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Mek-Andrus nodded; he no longer smiled with such boorish frequency as he had when he first came to Egypt. "That is the question. They were here"-he tapped the place where the Jordan emerged from Galilee-"yesterday at sunset.
Another rustling. That left the enemy further from the plain of Jezreel than the Egyptians, but the path the northerners must cross was over flat land with supplies to hand; the Egyptian force must cross mountains.
"Thutmose did it," Mek-Andrus said. "If we take this pass"- his finger tapped-"as the Great One's predecessor did, we can be here and deployed to meet them before they expect us."
Thutmose… Djehuty thought. Then: Ah. One of the great Pharaohs of the previous dynasty, the one that had petered out when the Accursed of Amun, the Enemy, tried to throw down the worship of the Gods in favor of Atun.
His eyes narrowed as he watched Mek-Andrus. How did the outland dog know so much of Khem? Djehuty knew the barbarian didn't read the Egyptian script, so he couldn't have simply read the story off a temple wall the way a literate, civilized man might. The fire-weapons themselves weren't sorcery, just a recipe, like cooking-plain saltpeter and sulfur and charcoal, whatever the peasants might think. But there was something not quite ca
Yet the Gods have sent him to us. Without Mek-Andrus, the Hittites and Achaeans and other demon-begotten foreigners who knew not the Black Land or the Red would have had the new weapons all to their own. That would have been as bad as the time long ago when the Hyksos came with their chariots, before any Egyptian had seen a horse, and it had taken a long night of subjection and war to expel them.
"Who should take the vanguard?" Pharaoh asked.
Mek-Andrus bowed. "Let Pharaoh choose the commander who has both wisdom and bravery… and many ca
Remote as jackal-headed Anubis deciding the fate of a soul in the afterworld, Pharaoh's eyes sca
Djehuty fell on his face as the flail pointed to him. "Djehuty of the Brigade of Seth. The vanguard shall be yours. Prepare to move as soon as you may. You shall cross the pass and hold the ground for the rest of our armies. So let it be written! So let it be done!"
It was a great honor-and possibly the death sentence for the Brigade of Seth.
The courier threw back his head and drank, water ru
It had been a long ride overland from his landfall in Athens, even with good roads. The almond trees in the field across from the smithy and relay station were in bloom, their scent a breath of freshness amid the dust and dung of the roadside smithy. Soon he would be in Walkeropolis, where he could rest.
The saddlebags had the Wolf Lord's blazon on them. The death-fate laid on him if they were lost was gruesome.
The smith bent and lifted the right rear hoof between his knees, nails ready in his mouth. A slave girl came by just then, looking over her shoulder at the uniformed courier and letting her thin tunic draw tight against her buttocks. He smiled and worked the pump for her to fill her bucket.
Nevertheless, he was stern in his duty, shaking his head ruefully when she looked back at him from around the corner and rolled her eyes toward the stables. She made a face at him and walked off; he sighed and took the bridle of his horse as the smith's boy led it out. He swung back into the saddle and heeled his mount to the graveled verge of the road.
"Good intelligence can be worth an extra regiment," Marian Alston-Kurlelo said, returning Ke
It was going on two years now since she'd ridden into Camp Grant and told him that he was going to Babylonia. Grown a good deal. Thirtysomething, but looking older and a bit thi
"It had better be worth a regiment," he said bluntly. "Because these two battalions are all I can spare, with the local levies. If we take any more from the northern front, we're fucked. Ma'am."
She chuckled, looking out over the vast sprawling chaos of the muster point where the hosts of the southern Hittite lands were gathered. Many of the assembled Hittites-and Syrians and Aramaeans and whatever-were still in hysterics from the Liberator's visit; she'd sent the airship right back for another load of heavy weapons anyway. The dust and heat were already fearsome; even in April, the Damascus area was well into what felt like summer. The green oasis helped some, and the sight of the cedar-forested mountains to the westward.
Take me back to the River Jordan, she thought/quoted to herself. It's about seventy-five miles thataway, south by southwest.
"Most of the Egyptians will be old-style troops," she said reassuringly. "Doreen may be in her seventh month, but her spies are very mobile. Their rifle units won't be as good as the Tartessians, and they weren't as good as Walker's men in Sicily… and he's got all his best facing you."
Hollard nodded. "This is damned important, though, ma'am," he said. "A couple of crucial alliances depend on turning the Egyptians back."
"Awkward. I'd been hoping to bring my people in from Sicily directly in your support-invading Greece directly just now is out of the question, I'm afraid; I don't have the firepower or troops. Well, needs must when the devil drives; I'll handle the Egyptians if you can hold Walker. Good luck. Brigadier Hollard. Good hunting."
"And to you, Commodore," he said.
"I do not like the thought of cowering in a hole," Djehuty said.
The valley stretched out before him, land flat and marshy in spots, in others fertile enough even by an Egyptian's standards. Wheat and barley billowed in green waves with yellow streaks; the fallow plots between the fields were densely grown with weeds. Olive trees grew thick on the hills that rose on either side of the southeastward trend of the lowlands; orchards of fig and pomegranate and green leafy vineyards that would produce the famed Wine of the North stood around hamlets of dark mud brick. These lands were well peopled, a personal estate of Pharaoh and on a route that carried much trade from the north in times of peace.
"All the courage in the world won't stop a bullet," Mek-Andrus said. "A man in a hole-a rifle pit-can load and fire more easily, and still be protected from the enemy's bullets. They must stand and walk forward to attack; and the Divine Son of Ra has ordered us to defend."
Djehuty made a gesture of respect at the Pharaoh's name. "So he has," he said. You purple-arsed baboon, he thought to himself. Pharaoh was a living God, but a commander in the field was not always bound by his sovereign's orders-it was the objective that counted. And occasionally Egyptians had committed deicide. No. He thrust the thought from him. That was a counsel of desperation, and Ramses had been a good Pharaoh, strong and just.
"How do you advise that we deploy, then?" Djehuty said.
He looked back. Most of the Brigade of Seth were out, forming up in solid blocks.
"Let us keep the pass to our backs," the foreigner said.
"So-half of a circle?" Djehuty said, making a curving gesture.
"No, not today. That would disperse the fire of our guns. Instead-
Mek-Andrus began to draw in the dirt with a bronze-tipped stick he carried. "Two redoubts, little square earth forts, on either end of a half circle whose side curves away from the enemy. That way they can give enfilading fire."