Andre Norton - Shadow Hawk (17 page)

The food had strengthened him in the belief that he was not to be left there forever. And putting the horrors of the immediate past to the back of his mind, the captain began considering what could be done here and now to help himself. His body was bare of any clothing. Even his throat amulet had been taken from him. He had no possible weapon and he was chained.

Chained! His fingers went to that ring on his anlde, moved along the links to the ring that anchored him to the wall. That had been set deep in the mortar where four blocks met. He tugged at it, already knowing that it would require more than Kheti's strength to loosen it. But mortar—

Once more he groped on the floor, found the plate on which the bread had rested. It was, to the touch, a rough thing of baked clay. But it might be a tool of sorts. At any rate he would not sit in the dark making no effort at all, awaiting death with a broken spirit!

Deliberately Rahotep broke the plate, and was left with two jagged, pointed shards. With one of these he began what he knew was an impossible task, picking with that fragile, crumbling clay point at the stone-hard stuff in which the ring was set. He might as well attempt to drain the Nile with his cupped hands, something within him commented bitterly. But he kept on, though the clay powdered away with every stroke.

There was no night or day, no hours to be marked in the dark. He could have been there for a longer or a shorter time than he guessed. Sleep came. Rahotep drank sparingly of the water when he awoke, stiff and sore, and ate a mouthful or two of the bread. Neither supply had been replenished, and he congratulated himself on the foresight of rationing what he had found.

The last fragment of the broken plate was powder and his fingertips were raw with rubbing the most infinitesimal bits back and forth around the ring. He thought he could feel a slight indentation there, but it was all lost effort. And now he sat quietly, cradling in his hand the one remaining bite of bread.

He was raising that to his lips when there was a burst of blinding light above the level of his head. His hands over his eyes in instinctive protection, Rahotep flattened against the wall where his chain was fastened. He had been so long in solitary darkness that he first did not understand the promise of those sounds from overhead. Sluggishly they fitted into a pattern in his ears, began to make a measure of sense.

"Lord Rahotep—?" There was a familiar slur softening that urgent call. Then a second voice, pitched low, but with the carrying snap of an officer, brushed aside the first inquiry.

"Rahotep! Brother!"

The captain pulled a name out of his memory, said it aloud in that husky whisper that seemed all that was left to him for a voice.

"Kheti!"

"Aye, brother, Kheti. Hold that torch lower, fool! Nay,
after
I am through this hole—not before!"

A body squeezed with some effort through the square opening some eight feet up on the far wall, hung for a moment by the hands, and then dropped to the floor. Rahotep's eyes still smarted in the light from the torch extended through the wall hole, but he forced himself to look about the stone cell that had held him—for how long?

"I am chained—" His husky whisper echoed oddly from the bare walls.

Kheti was already down on one knee examining the links and the ring to which they were fastened. He gave a test jerk to the fetters and then shook his head, turning his attention to the ring about the captain's ankle.

"This may be broken, brother. Brace yourself!"

In spite of the pain in his back Rahotep stood against the wall, his arms outspread to balance himself, as Kheti inserted both thumbs into the ring. Muscles stood out on the Nubian's shoulders, and Rahotep felt his bone and flesh caught in the pressure of those hands.

"Ah—the metal is old and worn—" Kheti grunted with satisfaction. "Once more, brother—"

Rahotep closed his eyes, felt a trickle of cold sweat course down his jaw. Then that terrible pressure was gone with the tinkle of metal against stone. His whole foot felt numb as if the circulation in it had ceased, but he stumbled forward without question as Kheti led him across the cell to stand under the opening.

"Up with you now!" The Nubian's hands closed on the captain's waist, and Rahotep was heaved aloft. The torch was withdrawn abruptly, and hands came down to catch his upraised wrists. He was pulled up, out of Kheti's hold, dragged roughly enough for it to seem for a moment that he was being pulled in two.

He lay on his back in a corridor so narrow that his shoulders brushed either wall. And those there stood at his head and feet. But Rahotep's dazzled eyes told him that they were his archers.

"How—?" His question was never finished for there was a scuffle and he heard Kheti once more giving orders.

"Close that stone tightly, you pig of Kush! Let these shaven skulls wonder if their own Great One made a meal of the captain behind their backs. That would be a good story to ram down their throats! Lord"—he loomed over Rahotep, giving him an officer's greeting—"can you walk? We know not where this burrow leads, but it must have an
^:
end somewhere!"

"Give me a hand up. If I have enough left of my foot bones"—Rahotep laughed a little lightheadedly—"I can assuredly walk. Where are we and how did you come hither—?"

Kheti's hands hooked in his armpits dragged him up, and the Nubian's mighty shoulder was behind the captain as a support until he was able to stand steady.

"We are in some hidden way of these sneaking priests—a long hidden way by the looks of this—" His bare toes scuffed in the thick dust on the floor. "Because we can heft stones past the moving of their slaves they brought us in to clear part of a ruined shrine built in the far past on which they plan to raise another lurking place for their magics. Today Mahu chanced to find in the wall a stone which moved under his hands when he cleared away some rubble. Tonight we broke out of the slave quarters and used that door—"

"But how did you find me?" demanded Rahotep as he followed behind two of the archers, one bearing the torch, Kheti and the others at his back.

"There was much talk of how you were kept in some secret place of the temple." Kheti's tone was hard; the hand he had kept on his captain's shoulder as if to steer him aright tightened. "They were planning a mighty spectacle—"

"With me to play the center of it!" Rahotep finished bleakly.

"That is the truth you speak, Lord. Therefore, when this secret way led into the interior of the temple, as we could see through the spy holes in the walls, we kept outlook for aught which might betray where they had prisoned you."

"Aye," Mahu the torch bearer broke in. "Look you, Lord!"

He swung his brand closer to floor level, and Rahotep marked a handhold carved into the side of a block of stone, apparently to aid in its being pulled forward.

"One of these we opened. We found a prisoner's cell beyond—empty—except for the bones of a man long dead. So each we came to we inspected. And in the third we found you!"

"But we are still in the Temple of Anubis then?"

"We are, Lord." Again Mahu's whisper floated back. "This is an old pile much built over. I do not think the shaven skulls themselves know all its secrets. And if we do not find the other end to this burrow, we can remain hidden for a day, until the chase has spread out into the desert, and then retrace our way through the camp of the slaves."

"Meanwhile, we can learn more of the shaven skulls' secrets," remarked Kheti. "We search now for their treasure room—"

"This is no time to think of looting!" Rahotep half stuttered. The Nubians, as followers of Dedun, would not balk at helping themselves to the offerings of a foreign god. But he was surprised to hear Kheti suggest something so far from their main objective of escape.

"Not loot, Lord!" Hori's tone was one of honest indignation. "We but take what is lawfully ours. These priests pounced upon our weapons as tribute to their Jackal. Give us our arms once more and we shall stand as men—"

A low growl of assent echoed along the line of Scouts. And Rahotep made no protest when they halted now and again to peer through holes in the walls to see what lay beyond. Under those conditions Kheti's search for the treasure chamber made very good sense indeed.

The excitement of his liberation had carried Rahotep along as the swell of the flood waters carried debris downriver. But now his head whirled giddily and he steadied himself with one hand against the wall of the narrow passage, concentrating upon the important business of placing one foot before the other without losing his balance. They halted by another peephole, and through it came the sound of full-voiced chanting.

Foggily Rahotep recognized a word here and a phrase there. The priests were forming a procession for a ceremonial visit from Pharaoh. What Pharaoh?

"Sekenenre—?" He looked to Kheti for an answer.

Only dimly to be seen in the limited light, the Nubian grinned.

"Pharaoh is himself save for a bump on the head and a scratch on the chest, brother. Otherwise we all would have been dead long since!"

That the captain could believe. But who—or what—had been the assassin he had driven off—and where had that other vanished to? Kheti, who had been watching through the spy hole, turned away with a sigh of mingled relief and satisfaction.

"There they go, guards and all! Let us hope that they shall be some time braying to their Jackal. What is it, Mahu?"

The foremost archer had slipped along the passage, around a corner where he had to scrape to get his bulk through. Now he looked back at them and beckoned violently.

What Mahu had found was the room they sought. Narrow slits high in the wall brought daylight to the storeroom, and they saw shelves piled with coffers and jars. Mahu pointed excitedly to a rack on the wall wherein hung bows.

"Aye, those are ours!" Kheti confirmed. "Now—how do we reach them?"

He hunkered down on the floor of the passage and ran his hands along the wall, seeking an entrance here such as they had found to the cells. A pleased chuckle told them he had discovered it. And the others crowded back to give him room.

The block, which was a narrow one, came away with difficulty, and the Nubian underofficer surveyed the opening dubiously.

"More a path for a snake," he commented. He made a try, but it was obviously too narrow for him or any of the archers. Rahotep edged forward.

"This task is mine. Let me through!" His words came in a rush, for he did not honestly know if he still had strength enough to do what must be done. When Kheti got out of the way, Rahotep squirmed in. The rough stone of the opening raked his tender shoulders, bringing a sharp exclamation from him. But he persevered and, with a last kick, was through.

Because he did not dare try to get to his feet, Rahotep crawled across the room to the rack. He crouched below it panting, while he nerved himself for the effort of getting up and freeing the weapons. Then he levered himself up with the aid of a coffer. One by one he loosened the bows, pulled the quivers of leopard hide off the hooks. The priests had been thorough in their claims for spoil. He found his belt with its fine dagger and the silver bracer that had been his only heritage from the Hawk slung over a peg at the end of the line and added them to his collection.

It was when he took the bracer that he dislodged a box on the shelf below. The lid fell with a faint noise, and Rahotep stiffened, his breath coming in painful gasps, his eyes on the outer door, bracing himself for the entrance of the temple guards.

But the door remained closed; there was not the slightest sound from without. In the coffer, whose lid he had knocked off, lay a more than life-size, but a very lifelike, mask of a jackal. The animal's own hide was stretched with skill over a light frame of wood and wickerwork, as he saw upon lifting it out.

Plainly it had been intended to be worn over the head of a priest. There was a furred flap to lie about throat and shoulders. Fingering its ears, its furry hide, Rahotep knew now what kind of monster he had found in Pharaoh's bedchamber. A priest of Anubis, wearing such a guise, could well be taken for a messenger of the God, not to be questioned by any man who saw him. The captain longed to take the mask with him as proof of his wild story of the assassin, but it was too bulky, and he set it aside with regret.

Slowly, fighting his spinning head and trembling body every inch of the way, Rahotep crept back to the opening, pushing his loot before him. He was afraid he could not negotiate that small door again. But he thrust his hands through in half appeal and felt a warm, tight grasp close about his wrists, drawing him on.

Of what happened after that he had no memory at all. When he awoke again, he was lying face down on a pile of mats. Flashes of burning agony broke through the steady pain he had known for so long, and he tried to twist away from the grip that held him fast under that torturing touch.

"Quiet, brother!" The words again came out of the air above him, as they had in the crypt where Kheti had first found him. "Give me more oil here, stupid one."

Liquid dripped upon the captain's back and was rubbed in in spite of his struggles. Then a hollow reed was put in his mouth, and he was ordered to suck. He did so meekly. The acid-sweet taste of wine that had been mixed with milk was on his tongue, and he swallowed.

"You will live—" Kheti's tone was meant to be light, but there was relief in it. "Those weals are already half healed and the oil will aid them."