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"We'll show them our fire," he said.
A feather fan mounted on a yard-long handle stood in a holder at his side. He snatched it out and waved to left and right. The Egyptian formation curled smoothly forward on either hand. Fast as ever, he thought-the new harness let a team pull the heavier chariots without losing speed or agility. A drumming of hooves filled the air with thunder, a choking white dust curled up like the sandstorms of Sinai. The horses rocked into a gallop, nostrils flared and red, foam flecking their necks. The first arrows arched out, the bright sun winking off their points. Djehuty sneered: much too far for effective archery. Dust boiled up into the unmerciful sky, thick and acrid on his tongue.
"Amun! Amun! The Divine Horus!" the Egyptians roared. Savage war cries echoed back from the enemy.
"Gun!" he barked, holding out a hand. Check-patterned acacia wood slapped into it as Se
Thumping sounds smashed through the roar of hooves and thunder of wheels. Syrian chariots went over, and the high womanish screaming of wounded horses was added to the up-roar. Djehuty crouched, raking back the hammers with his left palm and then leveling the weapon.
Now. An enemy chariot dashing forward out of the dust in a dangerously tight curve, one wheel off the ground. Close enough to see the wild-eyed glare of the warrior poised with a javelin in one hand. Bring the wedge at the front of the paired barrels to the notch at the back. It wasn't so different from using a bow; the body adjusting like a machine of balanced springs, but easier, easier, no effort of holding the draw. Squeeze the trigger, nothing jerky about the motion…
Whump. The metal-shod butt of the shotgun punished his shoulder. Flame and sulfur-stinking smoke vomited from the barrels, along with thirty lead balls. Those were invisible- strange to think of something moving too fast to see-but he shouted in exultation as he saw them strike home. The horses reared and screamed and tripped as the lead raked them, and the driver went over backward.
"Gun!" Djehuty roared, and Se
They plunged through the dust cloud and out into the open; the surviving Syrian chariots were in full retreat. Others lay broken, some with upturned wheels still spi
"Pull up," Djehuty rasped. "Sound rally."
The driver brought the team to a halt. Se
Meanwhile he looked to the northeast. More dust there, a low sullen cloud of it that caught the bright sunlight. He waited, and a rippling sparkle came from it, filling vision from side to side of the world ahead of them like stars on a night-bound sea.
"Father, what's that!" Se
The redoubt was a five-sided figure of earth berms; there were notches cut in the walls for the muzzles of the ca
Djehuty waited atop the rampart for the enemy heralds, come for the usual parley, an attacker's inevitable demand for surrender after the first skirmish. They carried a green branch for peace, and a white cloth on a pole as well-evidently the same thing, by somebody else's customs. And flags, one with white stars on a blue ground, and red and white stripes. His eyes widened a little. He had heard of that flag. Another beside it had similar symbols, and cryptic glyphs, thus: R.O.N. COAST GUARD. He shivered a little, inwardly. What wizardry was woven into that cloth? A touch at his amulet stiffened him with knowledge of the favor of the Gods of Khem. Gilded eagles topped the staffs, not the double-headed version of the Hittites, but sculpted as if alive with their wings thrust behind them and their claws clutching arrows and olive branches. So that is why the strangers from the far west are called the Eagle People, he thought. It must be their protector-God.
"I am Djehuty, Commander of the Brigade of Seth in the army of Pharaoh, User-Ma'at-Ra, son of Ra, Ramses of the line of Ramses, the ruler of Upper and Lower Egypt," he barked. "Speak."
"Commodore Marian Alston-Kurlelo," the figure in the odd blue clothing said. He lifted off his helm. No, she, by the Gods-the rumors speak truth. Odd, but we had a woman as Pharaoh once, and she led armies. Djehuty's eyes went wider. The enemy commander was a Nubian; not part-blood like Mek-Andrus, but black as polished ebony. His eyes flicked to the others sitting their horses beside her. One was a woman, too, yellow-haired like some Achaeans; another was a man of no race he knew, with skin the color of amber and eyes slanted at the outer ends; the other two looked like Sherden from the north shore of the Middle Sea as far as their coloring went, although their hair was cropped close. A Sudunu stood uneasily by the foreign woman's stirrup; he stepped forward and bowed with one hand to his flowerpot hat to keep it from falling off.
"I shall interpret, noble Djehuty," he said uneasily; the Egyptian was fluent, but with the throaty accent of his people. Djehuty glared for a second. Byblos, Sidon, and the other coastal cities of Canaan south of Ugarit were vassals of Pharaoh; what was this treacherous dog doing aiding his enemies? Sudunu would do anything for wealth.
"Tell this woman that no foreigner goes armed in Pharaoh's dominions without his leave, on pain of death. If she and her rabble leave at once, I may be merciful."
The Sudunu began to speak in Akkadian, the Babylonian tongue. Djehuty could follow it a little; it was the tongue Kings used to write to each other, and not impossibly different from the language of the western Semites, which he did speak after a fashion. The interpreter was shading the meaning. That often happened, since such a man was eager to avoid offending anyone.
"Tell her exactly, as I told you-don't drip honey on it," he broke in.
The swarthy, scrawny man in the embroidered robe swallowed hard, and the black woman gave a slight, bleak smile.
"Lord Djehuty," the interpreter began. "Commodore-that is a rank, lord-Alston says that she is empowered by her… lord, the word she uses means ruler, I think-Ruler of an island across the River Ocean-and the Great King of the Hittites, and the Great King of Kar-Duniash, and their other allies, to demand the return of George McAndrews, a renegade of her people. If you will give us this man, the allied forces will return past the border of the Pharaoh Ramses's dominions, and peace may prevail."
Djehuty puzzled over the words for a moment before he realized that the name was Mek-Andrus.
"Barbarians make no demands of Pharaoh," he snapped. Although I would send him to you dragged by the ankles behind my chariot, if the choice were mine. "They beg for favors, or feel the flail of his wrath. Go, or die."