Men of Bronze (18 page)

Esna growled, punching Barca twice more in rapid succession.

When the Phoenician looked up, there was something different about him.

Ujahorresnet watched as a physical transformation washed over Barca. His face grew hard, like a bust carved of stone, and his eyes shrank to mere slits. His nostrils flared, and he grinned a death’s head grin that sent chills down the priest’s spine. Something inside him fought to get free. If it did loose itself, Ujahorresnet had little doubt it would paint the walls of the cell red with their blood. Perhaps the time had come to end this session. There would be other days, other tortures.

The priest reached out to restrain Esna as Barca exploded.

Muscle and sinew creaked, straining against the biting ropes as Barca thrust upward. He rammed Esna with his shoulder, driving him against the cell door, then turned and hurled himself on Ujahorresnet.

Stunned, the priest could not move.

Barca struck him full in the chest, and they fell in a welter of thrashing limbs. Barca tucked his knees up, using the momentum of their fall to drive the breath from the Egyptian’s lungs. There was enough slack in the rope for Barca to lever his hands apart, and enough space between his hands for him to wrap his fingers around Ujahorresnet’s throat. The priest felt the life being squeezed out of him. Blackness, shot through with red, ringed his vision. The Phoenician cackled like a madman, bloody spittle and froth dripping from his jaws …

Esna loomed over them, pounding his gauntleted fist again and again into the side of Barca’s head, driving his knee into his ribs. Barca sagged, his fingers losing their strength, and slumped to the floor.

“Merciful Neith!” Esna said, his chest heaving. He helped Ujahorresnet to his feet. The priest gasped for breath, his windpipe bruised, as he staggered to the door. Esna stared at Barca’s prostrate form with a fear that bordered on the supernatural. “Seth possesses him, lord. He is too dangerous to keep prisoner. Let me finish him!”

“No,” Ujahorresnet said, rubbing his throat. “We must weaken him. Bring him not a scrap of food, Esna, and only half a cup of water a day. And beat him. Beat him senseless until he begs!”

“This is madness, lord! Did you not see his eyes? Why tempt the gods so?”

“I want him to beg!”

Esna looked down at the Phoenician. His instincts screamed; he knew in the pit of his stomach he should grab an axe and hack the bastard’s head off, vengeance be damned. This man was feral, a rabid dog. Toying with him was an invitation to disaster.

The priest must have read it in his eyes. “If you cannot do it, Esna, I’ll find another who can!” Ujahorresnet spun and reeled from the cell, leaving Esna standing alone with the Phoenician. His hand dropped to his knife hilt. No amount of gold was worth dying over.

The copper disc of the sun rose in the eastern sky, and with it came the specter of Ares, of war. The shadow of the great god loomed over bazaar and bedchamber, casting a pall of despair despite the brilliant morning light. Phanes could feel the apparition at his shoulder as he walked the battlements of the White Citadel. He could feel it, and he drew strength from it.

“We must decide,” Phanes said. He stopped, turning to face the three men who attended him. Two were his
polemarchs
, Hyperides and Nicias; the third, Petenemheb, served as governor of Memphis. The Egyptian’s sallow features bore the stamp of unending debauchery — spider veins on his cheeks and dark circles beneath his eyes — that not even thick cosmetics could hide. His fingers toyed with a pleat in his bleached white kilt. Phanes continued, “Barca’s meddling has brought an Egyptian army within striking distance of Memphis. Do we stay and fight, or do we cleave to our original plan and make for the western oases? We can put the decision off no longer. What say you … fight or flight?”

The men stirred. Pennons snapped and rustled in the breeze. One of the
polemarchs
, Nicias of Potidaea, a squat and ogrish veteran who wore his scars with pride, ran a hand through his tangled mass of hair. “The men would prefer a fight, but the odds are stacked in Pharaoh’s favor,” he said. “His ground forces, alone, stand at twice our number if the scouts are to be believed, a mixed force of chariots and infantry. Add marines from the Nile fleet and the tally could easily triple.”

“A Hellene is more than a match for any three Egyptians,” said Hyperides of Ithaca, nicknamed
Kyklopes
, tilting his head to the left to stare at Phanes with his one good eye. A crock of flaming pitch, slung by a Tyrrhenian marine at Alalia, had ruined his once-handsome face. Patches of hair clung to the leprous tissue, giving the lean Ithacan a monstrous appearance.

“Against infantry, aye,” Nicias said, “but the phalanx is powerless against a concerted charge of chariotry. I say we put Memphis to the sword and make for Siwa oasis. From there, we can strike all along the river until Cambyses arrives.”

“Kyklopes?”

Hyperides shrugged. “Lead us to Tartarus, if you will, and I’ll spit in Hades’ eye.”

“Fight or flight,” Phanes muttered. He walked to the corner of the battlement, his commanders in tow. Inebhedj stood on a man-made hillock some fifty feet above the surrounding city. The white limestone walls rose another forty feet above the crest of the hill, giving Phanes a panoramic view of the landscape. Below, traffic streamed along the Way of the Truth of Ptah. Artisans and tradesmen, field hands and fishermen, scribes and priests trudged past statues of Proteus and Rhampsinitus, Apries and Amasis, unaware that their fate lay on a knife’s edge. “If I were Amasis,” Phanes said, tapping the embrasure with his fingertip, “I would try to land troops inside the temple, to use the enclosure wall to my best advantage. At the same time,” he turned, pointing west toward the pyramids of Saqqara, “my chariot corps would approach from the opposite direction. The desired effect would be as two hands clapping together.

“But what if Amasis were unable to land infantry because we’re in control of the quays? That would force them to dismount from their chariots and fight in the streets. Deshur would see another blooding.” Phanes turned, his eyes agleam. Nicias and Hyperides dangled on his next words. “What do we have to lose by fighting? Our homes? Our lives? Faugh! All men die, but how many men have a chance to author their own destinies? If we do this thing, if we conquer Pharaoh, our reward will be more than the riches of Memphis, more than the gratitude of Cambyses. We will be masters of Egypt!”

Nicias whistled. “That would stick in the Persian’s craw.”

Petenemheb could hold his tongue no longer. He gave a strangled cry and lurched forward, clutching at Phanes’ tunic. “Madness! This is madness! You cannot renounce your promise to the Great King! His wrath will lay waste to the land! Think of the suffering!”

“What of it?” Phanes knocked the governor’s hand away. “Have you lost your nerve, Petenemheb? Perhaps you should fortify yourself with more wine and leave the business of war to me!”

“You would kill every man, woman, and child in Memphis? You can’t …”

Phanes’ arm snaked out, catching Petenemheb by the throat. He hauled the Egyptian close, his temper flaring brighter than the morning sun. “Oh, but I can, Petenemheb! I can! Shall I prove it to you? I will kill every living thing in Memphis, starting with you!” Cords of muscle writhed beneath Phanes’ hide as he lifted the governor off his feet. With a desperation born of futility, Petenemheb clawed and fought. He may as well have grappled with a living statue for all the good that came of it. Phanes hurled him through an embrasure.

The governor’s croaks turned to a wail of pure terror, ending abruptly with a sickening crunch some ninety feet below. Phanes and his captains peered over the battlement. Petenemheb’s body lay broken at the foot of Pharaoh’s statue. “Foolish is the man who doesn’t realize when his use is at an end,” Phanes muttered.

“Bloody Ares!” Hyperides said. “Look there!” Phanes and Nicias followed his gesture, looking south toward Deshur. A plume of smoke mingled with the morning haze. Even from this distance they could see knots of Egyptians milling about, their fists held aloft, sunlight flashing from slivers of metal.

“A riot,” Nicias spat.

“Menkaura’s decided to show himself,” Phanes said. He fixed his captains with a chilling stare. “Call out the phalanx. This has gone on long enough!”

Sunlight angled through a square-cut opening in the roof of the cell. Barca lay in the patch of warmth, staring up at the sliver of bright blue sky, his face a clotted mass of bruised and lacerated flesh. Ropes of woven hemp, saturated with blood, abraded his wrists and ankles. The gash in his side throbbed, and he imagined infection had already taken hold. It pained him to draw breath.

How long had he lain here? Three days? Four? He tried to count the times he had fallen unconscious, the healing touch of sleep broken by bouts of torture. A week? He could not focus, could not remember.

I will die here
. Not his choice of deaths, true, but Barca had decided long ago that he would welcome Death however he came. Welcome him like a long lost brother. They had come so close before, he and Death, brushing shoulders like strangers on a crowded street. Many nights — nights when the ghosts of the past became unbearable — Barca thought of inviting Death to his door, of putting an end to their game. Suicide, though, went against his grain. No, he wouldn’t make Death’s task any easier.

That task was nearly done.

Thirst raged through him like an unchecked fire. Deprived of nourishment, a man could last for a week, perhaps more. Deprived of water, however, his mortality became measurable in days. Even a man acclimated to the heat and dehydration of the desert could not survive long without water. Barca recalled a fellow his Medjay had tracked through the desert east of Sile, a Bedouin slave taken in a raid on the villages of Sinai who slipped his shackles and escaped to the high sands. By the time the Medjay caught up to him, the wretch had gnawed open the veins in his wrists in hopes blood would quench his thirst. Barca reckoned that to be Ujahorresnet’s plan. The old bastard wanted him mad with pain and thirst, insane enough to beg and plead and whimper.

“I will be damned,” Barca clenched his teeth, “if I give him the satisfaction!” Groaning, the Phoenician rolled over and struggled to his knees. He lurched to his feet, his back against the wall. His head swam. Bile seared the back of his throat. Barca shook his head to clear it, and grit his teeth against the waves of nausea. Time to see about getting clear of this cell. He had seen no other guards save that son of a bitch, Esna. Him Barca could dispose of easily, if only his hands were free.

From outside the door, he heard the scuff of a sandal on stone.

“I am surprised to see you upright,” Ujahorresnet said, peering through the grate in the door. “Indeed, I half-expected to find you bled dry.”

“How’s the throat?” Barca smiled, ghastly in the pale morning light.

The priest’s nostrils flared. “Do be considerate and try not to die too soon. That would cheat me of my hard-earned vengeance.”

Barca shuffled to the door. “Explain something to me, old man. I thought you were a firm believer in the superiority of the Egyptian people. How is it that you’re in bed with the Greeks? A traitor, no less?”

The priest’s eyes were troubled. “Grief drives a man down paths never contemplated.”

“Anger does the same,” Barca said. “Believe it nor not, I loved Neferu. You think I have no remorse …”

“Remorse? You?” Ujahorresnet laughed. “Please! I am not a half-wit, Barca.

I’ve peered into your soul and taken measure of your true self. You live to kill, to feel death rise up around you like a warm blanket. You’re only truly alive when another man’s blood spills at your feet. Remorse? That’s as alien an emotion to you as love!”

Barca snarled. “It’s good you know me so well, priest! And since you do, you know what I’ll do to you when I’m free.”

“Cling to your false hopes,” Ujahorresnet said. “You will die in that cell, and soon. However, since you are so full of venom, I will see about having Esna continue where he left off last night.”