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  “A procession with a spectator, sir,” Kaha said, grinning.

  “Just before dark, high on the hillside to the east, I found a single footprint of another man, this one also wearing leather sandals.” Smaller than Nebre and a few years younger, he was equally slender, with long arms and hands as delicate as those of a woman.

  “By climbing so high, I’d hoped to see the men ahead.

  They were too far away, but I thought the print sufficient re ward for such an effort. It was in a sheltered place overlook 32

  Lauren Haney ing this wadi. It hadn’t been disturbed by a breeze or a pass ing animal and was very distinct. As its sheltered location might’ve preserved it, I’d make no bets as to how long ago it was made.”

  Minnakht? Bak wondered. No. If he were nearby and able, he would show himself. Who were the others? Men he surely would have heard of if he and his Medjays had taken the time to sit down and gossip with the men of Kaine. No matter. If they had stopped at the well ahead, he would learn soon enough who they were.

  On this, the initial day of the trek when men and animals were fresh, they made good time, reaching their destination before midnight. Here, where a subsidiary watercourse opened into the main wadi, was the first of a string of wells that made travel possible along the route they meant to fol low to the Eastern Sea.

  A cluster of hobbled donkeys stood or lay near a stand of scrubby tamarisks that marked the location of the well. They saw no sign of a fire, so assumed the men traveling with the animals were asleep. Opting to remain apart, they made camp about fifty paces down the wadi beside a row of stunted trees that followed the watercourse for some distance down stream. Better to approach in the light of day when they would not be mistaken for bandits.

  Rona, a hard-muscled young Medjay who had a slight limp, gathered broken twigs scattered around the trees. Min mose, shorter and broader, as cheerful as Rona was serious, whistled softly as he built a small fire on which to warm a slim but welcome meal of beans and onions, which they ate with dried fish.

  While they enjoyed the food, a man emerged from the shadows by the well and walked toward them through the moonlight. “Good evening, sirs. My name is Amonmose.

  This is my first night on the trail and I find I can’t sleep. May

  I sit with you for a short while?”

  Bak motioned him to join them. With luck and the favor of the lord Amon, this man might tell them of the men who had preceded them up the wadi. “Welcome to our humble…”

  He laughed. Home was not a proper word to describe their surroundings. He introduced himself and his men and of fered to share the meal.

  Eyeing their few donkeys and modest bundles of supplies,

  Amonmose shook his head. “You mustn’t be too free with what you share. You’re traveling too light for generosity.”

  Bak gave him a quick look. “You’ve previously crossed the Eastern Desert?”

  “Several times, but always by way of the southern route traveled by our sovereign’s caravans. I’ve never before trav eled this far north.”

  Intrigued, Bak studied the visitor in the dim light of moon and stars. Amonmose looked more a man who enjoyed his comfort than one familiar with the desert wilderness. He was about forty years of age, of medium height and portly, with laugh lines at the corners of his eyes and mouth. In spite of his girth, he moved with a rare grace and seated himself on the sand with the ease of a child. Bak suspected the bulk was hard muscle rather than simple obesity.

  “Soldiers, are you?” Amonmose asked.

  “We’ve recently come from the southern frontier and are on our way to the mines beyond the Eastern Sea.” Bak kept his answer simple, choosing not to discuss his mission, and flung a pointed look at Senna, making sure the nomad un derstood that he should not elaborate. He knew nothing of this man and the others camped near the well, but to find a half-dozen men following a route he had expected to be un used made him wary. “What brings you across this desert so often?”

  “I’ve a fishing fleet that shelters in a bay on the near shore of the Eastern Sea. Six boats, but I hope over the next few years to increase the number.” Pride filled Amonmose’s voice to overflowing. “We’ve established a base camp some distance to the north, near a cluster of islands where the fish ing is particularly good. The men live rough, in palm-frond shacks, but within a year or so, I’ll see they have proper housing.”

  Psuro flung the bones of a dried fish onto the embers of the fire, making it crackle. “We’ve barely started on our journey and already I miss fresh food. I can well understand that a couple of fishermen, even in so unlikely a place, might find men who’ll buy their catch. But six boats?”

  Laughing, Amonmose swept several small pebbles from beneath his backside and settled himself more firmly on the sand. “We supply fresh fish to the port that serves the turquoise and copper mines, to ships that sail the Eastern

  Sea, and to nomads who come from inland. When the mines shut down during the hot season and fewer men are posted at the port, we dry a good portion of our catch and supply that to the caravans traveling back and forth between Kemet and the Eastern Sea.”

  “You’ve no end of business, I see.” Bak sipped his beer, sa voring the last jar he would see in a long time. Amonmose was so garrulous he doubted he needed prompting, but he asked anyway, “If you always travel the southern route, what’re you doing here?”

  “I met a young explorer a few months ago, Minnakht by name.” If Amonmose noticed the sudden interest among the members of Bak’s party, he gave no sign. “He swore he could show me a more direct and time-saving route between Kaine and my fishing camp. If he didn’t exaggerate, I hope, several years in the future, to expand my fishing enterprise and trans port dried fish to Kemet.”

  Delivering fish to Kemet and the great river that ran through the heart of the land was very much like hauling rocks to a quarry, Bak thought.

  “He said if I’d meet him in Kaine, he’d show me the way,”

  Amonmose went on. “I arrived on schedule, purchased don keys and supplies in the expectation of leaving right away and heard he’d gone missing.”

  “When you found him gone, you came into the desert any way?” Kaha asked. “You surely don’t plan to travel this wasteland by yourself.”

  “A most foolhardy endeavor, sir,” Nebre said, shaking his head.

  “No, no.” Amonmose waved away the very idea. “I’ve brought with me a man who’ll build boats and huts at my fishing camp.”

  “A man unfamiliar with the desert.” Nebre’s voice was flat, disapproving.

  “You misunderstand. I’ve traveled this land often enough to know that one should never make such a journey without a competent guide. That’s why, when I learned that a man named User, a seasoned explorer, and several other men plan to follow a path similar to the one Minnakht described, I thought to seek them out. Their caravan had left Kaine in the early morning, I learned, so we hastened to catch up.” A smile blossomed on his face. “And catch up we did.”

  “You know this man User?” Senna asked.

  “Oh, no. But men I spoke with in Kaine said he knows the

  Eastern Desert as a man knows the curves of his wife’s body.

  In addition, he’s brought along a nomad guide, Dedu by name.” Amonmose rose to his feet and brushed off the back of his kilt. “I’d best return to my sleeping pallet. We’re to make an early start tomorrow.”

  Bak bade him goodbye and watched him walk away. He rather liked the man, but his tale of a fishing fleet so far from any town or city stretched the imagination.

  Chapter 3

  Bak awoke to the harsh braying of one of his donkeys. Two others answered from the direction of the well. The lord Re had not yet peered over the horizon, but pale yellow streaks rising above the ridge to the east heralded the god’s ascen sion from the netherworld. Bak rose from his thin sleeping mat, yawned, and stretched. The night had been too short.

  Awakened by the donkey as Bak had been,
the Medjays scrambled to their feet. Following his example, they looked around at a world they had not been able to see clearly in the moonlight. The plateau that edged the wadi to the west looked taller than it had in the night, and closer. The row of tamarisks followed the modern watercourse around a gentle bend to the north. The secondary wadi up which they would travel-for no more than three days if the gods smiled upon them-led off to the east through the gap they had seen the previous evening between the ridge and the mound they had skirted for much of their journey from Kaine. An irregular row of scraggly trees meandered up that watercourse for a hundred or so paces

  Senna, making no secret of his interest in the men camped near the well, watched them as they roused themselves from sleep and began to get ready for their day’s trek. Bak, too, was curious. What had prompted so many men to journey along this particular trail, normally frequented by only a few nomads? Had they, too, heard rumors of gold? Had they been lured into this harsh and unforgiving land by the same tale of riches that he had heard in Kaine?

  Minmose passed around a loaf of bread and the bowl con taining the cold remains of their nighttime meal. The taste of onions seemed stronger in the light of day. As soon as they had eaten, Psuro and Kaha unhobbled the donkeys.

  Rona, Senna, and Nebre loaded water jars and goatskin wa terbags onto the sturdy creatures, and the five men led their charges off toward the well. Minmose scoured the bowl with sand, rolled their sleeping mats, and gathered up their supplies for loading onto the animals. Content that all was well, Bak hastened along the row of tamarisks to speak with the men camped near the well. A pair of small black-and white birds, wheatears, flitted from branch to branch, keep ing pace with him.

  “Lieutenant Bak.” With a warm smile, Amonmose has tened to meet him and ushered him into the camp, where he presented him to a tall man about forty years of age. “User, this is the man I told you about, the officer who stands at the head of those Medjay soldiers.”

  He gestured toward Psuro and Kaha, drawing water from a well encircled by a waist-high stone wall built to prevent an imals from fouling the precious liquid. Two donkeys were drinking from a rough-plastered stone trough, while a dozen or more waited nearby. The nomad tending them was carry ing on a conversation of sorts with Kaha, who had some knowledge of several desert dialects, but was a master of none. Psuro lowered and withdrew the large red pot tied to the rope so quickly that the water had to be close to the sur face. Kaha held each large jar until it was filled and plugged the top with mud that would dry quickly in the heat. Senna,

  Rona, and Nebre, while awaiting their turn at the trough, had led their animals upstream to nibble on some low green bushes Bak could not identify from so far away.

  “This is User, Lieutenant,” Amonmose went on, “the man who agreed to let my friend and me accompany his party across the desert.”

  Bak gave the explorer a genial smile. “Amonmose tells me you have considerable knowledge of the land between here and the Eastern Sea.”

  User greeted him with a nod. “I’m more familiar with the desert farther south, but I’ve done some exploring in this area.”

  His body was lean but muscular. His skin, weathered by sun and wind, was the color and texture of leather. He spoke in a voice so deep it sounded as if it had come from the depths of the netherworld.

  Bak glanced around the camp, which looked to be in total disarray. Three nomads hustled about, packing up so they could load the donkeys. Two served as drovers, he assumed, and the third must be the guide. A large muscular man, obvi ously from the land of Kemet, was helping, while two other men of Kemet looked on. “You left Kaine early yesterday, I understand.”

  “At sunrise. We stopped here to rest through the heat of the day and thought to go on before sunset, but when Amonmose and his friend showed up, thinking to travel with us, I de cided to remain overnight. They’d pushed their donkeys hard, and I thought it unwise to drive them farther without rest.”

  “If the truth be told,” Amonmose laughed, “Nebenkemet and I were as tired as the animals. The delay was most wel come.”

  Bak noted User’s fleeting grimace. The explorer had not been happy with the delay. He also recalled the wide-awake man who had come to their camp in the night, displaying no sign of fatigue. “From what our guide has told me, the next well is a long, hot march ahead of us.”

  “If he knows what he’s doing, he’ll take you up the wadi to the east. There’s no decent shade north of here.” User queried Bak with a glance, as curious about the newcomers as they were about him, understandable in this cruel and des olate land.

  “We plan to travel east, yes, and since you recommend the route, I assume you’ll go that way, too?”

  “Ah, here’s my good friend Nebenkemet.” Amonmose drew close the man who was helping the nomads break camp. He was a burly individual close to Bak in age. “He’s the man I told you about last night, Lieutenant. He’ll dwell for a year or so at my fishing camp, where he’ll build at least one boat, hopefully more, and some huts.”

  Bak raised a hand in greeting. The man, whom he assumed to be a carpenter by trade, eyed him with the mistrust of many a poor man faced with authority. He wore a tunic so wrinkled it looked as if he had slept in it-as he undoubtedly had. His limbs were thick and muscular, and he looked as strong as an ox. His sandaled feet were heavily callused, his hands and lower arms scarred. He had lived rough in the not too-distant past.

  “Do you share Amonmose’s enthusiasm for journeying through an unknown land?” Bak asked.

  “Our trek has barely begun, sir.” Nebenkemet’s demeanor, like his voice, held neither humor nor warmth. “I’ve had no time to know.”

  “Nor have I,” Bak admitted with a smile. “My men and I must learn to dwell in this land, so unlike any we’ve ever known.”

  Amonmose flung him a sharp look. “You were posted on the southern frontier. Is that not equally barren?”

  “It is, yes, but unlike this Eastern Desert, the river that flows through the land of Kemet also gives life to Wawat. In many places, fertile plains hug the river, allowing for a con siderable amount of farmland. The escarpments enclosing the floodplain can be high, and rocky mounds rise from the desert sands, but there are no mountains like those I’ve been told form the spine of this desert. I’ve heard of no great sheets of sand here or long, high dunes such as those found west of the river.”

  “You’re well informed, Lieutenant,” User said.

  “Thanks to my nomad guide, Senna. During much of the trek from Kaine, we spoke of the land through which we’ll pass.”

  “Senna?” User’s head snapped around and he stared with narrowing eyes toward the guide. “He wouldn’t be Min nakht’s guide, would he?”

  “User!” The voice was sharp, peremptory. “Shouldn’t you be urging those wretched nomads to hurry?” A young man of about eighteen years, slapping his leg with a fly whisk, strode up to the explorer. He would have been handsome but for the scars on his face. Like Psuro, he had been marked by some childhood disease. He was one of the pair who had been watching the men toil, making no effort to help. “At this rate, we’ll never set off up the trail.”

  Nebenkemet exchanged a quick glance with Amonmose, then slipped away to return to the drovers and the task he had left unfinished.

  “This man you see before you is Wensu, Lieutenant. He wishes to become an explorer.” User’s face held no expres sion whatsoever and the words carried no hint of sarcasm, but Bak sensed animosity.

  “A worthy goal.” Bak formed another smile. “Not many men are eager to suffer the hardships of rough and solitary travel day after day.”

  “When I travel alone, I’ll not suffer, that I vow.” Wensu glanced at the explorer with poorly concealed contempt.

  “When I no longer need a man like User to show me the way,

  I’ll take along enough men, animals, and supplies that I’ll suffer no less comfort than my father does when he goes on a hunting excursion into the desert west of Waset.�
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  User stared hard at the young man, then swung around and walked away. Wensu sputtered in impotent fury.

  Acting as if he had noticed nothing amiss, Amonmose called out, “Ani!” He beckoned the short, rotund man watch ing the drovers break camp. “Come. You must meet the lieu tenant I spoke with last night.”

  Ani, whose sole activity had been to hop from one spot to another, the better to peer at the men breaking camp, looked at Amonmose and at the nomads as if not sure where he was most needed. Flinging a last, reluctant look at the toiling men, he hastened to respond to the summons. User looked on from a few paces away, saying nothing, a faint but cynical smile on his lips.

  While introductions were made, Bak studied the new ar rival. He looked as soft as well-risen bread dough, and his pale skin was burned a bright red, betraying a man unaccus tomed to the sun. Only his hands revealed a life of toil. They were callused and bore the pinkish scars of burning.

  “Ani toils in a workshop in the royal house,” Amonmose said with open admiration. “He makes jewelry for our sover eign and the men and women she holds close within her heart.”

  “I’ve a skill with precious metals and stones, yes, but I’m beginning to see how deficient I am in other skills.” The craftsman threw a humble, almost apologetic smile at User.

  “After one day of walking beneath the cruel sun, after one night of sleeping on the ground and eating plain food cooked in a manner strange to me, I’ve come to realize how little I know of the hardships of life. I know nothing about the desert, about donkeys, about living beneath the sky. I’ll do my best to learn, but I see many a trial ahead of me.”

  Why men such as Ani and Wensu, so obviously of the city, had chosen to travel so far from home, Bak could not imagine.

  A sharp whistle drew Bak’s attention to the well. The don keys had drunk their fill and the nomad was leading his small herd toward User’s camp. Amonmose, Nebenkemet, Wensu, and Ani hurried to meet him, thinking to oversee the loading of their belongings, Bak assumed. The signal had been