An Evil Spirit Out of the West (Ancient Egyptian Mysteries) by Paul Doherty Page A

shields, the latter adorned with the insignia of their unit. Behind them came the frightened raw recruits, similarly dressed – the Nakhtu-aa, the ‘Strong-Arm Boys’, who, in conflict, would stiffen the battleline. On our flanks marched irregular troops, hordes of Nubian archers, white plumes in their curled, bobbed hair, leopard or lion kilts around their waists, coloured baldrics stretching across their left shoulders then wrapped round their waists to form a sash. They wore thick, white tight collars round their necks and bracelets of a similar colour on their wrists. There were others: mercenaries from the Islands in the Great Green dressed in leather and carrying rounded shields and long swords, Libyan archers, virtually naked except for a phallus guard, their shoulders draped in ox or giraffe skin. All around these paraded the true power of Egypt led by the Maryannou, the Braves of the King, squadron after squadron of war-chariots, moving to the sound of rumbling wheels and neighing horses, a vivid array of different colours.
    Trumpets blew and the royal standards, depicting different gods all paying obeisance to Amun-Ra, were lifted. Priests made sacrifice on the makeshift altars and the order of march was issued. Three corps, ours in the centre, were to advance east to secure the mines, re-fortify the settlements and mete out Pharaoh’s justice to the rebels: any enemy taken captive was to be executed immediately.
    We began our slow advance into hostile territory, Colonel Perra in charge. The Veiled One, travelling in his cart, was attached to our unit which was sent far ahead of the rest. We moved forward across a landscape so heinous I thought I was in the Underworld: boiling sun above grey, arid land, broken by the occasional oasis, or small village. Dust devils stung our eyes and filled our mouths. We progressed slowly, dependent on water, foraging both for ourselves as well as the horses, oxen and donkey trains. We left the protection of other great forts, ‘The Repelling of Seth’, ‘The Defence of the Bows’ and ‘The Power of Pharaoh’, a slow-moving column of chariots, carts, horses, donkeys, oxen and men. At first the trumpets blared and different units sang ribald songs about each other, but soon the fiery heat sucked the life and breath out of us. Our feet, despite the leather marching boots, became scarred and stubbed by the hard ground. Above us the sun, our constant torturer, like a hole of fiery gold in the light-blue sky, moved along with us. Clouds of shifting dust and storms of sand, whipped up by the wind, made us look like a troop of ghosts moving across the arid Red Lands. The heat haze played tricks with our eyes, and taunted our hearts as well as our tongues with the prospect of cool running water. We piled our armour onto the carts and fashioned makeshift masks and hoods for our heads and faces, rubbing thick black kohl around our eyes. Sobeck quietly joked that we were now all ‘Veiled Ones’, though Horemheb pointed out that the secretive Prince, travelling in his chariot, asked for no special favours.
    We kept to the fortified royal roads built years previously across the Province of Waat. Our scouts went out before us armed with maps to locate the wells and any source of running water. Of the other two divisions moving parallel to us we saw no sign. Their mission was to secure the amethyst mines in the North, ours was to reassert control of the gold and copper mines.
    The rigour of the march shattered any illusion about the beauty of war. No longer were we glorious chariot squadrons moving majestically across the plain to confront an enemy; now it was nothing but a searing trudge through a boiling cauldron, dependent on brackish water, hard bread and stringy, salted meat. We’d camp at night near some well or oasis. The stars hung low in the dark velvet sky whilst the biting cold made us pray for the heat of the day. All the beasts of the blackness closed in around us,