to my knees, so I did not see the Hyksos king's chariot wheel away, but I heard his mocking laughter receding as he dashed back across the plain to lead the slaughter.

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