River god - Smith Wilbur - Страница 104

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  Tanus stooped over me as I held the king. 'How badly is he struck?' he demanded.

  'He is killed,' the reply rose to my lips unthinkingly. The angle of entry and the depth of the wound could mean that only one outcome was possible, but I choked off the words before they were spoken. I knew that our men would lose heart if Great Egypt was slain. Instead I said, 'He is hard hit. But if we carry him back aboard the state barge, he may recover.'

  'Bring me a shield here!' Tanus roared, and when it came we gently lifted Pharaoh on to it. There was still no blood, but I knew his chest was filling like a wine jar. Quickly, I felt for the head of the arrow, but it had not emerged from his back. The point was still buried deep within the cage of his ribs. I snapped off the protruding shaft, and covered him with his linen shawl.

  'Taita,' he whispered. 'Will I see my son again?'

  'Yes, Mighty Egypt, I swear it to you.'

  'And my dynasty will survive?'

  'Even as the Mazes of Ammon-Ra have foretold.'

  'Ten strong men here!' Tanus bellowed. They crowded around the makeshift litter, and lifted the king between them.

  'Form the tortoise! Close up on me, the Blues!' With interlocking shields, the Blues formed a wall around the king.

  Tanus raced to the Blue Crocodile which still waved in our midst and tore it from its pole. He wound it around his waist and knotted the ends across his belly.

  'If the Hyksos want this rag, they had better come and take it from me,' he shouted, and his men cheered this piece of foolish bravado.

  'All together now! Back to the ships! At the double!'

  The moment we left the shelter of our little rocky redoubt, the chariots came at us.

  'Leave the men!' Tanus had found the key. 'Kill then-beasts! ' As the first chariot bore down upon us, Tanus flexed Lanata. His bowmen drew with him, and they all fired on his example.

  Half our arrows flew wide, for we were running over uneven ground and the archers were winded. Others struck the bodywork of the leading chariot, and the shafts snapped or pegged into the wood. Still other arrows rattled off the bronzed plates that covered the chests of the horses.

  Only one arrow flew hard and true. From the great bow Lanata it sang with the wind in its feathers, and struck the offside horse in the forehead. The creature went down like a rockslide, tangling the traces and dragging its team-mate down in a cloud of dust and kicking hooves. The charioteers were hurled from the cockpit as the carriage somersaulted, and the other chariots veered away to avoid the wreckage. A jubilant shout went up from our ranks, and our pace picked up. This was our first success in all that dreadful day, and it manned and encouraged our little band of Blues.

  'On me, the Blues!' Tanus roared, and then, incredibly, he began to sing. Immediately the men around him shouted the opening chorus of the regimental battle hymn. Their voices were strained and rough with thirst and effort, and there was little tune or beauty to it, but it was a sound to lift the heart and thrill the blood. I threw back my head and sang with them, and my voice soared clear and sweet.

  'Horus bless you, my little canary,' Tanus laughed at me, and we raced for the river. The chariots circled us with the first wariness to their manoeuvres that they had demonstrated all that day. They had seen the fate of their comrade. Then three of them swung across the front of our tortoise, and in vee-formation charged at us head-on.

  'Shoot at the heads of the beasts!' Tanus shouted, and led them with an arrow that brought another horse crashing to its knees. The chariot overturned and was smashed to pieces on the stony ground, and the other vehicles in the formation veered away.

  As our formation passed the shattered chariot, some of our men ran out to stab the squealing horses that were trapped in the wreckage. Already they hated and feared these animals with an almost superstitious dread, which was reflected in this vindictive piece of cruelty. They killed the fallen charioteers also, but without the same rancour.

  With two of their chariots destroyed, the Hyksos seemed reluctant to attack our little formation again, and we were rapidly approaching the morass of muddy fields and flooded irrigation ditches that marked the river-bank. I think that at that stage I was the only one of us who realized that the wheeled enemy could not follow us into the swamp.

  Although I ran beside the king's litter, I could see, through the gaps in our ranks, the dying acts of the battle that were being played out around us.

  Ours was the only surviving detachment that still showed any cohesion. The rest of the Egyptian army was a formless and terrified rabble streaming across the plain. Most of them had thrown aside their weapons. When one of the chariots drove at them, they dropped to their knees and held up their hands in supplication. The Hyksos showed them no quarter. They did not even waste arrows upon them but swung in close to chop them to tatters with the spinning wheel-knives, or to lean out of the cockpit with the lance and cut them down, or to smash in their skulls with the stone-headed maces. They dragged the victim behind them, still spiked on the lance, until the barbed spear-head disengaged, and only then did they leave the crumpled corpse lying in their dust.

  I had never seen such butchery. I had never read of anything like it in all the accounts of ancient battles. The Hyksos slaughtered our people in their thousands and their tens of thousands. The plain of Abnub was like a field of dhurra corn after the reapers had been through it with their scythes. Our dead were piled in drifts and windows.

  For one thousand years our armies had been invincible and our swords had triumphed across the world. Here on the field of Abnub an age had come to an end. In the midst of this carnage the Blues sang, and I with them though my eyes burned with tears of shame.

  The first irrigation ditch was just ahead when another chariot formation swung out on our flank and came driving hard at us, three abreast. Our arrows fell all about them, but they came on with the horses blowing hard through gaping red mouths and with the drivers screaming encouragement at them. I saw Tanus shoot twice, but each time his arrows were deflected or were cheated by the erratic swerve and bounce of the chariots. The formation thundered into us and broke the tortoise of interlocking shields.

  Two of the men carrying Pharaoh's litter were cut to shreds by the wheel-knives, and the wounded king was tumbled to the earth. I dropped to my knees beside him and covered him with my own body to protect him from the Hyksos lances, but the chariots did not linger. It was then-concern never to allow themselves to become entangled or surrounded. They raced on and clear before our men could reach them with the sword. Only then did they wheel and regroup, and come back.

  Tanus reached down and hauled me to my feet. 'If you get yourself killed, who will be left to compose a hero's ode to us?' he scolded trie, then he shouted for men. Between them they picked up the king's litter and ran with it for the nearest ditch.

  I could hear the squeal of the chariot wheels bearing down on us, but I never looked back. In ordinary circumstances I am a strong runner, but now I outdistanced the litter-bearers as though their feet were chained to the earth. I attempted to hurdle the ditch, but it was too wide for me to cross in a single leap, and I landed knee-deep in the black mud. The chariot that was following me struck the bank of the ditch and one of its wheels shattered. The body of the vehicle toppled into the ditch and almost crushed me, but I managed to throw myself aside.

  Swiftly the Blues stabbed and hacked the horses and men as they lay helplessly in the mud, but I took the moment to wade back to the chariot.

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