CHAPTER
TWENTY-FOUR
After the crew delivered the kids, there was rejoicing amongst the people of Jehed, and the warriors from Ahuskay were freed. Marty found himself stopped repeatedly on the street by people who handed him sweets and gave invitations for him and the crew to eat a meal under their roof.
Effusive expressions of gratitude were pretty common in modern Middle Eastern cultures, and given that these people were theoretically the ancient ancestors of the modern people Marty had spent years with, it was interesting to see and feel the similarities in behavior.
Marty, Gunther, and François approached the king’s home and this time the spear-wielding guards in white sashes smiled.
As the three walked into the building, Gunther leaned over to whisper, “This is what fame feels like.”
“Blessed ones, you are back!” Lunja, the king’s wife, greeted them with a warm smile. She motioned for them to follow her back into the main residence and then upstairs. “You need to see Iken.”
“Iken?” Marty asked.
“The king,” Gunther whispered.
François took deep breaths. “She doesn’t seem traumatized by grief. Maybe the penicillin worked.”
“What you made isn’t penicillin,” Marty told him.
The queen wasn’t waiting, and they hastened to follow.
Climbing up the mud-brick steps, Marty followed Lunja’s multicolored robe into a room they hadn’t seen before.
His eyes widened.
King Iken was not only sitting up, he was sitting on a chair beside a writing table. The man was breathing without apparent discomfort. His bloody spittoon was nowhere in evidence.
The graying man turned and smiled. “Blessings on you and your people. I owe you much.” The king pointed at Gunther. “I do not know if it was your touch that healed me”—he pointed at François—“or your foul bread . . . but I thank you. I am feeling much better.”
François pulled from his pack two more pieces of the mold-covered bread and laid it on the king’s desk. “I advise you to continue eating this for at least three more days. The demons need to be killed, otherwise they can come back.”
The Frenchman was trembling.
The king grabbed one of the pieces of bread and bit a large chunk from it.
His face twisted into a grimace that showed what he truly thought of the taste, but he spoke through a half-full mouth and said, “Enjoy the taste, demons. More of this is coming.”
Marty groaned inside and moved to cut off this medical malpractice. “We killed all of the creatures we found in the ruins, but there likely are more out there somewhere.”
“Ametsu?” the king asked.
Marty nodded. “Ametsu and also creatures of the Ametsu. Giant men with the heads of cats.”
The king grinned and showed Marty a sheet of vellum, a scraped and preserved animal skin. It bore markings that resembled the characters he’d seen at one of the oases. Unintelligible symbols, a rudimentary map, and an area circled that had an infinity symbol on it.
“I am writing to my brother kings. When the Ametsu, or their creatures, desecrate one of our ancient places and dare to attack us, it is an offense to all of today’s kings and to the kings of the past. Others will send warriors, and we will reclaim what is ours.”
Marty desperately wanted to wear his archaeologist hat for a moment and ask about the ruins, but for the crew’s sake, his questions didn’t matter. In fact, questions about something that might actually be common knowledge could only raise suspicion. Being responsible for the crew’s welfare, he buried the questions the professor of Egyptology wanted to ask and assumed the role of team leader. He bowed his head with respect and removed from his pack one of the yellow figs from the hidden forest. “You certainly already know that the ruins lie in a fruitful valley.”
The king’s eyes grew wide and he set aside the half-eaten bread. “Beautiful.” He bit down on the fruit and his eyes closed for a moment as he made a low sound of deep satisfaction. “What a gift!” He opened his eyes and met Marty’s gaze. “My people promised yours a boon if you could help me recover from the demons in my chest. I will honor that promise. I will need a couple of days to gather what is needed.” The king took a large bite of the moldy bread, grimaced, and motioned to his wife. “Lunja, have Ridha and Lalla prepare large jugs for the water. They will need at least a day or two for the pots to bake and cool.”
“Thank you, Your Majesty.” Marty stood and again bowed his head to the king and his wife. “We’ll take our leave.”
François pointed at the bread. “I’ll be back tomorrow with more of that.”
His hand was shaking.
The king bit off another hunk of the bread and turned back to writing on the animal skin.
The three members of the crew navigated their way out of the king’s house and Marty glanced at Gunther. “Could you have imagined in a million years we’d be in a prehistoric village dealing with pre-pharaonic North African leaders? Or possibly encountering creatures that almost certainly inspired Egyptian mythology and no modern biologist knows existed?”
Gunther shrugged. “I’m telling you. The Twilight Zone . . . we’re sitting in someone’s imagined story and playing the part of the crazy professor who’s worried that he’s lost his mind.”
Marty chuckled and shook his head. “And, François, what’s going on with you? You look like you’re suffering from St. Vitus’s dance.”
François giggled. “I feel . . . invigorated. I’m a healer!”
“Or a poisoner,” Marty muttered.
“Probably not,” Gunther said. “If the mold was poison, the king would be ill.”
“And instead, the king is recovering,” François said.
“Okay,” Marty said. “I like your enthusiasm. But maybe . . . maybe let’s focus on the gunpowder.”
François nodded. “If we only have two days, I really need to get stuff ready with the black powder and grenades.”
“A really excellent use of your scientific mind,” Gunther suggested, “would be finding a way home.”
“At this point,” François said, “either Marty’s vision gets us home or nothing does.”
Marty’s gaze narrowed as they navigated the town and he thought about what lay to the east. Almost everyone in the town had warned him about the travel and not to go. There was danger. At least François was thinking again. Of all the people on the crew, he was the one preparing for war.
Marty walked with François and Surjan through the scrub grass of the outskirts of Jehed. François talked excitedly about what he’d been working on.
“I’ve got almost fifty pounds of black powder mixed, and with Kareem’s help we have another three hundred pounds of charcoal, sulfur, and guano.”
Surjan raised one eyebrow at the Frenchman. “And how are you making sure that all that black powder doesn’t blow us all up by accident?”
François waved his arms. “Some of the villagers have brought back some green wood from that hidden valley, so I had one of the woodworkers make storage boxes. There’s no way a stray spark is going to set those things off.” He stopped at the edge of a downslope and with a satisfied nod handed a grenade each to Marty and Surjan. “We’re far enough away that we shouldn’t have any weird questions about the explosions.”
“If anyone asks,” Marty suggested, “we blame lightning bolts.” He hefted the one-pound object. “As you know, MacGyver, having explosives in this day and age might cause some crossing of the streams or a breakdown in the space-time continuum if anyone figures out how you did this, so let’s keep the details hush-hush, okay? It’s the Chinese who are supposed to invent this stuff.”
“Fine by me, as long as you agree to leave the hard science terminology to me . . .” François muttered. “Space-time continuum . . . as if!”
Marty chuckled as he examined the grenade. It was shaped like a baseball and had a buttonlike cap on one end. The majority of the weight was in the top of the grenade. “This is not balanced.”
“On purpose. The screw-top lid has most of the weight because I want the grenade to land on the sparker that I installed at the top.”
Studying the lid, Marty found a spring with . . . “Is that flint you’re using as a sparking agent?”
“It’s a simple thing. Two pieces of flint held in place with a spring. Upon impact, the spring scrapes the two together, sending off sparks into the grenade and setting the powder off.”
“Is that a reliable trigger mechanism?” Surjan asked.
François smiled. “That’s why we’re out here. I think it should be, but I want to make sure you both know how to throw it, because it’s . . . well, let’s just say you can’t throw it like a baseball. The lid is going to tumble and it’ll be hit or miss if the trigger takes an impact with the target or not. Think of the lid side of the grenade as the tip of a spear. Throw it that way and the top of the grenade should lead all the way to the target.” He glanced back and forth between Marty and Surjan. “You guys ready?”
“Wait a minute.” Surjan hefted the grenade in his hand with a concerned expression. “What’s the lethal radius of this?”
François bobbed his head to the left and right. “Probably only about ten feet or so. These have nothing in them but black powder. The others I’m assembling will have pieces of shrapnel. Mostly rocks, since chunks of metal are hard to come by. Just make sure you throw it at least twenty feet.”
Marty adjusted his grip. “Okay, guys. I’ll count down from three.
“Three . . .
“Two . . .
“One . . .
“Throw!”
Marty heaved his grenade as far as he could. It sailed a good forty feet before gravity pulled it down and it smacked into the ground with an explosive whoomph.
Followed immediately by two sandy thuds.
“Damn it!” François growled. “That’s not what I was hoping for.”
Marty shrugged. “Hey, one out of three isn’t bad.”
“It isn’t bad, it’s abysmal.” François raced down the slope, grabbed the failed grenades, and came back muttering as he unscrewed them, letting a brownish-black powder spill everywhere. “I have to go back and check the formulation. It looks like some of the grinding was not fine enough and the sparks didn’t catch.”
Marty fist-bumped the banker and nodded. “François, I’d say your experiment is well on its way to being a success. At least for one of the grenades, the trigger and powder seemed to work. Also, there’s no chance the grenade is going to accidentally poison someone.”
“We need something more reliable,” François grumbled. “But, yes, it’s okay for a first attempt. I’ll get the kinks worked out.”
Surjan nodded. “How many of those can you make?”
“The pottery is the limiting factor. I have enough black powder for fifty grenades, and raw ingredients for another three hundred. Assuming I get the bugs worked out quickly, by the time we leave, I’ll have a few boxes of grenades.”
“How are you paying for the supplies?” Marty asked. “Lowanna has a pouch of gold nuggets from the ruins. Are you two . . . on speaking terms?”
François laughed as the group started walking in the direction of the village. “I don’t think she’s plotting to stab me in my sleep anymore. Either way, I’m fine. I actually traded a few of the gold links from my watch. It’s not like I need to keep time these days.”
“Fair enough.” Marty looked over at Surjan. “You have plans for those grenades?”
“I’m thinking about getting a bandoleer made.” The tall man grinned. “It never hurts to be prepared.”
“My thoughts exactly,” François chimed in.
They entered the outskirts of the village. Guards saluted as they passed.
Tomorrow night was a going-away feast hosted by the king, and the next day they’d be gone.
Marty clasped forearms with Badis. He looked past the warrior into the corral that housed the group’s supplies and his eyes widened. There stood five fully loaded wagons, with oxen and a handful of camels. The wagons were heavy with wrapped supplies, but the thing that was shocking was the huge quantity of giant earthenware containers, which he presumed had water in them. “Where did all of this come from?”
Badis turned to Udad. “Did they leave names?”
The younger warrior shook his head. “They just brought it and said it was for our travels.”
“Who is they?” Marty asked.
“Some of the king’s men. People. The Jehedi.”
Marty furrowed his brow. It was probably ten times the amount they actually needed for their journey. Maybe more.
Munatas was feeding a camel a bundle of long green grasses, when it suddenly bellowed.
I have a thorn in my lip!
“What’s wrong with you?” Munatas shrieked.
“Check his mouth. He’s got a thorn in his lip.” Marty froze. How the hell did he know that?
Had he understood what the camel had said?
Marty leaned forward to rest on his knees and took deep breaths.
Munatas turned to Marty and smiled, waving something in his hand. “You were right!” The Ahuskay villager offered the animal more of the grass and the camel resumed munching.
Marty felt vaguely ill.
“Are you well?” Badis asked.
The men looked concerned and Marty patted both of them on their shoulders. “I’m fine.” He motioned to the now-filled corral. “Are we ready to go tomorrow morning?”
Badis nodded.
“Good.” He clasped the man’s forearm once again and said, “There’s a feast tonight. Make sure you get your share.”
“Seer,” Badis said, hesitation in his voice.
“Yes?”
“A host such as this is becoming . . .” Badis gestured at the wagons. “Such a host should march under a banner.”
Marty turned and walked back to the village center where the celebration feast was being prepared.
He liked these people. They were good and honest folk, and he’d have loved to stay longer, but he had a vision.
Eleven days until the end of their journey.
✧ ✧ ✧
Marty stood beside the cooking pit. He smiled as King Iken walked through the town’s center. It was the first time Marty had seen the man outside his home.
The king made a beeline for Marty and greeted him with a kiss on both cheeks. “I will be sorry to see you and yours go. You’ve been a greater blessing to me than I could have ever hoped for.”
Marty patted the man’s chest. “Are the demons quiet?”
“All gone. Gunther left me two days’ supply of that foul bread, which I’ve promised to eat—just to make sure the demons are truly gone.” He motioned to the large spitted camel that one man was rotating over the coals while another basted it with a mop soaked in some reddish, heavily spiced liquid. “The rest of the food is not quite ready yet, but please join me for the King’s Cut.”
The smell coming from the camel was an intoxicating mix of roasting meat with North African spices like cinnamon, allspice, garlic and more.
“The King’s Cut?”
The king motioned for Marty to follow as the man walked up to the crackling fire-roasted camel, retrieved a knife and a two-pronged fork from his belt, and sliced a chunk of the meat from the rotating animal.
He handed Marty the steaming slice of meat, its juices glistening. “Go ahead, take the first taste. It’s said that the first bite is always the sweetest.”
Marty plucked the meat from the prongs and the king sliced off another chunk for himself.
They took a bite at the same time and Marty closed his eyes.
He’d previously eaten camel, but this was like nothing he’d ever had before. The basting had created a smoky crust on the meat that exploded with flavors that were quintessentially North African. And either this king had access to salt or there was something else enhancing the flavor of the meat, because this was better than anything he’d ever had before.
“What do you think?”
Marty smiled. “It’s a good thing I’m going. Because if I stayed here for too long, I’d get fat.”
The king laughed and motioned to one of his guards. The man raced off and the king draped his arm over Marty’s shoulder. “I told you before how grateful I am that you’ve come. I want you to know that you and yours are welcome back any time you desire. I have arranged for your supplies, as promised—”
“Speaking of supplies.” Marty wasn’t sure how to approach the topic delicately. “I saw all those wagons filled with food and water. I don’t want to seem ungrateful, but it’s too much for my group to manage all those wagons. It’s—”
The king laughed and gave Marty’s shoulder a squeeze. “I can explain, my friend.” He pointed at an approaching crowd. “Here, maybe this will help.”
The crowd was huge, at least fifty . . . no, closer to one hundred men. A tall, muscular man wearing a guard’s sash and carrying a spear approached the king. He briefly knelt to one knee and then stood. He squinted, making his eyes look tiny in his long face, and his nostrils seemed permanently flared.
The king motioned to the man. “Usaden is one of my most trusted guards. We have many in Jehed, and in the country for many miles around, who have pledged to serve those who have saved their king and his children. I had Usaden pick from the best. No men with wives.”
Marty stammered, hoping he misunderstood what had just been said. “Are you saying these people are—”
“They are yours to command. They wish to join your host. Their destiny now lies in your hands. I expect the name of Marty to be famous across the desert sands for many years to come. I hope this can help you on your journey.”
Badis stood to one side, leaning on a spear. No, not a spear—it was a long pole with a crossbar on top.
A pole from which to hang a banner.
Badis handed Marty’s pack to him and nodded.
The gathered men all faced him, dipped down to one knee, and stood. Their earnest faces made Marty realize how over his head he now was. It was something to lead a group of six. A bit more a group of sixteen. But this . . . this was the beginning of an army.
It was indeed becoming a host.
He wasn’t ready for this.
But he had no choice.
He pasted on a smile and raised his voice so it could be heard across the group. “Welcome and thank you for uniting with our group. You join us at an important moment.” He signaled Badis to come forward.
The Ahuskay warrior grinned and advanced, holding the banner pole proudly. Marty dug into his pack and found what Badis wanted him to take out.
“We have a long trip ahead of us,” Marty said, “and we are leaving at dawn. We travel under this banner, the sign of the Broken Ametsu.” He affixed his banner to the pole and Badis raised it.
“The Broken Ametsu!” Badis bellowed. “The living banner of the Host of Marty the Seer!”
“The Broken Ametsu!” the new members of the host shouted. “Marty the Seer!”
Living banner? What had he done? Marty cleared his throat. “Make sure you are well rested and we’ll gather at the corral just before the sun rises.”
The king yelled, “And make sure to join in the feast at sunset! There will be much to celebrate and I wish you all the best on your journeys.” He made a dismissive motion and the group dispersed, drifting to their various corners of the town.
The king turned to Marty and grinned. “You will do well.”
The king and Marty clasped forearms.
A vein in Marty’s temple began throbbing as he thought about what to do with this army of people.
As Marty worried, he remembered one of Grandpa Chang’s sayings.
The biggest mistake you can make is to constantly worry about making a mistake. Things have a way of working themselves out.
Marty nodded.
Regardless of everything else going on . . . he knew one thing.
He needed to take one step at a time.
Eleven days to go.