Dancer of the Nile (Gods of Egypt) (21 page)

“There are few women in this forsaken place. Not many slaves are kept here when they can be sold for a profit. Going out on the raids, being allowed to rape and pillage, is a privilege accorded to only a few of the platoons stationed at this outpost. You’re attracting a great deal of attention in the garrison.” He knelt and took her ankle in firm but gentle hands, examining the gashes closely.

“I don’t wish to be an object of attention.” She flinched as he manipulated her ankle.

“Don’t fidget, I need to assess the damage,” he said unsympathetically, flexing the foot in the other direction. “Well, until you’ve danced for the general, no one will do more than leer at you. You might have to endure some furtive fondling from the charming fellow outside your door.” He frowned. “But once you’ve failed Nebuchazz’s test, you’ll be fair game.” Whistling, he released Nima and opened the top of his lacquered cedar box, sorting through the contents of the many drawers cunningly folded inside. “It’s pleasant to have a professional challenge other than sword and arrow wounds.”

“We both know I’m not going to be able to dance.” Closing her eyes, Nima shook her head.

The doctor brought out a small pot of strong-smelling ointment. The odor immediately permeated the small cell. Gagging, Nima wrinkled her nose and put her hand over her mouth. “Horse liniment?”

“Yes.” He slathered the smelly green cream on her foot and ankle. The ointment delivered soothing heat as he massaged it into her skin in small, circular motions, banishing the throbbing pain. “If liniment works for the general’s favorite chariot horse, why not for the general’s favorite dancer?”

Nima laughed, until she felt the mirth edging into tears.
I can’t lose my self-control in this place.
Shuddering, she tried to quell her emotions as the doctor finished ministering to her with cold efficiency and packed his supplies away. He stood, evaluating her. “Do you want something to help you sleep, calm your nerves?”

 
“I doubt you have a potion strong enough to make me forget the threat of becoming Nebuchazz’s personal slave.” She curled her lip, tossing her head. “Despite his claim of being extremely
generous,
not an enticing future.”

“Your other choices are worse,” the doctor pointed out, handing her a small cup of green liquid with pieces of leaves and stems floating on top. “I’ll examine you again in the morning, since the sun goes down already today. The liniment can’t be applied too often or your skin will suffer.” He nodded at the small table covered with plates and bowls of food and a pitcher of water. “I suggest you eat, perhaps try to sleep. You’ll need your beauty intact to placate Nebuchazz.” Strolling to the door, he pounded on it with his fist. “’Til the morning,” he said over his shoulder.

The guard let the physician out, but paused to gaze at Nima’s body for a long minute before slamming the door shut again.

She set the medicine on the table and listlessly examined the array of dishes—quail, a half-spoiled plum, two kinds of bread. None of it appealed to her. Breaking the fruit bowl on the stone floor, she kept the biggest, jagged shard as a deterrent, should the guard make a middle of the night visit. Shaking out the scratchy blanket the slaves had brought, she curled up on the cot, against the wall, forcing herself to blot out all thoughts except the ones having to do with Kamin, trying to comfort herself against the terrors of the night and the days to follow. She left the small oil lamp on the table burning.
I pray light can keep the nightmares at bay
.
 

Chapter Ten

The next day passed slowly. The doctor came twice, as ordered, slathering more of the strong-smelling liniment on her foot. She tried a few tentative dance steps when she was alone, humming a tune with an easy beat, but soon collapsed on the cot, near tears.
Even if I wanted to dance for Nebuchazz, I can’t. My ankle is too weak.

The slaves brought her dinner, and the guard lingered in the cell after the women left.

“What do you want?” Nima picked up a piece of flat bread and nibbled at it to hide her nervousness.

Eyes locked on her chest, he came closer, rubbing his hands. “I’ve told my friends in the barracks you won’t be able to dance tomorrow. I’ve seen you practicing and weeping, through the bars.” He jerked a finger over his shoulder.

“So?” Nima dropped the bread to the floor and backed away from the man’s overwhelming odor of sweat and onions. “What is it to you? Or your friends?”

“We’re pooling our money to buy you, to try to outbid the officers. I wanted to let you know, so you could think about ways to please your new masters.” He reached out one hand, grabbing her by the elbow in an attempt to drag her closer. “There’ll be ten of us, at least.”

Slapping him hard enough to bruise her hand, Nima almost fell.
 
The guard cursed as he crushed her in a forced embrace, the buckles on his leather breastplate digging painfully into her breasts. Laughing, he ran his hand over her body, lower and lower, until he was cupping her through the dress. “I’m thinking I should sample the wares a little, eh?”

“Let go of me, you inbred jackal.” Nima slammed her head up into his chin and tried to whirl away, but her ankle betrayed her and she fell. In her hand she brandished his belt dagger, which she had grabbed. “Leave me alone, I warn you.”

The guard circled her as she scooted to get her back to the wall, managing to stand up, holding the dagger at the ready.

A sharp voice brought them both to a halt. “What is the meaning of this?”
 

An officer Nima had never seen before stood in the doorway. Cheeks flushed, the guard saluted and stood at attention. “The prisoner is trying to escape, sir.”

“You know it’s death to lay a hand on her before the general releases his claim. You’re a good man, corporal, if stupid, so I won’t report your rash action. Retrieve your knife from the wench and lock her in.” The man stood watching as Nima reluctantly handed back the dagger and the guard stalked out of the cell, slamming the door with enough force to set the small lamp flickering.

Limping to the bed, Nima lay down, curling up with her back to the door. Fingering the knotted cloth bracelet on her wrist, she sighed.
If only the officer hadn’t come along, I could have stabbed that lout of a guard and gotten out of the cell. Just give me half a deben’s worth of luck, and I’ll be gone from this evil place.
She rolled the golden bead around the string with her fingers for a moment before drawing a deep breath and holding it, excited. Could she use this last gift from Renenutet to summon supernatural help? Nima frowned as she examined the bead more closely in the dim light. Amarkash had said this fortress was under some kind of all-encompassing spell from their god Qemtusheb. And who knows what kind of aid the snakes could give her in this situation anyway?

Rolling over onto her back, Nima stared at the dancing shadows the lamp cast on the ceiling.
If you only have one weapon, how foolish not to unleash it? I’m going to die tomorrow anyway since I can’t dance for Nebuchazz. What if I could call the snakes and create some chaos? Some destruction? Some deaths?
Grinning, Nima sat up.
Anything I could do to delay the attack they’re planning on Egypt buys time for Kamin and the nomarch’s army. If not for myself, I should try to summon the snakes for his sake.

Curling up again, in case the lecherous guard was watching through the bars in the door’s small window, Nima surreptitiously untied the knot holding the bead on the strings, catching the bauble in one hand as it rolled free on the scratchy blanket. Bringing it closer to her eyes in the dim light, she studied the filigree. The bead appeared to be five snakes, entwined. Slowly, trying to be noiseless, Nima uncoiled and slid off the bed, going to fetch the remnants of the flat bread from her dinner. Carrying the crumbly, moldy bread back to the bed, she set the golden bead in the center, as Kamin had done on the rocky plateau.

Now what?
Blood, she needed a drop of blood. Nauseated, she scratched at her injured ankle for a moment, until a single drop of blood welled up. Using the string from the bracelet as a wick, Nima soaked up the ruby fluid and daubed the bead and the bread.

But what to say? Even Kamin had seemed to just speak his mind, not utter any preset incantation. Licking her lips, Nima whispered her most fervent desire. “Great One, I thank thee for this gift, and I beseech you to give life to the serpents, to help me escape tonight while inflicting damage on these enemies of Egypt.”
 

 
She waited expectantly. Ten heartbeats, then ten more.

Nothing.

“More blood? Different words?” she said under her breath. “Oh, this is ridiculous. Perhaps the goddess truly only meant the bead to be a piece of jewelry, although why—”

Tiny gold and red sparks were flying into the air from the bead, disappearing into the gloom. She sat bolt upright, watching wide-eyed as the five tiny serpents untangled themselves from each other. Only a few inches long, they were too beautiful to be frightening, golden scales glinting as each slowly undulated across the blanket, ruby eyes glowing in the darkness of her cell. Reaching out in wonder, Nima let the closest snake crawl into her hand, exclaiming at the tickling sensation as the snake’s belly rasped across her palm. The snake coiled for a moment, hood flared, wisp of an emerald tongue flicking in and out, tasting the air.

One of the others slithered across the bed, falling off the side. As Nima watched, still holding the first snake, the free-falling reptile winked out in a blaze of colorful sparks just as it hit the floor. Worried if she didn’t move quickly, she’d lose them all, Nima got off the bed, hand closed around the snake she held. Its tongue touched her fingers in featherlight sensations. She grabbed her mug with her free hand, tossed the dregs on the floor and dropped the snake into it, going back to the bed to catch the others. A second snake was working its way down the wooden leg of the bed, and Nima managed to capture it by the tail just before it reached the floor, dropping her captive into the cup with its fellow. Yet even as she did so, a third snake disappeared in a soundless explosion of color. She was searching in the blanket for the fifth when a voice spoke from right behind her.

“Foolish girl, you squander the weapons I gave you.”

Renenutet—for it was the snake goddess herself, in human form—reached past Nima’s shoulder, holding out one hand. The remaining three snakes flew through the air to her like tiny arrows, wrapping themselves around her wrist to create a fabulous bracelet.

Heart pounding, Nima sank down on the bed.
 

Stroking the living bracelet as if to calm the snakes while frowning at Nima, the goddess said, “You can’t call the snakes of Nebu merely to amuse yourself, girl.”

You didn’t exactly provide me a scroll of instructions with the gift.
Nima bit her tongue as she left the bed to go to her knees before the Great One. “I’m grateful for your continued assistance, my lady.”

The goddess reached out to stroke her hand through Nima’s hair, patting her cheek as a mother might. “You are so like her, and she was my favorite.”

“My mother?” Nima asked hesitantly.

“Yes. She was trained to my service from the day she could walk, would have been the high priestess over all my temples one day. She was like a daughter to me, the child of my heart. Until she let herself be distracted—” Renenutet frowned, withdrawing her hand, and the snakes on her wrist writhed, hissing.

“Distracted by my father.” Nima closed her eyes for a moment, wishing for the thousandth time with a dull aching pain in her heart that her mother had told her more about the mysterious father she’d never met.

“You and I must both let the past go, child,” Renenutet answered in a low voice.
 

The goddess put her hand under Nima’s arm and effortlessly drew her to a standing position. Tingles of energy ran from the spot where Renenutet held Nima upright with inhuman strength. Passing through her body in torrents, the sensation fizzed and sparked, settling in her injured ankle. Pain assaulted Nima as the injured muscles and tendons knit back together. She bit her lip to keep from crying out.

In an attempt to distract herself from the healing process, she blurted out a question. “How—how are you here? The Hyksos boasted to me no Egyptian Great One could enter this place because of their god’s spell.”

Laughing so hard the black plumes on her crown shook, the goddess released her and stepped back. “These
males
—gods and humans—they always think they rule the world, forgetting I’m an Elemental Elder goddess, born in the start of time. I have powers and abilities the modern ones like Qemtusheb and Horus fail to consider.” She raised a finger. “They forget my creatures own the cracks and crevices of the earth. Let foolish men block access above ground or through the sky—I can’t be deterred so easily. Luckily for them and all their schemes, I prefer my own duties to their endless quest for power and dominance.”
 

The door crashed open, startling Nima. Sword at the ready, the guard stepped across the threshold. “Who are you talking to—”

Turning her head, Renenutet snapped her fingers, and the man fell dead in a boneless heap, his sword clattering away across the stone floor. Nima ran to the corpse, swallowing her nausea, and wrenched his belt knife from its sheath despite her shaking hands.

“What is it you want of me this time, girl?” the goddess asked, toying with the bracelet of snakes.