Men of Bronze (25 page)

The creak of oars presaged the
Khepri’s
approach. Seconds passed. Tense. Expectant. Thousands of eyes watched the quay. The structure was ancient, its foundations perhaps as old as Memphis itself. A canal led from the Nile, and the resulting lake provided a more stable surface for the loading and unloading of ships. Paved in brilliant white limestone and flanked by twin obelisks dedicated to Ptah, the quay formed a U-shaped niche where barques and barges could be docked even during the Nile’s yearly flood.

The
Khepri
entered the canal, sails furled as her oarsmen propelled her slowly through the blue-green water. Sunlight gleamed on the gilded statues decorating her decks. Thin poles rising from the bow and stern displayed floating banners of deep Tyrian purple, embroidered with symbols of gods and pharaoh. Phanes trembled in anticipation.

“Will you translate for me, priest?” he said to Ujahorresnet, his voice calm, measured.

Ujahorresnet nodded. “Should the need arise. Frankly, that barge looks deserted.” Indeed, save for sailors and oarsmen there was little movement on deck. Where were the glittering ranks of Pharaoh’s guard? The bureaucrats and functionaries who shadowed the Son of Ra like jackals shadow a lion? Phanes found their absence disturbing.

The barge thumped against the quay, its hull protected from damage by fenders of woven reeds. Sailors dropped down on either side, securing the
Khepri
with strong ropes lashed to bronze-ringed mooring posts; others lowered an elegant boarding plank of gold-chased ebony into place. The oarsmen rose from their benches, sweating from far more than the exertion of guiding their master’s ship home. Many of them muttered prayers. The small hairs on Phanes’ neck stirred. Something was amiss.

The crew of the
Khepri
glanced at one another as they edged toward the railings. The soldiers facing them radiated menace. Phanes could feel his men’s impatience; it mirrored his own. They could barely contain their lusts for blood, gold, and glory.

“This feels wrong.” Phanes signaled Nicias to advance. Howling like pirates, the Greeks mobbed the barge. Egyptian sailors shrieked in terror at the sight of a horde of bronze armored hoplites storming the quay. They had no fight in them. As one, they hurled themselves over the railings and into the water.

Phanes sprinted down the sphinx-lined avenue and mounted the steps leading to the quay. Ujahorresnet followed, his lips a tight line. Soldiers rushed to either end of the quay to secure their flanks. It occurred to them that the
Khepri’s
hold could be packed with fighting men.

“Something’s not right,” Nicias said. “There were maybe two dozen men aboard. We …”

Phanes shouldered past him and ascended the gangplank. Nicias and a squad of soldiers followed on his heels. No opposition greeted Phanes; he stalked to the stern of the ship, to where linen curtains hid the royal throne from view. Fabric ripped as he tore the curtains down.

The throne stood empty, save for a roll of papyrus pinned to the seat with a knife.

Nicias reached down and pulled the papyrus free. He unrolled it. It contained a single sentence, written in the priestly script.

“Hieratic,” Ujahorresnet said. He glanced at Phanes. The Greek commander nodded. Nicias handed the papyrus to the old priest.

“It says: ‘Enjoy this, the least of my thrones, for it is as close as you will get, you ungrateful son of a whore!’.” Ujahorresnet braced for a tirade.

But Phanes remained cool, calculating, even as the last piece of the puzzle clicked in his mind. “Zeus! That old bastard is craftier than I thought! He’s landed his infantry elsewhere! Redeploy to the square!”

As one organism possessed of a single mind, the Greeks wheeled and made for the western gate of the temple precinct. Squads peeled off in unison, with common rankers cleaving to their file leaders, file leaders dogging the officers. They streamed through the close confines of the temple proper, the columns like tree trunks in a forest of stone.

Dodging Greeks, Ujahorresnet found his brother priests huddled about the feet of a colossal statue of Pharaoh. Like a shepherd, the First Servant of Neith gathered them together and led them back through the temple maze. Soldiers cursed as they jogged past them; the jangle of bronze on bronze, of wood striking metal, created a deafening clamor that dislocated their senses. Above the din, though, Ujahorresnet discerned a different sound, a chilling sound.

The thunder of hooves.

Phanes skidded to a halt, a curse forming on his lips. Ahead, through the gated pylon of the western entrance to Ptah’s temple, the Greek saw a dust cloud rolling toward the Square of Deshur. For an instant the dust cleared, and Phanes beheld the shattered remnant of Hyperides’ men, the sky above them black with arrows and javelins. Beyond, a wall of chariots loomed. Phanes’ face hardened. There were more of them than he had realized. Far more.

And, he realized something else … he had been outfoxed.

“Dress the lines!” he roared, setting his helmet into place and drawing his sword. Outfoxed by an old man!

The Egyptians struck the Greek vanguard less than a mile from Memphis, crushing their center and driving them back toward the Nile as a shepherd drives sheep. The mercenary infantry, still in column formation, could not withstand the deadly effects of an arrow storm coupled with the impact of a bronze and iron wedge of chariots. A man on foot stood little chance against the harnessed strength of two stallions, whose hooves crushed hastily-locked shields and the bodies they strived to protect. The Greek formation splintered; some sought refuge in the necropolis of Saqqara. The larger number of them fell back to the Square of Deshur.

Ahmose rode in the forefront, Nebmaatra at his side, forming the tip of the wedge. The Calasirian Guard followed in their wake. Pharaoh, resplendent in his corselet of golden scales and blue war helm, leaned out and brained a soldier with his axe. Their ruse had worked. The Greeks had been so focused on the
Khepri
, on the men who had volunteered to play into Phanes’ hands, that they discounted the chariots as a tangible threat. Now, they were being shown their folly.

A choking curtain of dust and soil churned up from the horses’ hooves obscured the battlefield. Ahmose knew Phanes and the bulk of his hoplites would form ranks in the Square. Once his chariots had penetrated as far as the Way of the Truth of Ptah, Ahmose would order them to wheel. Then, they would drive the Greeks north into the arms of the waiting infantry, crushing them in a vice. Pharaoh grinned as his axe sheared through a Greek helmet.

Pharaoh’s chariot reached the western edge of the Square of Deshur. He drew up; his squadrons flanked him. In front of the Egyptians, the Greek vanguard stood in disarray. Beyond their struggling forms, through the dust, Ahmose could see a shining phalanx of hoplites.

“They’ll be a tough nut to crack,” Nebmaatra shouted. Pharaoh glanced around, seeing his Calasirians around him. In one chariot he glimpsed Tjemu. The Libyan had shaken off his melancholy when the first blows had fallen on the road from Saqqara. He laughed, slinging droplets of blood from his sword.

“But crack they will!” Ahmose said, his breathing heavy through the congestion in his lungs. His charioteer, a man with legs like knotted tree trunks, hauled on the reins, waiting for the order to charge. “I want Phanes alive, if it is possible.”

“If it’s possible, it will be done, Pharaoh,” Nebmaatra nodded.

Ahmose touched the charioteer on the shoulder. With an earth-shaking roar, the Egyptian chariots charged.

Hyperides watched his vanguard crack and slough away like old plaster. Dust and grit choked him, caking on his sweat-dampened cheeks and forehead. Pharaoh’s chariots were invincible. Oh, his troops had done some damage, gutted a few horses, slew a few men, but nothing like the carnage wrought by the Egyptians. A lull gave Hyperides a moment’s respite. Greek soldiers milled about, confused, walking like dead men through the mist of war. Hyperides had expected better of them. Gods be damned! He had trained them better than this! Still, he wasn’t a sorcerer. He couldn’t forge gold from dung.

His men cowered as the Egyptians charged. The ground underfoot shook, and the sun glimmered through the haze, striking fire from the tidal wave of bronze that hurtled down on them.

Hyperides cursed as his mercenaries stumbled back. He flailed about with the flat of his bloodstained sword, striding out in front so his men could see him.

“Stand, you sons of whores!” Hyperides roared. “Stand and fight!”

He looked back in time to see the sun reflect from a spearhead. For a split second Hyperides froze, mesmerized by the scintillant play of light on bronze, and that instant was enough. The spear punched through his breastplate, his chest, and erupted from his back in a welter of blood. The impact lifted him off his feet and flung him back into the roiling curtain of dust.

With him, the Greek vanguard died.

Phanes saw his light troops dissolve beneath the wheels of Pharaoh’s chariots. He motioned to Nicias. “Go forward and rally where you can.” The squat captain saluted and hustled to the fore. Phanes felt a chill, and a familiar presence at his side. A sense of loss and longing washed over him.

“Say it, Spartan.”

The disembodied voice of a slain Lysistratis echoed through Phanes’ skull.
“Not as infallible as you once thought, are you?”

Phanes turned. “The battle isn’t won. Our soldiers will give Amasis the fight of his life.”

The soldiers nearest Phanes glanced around, wondering who it was their commander addressed. Had he lost his sanity? Merciful Zeus! Let that not be true.

“I am sure. But, our victory is no longer a foregone conclusion. What if you lose?”

Phanes laughed mordantly. “If I lose here, then I will return with a larger force. Egypt is mine, Spartan! She just doesn’t realize it yet.”

At the northern entrance of Ptah’s temple, a skeleton force of peltasts listened to the distant fighting with an awe bordering on the supernatural. They could imagine what went on outside the zone of safety afforded by the temple walls. Hoplites, ranked out in a phalanx with their shields interleaved, would present a hedge of spears to the Egyptians. The chariots would harry them; arrows and javelins would seek out chinks in the Greek armor. Yet, for every Greek who fell, another would take his place, replenishing the phalanx with machinelike efficiency.