The new kingdom, p.34
The New Kingdom, page 34
The tunnel must have been there before – there had been no time to dig one – but how did they know of it? There could only be one answer. Lord Intef, the traitor from the court who had been helping the Hyksos with their plan. Only a wealthy aristocrat like him could have had a tunnel dug in secret. He must have been privy to the barbarians’ plans for many moons.
Hui felt sickened. Lord Intef, Isetnofret, Qen – how many Egyptians were prepared to betray their own people for gain?
He could see where this plan was leading. The barbarians were cutting a path along the street to the gate. Once it was opened, all would be lost.
Ahura could see it, too, and she could also see the barbarians were not about to be stopped. As Hui drew his sword to join the defence, she tried to grab his arm to hold him back. Hui threw her off and then he was running towards the fighting. His feet skidded across bright limestone slick with blood, past dead and dying guards.
One of the Hyksos warriors saw him approach and whirled. His blade slashed towards Hui’s chest. At the last, Hui swung up his blade to deflect the strike, and the clash of metal sent spikes of pain stabbing up his arm to his elbow.
The force knocked him back on his heels, and then the warrior was swinging his sword high, then low, each blow like a hammer strike as Hui parried them. His thoughts reeled from the speed of the attack. Though he’d learned much from his sparring with the Blue Crocodiles, Hui was no match for a warrior of this calibre.
Hui knew the killing blow was coming. He heard Ipwet scream. The curved blade slashed towards his neck with enough force to take his head clean off his shoulders. Somehow, at the last, he stumbled to one side and as it twisted, the flat of the blade struck his skull.
Down Hui went, his wits flying away into a dark hole. When he came round a moment later, Ahura and Ipwet were frantically shaking him. His attacker had left him for dead. Through a haze, he stared past the two women. Trailing bodies in their wake, the barbarian band had fought their way to the gate. They cut through the last line of defence with ease.
Dazed, Hui watched the barbarians put their shoulders under the bar and heave it up. The wooden beam thundered to the ground. And then the barbarians were grasping the papyrus rope handles on the gate and dragging it towards them.
As the gate ground open, the roar outside the walls was stirred into a frenzy and became the bellow of a ravenous beast.
Grabbing his sword from where it lay on the flagstones, Hui lurched to his feet. The blade wavered in front of him as he wondered if he had the courage to stand his ground.
But then the gate swung wide and the Hyksos horde charged in. The chariots surged forward along the processional avenue. In desperation, the surviving guards tried to flee, but they were crushed under the wheels. The foot soldiers raced in behind the chariots, filling the street from wall to wall.
Ahead of the horde, the Egyptian citizens fled. Faces frozen in terror, their screams mingled with the tumult. A woman stumbled and fell and was instantly trampled underfoot by the panicked crowd. Hui watched an old man crushed against a wall, and two more go down beneath the wave of terrified people.
And then Hui glimpsed a familiar face – Adom, the cruel boat-master, lumbering like a water-cow on dry land. He howled as he had once made Tau howl. As Adom fell behind the fleeing crowd, he screamed for help. A chariot bore down on him. As Adom half-turned, the charioteer hacked with his sword. The blade ripped open Adom’s vast belly and his glistening guts tumbled onto the street. And then he was lost from view, whatever life was left in him crushed beneath the wheels of the following chariots.
The gods have brought justice, Hui thought as he turned away.
‘We must run!’ Ipwet yelled.
‘Where?’ Ahura’s voice, for once, held no confidence. ‘Do we hide?’
‘No!’ Hui shouted. ‘We must get the Ka Stone!’
Before the two women could complain, Hui grabbed Ipwet’s arm with one hand and Ahura’s with the other. Together they rushed away from the stampeding mob. Not a moment too soon. The crowd churned as the chariots carved a path amongst them.
Hui wanted to plug his ears against the howls of those dashed beneath hooves or crushed beneath wheels, but he plunged on up the steps towards the square, and the palace and temple beyond.
As he glanced up, Hui glimpsed a figure silhouetted at the top of the steps with the moon looming behind – an old woman wrapped in a shawl. The crone raised a trembling arm and pointed at him.
‘Here!’ she shrieked. ‘He is here!’
‘Who speaks?’ he said, a chill going through him.
Ipwet was staring, her mouth wide.
Hui glanced again at the waiting figure. Had his eyes played a trick on him? This was no hunched crone, but a tall, stately woman, her face cloaked in shadow.
The shadows shifted and the truth struck Hui like a bolt of lightning.
‘Mother . . .?’ he whispered.
Isetnofret stared down, her face contorted with rage, her eyes glowing with the fires of madness. Hui felt a whirlwind of emotion, battered and buffeted by the desire for revenge that had eaten into the heart of him for so long.
‘Here!’ Isetnofret yelled again.
Hui heard another blood-curdling scream behind him. He wrenched his head away and turned towards the new threat. Qen was fighting to bring his horse under control in the heaving mass of people, his hate-filled gaze fixed on Hui. The beast began to push towards the steps.
A cry rang out and Hui spun back. A blade flashed down towards him.
Ipwet lunged, grabbing Isetnofret’s wrist before the knife could plunge into her brother. For a long moment, Ipwet held her fast, and Hui found himself staring into his mother’s blazing eyes once more. He felt a surge of loathing and the desperate urge to wrap his hands around his mother’s throat, to deny her the immortality she craved, to kill her there and then.
‘I should have ended your life that night in my father’s house when I stole my sister away from you,’ he snarled.
Isetnofret’s features hardened as she realized what he had done, and her knuckles whitened as she forced the blade down.
‘Your life must be sacrificed to Seth!’ she hissed.
‘No!’ Ipwet cried.
She twisted her mother’s wrist and yanked Isetnofret to one side. The sorceress stumbled and fell down the steps.
Ipwet and Ahura grabbed Hui and dragged him up the steps and across the square to the temple.
‘What now?’ Ahura cried. ‘Our only choice is death or slavery. And I will not be a slave again.’
‘First, the Ka Stone. Then . . . Yes, there is a third choice.’
Hui glanced over his shoulder. Isetnofret was nowhere to be seen, but Qen had urged his horse to the top of the steps and was now preparing to ride them down.
‘Run faster,’ Hui urged them.
‘What third choice?’
‘We leave the way the Hyksos came in – through the hidden tunnel. No one will think to look for us there. And I have a rowing boat waiting to take us across the river to safety.’
‘Are you mad?’ Ipwet cried. ‘Why waste time on the Ka Stone? And how will we reach safety with the barbarian horde between us and the tunnel?’
Hoof beats pounded on the stone behind him, drawing closer. Hui could see beyond the columns framing the entrance to the temple two terrified priests standing on the steps. Hui barged past them.
They hurried through to the sanctuary at the rear of the temple. Lamps danced along the white walls, suffusing the interior with a misty golden light, and the air was potent with the spicy scent of incense. Stone pillars lined the walls, and between them were finely painted murals of men and the bounty the gods bestowed on them, each underlined with a description in the sacred writing. A statue of Horus stood in one corner, towering three times Hui’s height. The falcon-headed god looked down at him, the red and white pschent crown upon his head signifying that he was the king of all Egypt.
‘Great Horus, give me protection,’ Hui muttered, tapping two fingers to his forehead.
Against the far wall stood the altar, and upon it was the Ka Stone, as black as the night.
Hui felt his stomach knot when he saw it. Perhaps it was cursed, or perhaps this was always the path the gods had chosen for him when he had accepted their gift. When cries rang out at the doorway, Hui turned round and levelled his sword, backing towards the god’s table. He gestured to Ahura and his sister to take shelter behind the columns.
Qen stalked in, his features like stone. Blood dripped from his sword. The priests would no longer be making their supplications.
‘Brother,’ Hui said defiantly. ‘It has been too long since we last spoke.’
‘How someone like you is still alive astonishes me.’
Someone like you. Hui winced at the contempt he heard in his brother’s voice.
‘There is no need for us to fight,’ he began.
Qen snorted. ‘The world will be a better place without you in it.’ His eyes flickered towards the Ka Stone. ‘And with that in Mother’s hands.’
He strode forward, tightening his grip on the hilt of his blade.
This time Hui felt such a surge of hurt he could no longer contain it.
‘Where did this loathing come from? None were closer when we were children. You protected me. You cared for me. We shared so much laughter and song and good times . . .’
Qen’s face twisted into a snarl so savage that Hui stepped back. Yet he thought the expression looked odd, like a mask his brother had been forced to wear, with the real Qen’s desperate, haunted eyes peering through it.
‘I never felt anything for you but hatred.’
‘But I remember—’
‘You remember it wrong.’
Qen strode forward. Hui edged back, waving his sword from side to side.
‘Father had only love for me before you arrived. Before he married that witch Kiya, who twisted his thoughts away from his true children and from my mother.’
‘That is not true!’
‘It is!’ Qen raged. ‘Mother told me all of it. You were his favourite, always. I was nothing to him.’
In that instant, Hui could see the poison Isetnofret had poured into Qen’s heart – years and years of it, blackening his soul. He would never recover from those lies. Hui felt a flood of grief at the loss of the brother he thought he knew, but then Qen lunged and their blades clashed as Hui parried the thrust, his mind suddenly empty of everything except the will to survive.
Teeth pulled back from his lips, Qen hacked from the right, then the left, in broad downward strokes. He’d always been hard, cold, calculating. But Hui was surprised to find he was parrying his brother’s attacks with ease, and he realized that anger had consumed his opponent.
A clear head is required for any battle, Tanus had once told him as they sparred on the way to Basti’s stronghold. Never lose your temper or you will lose the fight.
Qen thrust again, spittle flying from his mouth. Hui stepped back, easily avoiding the tip of the blade, but that only drove his brother to greater fury. Qen gripped his sword with both hands as if it were an axe cutting down a tree and stormed forward, hacking in wild strokes.
Seeing his moment, Hui slipped to one side and whipped his sword up. It clattered against the blade of Qen’s weapon with such force that it flew from his hand and rattled across the stone flags.
Qen whirled, seeing his sword was too far away to reach. But his fury burned too hot for him to back down. He hooked his foot around Hui’s ankle and wrenched the leg out from under him. Hui crashed onto his back, his head bouncing off the polished limestone.
Through his daze, Hui glimpsed Qen snatching up the Ka Stone from the altar and swinging it above his head. The moment seemed to hang, and all Hui could do was stare into those black, desperate eyes. Qen would only stop when he’d dashed his brother’s brains out with that gift from the gods.
‘Do not do this, brother,’ Hui said.
‘The gods will decide your fate.’
Hui sensed a shift in the quality of light. He glanced up and saw the Ka Stone was limned with a faint white glow. Whispers rustled around the edges of the still temple, like the ones Hui had heard that first night he had found the gift of the gods in the Shrike camp. Those whispers became louder until they echoed off the stone walls like voices in a deep well. Voices in a language he could not understand, but which drove dread into every part of him.
It was true! It was all true! The gods were speaking!
A bolt of that white light flew off the Ka Stone, and another, sizzling across the temple. Hui glimpsed Ipwet and Ahura scrambling away, just in time. Another bolt slammed into the altar, splitting it in two with a thunderous crack.
Hui gaped. The judgment of the gods was about to be visited upon him.
As the lightning danced around the stone, Qen glanced up and marvelled at the power he held.
And in that moment, Hui glimpsed his one chance. He rolled to one side and thrust up with his blade, deep into his brother’s gut.
The Ka Stone plummeted to the ground as it had that night it fell from the heavens, and smashed against the stone floor. The glow vanished. The voices died. The gift from the gods, the object that had been prized above all others by greedy and powerful men, shattered into pieces. Shards of rock and glittering black dust streaked across the flags. No wondrous light. No breath of Horus. Nothing but the detritus that littered the endless burning desert.
Ipwet screamed and ran forward. As Qen slumped to his knees, clutching at the lethal wound in his stomach, she grabbed him and cradled him. Hui felt a terrible ache in his heart, certain that he had not only killed his brother, but also his sister’s love for him.
Hot tears streamed down his cheeks. A gentle hand slipped under his arm – Ahura – and pulled him gently to his feet.
But Qen didn’t relent.
‘I have only hatred in my heart for you,’ he croaked.
‘And I have only love in my heart for you,’ Hui murmured, choking back a sob.
He watched as the light in his brother’s eyes died. Qen was gone.
Hui looked down at the broken Ka Stone that so many had been prepared to risk all for, then glanced at Ipwet. She laid Qen down, wiped away a tear and stood and hugged him.
‘I mourn for Qen,’ she murmured in his ear, ‘but he left you with no choice.’ Her voice hardened as she added, ‘Mother made him this way.’
Ahura tugged them away. The clamour of the barbarians ransacking the city echoed through the walls. At the doorway, Hui allowed himself one glance back at his brother’s body, and then he steeled himself for what was to come. At least now he had denied Isetnofret the power of the Ka Stone, her dreams of immortality shattered like that black rock. But she would never relent. The fate of all Egypt was still at stake.
And Hui was sure he knew what she would do next: kill the one person who stood in her way. Tanus. With Tanus gone, all opposition to the Hyksos horde would wither. Isetnofret could still use her sorcery to become queen.
Hui shivered. His mother’s dreams hung in the balance now. Never would she be more dangerous.
In the chamber where the priests kept their vestments, they pulled on the white linen robes, white papyrus sandals and the leopard skin strapped over one shoulder. In the confusion, Hui was gambling that a cursory glance would only reveal three frightened, fleeing priests, and that the pillaging barbarians would leave them for more appetizing targets.
Outside, the night pulsated with throat-rending screams and jubilant roars. Hui pushed on, past the bodies of the two dead priests and across the square to the steps. The street still seethed.
‘Now our fate is in the hands of the gods,’ he murmured to the two women.
At the edge of the street, Hui picked a path through the running bodies and pushed forwards. Fleeing Egyptians raced past him in a blur. A chariot raced towards him and he dashed on, feeling the breeze of its passing stir his robes. He glimpsed a blade sweeping towards him and he ducked, still hurtling onwards.
Somehow Hui reached the other side with Ipwet and Ahura, and then they were running down the side street towards the tunnel. Darting into the entrance to the square, Hui slumped against the wall in the shadows. Ahead, the hole to the tunnel gaped. The flagstone lay shattered beside it.
‘One more prayer,’ he whispered to the women next to him. ‘If the gods are with us, we will be safe soon.’
‘Your gods seem to have abandoned you.’
The voice boomed behind him. Hui felt his blood run cold. He turned to see Khyan, dripping crescent sword in his hand, and a line of familiar faces from his war band assembling alongside.
‘I thought I recognized the Little Rat scurrying away,’ he added. ‘Your disguise is pathetic and unbecoming.’
Hui stepped forward. ‘Take me, but let these women go.’
Khyan looked Ipwet and Ahura up and down.
‘Why should I?’
‘They are innocent.’
‘No one is innocent, Little Rat.’
Hui stared into Khyan’s eyes and saw in them a deep hurt that had turned into a burning rage. The betrayal had stung him deeper than Hui could ever have imagined.
‘Hyksos blood.’ Khyan rolled the words around his mouth and spat on the ground. ‘No Hyksos warrior would ever act like you. They have honour.’
He levelled his curved blade. Hui swung up his own sword.
‘I told you what would happen if there was any sign of treachery,’ Khyan continued. ‘This night I will take your head.’
The Hyksos commander lunged, but Hui danced to one side easily, as Tanus had taught him. Khyan cocked an eyebrow, clearly impressed.
‘You have learned your lessons well, I’ll give you that,’ he said.
He swung his blade again and this time it whisked by, a hair’s breadth from Hui’s chest. And then they were at each other, swords clashing high, then low. Showers of sparks hissed through the night.
Round and round, they danced. Hui felt the world close in around him. Ipwet, Ahura, the other Hyksos warriors . . . all gone. All he saw was that flashing blade and Khyan’s searing eyes behind it.
