River god - Smith Wilbur - Страница 113
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He paused at the top of the bank and looked back at us, and then disappeared from sight, leaving me trembling with rage and frustration. Our men were still being struck down by the falling arrows, so Tanus gave the order, and we wheeled away and sped back to join in the destruction of those few vessels of the convoy that were still afloat.
As the last of these listed over and then rolled on to her back, the green Nile waters poured into her and quenched the flames in a hissing cloud of steam. Our archers leaned over the side and shot the few surviving Hyksos who splashed weakly on the surface.
Immediately they were all drowned, Tanus turned his attention to the west bank and to the small party of the enemy and the herd of horses that were stranded there. As our galley sped in to the shore, the Hyksos herders scattered and ran, but our men leaped ashore, sword in hand, and raced after them! The Hyksos were charioteers, and accustomed to riding into battle. Our lads were foot-soldiers and trained to run. Like a pack of hounds after a jackal, our men isolated and surrounded them. They hacked them down and left a hundred bleeding corpses scattered across the green fields of standing dhurra corn.
I had jumped ashore behind the first wave of our troops. I had serious business in mind. There was no point in making models and designing chariots without a means of driving the spoked wheels that I had seen in my imagination.
It required an enormous act of courage on my part to start towards that herd of terrible creatures that the Hyksos herders had abandoned close to the water's edge. Each step was an effort of will, for there were many hundreds of them, and they were obviously restless and alarmed by the shouting and the running of men and the clash of arms. I was certain that at any moment they would rush at me like wounded lions. I imagined them gobbling my still warm and twitching flesh, and my courage evaporated and I could go no closer. From a distance of a hundred paces, I stood staring in dreadful fascination at these savage predators, but I was poised to turn and rush back to the safety of the galley at the first sign of an attack.
This was the first opportunity that I had been given to study these animals. They were mostly of a dun colour, but with subtle shadings of bay and chestnut and roan. One or two of them were as black as Seth. They stood as tall as a man, with a full barrel-chest, and long necks that arched gracefully. Their manes were like the tresses of a beautiful woman, and their hides glowed in the sunlight, as though they had been burnished.
One of those nearest to me threw back its head and rolled its upper lip, and I recoiled as I saw the great square white teeth that lined its jaw. It kicked its hind-legs and emitted such a terrifying neighing sound that I turned and started back towards the ship with some alacrity.
Then a hoarse yell from one of our soldiers near me arrested my cowardly retreat. 'Kill the Hyksos monsters!'
'Kill the monsters!' The cry was taken up by the others.
'No!' I screamed, and my concern for my own safety was forgotten. 'No! Save the horses. We need them.'
My voice was lost in the angry war-cry of our troops, as they rushed at the herd of horses, with their shields raised and their swords still dripping with the blood of the herders. Some of the men paused to nock arrows to the bow and fire them into the herd.
'No!' I cried, as a glossy black stallion reared and screamed, with an arrow standing out of his withers.
'No! Please, no!' I cried again, as one of the sailors ran in with a light war-axe and hacked through the fetlock joint of a young mare. She was crippled by the blow and could not escape the next stroke of the axe that caught her between the ears and dropped her kicking in the dust.
'Leave them! Leave them!' I pleaded, but the arrows brought down a dozen of the animals, and the swords and axes maimed and killed a dozen more before the herd broke under the assault, and three hundred horses bolted and went galloping out in a mass across the dusty western plain towards the desert.
I shaded my eyes to watch them go, and it seemed to me that part of my heart went with them. When they had disappeared, I ran to protect and tend to those animals that were left maimed and arrowed amongst the papyrus beds. But the soldiers were ahead of me. So great was their fury that they gathered around the fallen carcasses. In a frenzy of hatred, they plunged their blades into the unresisting flesh and hacked at the broken heads.
A little to one side stood an isolated clump of papyrus reeds. Behind this, and screened from the rampaging soldiers, stood the black stallion that I had first seen hit by an arrow. He was sorely struck and staggering as he limped forward, the arrow deep in his chest. Without thought for my own safety, I ran towards him, and then stopped as he turned to face me.
Only then did I realize my danger. Here was a wounded beast that, like a lion in the same straits, must surely charge at me. The stallion and I stared at each other, and I felt fear fall away like a discarded cloak from my shoulders.
His eyes were huge and swimming with pain. Gentle eyes, beautiful eyes that made my heart swell with pity. He made a soft, fluttering sound, and limped towards me. I held out my hand and touched his muzzle and it felt like warm Arabian silk. He came directly to me, and pressed his forehead to my chest in a gesture of trust and appeal that was almost human. I knew that he was asking for my help.
Instinctively I flung my arms around his neck and embraced him. I wanted more than anything in my life at that moment to save him, but from his nostrils warm blood trickled down my chest. I knew he was hit through the lungs and that he was dying. He was far beyond any help that I could give him.
'My poor darling. What have those stupid, ignorant bastards done to you?' I whispered. Dimly in my distress and spiritual agony, I realized that my life had changed again, and that this dying creature had made that change. Somehow I seemed to sense that, in the years ahead, wherever I left my footsteps in the African earth, the hoof-prints of a horse would lie beside them. I had found another great love to fill my days.
The stallion made that fluttering sound once more and his breath was warm on my skin. Then his legs collapsed under him and he fell heavily on his side and lay gasping air into his punctured lungs. Bright red bubbles frothed from the wound in his chest. I went down beside him, and lifted that noble head into my lap and waited with him until he died. Then I stood up and went back to where the Breath ofHorus was beached.
It was difficult to see my way, for my own hot tears blinded me. Once again I cursed myself for a soft and sentimental fool, but that never did much to help me brace myself. I was always so vulnerable to suffering in another creature, human or otherwise, especially in one that was noble and beautiful.
'Damn you, Taita! Where have you been?' Tanus railed at me as I scrambled aboard. 'There is a battle raging. The whole army cannot wairaround while you have another of your famous daydreams.' Yet for all his bluster, he had not deserted me.
TANUS WOULD NOT EVEN HEAR ME OUT, but cut brusquely across my request for leave to follow the herd of runaway horses out into the desert, and for men to go with me.
'I want no truck with those foul and unholy creatures!' he shouted at me. 'I only regret that my men let them escape and that they did not slaughter the lot of them. Let us hope that the lions and the jackals make good that default.' I realized then that he hated them as much as did the most ignorant lout in his regiments.
'Were you there on the plain of Abnub?' I do not usually indulge in loud argument, but his intransigence infuriated me. 'Or was that some other dull-witted oaf standing beside me? Did you not see the future charge at you on hooves and wheels and chop your men to jackal-food? Do you not understand that without chariot and horse, you and this Egypt we know are finished?'
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