Sunbird (71 page)

^{'He has only two cohorts with him - 1,200 men - he would not engage an army of 30,000.}

^{'No army, but a slave rabble.'}

^{'Thirty thousand, none the less.'}

^{'We cannot reinforce him in time.'}

^{'It would be folly to try odds like that - and, my lord, Ben-Amon is no fool.'}

^{'The nearest reserves are at Sett on the river.'}

^{'Ben-Amon will not fight,' one of them declared, and they looked to Lannon for his opinion.}

^{Lannon smiled. 'Content yourselves. Ben-Amon will fight. At a time and a place of his own choosing His Holiness will fight.' Then the smile was gone. 'I will march in four hours with all available troops to support Ben-Amon. Issue mobilization orders to all the disbanded legions, send runners to Zeng.'}

^{'Will there be a battle?' Tanith asked. Her eyes sparkled green with anticipation, and her lips were parted expectantly. 'I mean, a real battle like the ones you sing about?'}

^{Huy grunted without looking up from his writing pallet where he was formulating his orders to the garrison commander at Sett.}

^{'Gather to you all troops within your sector and hold them within your walls. Account to me for your store of javelins, arrows and other weapons. What force of elephant do you command? Command the galleys of the river patrol to an-chor beneath your walls and await my orders. Inform me of the level of the river. What fords are passable?}

^{'I will join you within six days to assume command. It is my intention to dispute the enemies' passage of the river at--'}

^{Tanith slipped off the couch and crossed the tent. She came up behind Huy and put a finger in his ear.}

^{'My lord.'}

^{'Please, Tanith. I am busy on affairs of moment. This is urgent.'}

^{'No more urgent than a reply to my question - will there be a battle?'}

^{'Yes,' Huy replied testily. 'Yes, there will.'}

^{'Oh, good!' Tanith clapped her hands. 'I have never watched a real battle.'}

^{'Nor will you now!' replied Huy grimly as he resumed his writing. 'You will leave tomorrow morning on a war elephant with an escort of fifty men. You are going home to Opet until this trouble is over.'}

^{Tanith returned to the couch and plumped herself down upon it with the skirts of her tunic drawn up wantonly about her smooth thighs. She glared at the back of Huy's head, and her lips compressed into a stubborn line.}

^{'That, Holy Father,' she whispered inaudibly, 'may be your plan!'}

^{Tanith lay unsleeping and listened to the voices of Huy and his officers as they planned the campaign. Her tent was placed conveniently close to that of the High Priest, and the unlit space between them could be crossed without observation by the sentries. This journey to Sinai had been planned by Huy as a love tryst, an escape for them from the restraints of Opet.}

^{Across the tent from her, Aina, the ancient priestess, burbled and muttered in her sleep. Tanith picked up one of her sandals from beside the couch and threw it at her. Aina hiccupped and subsided into silence.}

^{Tanith was too excited by the momentous events in which she had been caught up for her to even contemplate sleep. A savage slave army was trundling down upon them, tens of thousands of wild men, leaving behind them a wide swathe of rape and slaughter and fire-blackened earth.}

^{All that day the refugees had poured into the camp, each of them bringing fresh tales of horror and death. To oppose these savages was Huy Ben-Amon and his small band of heroes, outnumbered twenty to one. It was the stuff of legend, and Tanith would not miss a moment of it. In her mind the outcome was assured, in the ballads the hero always triumphed. He was the favourite of the gods, and therefore invincible. It was a pity merely that the favourite of the gods in the usual masculine fashion was being tiresome, but Tanith had laid her plans.}

^{It was long after midnight before Tanith heard the officers taking loud leave of Huy, and clumping away to their own tents. She sat up, and started to induce tears to flood her eyes. She could usually achieve this by remembering a puppy she had owned as a child. A leopard had taken it. Tonight the trick would not work and she had to resort to rubbing her eyes with her knuckles.}

^{Huy lay on his couch, with the lamp wick trimmed low so the corners of the tent were in darkness. He came up quickly on one elbow when Tanith slipped in through the tent flap, and before he could speak she had thrown herself on the couch beside him and wrapped her arms about his neck. She was shivering violently.}

^{'What is it, my heart?' Huy was alarmed.}

^{'Oh my lord, a dream. A dream of ill omen.' And Huy felt icy little prickles of dread upon the back of his neck. In two years he had learned that Tanith was truly possessed of the gift of prescience. She was capable of vivid glimpses of the future, from small incidents to matters of the gravest moment. If Huy primed her on the course her prophesies should take, it was only on the more mundane consultations. He had, however, developed a hearty respect for her abilities. Tanith knew this as she whispered, 'I walked upon a night field lit only by the funeral fires.' And Huy held her closer, feeling the chill spreading through his body - night, funeral fires, ill-omens indeed.}

^{'I was weeping, my lord. I do not know why, but there was a great sense of loss. There had been a battle. The field was littered with weapons, and broken shields. I came upon the standard of the sixth legion, the sunbird, broken and discarded in the dirt.' Huy shuddered with awe, the sunbird thrown down! It was not only the symbol of his legion, but his own personal totem.}

^{'Then our Lady Astarte was with me. She also was weeping. Silver tears that ran down across her white face. She was very beautiful and very sad. She spoke to me, chiding me sorrowfully. "You should have stayed with him, Tanith. This would never have happened if you had stayed with him." '}

^{Huy felt the quick stab of doubt through his superstitious awe. He placed his hands on Tanith's shoulders and held her away to study her face. Her eyes were reddened, and tears had washed her cheeks, but still he was suspicious. It seemed a little too neat, and he had learned that when Tanith set her heart on something she was not easily put off.}

^{'Tanith,' he said severely. 'You know how grave a matter it is to misrepresent the words of the gods.'}

^{Tanith nodded fervently. 'Oh yes, my lord.'}

^{'As a seeress you have a sacred duty,' Huy insisted, and Tanith wiped her cheeks and remembered how Huy had used that sacred duty to steer the political and economic life of the nation, not to mention his personal profit. She could not deny herself a wicked pleasure in paying him in his own coin.}

^{'I know it well, Holy Father.' Huy stared at her but could find no evidence of guile. Unable to withstand the scrutiny of those dark eyes a moment longer, Tanith buried her face in his neck once more and waited silently. The silence lasted a long time, before Huy finally admitted defeat.}

^{'Very well,' he gruffed. 'I will keep you with me, if that is what the goddess wants.' And Tanith hugged him closer and smiled triumphantly into Huy Ben-Amon's curly beard.}

^{For five days Huy probed and tested that moving mass of humanity as it flowed on towards the great river like a vast black jelly-fish. Always he moved back, retreating ahead of it, keeping his tiny force compact and well under his hand, using it with economy and purpose.}

^{On the fifth day he linked up with the garrison at Sett. Mago, the elderly commander, placed himself under Huy with 1,800 archers and light infantry, twelve war elephants, two patrol galleys of 100 oars each, and the garrison's considerable arsenal.}

^{Huy greeted him in the heated noonday on a small hill a dozen miles south of the river, and he led Mago aside out of earshot of the staff.}

^{'I am honoured to serve under you. Holy Father. They say there is glory for those that follow the standard of the Sun-bird.'}

^{'There will be enough glory for all here, I warrant you,' Huy told him grimly, and pointed across the open forest land. 'There they are.'}

^{The slave army moved like a thick column of foraging ants, and a pale mist of dust rose above the trees.}

^{'What thought comes first to your mind, Captain?' Huy asked quietly, and Mago studied the distant army.}

^{'From here, my lord, they look like any other army on the march,' he muttered doubtfully.}

^{'And does that not strike you as odd? This is not an army, Mago, it is a rabble of escaped slaves. Yet it moves like an army.'}

^{Mago nodded quickly, understanding. 'Yes! Yes! They are in hand, you can see it. It is true, you would not expect such control.'}

^{'There is more to it than that,' Huy told him. 'You will see it demonstrated in a moment, for I have arranged a little entertainment. I believe in giving these slaves plenty of pepper in their diet. We will raid their baggage in a moment, and then you will see what I mean.'}

^{They were silent for a moment, watching the enemy move slowly down towards them.}

^{Then Huy asked, 'What is the state of the river, Mago?'}

^{'My lord, it is very low.'}

^{'The ford is passable?' Huy insisted. 'How deep is it?'}

^{'It can be crossed on foot. The water at the deepest is neck-deep, but flowing fast. I have had the guide ropes cut.'}

^{Huy nodded. 'They are moving towards the ford at Sett. I have been sure of that from the moment when they chose the Lulule pass of the escarpment.' Huy was silent a moment longer. 'That is where I will destroy them,' he went on firmly, and Mago glanced sideways at him. 'Destroy' seemed a strange word for a general of 3,000 men to use in connection with an army of 30,000.}

^{'My lord!' one of Huy's officers shouted. 'The attack begins! ' And Huy hurried across to join the group.}

^{'Ah!' he said with satisfaction. 'Bakmor has chosen his moment well.'}

^{From their carefully prepared ambush, Bakmor's 500 heavy infantry men charged into the flank of the column. Huy's favourite had picked a weak spot in the protective screen of black spearmen. His axemen hacked their way through to the baggage train, and the drivers of the bullock wagons jumped from their seats and ran, the women bearers dropped the baskets of grain from their heads and followed them in a shrieking panic.}

^{Swiftly the attackers slaughtered the oxen in their traces, and piled the grain baskets in heaps. Fire from the earthenware pots was fanned to life and within minutes the plundered food stores of the slave army were ablaze.}

^{'Look!' Huy pointed out to Mago the response of the slaves to this sudden onslaught. From head and tail of the column formations of spearmen were doubling back and forward in the classical manoeuvre of envelopment. The movement was not executed with any of the precision of a trained legion. It was slow and unwieldy, a mere parody of the correct formations, but it was recognizable.}

^{'Remarkable!' Mago exclaimed. 'A soldier commands them, one at least who has read the military statutes. Your officer must be careful now.'}

^{'Bakmor knows what to do,' Huy assured him, and as he spoke the distant axemen formed up quickly into the testudo formation, an armoured tortoise of shields, and they trotted out between the enclosing arms of spearmen, beating the encircling movement with minutes to spare. Behind them the baggage train burned, smearing black smoke across the tree-tops.}

^{'Good! Good!' Huy grinned his pleasure and relief, slapping his thigh with pleasure. 'Sweetly done! Now, let the slave commander show if he is as great a quartermaster as he is a tactician! There will be growling bellies in the enemy camp tonight.' Huy took Mago's arm and led him away. 'A bowl of wine,' he suggested. 'Watching and waiting is almost as thirsty work as swinging the axe.'}