The Oasis by Pauline Gedge Page B

were questions in his tone. Kamose turned to the cabin.
    “Akhtoy, open my Amun shrine and prepare incense,” he called. “We will pray, Ankhmahor, and then we will disembark. It is time.”
    The sky was almost imperceptibly paler when they emerged from the cabin and entered the skiff, the Braves remaining in the other vessels following suit at Kamose’s shout. Gathering on the bank, they set off along the river path, Kamose in the centre of his bodyguards, the two hundred Braves before and behind. Now the roofless height of the fort could be discerned, and even as Kamose scanned it anxiously, a cry rang out. Something formless dropped from the wall and suddenly a dozen such shapes sprang into focus, men crouched above, peering down even as Kamose looked up. Another cry tore through the limpid morning air. Then the Medjay howled, the primitive sound echoed almost at once by an answering clamour off to Kamose’s left. The figures on the wall fell one by one. Abruptly the vegetation gave way to naked space, wide watersteps against which two large barges rocked, and Kamose and his men found themselves confronting the full elevation of the fort.
    The gate was open and already a seething mass of soldiers mingling with the darker, slighter Medjay were pouring inside. Behind them, filling the area between fort and watersteps, more troops jostled as they joined the flow. The noise was deafening. Kamose made out Prince Iasen and Prince Mesehti with their standard bearers, calmly issuing orders in the midst of what seemed to be chaos. There was no sign of Hor-Aha or Ahmose, and Kamose presumed that they were with the majority of the army as it stormed the western gate.
    The light was strengthening rapidly. Long shadows began to resolve and lengthen at the foot of the wall, snaking dark and increasingly sharp towards the river, while the sky flushed with a delicate pink and in the trees the birds burst forth with their morning song. All at once Kamose and the Braves found themselves alone but for the few bodies of the Setiu archers that had fallen and now lay trampled into the sand by the hordes rushing heedlessly over them. Beyond the gate the noise continued unabated, yells and screams, the frightened shrieks of horses, the loud shouts of officers. But no hysterical sobbing, no voices of women raised in terror, Kamose thought. Compared with what else I have done, this is clean. Now all I have to do is wait.
    Long before the shadows had foreshortened towards noon, the struggle for Nefrusi was over and Kamose and his men walked through the gate and into a vast compound littered with bodies and debris. Picking his way, he was approached by Ahmose, Hor-Aha and Meketra. Ahmose was drenched in sweat and streaked with blood. The axe at his belt hung crusted and the sword in his hand was befouled to the hilt. “It was no battle, Kamose,” he said. “Look around you. It was like trapping frightened rabbits in a small field. I held back a large portion of the army or else we would have been packed elbow to elbow in here. Less than half a division was necessary. Of course, if the gates had not been opened, it would have been a different story.” He cast a sidelong glance at Meketra who was standing stolidly beside him.
    “We are in your debt, Prince,” Kamose said. “Take your family and go to Khemmenu. All Teti’s possessions are forfeit to me, and I deed them to you. Go at once.” He thought he saw disappointment flare in the man’s heavy-lidded eyes. Meketra wants to see Teti die, he realized with distaste. He is willing to endure the mute hostility of the survivors here so that he may glut himself on Teti’s death throes. After a slight hesitation Meketra bowed and backed away.
    “Every Prince under you could be called traitor by those loyal to Apepa,” Ankhmahor said in a low voice. “Why then should Meketra conjure such disgust in me?”
    “Because there is something polluted in his ka,” Kamose answered immediately.