Desert God (24 page)

What was more important was that he was forcing Al Hawsawi to turn slightly to keep facing him. He was opening the target area for my arrow.

I needed only to divert the attention of the Jackal for the time it would take me to draw and loose, and for the arrow to fly to its mark.

Without moving my head I emitted the cry of a hunting falcon as it begins its stoop. My life sign is that of the wounded falcon. I have perfected the cry. Even the most experienced falconer is unable to tell my imitation from that of the actual bird. The rock walls amplified and echoed the sound so that it carried clearly above Al Hawsawi’s tirade of abuse.

All Bedouin are avid falconers, and Al Hawsawi recognized that evocative call and was not able to resist it. He cut short his stream of foul abuse, and glanced up to where he thought the cry had emanated. It was a momentary distraction, but all I needed.

I brought my bow and my perfect arrow together and they nocked and fitted like the bodies of divine lovers cast in paradise for each other. I drew and as the bowstring touched my lips I loosed. I watched the arrow climb, reach its zenith. It skimmed the rock roof above the Jackal’s head without touching, and then began the drop.

To me it seemed to be moving with a stately grace, but I knew that only an eye as keen as mine could follow it.

Then I saw the Jackal’s eyes flicker in their sockets. Impossible as I knew it to be, he had seen or like a wild animal he had sensed my arrow dropping towards him. His head jerked up slightly, and his body began to turn. Then my arrow struck him high in the chest and a hand’s breadth to one side. He had moved just enough to disturb my aim, and I knew that my arrowhead had missed his heart.

Nevertheless the weight and speed of the strike hurled him backwards. Instinctively he threw his arms open in an attempt to regain his balance, but his legs collapsed under him and he slammed into the sandstone floor.

Tehuti was sent spinning from his grip. I saw her twist her body in the air, and she landed with the agility of a cat. She rebounded to her feet, and poised, naked and lovely, momentarily bewildered by the sudden turmoil that boiled around her.

Zaras had been ready for the cry of the falcon; that we had agreed upon earlier. As I uttered it so he launched himself towards where Tehuti stood.

He was as swift as a hunting cheetah. He had to run past the Jackal’s prostrate body to reach Tehuti. He saw my arrow protruding from Al Hawsawi’s upper body and he thought that I had killed him. He paid him no further attention. He reached Tehuti before any of the other Bedouin realized what was happening. He grabbed her and thrust her bodily behind him, shielding her with his own bulk. He tossed up the sword he was holding reversed in his other hand, and as it dropped he caught it by the hilt and went into the on-guard position; waiting to meet the rush of Arabs that were coming at him.

‘Charge!’ I urged our men forward to protect the couple. ‘Have at them, lads!’ I goaded my camel into a lumbering gallop, and at the same time nocked another arrow. I saw one of the Arab archers check his forward run and lift his bow, aiming at Zaras.

I shot my arrow an instant before the Arab could loose his. I struck him in the throat just in time to spoil his shot. His own arrow flew wide, and the Arab fell to his knees clutching at my shaft, which protruded from his throat, bright blood spouting from his gaping mouth.

Undaunted, one of his comrades rushed at Zaras and with his scimitar raised high launched a blow at his head. Zaras swatted the Arab’s blade aside, and then used his momentum to sever the man’s sword-arm cleanly at the elbow. The Arab screamed and stumbled backwards, clutching the stump of his arm. He tripped over the kneeling man with my arrow in his throat. They went down together in a heap, obstructing the charge of their comrades.

I shot my third arrow and brought down another Bedouin bandit. Zaras turned his head and flashed an approving grin at me. Incredulously I realized that the young idiot was actually enjoying himself.

‘Come back here!’ I shouted at him. ‘Bring Tehuti to safety.’

He lifted her off her feet as though she was a small child, and he slung her over his left shoulder.

‘Put me down!’ she yelled at him and kicked her legs wildly to be free. He ignored her protests and started back to meet us as we raced forward to cover his retreat.

Al Hawsawi still lay where my arrow had brought him down. All of us had switched our attention from him to the charging Bedouin. I was as guilty as any of them. I knew that the Jackal had managed to duck my heart shot, and that he was probably still alive. But I thought that at the least I had crippled him, and that he was no longer a menace to any of us. His inert body was spreadeagled, and his sword was trapped under him.

Zaras had been forced to run past him to reach Tehuti. Now he was retreating and backing up towards him again. All Zaras’ attention was concentrated on the Arabs who were menacing him.

Suddenly Al Hawsawi rolled over and sat up. Now he had his sword in his right hand, but he did not have the strength to come to his feet.

‘On guard, Zaras!’ I yelled at him as I groped for another arrow, but the closed lid of my quiver thwarted me. ‘Behind you, Zaras! Beware the Jackal.’

Perhaps my voice was drowned out by the hubbub of battle; or perhaps he did not understand my warning. He took another step backwards, which brought him into range of Al Hawsawi’s blade.

With an incoherent shout of despair the Jackal lunged at him. The thrust was from below and behind. The blow lacked power, but Al Hawsawi’s point was sharp enough to pierce Zaras’ leather skirt and go between his sturdy young legs.

Al Hawsawi tried feebly to pull his blade free of Zaras’ clinging flesh, but he did not have the strength to do so. He fell backwards and supported himself on his elbows. As he panted hoarsely for breath the shaft of my arrow which protruded from his chest twitched in time to his breathing, and a trickle of blood ran from the corner of his mouth.

Zaras’ entire body buckled and then stiffened into rigidity. His sword fell from his right hand and lay at his feet. Tehuti wriggled out from the grip of his left arm and landed on her feet.

‘Go to Taita.’ I heard him gasp to her through the pain. ‘I am killed. Taita will defend you.’ He doubled over and clutched at his lower belly where he could feel the sword blade deep inside him.

Tehuti ignored his instruction. She stood transfixed beside him. It seemed to me that at first she was unable to comprehend what had happened, until she looked down and saw the haft of the Jackal’s sword protruding from under Zaras’ skirt, and the blood dribbling down from between his legs.

Zaras fell forward on to his knees. He bowed his head until his forehead touched the ground.

Standing over him Tehuti’s face twisted into a mask of anger and she screamed at Al Hawsawi,‘You have killed Zaras! You have killed my man!’ She snatched up Zaras’ sword from where he had dropped it. She turned on the Jackal with strength that was out of all proportion to the delicacy of her body and a fury out of keeping with her femininity. She drove the point of the sword into the Jackal’s throat.

His breath hissed from his severed windpipe, and he grasped the naked blade with both hands, as though to prevent her stabbing him again. With frenzied strength Tehuti ripped the blade from his throat. As it slid through Al Hawsawi’s clutching fingers the razor-sharp edge sliced them down to the bone.

Tehuti stood over him and thrust again and again into his chest, between his ribs and into his vitals.

My men swept past where Tehuti stood, driving the surviving Bedouin ahead of them, leaning out from the saddle to run them through with their long cavalry lances.

I let them go. I reined in my camel beside Tehuti and swung down from the saddle. I threw my arms around her and held her until she quietened, and then I plucked the sword from her hands.

‘You have killed him ten times over,’ I told her sharply. ‘Now Zaras needs our help.’ I knew that his name would calm her fury and focus her mind.

I
did not want to move Zaras, as doing so can often aggravate such an injury as he had received. I had the men build a rude shelter over him where he lay.

While they were doing this I ordered the sergeant of the guards to collect the cleanest and least bloodstained robes from the Arab corpses and bring them to me. I used these to protect Tehuti from the sun and from the fascinated scrutiny of the men.

Then I ordered them to drag the dead Arab horses and the corpses of the Jackal and his men a league downwind and dump them in the desert. In this heat they would begin putrefying within the hour. The last I ever saw of the Jackal he was being towed naked behind a camel with a slip knot around his ankles and his head bumping over the stony ground. His arms extended over his head towards me were flapping as if in farewell.

I had brought with me my medical pack, and a small supply of herbs and drugs. These go with me always and everywhere, almost as though they are part of my own body. But I knew before even I began to examine Zaras’ wound that they were inadequate for the task that lay ahead of me.

I had no trained assistant to help me. The rough guardsmen with me were all highly proficient at taking human life, but abysmally ignorant when it came to saving and succouring it.

The only one that I had whom I could trust was Tehuti. She had helped me care for injured horses and other domestic animals. But I still looked upon her as a child. I did not want her to watch Zaras die, as he was bound to do. But I had no choice.

‘You will have to help me care for him, Princess,’ I told her as I prepared a draught of the juice of the Red Sheppen flower that was powerful enough to stun an ox.

‘Yes,’ she responded quietly, but with such fixed determination that I was reminded forcibly of her mother. ‘Just tell me what you want me to do and I will do it.’

‘First of all make certain he drinks all of this.’ I handed her the copper cup brimming with the narcotic. She placed his head in her lap. She held the vessel to his lips and pinched his nostrils closed so that he was forced to gulp it down. In the meantime I laid out my surgical instruments.

When the pupils of Zaras’ eyes dilated and he fell into a stupor induced by the drug, we removed his armour and his under breeches. Then we laid him mother-naked on his stomach on a bed of saddle blankets. Of course I had seen Zaras naked before, but as always I was impressed by his magnificent physique. I felt a deep pang of regret that so soon we would have to consign this masterpiece of nature to the earth.

I separated his legs so that I could reach the entry point of the Jackal’s blade. Of course the blade was still sealing the wound. I know others who claim to be surgeons who would have ripped it out without a care or a thought, sealing their patient’s fate in the instant.

While I studied the angle and depth of the blade’s entry, I saw that the sword thrust had missed his masculine parts entirely. This was a state of affairs about which I had mixed feelings.

I silently rejoiced for the sake of Zaras and Tehuti. However, on my own account I was not so sanguine. Perhaps it would have been preferable if these basic organs of Zaras’ had been rendered harmless by the cutting edge of the sword. If that had happened then many of those problems which I foresaw looming ahead of me might have been eliminated at a single stroke. I thrust such unworthy thoughts aside and gave my full attention to the removal of the blade.

It had passed through his left buttock. If it had then struck the cradle of heavy pelvic bone it might have gone no further.

This had not happened. I could tell that it had found a pathway along which to enter the bony basin in which Zaras’ entrails were contained. I have taken the opportunity to dissect and study hundreds of human cadavers. I know how the food we eat is passed down through these fleshy tubes until it is voided from the fundamental orifice set between our buttocks.

I was by now seriously alarmed. If the Jackal’s blade had punctured one of these tubes in Zaras’ gut the waste would have leaked into his stomach cavity. This waste that we refer to familiarly as dung is composed of evil humours which give it the characteristic unpleasant smell. These humours are also fatally poisonous, and if set free in the body will cause it to mortify. Death is the inevitable consequence.

The sword had to come out at once. I summoned six of our strongest men to restrain Zaras, for despite the powerful opiate that I had given him the pain that he must suffer would render the drug ineffectual.

Tehuti sat with his head in her lap. She stroked his hair and crooned to him like a mother to her infant. The holders took their places and pinned his limbs. I knelt between his legs and took a double-handed grip on the hilt of the sword.

‘Hold him!’ I gave the order, and then I leaned back and applied all my weight and strength, keeping the blade aligned to its entry channel so as avoid further damage to his flesh and innards.

Zaras’ entire body stiffened. Every muscle tensed hard as marble, and he bellowed like a wounded bull with agony. The six strong men were hard put to restrain him. For a long moment nothing gave. The bronze blade was trapped in a vice-like grip; jammed against the pelvic bone and held by the suction of clinging tissue. Then the suction broke and the blade slid from the wound. I toppled over backwards.

Zaras gave one last shuddering moan and his body slumped back into unconsciousness. I had a pad of lamb’s wool ready, and I placed this over the wound and ordered Tehuti, ‘Hold this in place, but put all your weight on it to try and stop the blood.’ Then I looked to the men who were holding him down. ‘Release him!’ I ordered them.

I switched my attention to the sword in my hand and with my eye measured how deeply in had penetrated.

‘One and a half hand’s length; half a cubit,’ I estimated, with dread overshadowing hope. ‘That’s deep, too deep!’

Briefly I lifted the pad that Tehuti was pressing over the wound. I leaned forward to examine the wound.

It was a slit as wide as two of my fingers together. As soon as I released the pressure on it a thin trickle of blood leaked out. It looked clean and healthy. I brought my face close to it, and sniffed at the blood. There was no odour of faeces.