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CHAPTER
ELEVEN

“Badis, kill them,” the Godspeaker said.

Badis lunged forward with his spear. Marty felt the movement coming more than he saw it. He stepped inside the attack, so the spear slashed through empty space, and he caught the weapon by the shaft.

“We come in peace,” he said.

“Hold.” The Tribespeaker raised a broad-fingered hand and Badis stopped where he was. The warrior glared at Marty with intense concentration.

But not, Marty saw, hatred.

“The Ametsu will kill us,” the Godspeaker murmured.

“Perhaps not.” The Tribespeaker had a reflective look in his eyes. “Many hidden lores, indeed. Where did you kill the Ametsu?”

“Far from here,” François said.

“West,” Marty added. “Just this side of a river where melons grow. You may know it as the Ziz. The nearest river west of here of any size.”

“I do not know the name Ziz,” the Tribespeaker said. “But I know the river.”

“Near,” the Godspeaker said. “Too near. We are the closest village, and the death will be blamed on us.”

“I don’t see how that could happen.” François spread his hands in a placating gesture that only made Badis growl.

“The land here is wide, O speaker for strangers.” The Tribespeaker made a circling gesture toward the horizon. “The river you speak of is home to forests where my people hunt and trails my people walk. The Ametsu know this.”

“And also that.” The Godspeaker jabbed a finger at the medallion on François’s chest. “They can follow that totem. It is well known.”

“Your grandmother said it, at least,” the Tribespeaker murmured.

“So did yours.” The Godspeaker spat. “Were our grandmothers fools, then?”

Men and women around the edges of the lake were stooping into their hide huts and reemerging with spears, slings, and throwing sticks. Just how well did their voices carry?

Or was that perhaps the point? Were Marty and his friends forced to meet the Speakers on this shelf precisely so that the meeting would be public, in front of everyone? Which would mean that these people liked to share all their data and have open decision making, as Marty did.

As Marty mostly did. Though he hadn’t told the crew about seeing his own secret hieroglyphs in the tunnel.

Because he felt . . . embarrassed.

Since the Ahuskay people looked fearful, Marty’s instinct was to lower his voice. Instead, he raised it.

“We now understand that our actions may bring misfortune upon you. Tell us how we may avert the misfortune from you.”

“A sacrifice,” the Godspeaker hissed. “We will turn you and that idol in to the Ametsu, and they will punish you for your actions, instead of punishing us.”

“No one will be punished.” To his credit, François’s nerve was holding. He still stood with arms open, smiling, not backing down. “We didn’t attack the Ametsu, he attacked us, and he killed one of our crew before we defeated him. We do not deserve death. You have done nothing, you have killed no one, your people also do not deserve death.”

“If you think you will cause the Ametsu to listen to your reasoned words,” the Tribespeaker said, “it’s clear that you have no experience of the Ametsu.” His eye wandered to Marty. “Or did you have something in mind other than words?”

“Does the Ametsu come from a village?” Marty had no idea where such creatures would live. The beast-headed thing had looked like nothing so much as Seth, the Egyptian god, but as far as Marty actually experienced them, the Egyptian gods lived in books and tombs. “Perhaps a cave?”

“The Ametsu live in a fortress east of here,” the Tribespeaker said.

“On the road?” François asked.

The Tribespeaker shook his head. “The road is a trade road. It goes east to the end of the world, wandering sometimes north and sometimes south to follow the best water and the richest herding grounds. The Ametsu live in a fortress with their servants, the Ikeyu. East of here, but also south.”

“Ikeyu are men?” Marty asked.

“Ikeyu have the heads of cattle,” the Godspeaker said. “They are fearsome and strong.”

François nodded slowly. “The seer and I have spoken for my people. We will take action to protect this village. Allow me now to speak with my people, so that we may decide what action best to take.”

“It is only to plan,” Marty said. “A council of war. We invite Badis to be party to our counsels. He will be your eyes and ears, and we accept that our lives are forfeit if we do not raise this knife blade away from your necks.”

“If you do not do as you say, your lives are forfeit,” the Tribespeaker said. “The Tribe has spoken.”

“Whatever your plan,” the Godspeaker said, “you must remove the Ametsu totem from Ahuskay.”

The Speakers both nodded.

Marty and François turned back to their friends and walked toward the forest, Badis following them.

“‘Raise this knife from your necks’?” François said. “Gunther didn’t tell me you were such a poet.”

“Is it just me,” Marty said, “or is your hair growing back?”

François ran his hand over his stubble-encrusted head, and shrugged.

Upon entering a clearing in the forest, the six members of the crew and Badis stood in a loose circle.

“What language is this that we’re speaking?” Gunther asked. “It feels like Tuareg or something, and I don’t speak Tuareg.”

“We have bigger problems right now,” Surjan growled. He fixed his eyes on Badis and got a reciprocal stare.

François opened his grass basket and was rummaging around inside for something.

“You all heard that,” Marty said. “Apparently, the Seth-like creature we killed was one of a tribe. These people fear that if we don’t help them, the Seth-people will overrun and kill them.”

“Eat their livers.” Lowanna shuddered.

“Let’s agree to give these things a name,” Gunther said. “The thing we killed wasn’t human. They’re Sethians.”

Marty nodded. “Ametsu, in the local language.”

“Obviously, the first step for us to take is to scout out this Sethian fortress.” Surjan scowled. “Once we know how many there are and their disposition, we can decide whether it makes sense to attack them.”

“Or whether they’re open to peace overtures,” Gunther said.

François set down his basket. He held up one of the flatbreads he’d baked earlier in his hand. He broke off a chunk and handed it to Lowanna, and then a second chunk to Badis. “I have a lot more where that came from.”

The spearman sniffed it and took a nibble.

“Half of that is moldy,” Gunther said.

“Oh, good,” François said. He wrapped the moldy part up in leaves with visible delight and stowed it again in the basket.

“Really?” Gunther asked.

“Yes,” François said. “If you get any more pieces with mold, let me know. Give it to me.”

“Here comes the jack-of-all-trades in science,” Lowanna grumbled.

“Experimentation doesn’t hurt,” François told her.

“Not everyone should go,” Surjan continued. “Only people who can move quietly, and leg it if things go pear-shaped. I’ll go.”

“And I,” Marty said.

“I’m going,” Kareem said. When Marty looked at him, he nodded stubbornly. “I can move very quietly.”

“We’ll need guides.” Marty turned to Badis. “Will you come with the three of us? Our other three companions will stay here, as the guests of your village, and to guarantee our good behavior.”

He didn’t say “hostage.” He didn’t want to encourage the Ahuskay to think that way.

“I know the way,” Badis said.

The Ahuskay warrior returned Surjan’s spear to him. The three travelers took their ankhs and their knives. Marty took the medallion back from François. At Badis’s direction, they left everything else, but Badis supplied each a full waterskin and a light rolled blanket. Under the Godspeaker’s cold stare and the Tribespeaker’s more calculating, considered gaze, they left just after the sun went down.

“How far is the journey?” Marty asked as the firepit lights of the village disappeared into the shadow behind them.

“Are you a child, Seer?” Badis chuckled. “We will be there before dawn. They are in the canyon lands.”

They walked, following Badis’s directions. Marty marked the passage of time by watching the stars slip over the horizon—fifteen degrees made an hour, and he could neatly measure fifteen degrees with the span of a hand. For three hours, they rolled doggedly across gentle prairie.

And Marty didn’t feel tired. At this point, he couldn’t attribute it to adrenaline. Coming here, coming to this time, had affected him physically.

Marty didn’t see the canyon lands coming, but Surjan did. Just before Marty slipped and fell into a chasm, the Sikh grabbed him by the shoulder and caught him. At his feet, the ground fell away in an abrupt and narrow stone chimney.

“This is not a secret passage,” Badis said. “There are no secret passages. But this is a passage the Ametsu do not use.”

Badis went first and Marty followed. Even with no light, he found it surprisingly easy to navigate his way down the sheer stone. He seemed almost to drift from point to point, finding solid purchase for his boots in cracks he would have imagined much too small to use. He had to hold himself in check to avoid overrunning the Ahuskay warrior.

Surjan’s movements were more labored and muscle-intense, but the soldier grunted his way to the bottom and stood with his hands on his hips, as imperturbable as ever. Kareem found a crack he liked and leveraged both fingers and toes into it to descend like a spider, moving in a fluid, direct line straight to the ground.

“My uncle never told me that there would be so much climbing in an archaeological expedition.” Kareem’s voice had a note of pride in it.

“This is not a typical dig,” Surjan growled.

“We are close.” Badis held his voice down.

They followed the Ahuskay spearman along a narrow canyon choked with boulders and with thick, brown, gnarled vines whose bark scraped at Marty’s and Surjan’s palms and forearms and faces when they stumbled. Badis moved with more practice, one hand against the wall, and he stumbled rarely.

Kareem seemed never to stumble at all, but to step with perfect confidence and accuracy in the gloom. An ability gained from a youth spent navigating the alleys of Cairo? Or living in Egyptian villages that were poorly lit and haphazardly constructed?

“We’re here,” Badis whispered.

He crouched down on all fours and the others followed suit. They eased to the edge of a cliff and looked down into a broad, wet, green valley.

“I smell animals,” Marty whispered. His eyes were adjusted to the changed light.

“There’s a herd of cattle,” Kareem whispered. “Opposite us, on a high shelf, there are two large buildings. They’re rectangles made of bricks. Stone bricks, I think.”

Marty’s older eyes were adjusting to the gloom. “Mastaba. If this were a dig, I’d say that was a mastaba. Buildings shaped like sloped benches. Before the pharaohs built the pyramids, they shaped their tombs and temples like that.”

“There’s a wall protecting those buildings,” Surjan said. “Is that a Sethian standing in the gate with a spear?”

It was.

“We need a count,” Surjan said. “Could we climb to the canyon above and look down in?”

“We could examine the size of their trash heap,” Marty said. “That would give us an idea of the size of their population.”

“Spoken like an archaeologist.” Surjan grunted. “Would you like to analyze it by layer? Look for seeds in the feces?”

“They have farmland, too,” Kareem said. “I see furrows.”

“We still have a couple of hours of darkness,” Marty said. “A direct assault is obviously foolish; we need information so we can consider how to choose a battlefield to our advantage. Surjan, let’s you and I creep up and try to climb that wall, see what we can see. Kareem, you and Badis stay here and call an alarm if you see any Sethians moving.”

“I’m the better creeper!” Kareem protested.

“You also have the best eyes,” Marty pointed out. “We can only use you in one place. Yell to warn us only if you have to.”

“Stay with me and watch,” Badis said to the young man.

Marty and Surjan lowered themselves down the cliff, which turned out to be only about eight feet tall. Surjan left his spear behind but carried the sharpened ankh in his hands as they dodged among cattle. They were the long-horned African cows that appeared in all the early Egyptian images. They lowed only a mild protest as Marty and Surjan dodged among them.

Marty looked back and forth as he moved, between the Sethian standing in the gate and the base of the wall, where he wanted to scramble over and look inside. The Sethian was immobile, standing in the shadow of the arch over his head. Was he actually sleeping?

Marty’s foot found the plowed furrows Kareem had described. Despite the sudden irregularity of the soil, he didn’t lose his footing. Surjan grunted, biting back a curse behind his big teeth.

There were cattle against the side of the canyon below the wall. They obscured the features of the land, but Marty thought he could make out a rugged slope turning into a smoother, horizontally cracked stone, a wall of sandstone whose natural crumbling made it resemble brick, and would give easy footholds and toeholds. The slope climbed some fifteen feet, and then there was another fifteen feet of canyon wall. Then the natural stone ended, and brick began. The gaps between the bricks looked deep, perfect for sinking fingers and toes into.

Marty squatted.

“This is easy,” he whispered, once Surjan crouched beside him. “You watch from here and I’ll climb the wall. I’ll lie on the top, see what I can see and count what I can count.”

“It would be stupid to go over the wall and into that compound alone,” Surjan muttered. “You would feel like it was heroic, but really it would be stupid.”

“When do I do stupid things?”

Surjan shrugged. “When you committed us to clean out all these monsters, for instance.”

“I’ll just look.”

“You did hear me, right?” Surjan frowned.

Marty shot him a thumbs-up signal and moved to the wall. A breeze wafted by, carrying the scent of cattle. It was more than just cattle, it was as if someone had extracted the essence of a thousand years of the pharaohs’ herds and distilled it into a single, explosively musky bottle, added a hint of cinnamon, and then shattered the bottle inside Marty’s nostril.

He half-expected to black out.

Instead, he took a deep breath, shooed the cattle away, and stepped to the base of the wall.

A man stood up. He had been concealed, sitting among the herd on a small boulder and nodding, by the fact that his head was the head of a bull. He had the same long muzzle, the same wide, gently curving horns, and a ring in his nose.

A ring, just like the ring the Sethian had had.

But from the neck down, he looked human. Six and a half feet tall, muscular, but human. A broad strap over his shoulder held a large pouch at one hip, and in his hand, he held a spear that had to be twelve feet long. The intense bovine odor came from him.

Surjan reacted instantly. He sprang forward, sharpened ankh held low like a knife. But Marty’s response was even faster. He leaped up against the stone of the canyon wall, feeling the boulders and the gritty sandstone beneath his feet. Pushing off the wall, he grabbed the bull-headed man by one horn and stepped with all his weight into the back of one knee.

The bovine man collapsed, crashing to the earth on his back. Surjan landed atop him, a knee on his sternum and the sharp tip of the ankh pressed to his throat.

“Who are you?” Marty whispered into the cow-shaped ear.


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