House of Two Pharaohs, page 21
As Piay bowed and slipped away with Hannu, Taita cupped his hand to his mouth and called to Bek: ‘Captain, move the galleys into position! Do not wait for the enemy to attack. Give the order!’
Gyasi, Asim and Sadiki gripped the rail and watched as Taita’s strategy began to unfold.
Once the commands rang out across the flotilla, two of the sturdiest galleys surged past the others, with the remainder of the fleet following close behind. These vessels each contained a company of the Blue Crocodiles, men who would not be overcome by terror in the thick of bloody battle.
As the oarsmen heaved, the Memphis galleys took the flanks, making two lines of four ships. The aim was to force the enemy vessels to sail between them, rather than meeting the Shuyet’s navy head-on.
‘I don’t understand,’ Sadiki muttered, gazing out at the enemy flagship. ‘Why will they not simply drive straight for our foremost galleys, and ram them?’
‘They must hold to the central channel,’ Taita replied with a smile. ‘They are heavily laden and they need the deepest water. If they come too close they will founder.’
Taita’s breath burned in his throat as the ship with the Anubis sail swept forward.
‘Now we will see how the Shuyet responds.’
• • •
L
ike bees swarming from an upturned hive, the men of Memphis left from the camp to take up their positions and await the enemy’s advance. Their spear tips glittered and their leather armour shone in the warm rays of Ra’s great orb.
As they hurried up from the shore, where they had moored their skiff, Piay and Hannu glanced towards the Shuyet’s galleys.
‘This day will decide the future of Egypt,’ Piay declared.
Hannu agreed. ‘An Egypt united under the watchful eye of the gods, or a divided one, forever at war with itself.’
Piay and Hannu hurried to the rear of the lines, where General Kamose stood on higher ground, gazing out across the battlefield. He had selected a position to which his men could turn in the chaos of the battle and be encouraged by the sight of their commander.
‘Nomarch. General Hannu.’ Kamose bowed in greeting as they strode up to his post, but his manner was strained.
‘General Kamose,’ Piay greeted him warmly. ‘We’ve come to shake the rust from our swords.’
Kamose frowned. ‘It would be safer for you to remain here, with me. If you were to fall, Nomarch –’
‘He will not fall,’ Hannu growled. ‘And if he does, I’ll be there to pick him up.’
Piay smiled and surveyed the field. Kamose had lined the men up in a traditional formation. In the vanguard, the spearmen had formed a solid wall, locking their long shields together to create a formidable barrier that would bear the brunt of the forthcoming assault. The only gaps were filled with spears, their hafts dug into the ground so they were as rigid as spikes in a lion trap.
Behind the shield wall stood the archers, their gaze focused on the acacia trees from which the enemy would emerge, ready to loose their shafts when the order was given. They were arranged three lines deep, so one group would always be ready to unleash a volley, while the others nocked another arrow and waited their turn.
Closest to the general’s position stood the swordsmen. When the archers withdrew after softening up the Shuyet’s force, they would rush forward and engage the enemy. Piay grinned when he saw that the ranks of the swordsmen had been augmented with soldiers from the Blue Crocodile Guard.
‘Hopefully their courage will rub off,’ Hannu muttered when Piay admired the foresight of positioning the Blues amongst the less experienced men. ‘And maybe, if the gods are smiling, a little skill.’ Piay could tell from the proud glimmer in Hannu’s eye that their presence there had been his idea.
Piay and Hannu looked out beyond the spearmen, to the acacia line, where the soldiers of the Shuyet’s army were now massing. As the men continued to stream through the trees, Piay saw a standard-bearer raise a flag – the jackal head of Anubis against a white background.
• • •
T
he Shuyet’s army were an unruly mob, many armed only with tools that had been snatched from the fields – Piay saw hoes and adzes, sickles and billhooks, cudgels and flails. While he had managed to pull in the poor and dispossessed to fight for his cause – Piay felt his gut twist as he tried to estimate the size of the army that spread out into the hazy distance – the Shuyet had not been able to arm them. In contrast, the famous forges of Memphis had not rested since the Breath of Horus had returned with Nehesy’s crew slaughtered. Many of the men below him held freshly minted blades, sharpened just the day before for the work that lay before them.
There was hope.
Yet, looking around, Piay could see that the terrain presented its own challenges. The river protected their left flank, but on the right the fields rolled away towards a rocky ridge from where the Shuyet could easily launch an attack. General Kamose was clearly aware of the threat, for he had posted several scouts along the top of the ridge.
Hannu drew Piay’s attention back to the enemy lines – the Shuyet’s lieutenants had now appeared in front of their men. As he watched, Piay saw them raise their hands, readying the men behind them for the attack. General Kamose had seen them, too, for he gave a curt nod and the trumpeter at his side raised his instrument to his lips and blasted out the signal that would ready the troops.
At first it was just a murmur, but then it rose to a roar as the Shuyet’s lieutenants dropped their hands and their men rushed forward, yelling curses at the ranks that stood before them. They came like a tide, flattening the green barley that lay between them and the Memphis spearmen. General Kamose, his eyes unblinking, watched them come. When they were within range of the archers, he gave a sharp order and the trumpeter blew another note, higher this time.
As one, the archers loosed their arrows. The sky blackened as the shafts whined and whistled, arcing through the air and dropping in a pelting, merciless rain upon the Shuyet’s men. The advancing line was so tightly packed that nearly every shaft found a target. Unlike the men Piay had seen on the galleys, these conscripts didn’t have shields or breastplates and helms that might deflect an arrow, and with nothing to stop them, the arrowheads punched easily through flesh and bone. Across the line men fell, their screams mingling with the battle cries of those behind them. Others stumbled on, their flesh bristling with arrows, steps slowing until they dropped to their knees and then pitched forward.
Yet still they came.
Kamose signalled for another volley of arrows. Again, the barrage fell mercilessly on the advancing men beneath it, and a chorus of tortured screams rose from the field.
As he watched the carnage unfold, Piay could tell that Hannu felt uneasy. Observing a battle unfold from distance, as a general, was not for a fighting man like him. It was true that the midst of the action was the last place that the Shuyet would expect to find the Nomarch of Memphis, but Piay knew that Hannu’s plan was also selfish – he couldn’t bear to stand by and watch while other men fought and died.
‘It is time we joined the men,’ Hannu said as if reading Piay’s thoughts. ‘Put our swords to good use.’
General Kamose eyed him askance, as if he was insane, but Piay understood, and nodded.
The general bowed to the nomarch. ‘May Sekhmet watch over you, my lord.’
• • •
A
s Piay and Hannu skidded down the bank, away from General Kamose and his lieutenants, the sky darkened again with another volley of arrows. Piay could smell the metallic tang of blood on the breeze, and the ground throbbed under his feet as the Shuyet’s army drove on over their own dead and dying – his ears rang with the roars of the advancing warriors and the howls of those on the brink of the afterlife.
As they hurried to join the swordsmen, the Shuyet’s force reached the shield wall, a tide of men battering the spearmen’s tight formation. The swordsmen would soon be ordered to join them.
A cheer erupted as Piay and Hannu reached the infantry lines. ‘Nomarch! Nomarch! Nomarch!’ the soldiers chanted, elated that the man who ruled them had chosen to fight with them that day, that he would die amongst them for the glory of Egypt, or, alongside them, be victorious.
Hannu grinned. ‘Sekhmet is with us!’ he roared to the men around them, thrusting his sword high into the air. ‘Our enemies will shit themselves as they die, and crawl stinking into the afterlife!’
‘And there they will learn the horrible truth,’ Piay added. ‘That it is a man who leads them, not a god, and that he has cost them their lives. For the real god Anubis will be waiting there to receive them, and he will thank us for the offering!’
The charged air exploded with a thundering roar at Piay’s words as he plunged in amongst his troops, pushing his way through the ranks towards the front line, Hannu scurrying determinedly behind.
‘Forward, men of Memphis,’ a captain of the Blue Crocodiles cried. General Kamose had given the order for the archers to retreat and the swordsmen to advance.
The din of battle grew louder still as they approached the shield wall, the two friends now in the front rank. A fresh wave of enemy soldiers crashed against the beleaguered spearmen with a mighty bellow as they closed on the melee. The wall bent and buckled, but it did not break.
Piay could see that his men had been well prepared, and he clasped Hannu’s shoulder to express his gratitude. As the Shuyet’s soldiers hammered at the shields with flails and billhooks, the spearmen thrust their weapons through the gaps in the wall, driving the bronze tips deep into throats and chests.
But the wall would not hold for ever.
Piay whispered a quick prayer to his chosen god, Khonsu, then drew his sword.
‘Ready yourselves!’
Hannu’s command was picked up and shouted from man to man across the field.
‘Now!’ Piay heard Hannu shout.
The spearmen were ready. Wrenching their shields back, they pivoted to the sides, leaving a broad gap through which the Shuyet’s army could flood. The men at the front were already exhausted and bloodied, but the sheer weight of bodies drove them on. Hannu’s men were fresh, and they launched themselves at the enemy, hacking and thrusting.
A warrior stepped into Piay’s path, though calling him a ‘warrior’ was a kindness. The man’s eyes were wild with terror and spittle frothed from his lips. No doubt he was one of the raw recruits who had made his vow to Anubis, hoping for days of leaning on a spear, pretending to stand guard, in return for food. Never would he have imagined he would find himself in this darkest pit of the Duat.
Piay easily sidestepped the man’s blow, but then he hesitated. He could not bring himself to strike, even though the man’s guard was open. This was not a soldier – he was just a peasant in the grip of the Shuyet’s delusions. Hannu would have told him to cut and wound and move on, to conserve his strength, but something held him back.
The man jerked his blade back up, slipping as he overbalanced. Piay made his decision. He struck, putting his weight behind his sword arm, ramming the blade through the man’s ribcage and into his heart – an easy death for someone who had no place on a battlefield.
His opponent’s mouth flew open in surprise, then the light in his eyes winked out as he slid off Piay’s sword.
Piay and Hannu were soon caught up in a whirlpool of bodies and flashing blades, as the men around them slashed and stabbed. Under their feet, the black soil was trampled into a red, foaming mud that sucked at their sandals, and Piay’s nose was filled with the stench of human waste evacuated from the bowels of the wounded and the terrified.
As the battle raged, Piay’s sword arm began to throb. Each thrust and parry sent pain lancing up into his aching shoulder. His legs trembled and his chest tightened with exhaustion.
But as he looked around, Piay saw that the Shuyet’s men were flagging more quickly than his own. The Blue Crocodiles were leading the way, organising the new recruits and driving the enemy back.
As his men began to tear the enemy lines apart, Piay felt a renewed surge of energy.
‘We can win this fight, I am sure of it!’ Hannu called to him over the clanging of swords and the cries of men.
Yet a strange notion crept up on Piay even as he saw the tide of the battle turn. Where were the seasoned warriors that Hannu had seen at the temple in Avaris? he wondered.
Suddenly a long, low blast sounded from somewhere towards the rear of the Shuyet’s lines. At the signal, the enemy soldiers turned tail, scrambling over their dead comrades and back towards the acacia line as fast as they could.
‘Is that it?’ Piay shouted to Hannu, his sword dropping to his side.
Hannu sucked in a deep, juddering breath. ‘We will soon find out.’
Piay sensed the eyes of his men on him, waiting for the order to pursue the Shuyet’s forces, to cut them down as they ran. But he did not give it. For though it seemed clear that the men were fleeing for their lives, Piay had experienced enough of his adversary’s deceptions to suspect this might be yet another one of his traps. ‘Hold your ground!’ he commanded.
‘Nomarch! General Hannu! Nomarch!’
Turning at the sound of the cry, Piay watched as a young, wild-eyed man raced out of the mass of weary warriors. Djenn was his name – a youth who assisted General Kamose.
‘What is it?’ Hannu barked.
‘General Kamose is dead,’ Djenn lamented, teetering on his feet.
Hannu gripped the young man’s shoulder to steady him. ‘How can this be?’
‘I was sent to fill his water-hide. When I returned, he lay dead on the ground, as did Kefer and Menus. Hacked down.’
‘Did you see the assailants?’
The young man shook his head and wailed in despair. ‘We are lost!’
‘Quiet, soldier,’ Hannu ordered. ‘You are in the presence of the nomarch. Nothing is lost while he is with us.’
Piay instinctively looked back across the battlefield, to the higher ground where Kamose had stood, observing the battle. How could the general have been killed when he stood so far behind their lines? He shook his head in dismay.
‘Look!’ Hannu was pointing at the ridge, where Kamose had stationed his scouts. The men were nowhere to be seen. The army’s right flank was exposed. ‘To your right!’ he shouted to the men around him. ‘Prepare for attack!’
The words had barely left Hannu’s lips when Piay saw warriors come pouring over the ridge and down into the fields in front of them, the sun glinting from their bronze swords and leather helms. Unwearied by battle, a blood-curdling battle cry rose from their midst. Piay knew immediately that these were the trained soldiers whom he had been unable to see on the battlefield, held in reserve for just this moment.
‘Brace yourselves!’ Piay shouted, whirling his blade and exhorting his men to action, but it was too little too late.
The Shuyet’s strategy was now clear to Piay, and it was a cold and calculated one. He had sent his inexperienced men out to die. The raw recruits, hungry and desperate men, were to wear down his enemy. Now, he would finish the nomarch’s makeshift army with his warriors.
Piay watched as the Shuyet’s soldiers plunged deep into his army’s right flank. He saw Hannu as he limped to meet the attack, shouting orders to the men around him, but his booming commands were lost in the confusion.
Through the crush of bodies, Piay saw one of the Blue Crocodiles being cut down by three of the Shuyet’s brutes. They towered over their fallen victim, bringing their swords down on his prone body as one. All around, the Shuyet’s warriors were slicing through their lines. It was about to become a slaughter.
Hannu shoved his way back to Piay’s side. ‘There’s only one path left open to us – if you want these men to see another sunrise. We must retreat, back to the river.’
‘Taita is fighting his own battle there – our galleys against theirs. There is nothing for us to retreat to!’
‘Well, if we stay here, you’ll soon have no army left at all.’
Piay took a moment to think, then he nodded. ‘Give the order.’
‘Retreat to the ships!’ Hannu boomed. ‘Soldiers of Memphis, retreat!’
As the order was carried through their ranks, Piay’s men turned to flee, racing as fast as their exhausted legs would carry them back towards the river. Piay and Hannu threw themselves after them, but Hannu’s injured leg slowed him, and Piay adjusted his own pace to stay with his friend. With each passing moment they fell further behind until they found themselves stumbling alone across the mire the retreating army had left in its wake.
Piay saw the danger first – a group of the Shuyet’s soldiers bearing down on them like a pack of wolves tracking a wounded stag, the leader jabbing his finger at Hannu. Three other warriors loped behind him.
When Piay looked to Hannu for an explanation, his friend replied grimly: ‘One of the guards from Avaris. He swore that he would slit my throat if he ever saw me again, and now he is determined to keep his word.’
Together, Piay and Hannu spun to face their assailants.
Snarling, the guard from the tavern stepped forward. ‘You will regret ever crossing my path, little man,’ he said.
‘The only path I’ll ever regret crossing is his,’ Hannu shot back, indicating Piay, who grinned.
‘That’s the Nomarch of Memphis,’ one of the flanking warriors muttered.
The lead guard straightened and smiled as he raised his sword. ‘I shall enjoy presenting your head to the Shuyet as an offering to Anubis,’ he roared.
Readying his own sword, Piay braced himself. If this was how he was to finally meet the gods, then so be it.
• • •
F
rom the prow of the Breath of Horus, Taita watched the Shuyet’s flagship advance, sailing between the two lines of galleys. At any moment, he expected the captain to recognise his strategy and take evasive action, but the Hyksos warship just kept coming.
‘We have them,’ Gyasi breathed.
‘Not until the trap is sprung,’ Taita cautioned.
Despite his words, Taita could scarcely believe their good fortune. Leaning against the rail, he waited for the next stage of his plan to take effect.
Gyasi, Asim and Sadiki gripped the rail and watched as Taita’s strategy began to unfold.
Once the commands rang out across the flotilla, two of the sturdiest galleys surged past the others, with the remainder of the fleet following close behind. These vessels each contained a company of the Blue Crocodiles, men who would not be overcome by terror in the thick of bloody battle.
As the oarsmen heaved, the Memphis galleys took the flanks, making two lines of four ships. The aim was to force the enemy vessels to sail between them, rather than meeting the Shuyet’s navy head-on.
‘I don’t understand,’ Sadiki muttered, gazing out at the enemy flagship. ‘Why will they not simply drive straight for our foremost galleys, and ram them?’
‘They must hold to the central channel,’ Taita replied with a smile. ‘They are heavily laden and they need the deepest water. If they come too close they will founder.’
Taita’s breath burned in his throat as the ship with the Anubis sail swept forward.
‘Now we will see how the Shuyet responds.’
• • •
L
ike bees swarming from an upturned hive, the men of Memphis left from the camp to take up their positions and await the enemy’s advance. Their spear tips glittered and their leather armour shone in the warm rays of Ra’s great orb.
As they hurried up from the shore, where they had moored their skiff, Piay and Hannu glanced towards the Shuyet’s galleys.
‘This day will decide the future of Egypt,’ Piay declared.
Hannu agreed. ‘An Egypt united under the watchful eye of the gods, or a divided one, forever at war with itself.’
Piay and Hannu hurried to the rear of the lines, where General Kamose stood on higher ground, gazing out across the battlefield. He had selected a position to which his men could turn in the chaos of the battle and be encouraged by the sight of their commander.
‘Nomarch. General Hannu.’ Kamose bowed in greeting as they strode up to his post, but his manner was strained.
‘General Kamose,’ Piay greeted him warmly. ‘We’ve come to shake the rust from our swords.’
Kamose frowned. ‘It would be safer for you to remain here, with me. If you were to fall, Nomarch –’
‘He will not fall,’ Hannu growled. ‘And if he does, I’ll be there to pick him up.’
Piay smiled and surveyed the field. Kamose had lined the men up in a traditional formation. In the vanguard, the spearmen had formed a solid wall, locking their long shields together to create a formidable barrier that would bear the brunt of the forthcoming assault. The only gaps were filled with spears, their hafts dug into the ground so they were as rigid as spikes in a lion trap.
Behind the shield wall stood the archers, their gaze focused on the acacia trees from which the enemy would emerge, ready to loose their shafts when the order was given. They were arranged three lines deep, so one group would always be ready to unleash a volley, while the others nocked another arrow and waited their turn.
Closest to the general’s position stood the swordsmen. When the archers withdrew after softening up the Shuyet’s force, they would rush forward and engage the enemy. Piay grinned when he saw that the ranks of the swordsmen had been augmented with soldiers from the Blue Crocodile Guard.
‘Hopefully their courage will rub off,’ Hannu muttered when Piay admired the foresight of positioning the Blues amongst the less experienced men. ‘And maybe, if the gods are smiling, a little skill.’ Piay could tell from the proud glimmer in Hannu’s eye that their presence there had been his idea.
Piay and Hannu looked out beyond the spearmen, to the acacia line, where the soldiers of the Shuyet’s army were now massing. As the men continued to stream through the trees, Piay saw a standard-bearer raise a flag – the jackal head of Anubis against a white background.
• • •
T
he Shuyet’s army were an unruly mob, many armed only with tools that had been snatched from the fields – Piay saw hoes and adzes, sickles and billhooks, cudgels and flails. While he had managed to pull in the poor and dispossessed to fight for his cause – Piay felt his gut twist as he tried to estimate the size of the army that spread out into the hazy distance – the Shuyet had not been able to arm them. In contrast, the famous forges of Memphis had not rested since the Breath of Horus had returned with Nehesy’s crew slaughtered. Many of the men below him held freshly minted blades, sharpened just the day before for the work that lay before them.
There was hope.
Yet, looking around, Piay could see that the terrain presented its own challenges. The river protected their left flank, but on the right the fields rolled away towards a rocky ridge from where the Shuyet could easily launch an attack. General Kamose was clearly aware of the threat, for he had posted several scouts along the top of the ridge.
Hannu drew Piay’s attention back to the enemy lines – the Shuyet’s lieutenants had now appeared in front of their men. As he watched, Piay saw them raise their hands, readying the men behind them for the attack. General Kamose had seen them, too, for he gave a curt nod and the trumpeter at his side raised his instrument to his lips and blasted out the signal that would ready the troops.
At first it was just a murmur, but then it rose to a roar as the Shuyet’s lieutenants dropped their hands and their men rushed forward, yelling curses at the ranks that stood before them. They came like a tide, flattening the green barley that lay between them and the Memphis spearmen. General Kamose, his eyes unblinking, watched them come. When they were within range of the archers, he gave a sharp order and the trumpeter blew another note, higher this time.
As one, the archers loosed their arrows. The sky blackened as the shafts whined and whistled, arcing through the air and dropping in a pelting, merciless rain upon the Shuyet’s men. The advancing line was so tightly packed that nearly every shaft found a target. Unlike the men Piay had seen on the galleys, these conscripts didn’t have shields or breastplates and helms that might deflect an arrow, and with nothing to stop them, the arrowheads punched easily through flesh and bone. Across the line men fell, their screams mingling with the battle cries of those behind them. Others stumbled on, their flesh bristling with arrows, steps slowing until they dropped to their knees and then pitched forward.
Yet still they came.
Kamose signalled for another volley of arrows. Again, the barrage fell mercilessly on the advancing men beneath it, and a chorus of tortured screams rose from the field.
As he watched the carnage unfold, Piay could tell that Hannu felt uneasy. Observing a battle unfold from distance, as a general, was not for a fighting man like him. It was true that the midst of the action was the last place that the Shuyet would expect to find the Nomarch of Memphis, but Piay knew that Hannu’s plan was also selfish – he couldn’t bear to stand by and watch while other men fought and died.
‘It is time we joined the men,’ Hannu said as if reading Piay’s thoughts. ‘Put our swords to good use.’
General Kamose eyed him askance, as if he was insane, but Piay understood, and nodded.
The general bowed to the nomarch. ‘May Sekhmet watch over you, my lord.’
• • •
A
s Piay and Hannu skidded down the bank, away from General Kamose and his lieutenants, the sky darkened again with another volley of arrows. Piay could smell the metallic tang of blood on the breeze, and the ground throbbed under his feet as the Shuyet’s army drove on over their own dead and dying – his ears rang with the roars of the advancing warriors and the howls of those on the brink of the afterlife.
As they hurried to join the swordsmen, the Shuyet’s force reached the shield wall, a tide of men battering the spearmen’s tight formation. The swordsmen would soon be ordered to join them.
A cheer erupted as Piay and Hannu reached the infantry lines. ‘Nomarch! Nomarch! Nomarch!’ the soldiers chanted, elated that the man who ruled them had chosen to fight with them that day, that he would die amongst them for the glory of Egypt, or, alongside them, be victorious.
Hannu grinned. ‘Sekhmet is with us!’ he roared to the men around them, thrusting his sword high into the air. ‘Our enemies will shit themselves as they die, and crawl stinking into the afterlife!’
‘And there they will learn the horrible truth,’ Piay added. ‘That it is a man who leads them, not a god, and that he has cost them their lives. For the real god Anubis will be waiting there to receive them, and he will thank us for the offering!’
The charged air exploded with a thundering roar at Piay’s words as he plunged in amongst his troops, pushing his way through the ranks towards the front line, Hannu scurrying determinedly behind.
‘Forward, men of Memphis,’ a captain of the Blue Crocodiles cried. General Kamose had given the order for the archers to retreat and the swordsmen to advance.
The din of battle grew louder still as they approached the shield wall, the two friends now in the front rank. A fresh wave of enemy soldiers crashed against the beleaguered spearmen with a mighty bellow as they closed on the melee. The wall bent and buckled, but it did not break.
Piay could see that his men had been well prepared, and he clasped Hannu’s shoulder to express his gratitude. As the Shuyet’s soldiers hammered at the shields with flails and billhooks, the spearmen thrust their weapons through the gaps in the wall, driving the bronze tips deep into throats and chests.
But the wall would not hold for ever.
Piay whispered a quick prayer to his chosen god, Khonsu, then drew his sword.
‘Ready yourselves!’
Hannu’s command was picked up and shouted from man to man across the field.
‘Now!’ Piay heard Hannu shout.
The spearmen were ready. Wrenching their shields back, they pivoted to the sides, leaving a broad gap through which the Shuyet’s army could flood. The men at the front were already exhausted and bloodied, but the sheer weight of bodies drove them on. Hannu’s men were fresh, and they launched themselves at the enemy, hacking and thrusting.
A warrior stepped into Piay’s path, though calling him a ‘warrior’ was a kindness. The man’s eyes were wild with terror and spittle frothed from his lips. No doubt he was one of the raw recruits who had made his vow to Anubis, hoping for days of leaning on a spear, pretending to stand guard, in return for food. Never would he have imagined he would find himself in this darkest pit of the Duat.
Piay easily sidestepped the man’s blow, but then he hesitated. He could not bring himself to strike, even though the man’s guard was open. This was not a soldier – he was just a peasant in the grip of the Shuyet’s delusions. Hannu would have told him to cut and wound and move on, to conserve his strength, but something held him back.
The man jerked his blade back up, slipping as he overbalanced. Piay made his decision. He struck, putting his weight behind his sword arm, ramming the blade through the man’s ribcage and into his heart – an easy death for someone who had no place on a battlefield.
His opponent’s mouth flew open in surprise, then the light in his eyes winked out as he slid off Piay’s sword.
Piay and Hannu were soon caught up in a whirlpool of bodies and flashing blades, as the men around them slashed and stabbed. Under their feet, the black soil was trampled into a red, foaming mud that sucked at their sandals, and Piay’s nose was filled with the stench of human waste evacuated from the bowels of the wounded and the terrified.
As the battle raged, Piay’s sword arm began to throb. Each thrust and parry sent pain lancing up into his aching shoulder. His legs trembled and his chest tightened with exhaustion.
But as he looked around, Piay saw that the Shuyet’s men were flagging more quickly than his own. The Blue Crocodiles were leading the way, organising the new recruits and driving the enemy back.
As his men began to tear the enemy lines apart, Piay felt a renewed surge of energy.
‘We can win this fight, I am sure of it!’ Hannu called to him over the clanging of swords and the cries of men.
Yet a strange notion crept up on Piay even as he saw the tide of the battle turn. Where were the seasoned warriors that Hannu had seen at the temple in Avaris? he wondered.
Suddenly a long, low blast sounded from somewhere towards the rear of the Shuyet’s lines. At the signal, the enemy soldiers turned tail, scrambling over their dead comrades and back towards the acacia line as fast as they could.
‘Is that it?’ Piay shouted to Hannu, his sword dropping to his side.
Hannu sucked in a deep, juddering breath. ‘We will soon find out.’
Piay sensed the eyes of his men on him, waiting for the order to pursue the Shuyet’s forces, to cut them down as they ran. But he did not give it. For though it seemed clear that the men were fleeing for their lives, Piay had experienced enough of his adversary’s deceptions to suspect this might be yet another one of his traps. ‘Hold your ground!’ he commanded.
‘Nomarch! General Hannu! Nomarch!’
Turning at the sound of the cry, Piay watched as a young, wild-eyed man raced out of the mass of weary warriors. Djenn was his name – a youth who assisted General Kamose.
‘What is it?’ Hannu barked.
‘General Kamose is dead,’ Djenn lamented, teetering on his feet.
Hannu gripped the young man’s shoulder to steady him. ‘How can this be?’
‘I was sent to fill his water-hide. When I returned, he lay dead on the ground, as did Kefer and Menus. Hacked down.’
‘Did you see the assailants?’
The young man shook his head and wailed in despair. ‘We are lost!’
‘Quiet, soldier,’ Hannu ordered. ‘You are in the presence of the nomarch. Nothing is lost while he is with us.’
Piay instinctively looked back across the battlefield, to the higher ground where Kamose had stood, observing the battle. How could the general have been killed when he stood so far behind their lines? He shook his head in dismay.
‘Look!’ Hannu was pointing at the ridge, where Kamose had stationed his scouts. The men were nowhere to be seen. The army’s right flank was exposed. ‘To your right!’ he shouted to the men around him. ‘Prepare for attack!’
The words had barely left Hannu’s lips when Piay saw warriors come pouring over the ridge and down into the fields in front of them, the sun glinting from their bronze swords and leather helms. Unwearied by battle, a blood-curdling battle cry rose from their midst. Piay knew immediately that these were the trained soldiers whom he had been unable to see on the battlefield, held in reserve for just this moment.
‘Brace yourselves!’ Piay shouted, whirling his blade and exhorting his men to action, but it was too little too late.
The Shuyet’s strategy was now clear to Piay, and it was a cold and calculated one. He had sent his inexperienced men out to die. The raw recruits, hungry and desperate men, were to wear down his enemy. Now, he would finish the nomarch’s makeshift army with his warriors.
Piay watched as the Shuyet’s soldiers plunged deep into his army’s right flank. He saw Hannu as he limped to meet the attack, shouting orders to the men around him, but his booming commands were lost in the confusion.
Through the crush of bodies, Piay saw one of the Blue Crocodiles being cut down by three of the Shuyet’s brutes. They towered over their fallen victim, bringing their swords down on his prone body as one. All around, the Shuyet’s warriors were slicing through their lines. It was about to become a slaughter.
Hannu shoved his way back to Piay’s side. ‘There’s only one path left open to us – if you want these men to see another sunrise. We must retreat, back to the river.’
‘Taita is fighting his own battle there – our galleys against theirs. There is nothing for us to retreat to!’
‘Well, if we stay here, you’ll soon have no army left at all.’
Piay took a moment to think, then he nodded. ‘Give the order.’
‘Retreat to the ships!’ Hannu boomed. ‘Soldiers of Memphis, retreat!’
As the order was carried through their ranks, Piay’s men turned to flee, racing as fast as their exhausted legs would carry them back towards the river. Piay and Hannu threw themselves after them, but Hannu’s injured leg slowed him, and Piay adjusted his own pace to stay with his friend. With each passing moment they fell further behind until they found themselves stumbling alone across the mire the retreating army had left in its wake.
Piay saw the danger first – a group of the Shuyet’s soldiers bearing down on them like a pack of wolves tracking a wounded stag, the leader jabbing his finger at Hannu. Three other warriors loped behind him.
When Piay looked to Hannu for an explanation, his friend replied grimly: ‘One of the guards from Avaris. He swore that he would slit my throat if he ever saw me again, and now he is determined to keep his word.’
Together, Piay and Hannu spun to face their assailants.
Snarling, the guard from the tavern stepped forward. ‘You will regret ever crossing my path, little man,’ he said.
‘The only path I’ll ever regret crossing is his,’ Hannu shot back, indicating Piay, who grinned.
‘That’s the Nomarch of Memphis,’ one of the flanking warriors muttered.
The lead guard straightened and smiled as he raised his sword. ‘I shall enjoy presenting your head to the Shuyet as an offering to Anubis,’ he roared.
Readying his own sword, Piay braced himself. If this was how he was to finally meet the gods, then so be it.
• • •
F
rom the prow of the Breath of Horus, Taita watched the Shuyet’s flagship advance, sailing between the two lines of galleys. At any moment, he expected the captain to recognise his strategy and take evasive action, but the Hyksos warship just kept coming.
‘We have them,’ Gyasi breathed.
‘Not until the trap is sprung,’ Taita cautioned.
Despite his words, Taita could scarcely believe their good fortune. Leaning against the rail, he waited for the next stage of his plan to take effect.
