Servant of the Gods (31 page)

She would hate him and rightly so.

He hated himself.

And General Khai?

If he died, what then for Egypt with another General lost, and so soon? Who would replace him? There were rumors about Baraka…

He, Saini the healer, had done this.

There wasn’t enough wine in all Egypt to drown his shame.

But he tried.

Smoke and shadows, fire and darkness, rose up out of the deepest hollows of the desert. That darkness was terrible, and it was hungry. It gathered and grew, then it swept out of the desert in a great rush like a sandstorm, save that it was black. That darkness slipped silently along the walls of the village. It found the cracks, the voids, and seeped through them to claim its first victims, its initial hosts. Their possessed victims silenced those on guard and opened the gates.

Time, even less than half a year, had eased the fears of those who’d suffered the previous attacks. The guards’ wariness had grown lax as the days had passed uneventfully. Death was a harsh price to pay for their lack of diligence but it was the price they paid all the same.

A silent struggle, as one after another fell to the sila.

Shadow swept within the gates. It dimmed the torches as shadows and smoke flowed silently down the pathways.

Dogs barked and then yelped as they too were silenced.

Helpless to avert that which came, the cats slipped away, silently.

The first villages to the south and west fell swiftly and very nearly soundlessly – or at least as soundlessly as far as those of the world outside world were concerned. Their terrible screams and cries were heard only within the walls that had once protected them. No one escaped to warn others in the path of what came. Those at the fort in the south weren’t so unaware, some few recognized their peril from the terrible days only a few short months previously.

If the attack hadn’t come at night more might have survived.

An eerie wailing awoke Ashai, horrible cries that chilled his bones. Some intuition warned him this was his last night on earth. Desperately, he bundled up his plans, his notes, and shoved them into the space he’d found behind the bricks of his room. If he didn’t survive this night, if nothing remained to remember him by, there would be this. He scrabbled to scatter sand before his hidden cache.

Behind him, the door burst open.

Seeing what entered, Ashai tried to flee, weeping, but there was no escape.

Nor was he alone.

Shouts and cries awakened Baki from his troubled sleep. As his door crashed open, he leaped to his feet.

“Oba?” he said, at the sight of the man who entered his chambers. A man he’d considered his friend. “What is it?”

Then he saw the terrible red glitter in the eyes of the man who’d once been his friend. His belly went cold. Even before Oba’s sword speared him he knew he would die that night.

Some held, buying others time at the cost of their own lives while a few fought free and raced for Thebes to give warning.

The Djinn had been loosed upon Egypt once again.

It wasn’t Thebes that came under attack next, though, but the town by the first cataract, Aswan.

Unprepared for the assault, the guards at the gates fell first and as silently as those in the villages.

Firelit darkness, smoke and shadow flowed through the streets. Cries and screams of desperation and outrage were smothered by the walls. More followed.

It was a nightmare.

A few escaped northward.

Most didn’t.

The Djinn feasted, grew stronger.

Those who did escape, though, warned those in the villages they passed as they fled. The Djinn were on the move once more.

The exodus began, moving north.

Although he had quarters in the city, Khai spent many evenings with his officers in camp. He was still reorganizing and reassessing his troops. They’d lost so many good officers in their first confrontation with the Djinn. He dared not leave Egypt’s borders so poorly defended.

A commotion in camp brought him out of his tent at a run.

Watching the drivers come through, some bent in their chariots, obviously grievously wounded, a familiar, sick feeling went through him. He recognized the drivers and the desperation in them.

As much as he wanted to deny it, he knew what had come.

“Send to the temples for healers,” he shouted to a messenger.

He took a breath to steady himself and waited for the men to reach him.

Looking at them as they saluted, his heart aching for them he saluted them in return, and said, “The Djinn have returned.”

One of the men looked at him and took a breath. “Yes, my lord.”

The soldier’s eyes were sick and frightened. He swayed visibly in his saddle. Scores were visible over his torso. Fever glittered in his eyes. None of them had wanted to stop to tend their wounded. They’d come straight to him, to report.

Khai signaled for another messenger.

“Go to my Lady Irisi at the temple of Isis. Give her that message as well.”

As much as he wished to tell her himself, he must inform the King first. That was his duty.

The messenger raced away.

It seemed that now they knew what that dark magic in the night had been about.

The guards at the palace doors knew Irisi well and passed her without question into the King’s presence in response to his summons. Awan, Kahotep and Djeserit were beside her. Having received his message as well it was no surprise to find Khai awaiting them, but it was a relief of sorts to see him and her heart lightened a little.

His expression, though, was grim. That didn’t bode well.

Then she felt other eyes on her and turned to find Kamenwati’s black gaze fixed on her, his face impassive. Something dark and unsettling moved behind that gaze.

She met his eyes evenly, expressionlessly, though it chilled her, and lowered her head politely before she bowed to the King.

“My Lord Narmer,” she said as the King inclined his head in greeting.

According to tradition she was considered his equal.

His councilors were arrayed around him, most with expressions as forbidding as Khai’s.

“Lady Irisi,” Narmer said, inclining his head to each of the other priests and priestesses in acknowledgment of their presence.

Irisi had received his summons only a short time after Khai’s message so the summons from the King hadn’t been unexpected.

Nor had Khai’s message been entirely unanticipated.

The first refugees from the south had reached the temple. She’d been about to send a message to both he and Narmer when his had arrived.

“General Khai informs me the Djinn have returned,” Narmer said. “The southern fort has fallen once again, despite all efforts to defend it. Only a few survived.”

Irisi looked at Khai, her heart wrenching for him. Those losses would grieve him. She could see the pain in his eyes.

She turned to the King and his councilors.

Her breath caught as she realized that was all they knew… She glanced at Kahotep and Djeserit, who shared her dismay.

The King didn’t know.

“Have you had word from Aswan?” she asked, her stomach clenching.

A frown creasing his forehead, the King on his throne sat up slowly as beside him Khai stiffened, his gold-touched eyes going to hers.

“Aswan?” Narmer asked, his voice tense. “We’ve heard nothing.”

Irisi dared not glance at Narmer’s advisors, especially Kamenwati. She had little doubt they’d cast the few peasants that reached them aside.

Even so, Aswan, although smaller than Thebes, was no village. It was the southernmost city in Egypt before the first cataract in the south, the gateway into Egypt from the Kush and other nations to the south, and an important trade center.

Slowly, Irisi nodded. “We’ve begun receiving refugees from there…”

Everyone went still. Around the room, there were murmurs of concern from the councilors. Some looked aside, while others were earnest, but none were willing to admit they’d heard the cries of the unfortunate, only to turn them away.

“What have you learned?” Narmer asked, looking at his High Priestess even as his stomach sank.

The look on her face warned him, her azure blue eyes apologetic. It was clear that what she would say would be a hard blow. She gazed at him in return, her eyes shadowed, grief and sorrow clear in them.

“It was falling as they fled. The last they saw smoke was rising from within the city. Not the smoke of the Djinn, or at least, not that alone. A great deal of it, parts of the city appeared to be in flames…”

Given it was the Djinn and they were creatures of fire, it was no surprise.

Narmer’s breath caught, looking first at Irisi and then to the other priests for confirmation.

That glance was telling.

Each priest and priestess met his eyes evenly but the look in them was the same.

Aswan had fallen.

It shook him.

Aswan was nearly as large as Thebes. The loss of life was incalculable.

“Is this then the darkness of which the prophecy spoke?” he asked, looking to Kahotep. “Has it finally come?”

Going still, Irisi felt Narmer’s question echo through and within her.

A breathless silence fell as her eyes went to Khai, to hold his for a moment as they waited for Kahotep to answer in the way she feared, in the way she knew he would, he must. Part of her wanted to cry out in protest. Another knew this was as it must, as it should, be.

She could feel it, as the hands of fate settled onto her shoulders, and not lightly.

Her heart skipped a beat…slowed…

She didn’t want it to be true, but in her heart and soul she knew it was.

Her gaze went to Kahotep.

The prophecy echoed in Kahotep, too, almost like a death knell as he looked at Irisi, both friend and fellow priest. He was intensely aware of her presence…even as the voice of his God filled him and spoke through him.

The head of the God Horus bowed in return, in honor, and in regret.

Compelled, Kahotep/Horus repeated the words of the prophecy He’d spoken on Narmer’s naming day, the day Narmer had been named to be heir to the throne of all Egypt.

“A darkness rises, O Pharaoh, to be unleashed across the world. It comes as a shadow that rises from the desert to lay waste to all of Egypt, scouring the earth as it passes. Death and destruction follow in its wake, and the cries of the people of the world are terrible. From the north comes a warrior, a crowned and golden Servant of the Gods with eyes like the sky, bearing swords in hand to rise up and drive the terrible darkness out of the world, and to stand against it for all time.”

There was a pause.

Horus’s voice spoke clearly, each word a death knell.

“That time has now come.”

Irisi’s breath caught.

Her eyes were locked on Khai’s as Horus’s words echoed through the room like a great gong being struck.

Khai heard the words, felt them, as all eyes turned to Irisi. As did his.

No.

A golden warrior.

That was how Khai himself had first seen her, his beloved Irisi.

Somehow in that moment he knew the prophecy was true. In the despair and resolution in Irisi’s eyes he could see she did, too. It wasn’t in her to turn away from a fight, any more than it was in him.

The moment of prophecy was upon them.

Irisi let out a sigh as her eyes turned to her King, aware of Kamenwati’s regard once again, the look in his glance speculative, even triumphant.

Narmer’s gaze met hers. She met it evenly.

Slowly, the King nodded.

“There is hope then for Egypt, whom we all serve,” he said. “Eat, sleep. We ride out at first light.”

Time was running out.

The room the King had assigned her was larger by far than Irisi’s quarters in the temple. It was magnificently appointed with fine teak furniture and gilded marble statues of the gods in niches along the walls. A large table to one side held an alabaster bowl filled with fruit.