“Are you sure you’re all right, sir?” Psuro, seated on the damp sand at the edge of the wadi with Bak and Amonmose, seemed not to know whether he should laugh with delight at finding them alive and well or worry about their many bruises, scratches, and cuts.
Bak finished eating the grouse and threw away the last of the bones. Cold though it was, it was as delicious as the warm birds he had eaten the previous day. “You’ve no need to worry, Psuro. Considering how fast the water flowed and the many objects it carried with it, we fared very well.”
“I thank the gods you came when you did.” Amonmose glanced toward the goats, waiting patiently for their small shepherd. “I was beginning to look upon those lambs as a tasty meal.”
Bak eyed the child, who stood a few paces away with User and Senna. He was small, dark-skinned, and dressed in rags, a miniature version of Imset. “The boy would never have for given you. Those animals are his responsibility, and he must return them to the family flock.”
The child’s reserve had melted away when User had given him a grouse. He had gobbled the food and eagerly accepted a second bird. After he finished eating, however, when the explorer had summoned Senna and tried to talk to him, his shyness had returned tenfold. He seldom raised his eyes from the wadi floor, did not know what to do with his hands and feet, and seemed to have lost the ability to speak.
User, with the guide translating, was trying to learn where the boy’s family might be found. The child had nodded when asked if he had been caught in the defile while searching for strays, but had shaken his head when asked where his mother was camped with their flock.
“They can’t be far away,” a frustrated User said. “Why won’t he tell us where they are? His mother might wish to trade for medicines or cloth or needles, or any of the other necessities I’ve brought that she’ll never be able to find in this wretched desert.”
“He knows where they are,” Senna said, openly irritated.
“Why he won’t tell, I can’t say.”
“Something has to be troubling him,” Bak murmured to his companions.
“You should try, sir.” Psuro stood up and took the halter of the donkey, prepared to return it to User’s string of animals, gathered at the edge of a puddle spread across the wadi floor.
“He’s seen with his own eyes that you’re a brave man, the way you survived the flood. And he knows you’re an officer, the one we Medjays look to for guidance. For those two rea sons alone, he might speak.”
Bak studied the two men and the boy. The latter had dis played no shyness toward User until he began asking ques tions. Could Senna’s presence have inhibited his speech?
“Summon Kaha, Psuro. I wish to use another translator.”
“Yes, sir,” the sergeant said, not bothering to hide his ap proval. He had not witnessed Bak’s fall into the floodwaters, but he had heard the tale from men who had. Like Amon mose, he had aired his mistrust of the nomad guide.
After cleaning his hands on the sand, Bak rose to his feet and joined User, Senna, and the boy. “The caravan must move on, Senna. If you wish to walk at its head, go with Psuro.”
“But, sir…”
“We’ve a long journey to the next well.” Bak’s voice was curt, allowing for no disagreement.
Senna flushed. “Yes, sir.”
The guide, who had managed to cling to the crag, thereby saving himself from being torn away by the flood as Bak and
Amonmose had been, had begged forgiveness. He had since been subdued, self-effacing. Bak had not meant to belittle him, but he wanted no argument from the man who might well have brought about his death.
Amonmose hoisted himself to his feet, threw away the last few bones, and walked to the boy. With a broad smile, he ruffled his hair and bade him goodbye. The child’s smile was shy, wistful almost, as if he thought himself losing a friend.
“Could I have a word with you, User?” Amonmose asked.
The explorer gave him and Bak a speculative look, evi dently realizing he was being steered away. He offered a farewell smile to the child and strode toward the waiting car avan with the trader.
When Kaha hurried up, Bak told him of User’s failure and asked him to question the boy further. “Rather than asking where his family is camped, try this time to discover why he won’t reveal where they are.”
Kaha stumbled through the question. The boy shrugged as if he did not understand. The Medjay tried again, receiving in return another shrug. After several further attempts, Kaha flung a desperate look at Bak and tried a fresh approach. He knelt before the boy and delivered a long, painfully difficult speech, looking often at Bak. After a while, the child began to offer a word when the Medjay failed to find one. His eyes grew wide and he often glanced Bak’s way.
“If you make him fear me, Kaha, he’ll never tell you what we wish to know.”
The Medjay chuckled. “I’m telling him how brave and strong you are and how clever you are when you face an en emy, using guile as well as arms to win the battle.”
Smiling at the boy, Bak said, “You’d best tell him that I have no intention of harming his family. Or any other nomad in this barren desert unless we’re forced to protect ourselves.”
Kaha passed on the reassurance. The boy gave Bak a grave look and nodded. He said something to Kaha, a few brief words. The Medjay asked a question. A stubborn look ap peared on the child’s face and he uttered the same words he had spoken before. Kaha stared long and hard as if willing him to say more. When he failed to respond, the Medjay picked up the basket containing the four remaining grouse, spoke a few words, and handed the container to him. The boy flung a quick smile at Bak and ran up the defile to his goats.
“What did he tell you?” Bak asked.
“All he’d say was that we travel with a bad man.”
A bad man. As if Bak needed to be told that. He suspected the boy spoke of Senna, but he could just as well have meant any of the other men in User’s party-or the watching man.
One thing he knew for a fact: the child had had no reserva tions about Amonmose.
So they could reach good shade in which to rest through the heat of the day, the caravan moved on. The sun beat down on the wadi floor, drying its surface. Birds appeared from out of nowhere to drink from puddles and gazelle could be seen in the distance, drinking their fill. Minmose claimed he could see new leaves already popping out on the silla bushes.
Amonmose refused to allow the donkey he swore had saved his life-as it probably had-to be loaded, saying it needed more rest. User adopted a severe demeanor, insisting he’d spoil the beast, and flung Bak a good-natured wink. The abundance of water had lifted the spirits of everyone.
Even the drovers seemed less disheartened, but they re mained as watchful as they had been since Dedu’s body had been found. Bak had a feeling they no longer trusted anyone, not even User, the man for whom they toiled. They continued to accept Nebenkemet’s help with the donkeys and the load ing, but were much more taciturn than before. When Bak sent Kaha to sound them out, they shook their heads, pre tending not to understand.
No one had seen any sign of the watching man since leav ing the gorge where last they had seen Dedu alive. Was he still watching them from afar? Or had the guide’s death been his ultimate goal, releasing the caravan from his constant scrutiny?
Convinced they were not yet free of him, Bak sent Kaha and Rona to scout the land through which they were travel ing, telling them specifically to look for the watching man.
After they left, he walked to the head of the caravan to in quire about the day’s trek. He found Senna to be unusually informative and anxious to please.
“Minnakht was more interested in this area, sir, than in any other place.” Senna motioned toward the rugged reddish hill sides all around them. “We spent almost two weeks explor ing the mountain slopes and the wadis, never straying more than a day’s march from water: the pools where we were when Dedu died, the well to the east that you and User spurned, and the gorge where we’ll spend this night.”
“Did you always remain within the triangle formed by those three water sources?” Bak asked.
“Now and then, he’d spot a faroff landform that he thought interesting or would find a stone that had been washed down a wadi from afar. If he believed them promising, we ventured farther afield.”
Bak wondered if Minnakht had restricted his explorations solely because of the proximity to water or if something had convinced him that he would find what he sought in the trian gular area Senna had described. User had never ceased to study the landscape through which they walked. He had dis 168
Lauren Haney played no special interest in anything he saw and derided the idea that gold would be found this far north. Eyeing the bro ken and eroded granite around them, Bak was inclined to agree.
“If you wish, sir, we could part from this caravan and I could take you to the places we explored. Minnakht might’ve seen something I missed and kept it to himself.” Senna spoke with a growing enthusiasm. “Who knows what we might find if we travel the path he took!”
Bak smothered a smile. He regretted that Amonmose was not close by to hear the offer-and the lure of wealth that made it sweeter. The trader’s mistrust of the guide far sur passed his own and his reaction would have been interesting to behold.
“I thought myself close to Minnakht,” Senna went on, “but
I’d not be surprised if he kept to himself whatever he found.
You’ve no idea how secretive these explorers can be when they think they’re close to finding something of value.”
The guide surely knew Bak did not entirely trust him. Was he so naive that he believed the thought of discovering gold would break down his defenses? “I think it best that we re main with User. We can explore these wadis and mountains more thoroughly on our return journey to Waset.”
Senna flung him a surprised look. “You plan to come back this way, sir?”
Bak could not be sure, but he thought he heard a touch of dismay in the nomad’s voice. “Unless I find Minnakht else where, we must. His father and Commandant Thuty would expect no less.”
“It’s clear to me,” Nebre said. “Senna wishes to separate
Lieutenant Bak from the caravan and slay him.”
“Where the lieutenant goes, we go,” Psuro said. “He knows that.”
Bak leaned back against the wall of rock behind him and watched the pair fill a goatskin waterbag, pouring water from a large pottery jar. “I must admit I was tempted to go with him, if for no other reason than to learn if he’s as innocent as he claims.”
“You wouldn’t, sir!” Psuro said, horrified.
“Not without taking precautions, no, but it might be worth the risk. If we knew for a fact that he wishes me dead, we could in all good conscience force the truth from him about
Minnakht. As for the men who’ve been slain since we set out from Kaine, he couldn’t have taken either life, but I’d not be surprised to learn that he knows who did.”
“Do you think, as you did before, that one of the men with
User slew them?”
“I’m not sure what to think. The absence of all other foot prints at the first well pointed to one of them; the footprint in the gorge indicated that an intruder slew Dedu.”
“The watching man.”
“So it would seem.”
The two Medjays stood with Bak in a broad wedge of shade cast by the almost vertical wadi wall. Three half-asleep donkeys shared the space with them, while their remaining animals and those in User’s string stood or lay in the shade at the base of the wall farther south. The explorer and his party lay slightly apart from their animals, sleeping. Minmose, as signed to keep watch, sat with Senna beneath an overhanging rock across the wadi, playing throwsticks. The vantage point was not good, but offered the only shade large enough for two men.
A hot breeze blew sporadically up the wadi, rippling the surface of puddles that had not yet dried, offering no relief from the midday heat. Water trickled through the rocks in the bed of the deeper channel, flowing down the center of the watercourse. Brown sparrow-like birds flew among the branches of four acacia trees that grew on the edge of the channel, catching flying insects, while grayish finches hopped across the sand among roots laid bare by the raging floodwaters, seeking grubs or seeds washed to the surface.
Their bright voices carried through the still air.
Psuro plugged the waterbag and set it aside. “Minnakht was experienced in the ways of this vile desert and he was beloved by the nomads who dwell here.” He picked up an other bag and held it out so Nebre could fill it. “Of equal im port, he had a good life in the land of Kemet, a life of ease and luxury. Would a man whose days were filled with advan tage choose to disappear?”
“Unlikely,” Nebre said.
“If he didn’t trust Senna any more than we do, he might’ve gone off on his own,” Bak pointed out for argument’s sake.
“Would he not have gone to his nomad friends?” Psuro asked.
“Nefertem claimed he wants to know as much as I what happened to Minnakht.” A large brown lizard darted down the cliff face, drawing Bak’s glance. Something above must have startled it, a bird hunting its midday meal most likely.
“He may’ve been leading my thoughts astray, but I don’t think so. I think his people have searched everywhere they know where to look. That’s why he wants us to seek Min nakht beyond the sea.”
“I suppose we must take Senna with us,” Psuro said with a notable lack of enthusiasm.
“If I can’t convince all the men in User’s party to go, I fear
I’ll lose all my suspects except him.”
A grating of stone against stone sounded above and a pat tering of rocks on the face of the cliff, pebbles skittering downward. Dirt and small stones pelted Bak’s head and shoulders, and the donkey beside him awoke with a start. The birds cheeped a warning and darted into the air.
“Someone’s above us,” Bak yelled. “Move!”
He shoved himself away from the wall and slapped the donkey on the flank, sending it and its startled brothers out into the sunlight. Psuro tore the goatskin bag away from the stream of water and ran. Nebre raised the neck of the jar, sav ing the rest of the precious liquid, and raced out of the shade with Bak and the donkeys.
A huge granite boulder came crashing down from above, bringing smaller stones with it. It struck the ground with a solid thud, smashing a water jar leaning against the wall within a hand’s breadth of where Bak had stood. Smaller stones clattered down the cliff face, and quiet descended.
Bak looked at Psuro and Nebre to be sure they were unhurt and at the three donkeys, who had stopped their headlong flight near the trees. Farther to the south, men and donkeys stood in the sunlight, confused by their abrupt awakening, their burst of speed to get away from the cliff. He offered a silent prayer of thanks to the lord Amon that no one had been injured. He had only to look at the water jar to see what could have happened. Reddish shards lay at the base of the fallen boulder in a puddle of water.
“Sir!” Minmose came racing across the wadi floor. “I saw a man looking down from above. He must’ve pushed the boulder over the cliff.”
“Which way did he go?”
“North, I think.”
“Let’s go, Nebre.”
“I’ll come, too,” Psuro said.
Bak tore the half-full waterbag from Psuro’s hand, shoved it at Nebre, and scooped up the bag the men had filled earlier.
“No, Sergeant. Someone must look after the caravan while
I’m gone.” He paused over the pile of weapons, decided a bow and quiver would be less ungainly to handle than a spear and shield and armed himself.
Nebre, far more talented with the bow than Bak, chose a similar weapon. “I noticed a cleft between this hill and the next, around the bend a couple hundred paces to the north.
We can climb to the top there.”
They ran down the wadi, ignoring the anxious calls of the men in User’s party, the shouted questions as to what had happened. Lizards darted out of their path and the birds wheeled around to settle on and among the acacias behind them. Rounding the bend, they glimpsed the defile and seven or eight gazelles standing close to the top of the hillside be yond, watching a female urging a tiny baby up a lower slope of rough and broken rock.
“I’ll wager he set those gazelles to flight,” the Medjay said.
“He must’ve come down this way, thinking to cross the wadi and enter the rougher land to the west.” Bak looked to ward the foothills of the red mountain and the multiple peaks beyond. “In land so rough, he’d have an easier time of evad ing us.”
“Could he have reached this point ahead of us, I wonder?”
They hurried into the defile. The first thirty or so paces were almost flat and were floored with drying sand. A half dozen shallow runnels left by the receding water retained some moisture. Loose rocks dotted the surface. Bak and Ne bre slowed their pace so the Medjay could search for prints.
“Sir.” Nebre knelt to look at a reddish stone and a wet in dentation where it had recently lain. “Someone came this way not long ago.”
A dozen paces farther, the Medjay spotted the print of the outer edge of a sandal. Bak sucked in his breath, let it out slow and long. The sole was old and worn, curled to fit the foot of the man wearing it, and it had a slight cut near the small toe.
“The watching man.” Bak arose and glanced up the cut.
“He looks to be heading down to the wadi.”
Seeking confirmation, Nebre walked deeper into the de file. A couple dozen paces farther, up the slope where the sand was dryer, they found a long indentation that ran along the edge of a runnel and cut down into it, the sign of a man who had skidded on the loose, rocky soil. Where his other foot had come down hard when he saved himself from falling, he had left a print that matched the one they had seen before.
The man they sought had been in a hurry, racing down the defile, no doubt hoping to cross the wadi before they could round the bend and spot him.
Nebre gave Bak a humorless smile. Bak stared out across the wadi toward the red mountain. He was no more eager than the Medjay to follow a man into a landscape constructed by the lord Set himself, but the task must be done. The sooner they laid hands on the watching man, the sooner their many questions would be answered.
“How many times have we spotted him?” Bak asked.
“Four.” Nebre scowled at the high reddish walls of the wadi up which they were walking. “Each time we lose his trail or can find no footprints, he reappears. Too far away to catch, too close to miss seeing him.”
“So I was thinking.” Bak eyed the way ahead, the narrow ing gorge whose stone floor had been washed clear of sand.
Water filled holes etched deep into the stone. The early part of the storm, which had struck the red mountain from the north, had drained this way. “Those opportune appearances worry me, Nebre. Is he trying to get us lost? Or is he leading us into a trap?”
Nebre responded with a noncommittal grunt.
Kneeling beside a pool, Bak splashed his face and upper body. The water was clear and warmed by the sun. “Let’s walk to the end of this gorge and no farther. We’ve been away from the caravan too long. Psuro will be wondering where we are.”
“We’re to let the man ahead slip away again?” Nebre asked, chagrined.
“He knows this land. We don’t.” Bak walked on up the gorge. “Would it not be foolhardy to let him lead us to our deaths?”
“If we always turn back, sir, we’ll never lay hands on him.”
The Medjay was like a dog, Bak thought. Once he had scented his prey, he’d risk his life rather than give up the chase. “We must find some other way of snaring him.”
“How?”
Bak flung the Medjay an annoyed look. “If I knew that,
Nebre, we’d not be here now, debating whether or not we should allow our quarry to tempt us deeper into his lair.”
Nebre had the good sense to say no more.
They walked on, following a stream that meandered from pool to pool. Bak feared the gorge would narrow further, forming a trap they could not evade, but around the next bend, the walls spread wider. Wisps of cloud passed across the brilliant blue sky and an eagle soared overhead.
They rounded another tight bend and stopped dead still.
The gorge ended thirty or so paces ahead, blocked by a high wall. The stream poured out of a groove eroded over the top and plummeted downward, a silvery, gurgling waterfall splashing down narrow steps of waterworn red granite, each step taller than a man.
The climb to the top was possible, Bak thought, and tempting, but commonsense prevailed. “We’d best turn back.”
Nebre looked half around, turning a wary eye to the gorge through which they had come. “Could this be the trap we’ve been expecting?”
“I can think of no better place.”
Eyeing the high walls to either side, the steep waterfall in front, not sure if they expected one man to set upon them or an army, Bak and the Medjay eased backward toward the nearest bend in the gorge. Suddenly a solitary man came out from among the rocks at the top of the fall and stood beside the lip over which the water spilled. He stared boldly at the two men on the floor of the gorge, then knelt to cup his hands and drink. The action was deliberate, a gibe at Bak’s decision not to follow, a sneer at their worried retreat.
Bak muttered an oath, echoed by Nebre.
The man rose to his feet, stretched, and yawned, making further mockery of the men below. He was tall and thin and had the same dark skin as Nefertem and his tribesmen. His clothing-a dark brown kilt, probably leather, and a ragged, long-sleeved tunic discolored by age or dirt or both-was that of a nomad. He carried a long staff or maybe a spear, dif ficult to tell which at so great a distance
“I’d like to know his purpose, Nebre. Do you think you can disable him?”
Baring his teeth in a eager smile, Nebre drew an arrow from his quiver and seated it. “I’d rather slay him, sir, but since I’m forbidden to do so, will an arrow in the thigh sat isfy you?”
As the Medjay raised the bow, the man on the clifftop flung himself sideways, out of sight. The arrow sped through the air where he had been, traveled high into the sky, and arced downward.
Nebre spat out a curse and strode toward the waterfall.
“I’ll get him for you, sir!”
“No!” Bak barked out the word, an order meant to be heeded.
“But, sir…” Nebre stared in angry frustration up the wa terfall.
“If he allowed us to climb the cliff unmolested-and I doubt he’d miss so tempting an opportunity-he’d be far away by the time we reached the top.” Bak glared at the Med jay, waiting for him to see reality.
As Nebre turned around with obvious reluctance, Bak added, “We must return to the wadi the caravan is traveling. I, for one, would not like to spend the night in this wretched land, with a man who wishes us dead lurking about.”
“Would you recognize him if you saw him again?” Bak asked.
“He was too far away.” Nebre scowled. He had come to see the sense in their retreat, but his irritation had not entirely fallen away. “Would you, sir?”
“I doubt it,” Bak admitted. “He made sure we got a good look at him, but not good enough.”
He studied the craggy slopes to either side. The sun had dropped behind the mountain, leaving the landscape around them in shadow. Hills and precipices, ledges and steep de files, merged together in the near distance, the loss of light turning them an identical shade of deep red and stealing away depth of vision. Even the patches of sand that had blown into the nooks and crannies had a reddish tinge, as if reflecting the flaming sky.
He guessed he and Nebre were about a half-hour’s walk to the main wadi, which they should reach as darkness fell. The caravan would have moved on an hour or two earlier, but they could easily catch up with it in the cooler hours of night.
Signs of the recent passage of men and animals would be clear on the freshly washed and smoothed sand, eliminating any risk of getting lost.
He eyed the glittering wound on the side of a boulder where, during their outbound trek, Nebre had chipped away a piece of rock to mark their path. “I thank the lord Amon that we had the good sense to leave a clear trail when we entered these mountains.”
Nebre looked back over his shoulder. “I haven’t spotted anyone behind us, sir, which surprises me. If the man we fol lowed is trying to slay us, he’d surely come after us.”
“He has to have guessed the caravan’s destination-and ours. He may know a shorter way than the route we’re taking.”
“If only I’d been quicker with the bow! The threat of leav ing him untended where he lay would’ve set him talking soon enough. We’d have no further doubt as to why he’s been watching us.”
“He probably believes we’ll lead him to the gold Min nakht is rumored to have discovered.”
“We’ve found no gold, and User swears we never will.”
Bak scowled at the landscape around them. “Who knows what we’d find if we’d stay in one place and explore the land all around.”
“The watching man must know we’ve done no searching.”
“The merest thought of great wealth can besot a man far more than the strongest date wine-and a besotted individual is often a man of irrational determination.”
“What of Dedu and the other slain man? Did he fear he’d have to share with them?” Nebre asked.
“What of the man who went missing almost a year ago?
The one Amonmose heard of in Kaine. And don’t forget that
Nefertem swore his father was slain.”
“The foul deed of Senna, you think? To guide Minnakht would’ve been a desirable task, I’d wager.”
“If he slew Nefertem’s father so he might toil for Min nakht, why would he then slay Minnakht?”
While they puzzled over the problem, they turned into a wadi paved with loose stones ranging in size from a man’s fist to his head. They were forced to walk single file along a narrow path the nomads had painstakingly cleared by shift ing the rocks off the sandy bed of the watercourse. Low cairns rose at irregular intervals, marking the course of the track. Out in the open as they were, with no way to go other than the path they were following, they felt exposed, easy game for a man thinking to ambush them.
They hurried along, studying the landscape to either side, tense with anticipation. They must have been a quarter of an hour’s walk from the main wadi when they rounded a bend and saw a man on a hillside ahead, two hundred or so paces away. He was looking toward them across the mouth of an intersecting wadi as if he had anticipated their arrival. He was tall and slender. His kilt and tunic looked white in the uncertain light, making him appear more a man of Kemet than a nomad. Instead of spear and shield, he carried a bow and quiver. His features were indistinct from so far away, and it was impossible to discern the color of his skin in the late evening glow.
Nebre tore an arrow from his quiver, but was too confused to seat it. “Is he the man we saw before, or isn’t he? Can there be two of them, do you think?”
“I don’t know,” Bak admitted, equally at a loss.
The man stood where he was, watching them, as if waiting for them to draw near. What is the range of his weapon? Bak wondered. Is he carrying an ordinary bow? Or a composite bow such as those carried by Nebre and me? Far superior weapons to the older type, and with a range markedly longer.
Weapons not easy to lay hands on in a barren wilderness.
To leave the path and risk a broken ankle would have been foolhardy, and neither Bak nor Nebre was in any mood to turn around and run. Assuming the man’s bow to be ordinary, praying it was, they quickened their pace and forged ahead.
Scraps of white caught Bak’s eye. Several men striding into the wadi from an intersecting watercourse fifty or so paces beyond the hill on which the man stood. Kaha, Min mose, and Amonmose. Spotting Bak and Nebre, the portly trader placed his hands in front of his mouth to form a horn and shouted. Bak could not make out the words, but assumed a greeting. He raised a hand and waved.
“They must’ve thought us lost,” Nebre said, breaking into a smile.
Bak pointed toward the man on the hillside. “Shall we snare him?”
“Yes, sir!”
As they ran forward, the man hurried across the slope, moving to a spot from which he could see the Medjays and the trader. He stopped beside an upended slab of rock and peered around it. He must have realized he would be caught between Bak and Nebre and the other men, for he swung around, wove an upward path through the broken rocks clut tering the slope, and vanished over the hill’s crest.
“I couldn’t be certain,” Bak said. “He was too far away.
But he might well have been a man of Kemet.”
“Nomads sometimes move to Kemet, seeking a better way of life, and adopt the clothing and ways of our people.”
Amonmose, fully recovered from his experience in the flood waters, strode beside Bak with the vigor of a youth. “Perhaps the man you saw has come home to visit his kin.”
The evening had cooled, and a steady breeze blew along the eastern slope of the desert heights. In the clear air, the moon and stars glowed bright and clean, illuminating the hoofprints and droppings left by the donkeys in the caravan.
Their small party had followed the tracks down the main wadi and were crossing a low divide of gravel banks covered with sand, making their way to the next watercourse and the well.
“After following one man and losing him, you can imag ine how surprised we were to see another. If he was a differ ent man.”
“Are you sure the one who led you into the mountains is the same man who sent the boulder crashing down?”
“I’d wager my best kilt that he is. I know for a fact that he entered the gorge the night Dedu was slain.”
Thinking back over the chase through the foothills, Bak felt exceedingly frustrated. He had told Commandant Thuty that he knew nothing of the Eastern Desert and had thus far proven it over and over again. Their quarry had led him and
Nebre through the rugged landscape as if he held them on a leash, then had evaded them with the ease of a lizard in a thicket of thorny brush.
“I must admit I prayed you’d snare him,” Amonmose said.
“I’d not like to lead him to my fishing camp. If he’s treading the sands of this desert, slaying men for the fun of it, he might think my men fair game.”
Bak thought of the men who had been slain or had gone missing and might well be dead. Five men, at least four of them involved with exploring this vile land in search of riches. He doubted the fishermen were in danger, but still…
“Would it not be wise to send them across the Eastern Sea to the port that serves the turquoise and copper mines? They could sail out daily and would have a ready market for their catch. I think it safe to assume they’d be in no danger there.”
“Hmmm.” Amonmose’s brow wrinkled in thought. “The fishing is better around the islands on this side of the sea, but the men’s lives are worth more than a small profit.” He stubbed a toe on a rock, muttered an oath. “I suppose I’d have to cross the sea, too. They’ll need passes and other doc uments. Would you object if Nebenkemet and I travel on with you?”
Pleased that he would not have to cajole the merchant into accompanying him, Bak smiled. “You must vow that we’ll have no more swims in a flooded wadi.”
The trader laughed. “Not so much as a bath, Lieutenant.”
His good humor fading, Bak asked, “Now that User no longer has a guide, do you think he’ll alter his plan to remain in the Eastern Desert?”
“Ani’s been talking of turquoise since leaving Kaine. If he has his way, he’ll convince User to go on. If he can’t, I’m cer tain he’ll wish to tag along with us. Would User not be fool hardy to remain here, with no one to travel with but Wensu?”
Bak made a silent promise to himself to have a word with the explorer. Whether or not someone in his party had slain the man found dead north of Kaine, he wanted them all to stay together and to accompany him across the sea, if for no other reason than to keep them alive and well.