Andre Norton - Shadow Hawk Read Free Page A

Nubia to the holdings of Egypt almost a thousand years before the captain had been born. A Pharaoh of pharaohs indeed, before whom the Kush had groveled and slunk away like wasteland scavengers. If only such a one ruled today! The leader of Scouts raised his baton in salute as he passed that brooding king of stone.
    Time had breached the walls of the ancient fort; its inner courts were half filled with rubble. But those same walls were more protection against a rush attack than the open desert hillocks beyond.
    One of the archers who had been on flank duty came in with a gazelle slung over his shoulder, and a fire was made. The loose animals were turned into the roofless enclosure of the old granary. They would be watered sparingly, but tonight they must go hungry.
    Rahotep began his rounds of the encampment, inspecting the picket lines of the burden asses, stationing or checking upon sentries. Then at last he came to stand at the foot of the statue once again, looking south. There was no movement, not even of a dust devil raised by a wind puff, between the fort and the river. But he doubted that they lacked trailers. Haptke's men lurked there, ready to avenge their defeat on any straggler they could cut off, eager to spear-point an attack if the chances of success seemed good.
    The captain turned to the west, where the sun was a scarlet fire on the horizon, still almost too brilliant to face. He stripped himself of his emblems of command, the sistrum from his wrist and the baton-flail, and laid them on the sand. Then he lacked off his sandals and stood humbly before the greatest of Overlords, the sun. Rahotep looked straight into that blazing glory of red and gold before he made the salute of a warrior to his commander, his palms earthward at knee level. Having done so, the Egyptian straightened once more, proud in his heritage as a believer in Re, and chanted:
    "I give praise when I see Thy beauty,
    I hymn Re when He sets."
    From the camp came the answering boom of the archers' rich voices:
    "Who hearest him that prays,
    Who hearest the entreaties of him who calls upon Thee,"
    "Who comest at the voice of him who utters Thy name—" the captain intoned, and thought that the words were reechoed, as if by the stone figure beside him. "Thy name— Thy name!"
    Rahotep drew his upper arm wearily across his grimed face, longing for a few comforts—water to wash in, fresh clothing. To such simple luxuries had his world shrunk during the past five years. But tomorrow, if Re favored them, he would have those again when they reached the fort.
    He gathered up sistrum and flail and went down into camp, seating himself cross-legged on the mat Kheti had spread for him. There was another cup of milk to be fed to the cub. But when the captain took up his own portion of roast meat, the small furry head turned in his direction, the little mouth opened in shrill complaint, and tiny teeth tore eagerly at the shred he proffered.
    "That is good," Kheti commented. "This one was almost weaned. He shall be the easier to raise for that. We have had a profitable foray this time, Lord. It will be long before Haptke can make trouble again—if he ever can. And a Great One has been moved to honor you with a gift—that very Great One who is the totem of your own clan—"
    The young officer smiled with a bitterness that made an odd shadow on his youthful face. "Did you yourself not say, Kheti, that gifts from Great Ones are to be suspect, that they sometimes bring with them mixed fortune?"
    "True enough, Lord. But it is also true that when a man's fortune has long been dark, then any change may be for the better—"
    A jackal barked in the desert. Rahotep tensed, and the leopard cub hissed at the sudden tightening of the captain's grip upon its body.
    "You believe that my fortune has been dark?" "Lord, are we not foster brothers between whom there is little ever to be hidden? Do I not well know why you, the son of the Viceroy, run the desert with the