Warning: Implied rape.
XII. Dust and Duplicity
"Back!" Isis screamed to her comrades. "Fall back into the pass!" They let the Ethiopians drive them between the high cliffs but demanded blood for every inch of ground they gave. Here at the head of the valley, the mouth of the mountains closed around them in a trap. In this tapering pass, though, a handful of warriors could keep an entire army at bay.
For a time.
Before them was the invading force. Tall, dark warriors, lean of limb but quick with blade and spear. Behind them the walls of the pass melted together into a single imposing cliff. Through the dust and blood, Isis thought she could see Anakronos himself, a broad man wearing a copper breastplate and heavy gold bracelet. But that was impossible; the Ethiopian warlord was several days' ride to the north. Even now, Balthazar would be fighting him, looking to free Mathayus' remains from Anakronos' treachery.
But here the enemy would have a taste of treachery for themselves. The Egyptians were not the only folk skilled in stonework. The trap would swallow the Nubian survivors--and then it would save them.
Several of the Nubian warriors took position in front of Isis and the others, who dug out the pile of stones and dead tree limbs hiding the entrance into a narrow cave. Isis motioned her people into the cave; one by one, the defenders disappeared, leaving fewer and fewer to the bloodlust of the enemy. Shouts of alarm ran through the Ethiopian troops as their quarry disappeared.
Then it was Isis' turn. She yelled to the final two guards to follow, then backed into the cave. But only one of the men came after. The other turned just long enough to give a salute, then triggered the rockfall to seal them in. The cave fell into complete blackness.
Isis touched the stones piled over the cave mouth, her heart in her throat. He could have triggered the fall from inside. Why...? She grimaced. He had to make sure it worked. She turned into the darkness. "Light the torches. We have a long way to go."
* * *
The stone floor of the throne room was still stained with brown, showing where the blood of five traitors and one boy had been spilled. Mathayus had ordered the spots sanded repeatedly. Normally, he hated walking over the stains, but now he ignored them.
His sword hand itched.
"It was never King Balthazar's intention," Arpid was saying as Mathayus paced back and forth restlessly, "to have the boy--your son--harmed." The thief stood, trembling slightly, shifting from foot to foot, and wringing a leather cap between his hands, casting desperate looks at Cassandra when he thought the king wasn't watching.
Does he think she'll get him out of this? Mathayus snarled to himself. "And what of the red guards escorting Menes and Philos?"
"They..." Arpid paused to clear his throat. "They were sent orders bearing King Balthazar's seal."
Mathayus drew his sword, noting Arpid's flinch. He started pacing again, tapping the blade against the palm of his left hand. A seal--even a king's--was nothing more than a rough design set in clay. Not too difficult to counterfeit. He scraped the flat of the scimitar against one painted column as he passed, taking a sour delight in the metal's squeal on the limestone.
"They thought they were carrying out Balthazar's orders?" the king asked. No one answered. Mathayus' nostrils twitched, seeking the clean, familiar smell of sand and heat, but finding only dust and duplicity. "He made to replace Memnon's rats, but sent me snakes instead. He never meant them to be loyal to me."
"Mathayus, I think you should--" Cassandra stopped as the king turned on her.
"You," he growled, pointing the tip of his sword in her direction, "have no right to tell me what I should or shouldn't do. Sorceress," he spat. "A sorceress would have seen through Anakronos' deception." He glared at Cassandra, gritting his teeth against the rising pain in his chest. His eyes clouded and stung, and he turned on his heel, and then, with a wordless bellow of anguish, hurled his sword away.
Arpid ducked with a yelp. The scimitar whirled over his head and stuck fast, quivering, in the wood of one of the doors.
Mathayus turned back to Cassandra, his chest heaving. He couldn't seem to get enough air. "My son is dead, sorceress." She stared at him, then her eyes slid away to her right, and she backed up toward the steps to the throne. The king caught her in two paces and held her in a bruising grip. "And you didn't see it!"
The sorceress cried out as Mathayus' fingers dug into her upper arms. He threw her down onto the steps, then straddled her. Her halter snapped easily; her loincloth followed with a jingle of gold and gems. Somewhere behind him, Mathayus heard Arpid's stifled gasp, then the groan and slam of the throne room door as the thief fled.
"You'll give me sons," the king said with a grunt. "And I'll give them the world."
* * *
The night air was cold and dry as Nephthys drifted through the dark camp.
Not even a camp, really, she thought. Just a great, hopeless cluster of folk shivering on the ground. The remains of families were huddled together in tiny, frightened packs. Those who had no relatives left tended the low fires, passed around half-empty wineskins, or simply sat rocking and muttering to themselves.
Two infants died of illness and exposure before the dawn. Three people wandered off in the night and did not return: taken by leopards, perhaps, or set off on their own, or merely gone to find a place to die in solitude. One vicious fight broke out over food, resulting in a shallow but nasty gash to a young mother's temple. The injured woman would not, Nephthys thought, last the rest of the journey.
Sleep was nothing more than a faint shadow at the back of her mind. Nephthys couldn't help wishing she'd stayed behind with Isis and the rest of the defenders. At least they didn't have to watch their loved ones slowly turning into animals.