Desert God. Wilbur Smith

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СКАЧАТЬ were several hundreds of them, but it was impossible to judge their numbers with any accuracy because they were packed so closely, and most of the women were hidden behind the taller men. All of them were laughing, cheering and waving. Some of the men were in ceremonial armour and ornate metal helmets. The others, male and females both, were dressed in lustrous and exotic materials of every conceivable colour. They were as fantastic and multi-hued as a cloud of freshly hatched butterflies, fluttering, whirling and dancing in the wind.

      In a smaller vessel, which was moored alongside the great royal barge, a band of musicians played barbaric Hyksos music. This was a cacophony of drums and lutes, of animal horn trumpets, woodwinds and reed pipes.

      We were racing down so swiftly on the royal barge that I was now able to make out the details that had previously been obscured by distance. On the summit of the pyramid-shaped dais, under the painted canopy, on his throne of beaten silver sat King Beon. He had taken that throne after the death of King Salitis, his father.

      I recognized him on sight. I had seen him before on the battlefield of Thebes. He had been the commander of the Hyksos left flank, with forty thousand infantry and archers under him. He was not the kind of man that one would readily forget.

      He was colossal. His white robes were voluminous as a tent, billowing around his protuberant belly. His beard was curling black and plaited into thick ropes, some of which hung to his waist while others were thrown back over his shoulders. Woven into the plaits were chains and ornaments of bright silver and gold. He wore a high-crowned helmet of polished silver that was studded with ornate patterns of glittering jewels. His aspect was magnificent, almost godlike. Even I, who loathe all things Hyksos, was impressed.

      King Beon had one hand raised, with the open palm turned towards us in greeting or in blessing; I was uncertain which he intended, but he was smiling.

      In a few terse words I pointed out to Zaras the most vulnerable point in the hull of the royal barge where the strain on the ship’s main timbers was centred. This was slightly forward of the high podium.

      ‘Take that as your mark, Zaras, and hold true on it right up to the moment of impact.’

      By now we were so close that I could see that King Beon was no longer smiling. His lower jaw was hanging open, exposing his brown-stained front teeth. Abruptly he closed his mouth. At this late juncture he had realized that our intentions were hostile. He dropped his hairy paws on to the armrests of his throne and tried to push himself to his feet. But he was ungainly and slow.

      The courtiers packed into the barges on each side of his royal vessel suddenly became aware of the menace of our racing triremes bearing directly down on them. The wild screams of the women carried clearly to where I stood. The men were struggling to reach the sides of the anchored barges, unsheathing their weapons and challenging us with futile war cries and bellows of rage. I saw many of their women knocked down and trampled. Others were carried forward to the ship’s side. They jumped or they were shoved overboard into the Nile. We came down on this confusion like a mountain avalanche.

      ‘Oars!’ Zaras shouted the command loudly enough to be heard above the wailing and shrieking of the Hyksos. The rowers on each side of our trireme lifted their oars to the vertical position and clamped them in their buckets so they would not be sheared off by the impact. Our speed was undiminished as we covered the last few yards of open water.

      At the last moment before impact I dropped to my knees on the deck and braced myself against the rowing bench in front of me. I saw that the men around me were at last taking my instruction seriously. Every one of them was doubled over with his arms locked around his thighs and his face pressed to his knees.

      We struck the royal barge precisely on the point of aim that I had given Zaras. The massive bronze ram on our bows sheared through her timbers with a crackling roar. Most of our own men were thrown from the rowing benches to the deck by the collision, but I managed to keep my grip on the sturdy hardwood bench. I was able to see everything that was happening around me.

      I watched as the full force and weight of our trireme was concentrated on one small area of the royal barge’s side. Like the blade of a heavy axe striking a log of kindling, we cut through her cleanly. The severed halves of her hull rolled under our bows as we trod her under.

      As she went over I saw the Hyksos guardsmen flung from the steps of the royal pyramid in swirling profusion, like the autumn leaves from the high branches of sycamore tree in the gale winds of winter. King Beon was thrown highest of them all. His white robes billowed about his gross body, and the tangled braids of his beard lashed his face. He dropped back into the river with his arms and legs flailing. The air trapped in his robes floated him on the surface not thirty paces from where I was dragging myself upright, using the rowing bench as a support.

      On either side of me the other triremes of our squadron smashed into the smaller barges of the Hyksos formation. They rolled them over effortlessly, ripping through their hulls, catapulting the panic-stricken passengers from the decks into the river.

      The wreckage of the royal barge scraped down the sides of our trireme, to an uproar of tearing sails, snapping ropes, splintering timbers and the agonized shrieks of men being crushed between the grinding hulls. Our own deck was canted over at a severe angle, men and loose equipment sliding towards the port side.

      Then our lovely ship shook herself free of the wreckage, and with almost feminine grace she regained her equilibrium and came upright in the water.

      Zaras was yelling again for ‘Oars!’, and the men responded quickly enough. They heaved the heavy oars from the buckets and settled them in their rowlocks.

      ‘Reverse the stroke!’ Zaras shouted again. Only the rowers on the rear benches were able to reach the water with their oars. The men in the forward benches were blocked by the wreckage of the floundering royal barge.

      Those who were able to do so dug in their blades and with a few powerful strokes pulled us free. Within seconds the severed sections of the royal barge filled with water. They rolled over and went down. An eruption of trapped air roared up to the surface.

      I glanced over at the other two triremes. Dilbar and Akemi were bellowing orders at their men. Their crews clambered swiftly back on to the rowing benches, set their oars and picked up the stroke from the beat of the drums. The helmsmen were steering them back into formation on our leading ship.

      Between us the surface of the river was covered with bobbing human heads, splashing and struggling bodies and shattered wreckage. The cries of drowning men and women were as piteous as the bleating of sheep being driven through the gates of the abattoir when they smell the blood.

      For a long minute I watched the carnage in horror. I was almost overwhelmed by guilt and remorse. I could no longer force myself to look upon these doomed creatures as merely Hyksos animals. They were human beings struggling for life itself. My heart went out to them.

      Then I saw King Beon again and my feelings changed in an instant. My wayward heart returned to me as swiftly and unerringly as a pigeon to its loft. I remembered what Beon had done to two hundred of our finest and bravest archers when his Hyksos brutes had captured them during the battle of Naquada. He had barricaded them in the Temple of Seth on the hill above the battlefield and burned them alive as a sacrifice to his monstrous god.

      Now Beon was clinging to a shattered plank from his royal barge with one hand; while in his other hand he was wielding his bejewelled sword, using it to chop at the heads of the women of his harem who were trying to take refuge on his plank with him. He drove them away ruthlessly, unwilling to share his perch with a single one of them. I watched him strike at a girl child who was no older than my darling little Bekatha. His СКАЧАТЬ