A Vile Justice (24 page)

The dark silhouette of a man raced across the roof of the empty house across the lane. He knelt several paces behind the parapet and raised a bow with an arrow already seated. Details of space and body were hidden in the gloom, but the archer was definitely Nenu.

An arrow sped toward Bak, its bronze tip and white feathers ghost images in the dwindling light. He ducked low and swung his shield up. The sudden movement wrenched the torn muscle in his shoulder, catching him short, slowing him. The shield's heavy wooden frame deflected the missile, saving him from a mortal wound, but the point sliced through the bandage wrapped tightly around his upper torso and tore across his ribcage under his left arm. A hasty glance showed blood beading up along the edge of the slit linen.

Shouts burst out in the open area south of the building block. Whistles. Applause. The wrestlers entering the arena, the match about to begin.

Kasaya burst from his hidingplace and raced across the rooftops, zigzagging around families, leaping over braziers and pets and pottery stacked for cleaning. Raised voices followed in his wake. Adults and children craned their necks, anxious to see what provoked such haste. Nenu, seating another arrow, must have heard the alarm in their voices, the curiosity. He swung around, spotted the large dark figure racing toward him like a creature risen from the netherworld, spearpoint glinting eerily in the failing light. He raised his bow toward the new target, released the missile. A cry rang out and a woman crumpled into her husband's arms. A man yelled, angry voices rose in the air: the family and friends of the injured woman. Nenu froze, evidently realizing what he had done.

Spitting out a curse, Bak grabbed his spear from the rooftop, ran to the parapet, and flung it hard at the archer on the opposite roof. The weapon flew past, missing its target by a hair's breadth. Nenu pivoted, startled by the near miss. He fumbled with an arrow, obviously panicked by the heated voices and Kasaya pounding toward him. Finally seating the missile, he took a wild shot at Bak and dashed for the southern end of the block. There an outside stairway led down to the street and the open space where the wrestlers would compete. Where Pahared's sailors waited.

"Psuro, now!" Bak yelled.

The Medjay was already on the move. Lifting a long board from the shadows, he darted to the edge of the roof, planted a foot on the parapet and leaned forward, and dropped the plank over the span, bridging the lane.

Not sure he could be heard over the shouting spectators, Bak whistled the long, loud signal meant to alert Pahared's sailors. Still carrying his own shield, ignoring the drag of its weight on his sore shoulder, he scooped up Psuro's spear and shield, shoved them at him, and leaped onto the board to race across. As he knelt to retrieve the spear he had thrown, he noticed again his torn and blood-smeared bandage. The cut merely stung, indicating a surface wound, with no harm to the rib. He offered a silent prayer of thanks to the lord Amon.

Psuro leaped off the bridge and Kasaya dashed past. Bak glanced at the woman lying amid a circle of family and neighbors. Confident she would be cared for-if still she lived-he raced with Psuro after Kasaya and the fleeing man. He heard thudding feet behind, a small party of men who knew the fallen woman, seeking vengeance.

Nenu set a straight course for the stairway, making clear his knowledge of the area. He paused on the top step to look down at the wrestlers and their audience, whose shouts had gained in volume and enthusiasm as the match began. A quick glance back at the men in pursuit and he plunged down the stairs. Kasaya raced after him a dozen paces behind. Bak

whistled another signal. The yells of the spectators never faltered.

Like Nenu before him, Bak paused atop the stairway to look down. Sailors, soldiers, traders, townsmen, five or six women at most, stood in the fluttery light of four flaming torches mounted high on buildings around the open square. Their attention was focused on two well-oiled and sweating wrestlers locked together in combat; the raised voices goaded them on. A judge hovered close, keeping the pair honest. The spectators formed a loose circle, staying well back and out of the way, filling much of the squarish expanse of sand enclosed by housing blocks whose walls were unbroken by windows or doors. Somewhere down there were Pahared's crewmen. Families who lived within the surrounding dwellings looked down from the rooftops.

Nenu was shouldering his way through a clamorous crowd indifferent to everything but the match, with Kasaya a few strides behind. Stepping aside so Psuro could go on ahead, Bak whistled again. One man looked up, saw the short, stocky Medjay racing down and the officer from Kemet above. He grabbed the shoulder of another man, who shook off the offending hand, made a horn of his own hands, and yelled at the wrestlers, demanding greater effort.

Bak muttered a curse. From where he stood, he could see the mouths of six or eight dark, narrow lanes, any of which Nenu could enter. If the guard knew the rest of Swenet as well as he did this area, he would lose his pursuers with ease. They needed help, men who knew their way around, even in the dark. How could he attract the attention of Pahared's crewmen?

Feeling the weight of the weapon in his hand, he had an idea. He had first hurled a spear as a small boy and, given sufficient time and care, was reasonably skilled in its use. He studied the scene, chose as his target a clear patch of sand near the combatants, and launched the weapon. The blade buried itself deep in the earth. The long shaft stood tall and rigid, vibrating from the force of the thrust.

Silence descended over the crowd. The wrestlers grappled and grunted and groaned, unaware. The judge stepped back, gave the spear a startled look, hissed a warning. The pair continued to fight.

Bak whistled again, the -sound loud and clear, impossible to ignore. To a man, the spectators looked upward, as did Nenu and Kasaya. Psuro leaped off the bottom step, too intent on his goal to be distracted. Six or seven men, Pahared's sailors, headed toward the stairs from several different directions.

"There!" Bak yelled, pointing emphatically at Nenu, who was elbowing his way through the crowd, angering the people he passed and drawing attention to himself. As the seamen altered course, Bak called out to the rest, "Get on with the match!" and raced down the steps.

The wrestlers paused, looked around, saw their audience's attention turned elsewhere. Bewildered, they broke their hold and drew apart. The judge repeated Bak's order. Like everyone else in the makeshift arena, the pair ignored the command and watched with rapt attention the fleeing man and his pursuers.

Nenu burst free of the crowd and slipped into the nearest lane, its mouth dark and forbidding. Kasaya darted into the blackness a few paces behind him. Bak flung his shield aside for better mobility and leaped off the steps. He glimpsed Psuro and Pahared's crewmen shouldering paths through the spectators, trying to catch the younger Medjay and his quarry.

Questions broke the hush of the crowd: What's happening? Who're these men? Why are they chasing the man in the lead?

Bak's identity and word of his quest spread through the crowd. Suddenly the mood changed. Excitement crackled in the air. The spectators turned their backs on the match and, with voices raised in a frenzy of purpose, moved as a single unit in the direction Nenu and Kasaya had gone, lured by the promise of livelier entertainment.

Entangled in the flow of men, helpless to stop them, and thoroughly disgusted by this unforeseen turn of events, Bak clamped his hands together, forming a battering ram, and' thrust his body forward. Those he struck ducked aside, muttering curses and glaring resentment. He caught up with Psuro, who was pushing forward behind spear and shield, opening a path for the few crewmen who had caught up with him. Ahead lay the lane that had swallowed Nenu and Kasaya.

The narrow thoroughfare was as black as a nobleman's tomb closed and sealed for eternity. An invitation to an ambush. The more timid onlookers dropped back, unwilling to face whatever terrors the dark might hold, but most surged forward, caught up in excitement and the flow of humanity. Bak prayed Kasaya was close on Nenu's heels, prayed he would not allow himself to be waylaid in the dark, prayed he would lay hands on the guard before this mob, in its very zeal to witness Nenu's downfall, provided a setting in which the guard could escape.

He pointed toward a torch protruding from the neck of a large pottery jar on the roof of the corner dwelling. "We need that light," he shouted to Psuro.

Sailors in tow, they veered toward the building and forced their way to the wall. With no prompting, Pahared's burly pilot locked his hands together, forming a step, and lifted Bak high. Bak pulled the torch free and dropped back to earth. Several more sailors trickled out of the crowd, the remainder of Pahared's crew taking advantage of the detour to catch up.

Moments later, they merged with the stream of men crowding into the lane, jostling for space, shoulders brushing shoulders, elbows digging ribs, toes prodding heels, voices pulsing with the thrill of the chase. Cursing the crowd beneath his breath, Bak held the torch high and pressed forward through what looked in the flickering light like a river of heads flowing along a curving streambed. Bronze spearpoints glinted among them, carried by soldiers from the garrison who had come across the river to watch the match. Faces looked down from the rooftops, men, women, and children drawn by the tumult.

They gained on the leaders slowly, too slowly. When first Bak had heard of the wrestling match, he had thought it a gift of the gods, a place where Pahared's men could merge into the crowd and remain unseen. It had been a gift alright, a gift handed out by the demons of the night.

A sharp, piercing whistle sounded over the din. Kasaya's signal. Ahead and to the right. Relief flooded through Bak that the young Medjay had not fallen in a shower of arrows. "They're heading upriver," he said unnecessarily.

The men ahead, as quick to interpret the signal, swerved into a narrow side lane that meandered toward the river. Dust rose beneath stumbling feet; the smell of donkey manure was strong. Determined to reach Nenu first, Bak lowered the flame to just above head level and, using man's fear of fire, drove a wedge into the crowd before him. Psuro plowed forward behind his shield, widening the path.

They burst through the leaders of the mob and out of the lane. Compared to the dark, narrow thoroughfare, the shoreline and river seemed awash with light. The moon and stars glowed strong and full on the narrow sandy beach. Low swells on the river glittered with a reflected sheen, carrying fragments of light north on the current.

Some distance upriver-how far was hard to guess with night flattening the landscape-two figures ran along the steep bank above the strip of sand and the water. Farther south, bank and shore gave way to blackish boulders much like their counterparts across the river at Abu. To get away, Nenu must either go into the river or out on the desert. Either way, he could vanish in the night.

The mob burst from the lane. Seeing Bak and his party at a standstill, they spread out along the riverbank, momentarily at a loss as to, where to go.

Determined to reach the guard before the crowd could interfere, Bak issued hasty orders. "Take Pahared's men and cut Nenu off from the desert." Psuro would need all the help he could get to cover so vast an area. "I'll try to catch Kasaya. With luck, the two of us can keep him out of the water."

Psuro gathered up his men and hastened away. Bak headed down the bank, half sliding, half running on earth that tore away beneath his weight. He hit the sand at the bottom and, without breaking stride, raced full-tilt along the shore. The torch he carried sputtered; sparks showered in his wake. He heard pounding feet behind, glanced back. The crowd had begun to move upstream along the bank, those at the rear urging their leaders to greater speed. 'Three men, one a soldier carrying a spear and shield, raced after Bak along the water's edge. He could have ordered them away, but decided not to. He might need the weapon.

Approaching a small flotilla of skiffs drawn out of the water for the night, he plunged into the shallows. Water splashed around him, cooling his legs and dousing a kilt already damp with sweat. Flying sparks struck the water and sputtered out. Ahead, Nenu slid down the bank to the river, sped along the shore to the first of the boulders, and ducked out of sight in its shadow. Kasaya slowed, wary of an opponent carrying bow and arrows, and pulled back from the edge of the bank to kneel behind a rock not nearly large enough to shelter his bulk. On the riverbank, the flow of men stopped well out of Nenu's range yet near enough to have a good view of the action. The excitement dwindled, sapped by inactivity and speculation. Someone yelled a wager, hoping to revive the fun with bets on the outcome of the chase. Soon the betting grew raucous, loud with fervor.

A speck of white caught Bak's eye, a kilt. Nenu, hunched over to make himself small, slipped farther along the water's edge and disappeared behind another boulder. Bak darted forward, giving"him no time to arm his bow, and took shelter behind the first boulder. Kasaya leaped to his feet to race along the riverbank to a stony outcrop above the archer. The trio following Bak held back, unwilling to face a rain of arrows, but the mob surged after the young Medjay, their voices gaining in volume and excitement, each man's frenzy feeding on that of his fellows. Bak's blood ran cold.

Nenu had no choice but to enter the river. Vowing to catch him before he disappeared as he had at the island of inscriptions, Bak rammed the torch into the sand. He disliked giving up the light, but could not manage it in the water. He patted his sheathed dagger, reassuring himself that he had not lost the weapon in the crowd, then waved to catch Kasaya's eye and signaled his intent.

Certain the Medjay understood that he must remain on shore, Bak slipped into the river. Keeping his head low, making as little noise as possible, he swam upstream toward Nenu's hidingplace. Each stroke he took seemed to tear his shoulder muscle further, making the swim a trial as well as a necessity. He offered a silent prayer to the lord Amon, pleading for a hasty end to the chase.