The Lost Army of Cambyses (36 page)

'Do you wish we hadn't?'

'What, made love?' He smiled. 'No, it was

wonderful. Why, do you?'

She pulled him to a halt and, standing on tiptoe,

kissed him passionately on the lips.

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'I'll take that as a no then,' he said, laughing.

They wandered on, arms round each other,

deeper and deeper into the hills, the world about

them deathly silent apart from the clunk of their

feet, the whisper of the wind and, occasionally, the

far-off howl of a wild dog.

So far as Tara could make out, they were cross-

ing a broad plateau on top of the massif. To their

right the land sloped upwards slightly, blocking

any view in that direction. To the left it ran flat for

several hundred yards before dropping away into

a shadowy confusion of cliffs and wadis. Ahead

loomed the distant outline of higher peaks,

black against the deep grey-blue of the sky. She

had no idea where they were going, nor did she

really care. She was happy just to be at his side,

holding him, feeling his warmth and strength and

power.

Eventually, after they had been walking for over

an hour, Daniel slowed and stopped. The path at

this point dipped slightly, crossing a shallow, dried-

up watercourse that cut directly across their way,

meandering from right to left like the track of

some enormous snake. Tara circled her arms

around his waist.

'You're trembling,' she said.

'I'm just cold. I'd forgotten how chilly it gets up

here at night.'

She dug her hands into the back pockets of his

jeans and nuzzled her face against his neck. 'I

suppose we ought to think about going back.

We've been away for almost three hours. Omar

might be worrying.'

'Yes,' he said, 'I suppose we should.'

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Neither of them moved. A shooting star flashed

above them.

'If it was light we could try going down a

different way,' he said eventually. 'There are all

sorts of paths you can follow. Best not to risk it in

the dark, though. These hills are full of old tomb

shafts. If you stray off the track and fall into one,

chances are you won't get out again. A few years

ago a Canadian woman went into one over by

Deir el-Bahri. No-one heard her screaming. She

eventually died of starvation. When they found

her body . . .'

He stopped suddenly, body tensing.

'What?' said Tara.

'I thought I heard . . . Listen!'

She tilted her head but could hear nothing but

the gusting of the breeze.

'What?' she repeated.

'There was a . . . there, again! Listen!'

Now she could hear it too. Away to their left,

towards the cliffs. A faint clanking of stones, as if a

hammer was being tapped lightly on an anvil.

Someone was coming towards them. She strained

her eyes, trying to make them out, but it was too

dark.

'Probably an army patrol,' said Daniel, drop-

ping his voice. 'We'd better make ourselves

scarce.'

He pulled her across the watercourse and round

behind a huge boulder on its far side, where they

crouched down in the shadows.

'What's the problem?' she whispered.

'They get suspicious if anyone's up here after

dark. Think they're up to no good. We're

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Westerners, so the chances are there wouldn't be

any problems, but in our current situation I think

it's best if we avoid any brushes with the

authorities.'

They peered over the top of the boulder.

'What if they see us?' she asked.

'Stay where you are and make sure they know

you're a tourist. These guys are just young

conscripts and from what I've heard they're more

than a little trigger happy.'

The sound of footsteps was unmistakable now.

There were muffled voices too, and the low, dirge-

like sound of someone singing. Tara bit her lip.

Sod's law, she thought, after all they'd been

through, to end up getting shot by accident. She

could feel Daniel's hand on her arm. His grip was

tense.

It took another minute for the patrol to come

into sight. One moment the landscape was empty,

a confused mesh of shadow and half-light, then,

suddenly, figures began to emerge, moving along

the bed of the dried-up water channel. Initially

they all seemed to merge together, a single

silhouette swaying against the background gloom.

Gradually, however, their outlines grew sharper

until eventually Tara could see them clearly in

the moonlight: nine men, walking in single file, the

ones at the rear carrying what looked like a coffin.

Striding at the head of the line, slightly in front of

the others, was a huge figure in a pale suit. Tara's

insides lurched violently.

'Oh God,' she hissed. 'It's him!'

She leaned out to get a better view, her foot

dislodging a small shower of pebbly gravel down

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into the watercourse. The clatter seemed to fill the

night. Daniel grabbed her arm and pulled her

around the back of the rock out of sight, clamping

his hand over her mouth.

The two of them remained completely still,

hardly daring to breathe. The footsteps came

nearer and nearer, clumping up the rocky channel

until they were so close that Tara could make out

the individual voices of the men. It seemed

inevitable she and Daniel would be found and her

leg muscles tightened, ready to run. At the last

moment, however, when the men were practically

on top of them and she could actually smell the

odour of Dravic's cigar, they suddenly turned aside

onto the path and moved off at right angles to the

watercourse, away from the Nile valley, the sound

of their feet gradually receding as they trudged

deeper into the hills.

For several minutes Tara and Daniel remained

where they were. Then slowly, cautiously, Daniel

came to his feet and peered over the top of the

rock. She came up beside him, watching as

the column slowly dissolved into the shadows.

'What were they doing up here?' she whispered.

'They've been in the tomb.'

She looked at him questioningly.

'Well, what the hell else would they be doing up

here? Having a quiet evening stroll? With a

coffin?'

He stepped out from behind the rock and gazed

after the men.

'They must know a different way down,' he

said. 'One that avoids going past the guards'

huts around the Valley of the Kings. Like I said,

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these hills are full of paths if you know where to

look.'

He stood staring into the darkness for a

moment, then, drawing a deep breath, thrust his

arms through the straps of the knapsack and

swung it onto his back.

'I want you to go back to Omar's,' he said, tak-

ing her arm and steering her back onto the path.

'Just follow the track back to the top of the Qurn

and then down the way we came. Don't stray off

it. When you get to the bottom, go to Omar's

house and stay there.'

'What are you going to do?'

'Don't worry about me. Just go.'

She shook herself free. 'You're going to look for

the tomb, aren't you?'

'Of course I'm going to look for the bloody

tomb! It's what we came here for, isn't it? Now go.

I'll follow you down.'

He tried to grab her again, but she swiped his

hand away.

'I'm going with you.'

'Tara, I know these hills. It's better if I go alone.'

'We go together. I want to know what's in there

as much as you.'

'For Christ's sake, Tara, I haven't got time to

argue! They might come back again!'

'Then we'd better get a move on.'

She stepped past him and started down the

watercourse. He came after her and, seizing her

shoulder, swung her roughly round.

'Please, Tara! You don't understand. These hills

. . . they're dangerous. I've worked out here, I

know my way around. You'll be . . .'

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'What, Daniel?' she snapped, eyes flashing. 'An

encumbrance? Is that what I'll be?'

'No, not an encumbrance, I just . . . I don't want

you to get hurt.'

There was an edge of desperation to his voice.

Despite the wind his forehead was peppered with

beads of sweat. She could feel his body shaking

beside her.

'I don't want you to get hurt,' he repeated.

'Can't you understand that? This isn't a game.'

For a brief moment they stood in silence, eyes

burning into each other. Then she shook her arm

free.

'You don't owe me anything, Daniel. You have

no debts to pay. Nothing to prove. We're in this

together. If you go, I go. OK?'

He opened his mouth to argue, but her eyes told

him it would be useless.

'You don't know what you're getting into,' he

mumbled.

'Whatever it is I'm already in it,' she replied. 'So

there's not much point being careful now. I think

we should get a move on.'

She came up on tiptoe and kissed his chin.

'I just don't want you to get hurt,' he said again,

impotently.

'Did it ever occur to you that I don't want you

to get hurt either?'

They followed the bed of the dried-up water

channel, tracing the route they had seen Dravic

and his men following. The night air was cold and

shreds of mist had started to appear, floating just

above the ground, glowing in the moonlight like

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will-o'-the-wisps. A wild dog began howling in the

distance.

For two hundred metres the channel wound

across the flat plateau. Then the land began to dip

away and the watercourse sloped with it, down

towards the southern edge of the massif.

'The hills on this side end in a series of cliffs,'

said Daniel, peering ahead through the darkness.

'The tomb's probably cut into one of those, some-

where near the line of this watercourse. Where,

though, is anyone's guess. It could be completely

inaccessible without proper climbing equipment.'

They continued downwards, the water channel

gradually turning into a steep, narrow gully, its

sides rising like walls to the left and right of them.

Its floor became choked with boulders and loose

shale and they had to pick their way carefully, dis-

lodging flurries of biscuit-like scree with every

step. Daniel pulled a mini Maglite from his pocket

and turned it on, playing the beam down the gully.

'If this lot starts sliding, we're dead,' he

muttered. 'It'll sweep us down and over the cliff

like a waterfall. If it gets much steeper, we'll have

to go back. Christ knows how they got that coffin

up here.'

Further and further they went, the gully drop-

ping ever more precipitously, its floor becoming

increasingly treacherous underfoot. Its walls were

now so close together they could touch either side

with their outstretched arms. Twice Daniel urged

Tara to go back and let him continue alone, twice

she insisted on staying with him.

'I've come this far,' she said. 'I'm not giving up

now.'

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Eventually they came to a point where the gully

bottom suddenly stepped vertically downwards,

dropping six metres onto a slope of shale, steep

and slippery as a playground slide. The slope ran

down for another twenty metres, and then,

suddenly, as if a door had been thrown open, the

walls of the gully disappeared and there was

nothing, just a column of sky and, far beneath, the

distant glimmer of a flat, silvery plain.

'That's the cliff edge,' said Daniel, pointing with

the torch beam. 'Beyond that it's a hundred-metre

drop straight down. We can't go any further.'

He gripped a crack in the gully wall, tested it to

make sure it could take his weight, and leaned out

over the edge of the step, shining his torch

downwards.

'Is there anything down there?' asked Tara.

'There's some sort of opening,' he said. 'It cuts

back into the rock underneath where we're

standing.'

He leaned out further.

'I can't see much. It's choked with scree. It's

definitely an entrance of some sort, though.' He

pulled himself back and handed her the torch.

'Hold this for me. And keep it pointing

downwards.'

He turned and, using the gully walls for

support, swung himself over the edge of the step

and down towards the shale slide below. He

moved fast, as though used to this sort of terrain,

and within thirty seconds was at the bottom. Tara

followed more slowly, testing each foothold before

she put her weight on it, fingers clasping at the

rock.

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At the bottom she found Daniel squatting in

front of a small rectangular entrance cut back into

the face of the step.

'Is this it?' she whispered.

'Well, it's definitely a tomb,' he said, taking the

torch from her. 'See, the rock's been deliberately