“Aye,” said the black, tenderly feeling his raw wrists, “the Gombas are strong in Abu-han. Is that where you’ll go, boy?”
“I would,” Khai answered with fervor. “I’d go anywhere rather than return to the great pyramid in Asorbes. And I’d do anything rather than face Anulep again, the Pharaoh’s Vizier—or worse still Khasathut himself!”
“And do you know the way to Nubia through the forests?”
“Of course! Don’t you?”
The black shook his head. “No. We were blindfolded when we were taken and they kept us that way for three days and nights. Only today the slavers told us where we were headed, though we had already guessed it; but even knowing our destination, still we are lost. We know nothing of these lands south of the great river.”
“Then let me lead you home!” cried Khai. “A Nubian befriended me in Asorbes, and should I not at least return the favour?”
The two younger blacks had taken up the curved bronze swords of the fallen Arabbans. Now they brandished them in the air and joined with the girls in a wild, whirling primitive dance about Khai, their blades glittering in the shafts of sunlight that lanced down through the surrounding trees. The dance finished as quickly as it had started and with a wild cry all of the Nubians, including the spokesman, flung themselves down at Khai’s feet.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“We honor you, young man!” cried their leader. “As all Nubia will honor you, if ever we can carry your story back there. What is your name?”
“I’m called Khai,” he answered in bewilderment.
“Well, then, Khai, we honor you.” The Nubian got to his feet and hugged the boy to him. “And you shall be called Khai of Khem—and they shall call you Khai the Killer!”
II
The Trap
As soon as the initial exuberance occasioned by their release wore off, the Nubians quickly quietened and turned to gaze at the horrific scene of torture and sudden death in the quiet forest glade.
Then they set about to bury their dead in a grief-stricken silence broken only by the quiet sobbing of the girls. One of these, the younger of the two—a beautiful girl who could not have been more than a year older than Khai at most—became so distraught that eventually she had to be lifted bodily from the grave of the man who had been hanged. Khai could only suppose that he had been her brother.
As for the bodies of the Arabbans: they were left to rot, or to be devoured by whichever scavengers might want them. And so, within an hour of Khai’s timely intervention, the party struck out in that southwesterly direction which the Khemite youth knew must sooner or later bring them back to the river where it formed the border between Khem and Nubia.
Perhaps it was because they were all fugitives together, but a strong bond of comradeship—one which seemed actually to transcend the debt owed to Khai—quickly formed between the blacks and the white boy. Trotting through the forest, the three male Nubians spaced themselves into a protective arrowhead formation about him, with the girls bringing up the rear. Thus the six of them loped on through the steadily lengthening shadows, and the forest grew more silent and shady yet as the miles flew beneath their feet.
Every now and then, they would pause for a few minutes or at least slow their pace to a walk, but never for very long. They could not forget that one of the Arabbans had escaped Khai’s arrows, and no one could say how long it would be before more slavers came after them. During one of these comparatively short periods of walking, the Khemish-speaking black, Kindu, told Khai how the Arabbans had come across the river in force to attack the riverside villages of northern Nubia. The old people of the villages had been put to the sword, the babies, too, but the young men and women had been rounded up like so many head of cattle and made to build huge rafts.
Khai vividly remembered how, long ago, his father had drawn maps to show him the routes used by slavers bringing blacks out of Nubia; and even though he knew the rest of Kindu’s story before he heard it, still he listened to the tale in polite silence. As the black talked, Khai could see in his mind’s eye the massive rafts packed with prisoners, and he could follow the winding route they had taken down the river toward the third cataract in Khem itself.
Since the Nubians were a simple people and knew little of the geography of lands exterior to their own—and because the Arabbans had taken the additional precaution of blindfolding them—they would have been lost and confused long before the rafts were beached on the eastern bank upriver from the cataract. Still blindfolded, they would then have been force-marched through the forests in a northerly direction, skirting the cataract until they again met the river on the approach route to Phemor. In Phemor, there would be great Khemish barges waiting to float the slaves downriver to Asorbes, where finally they would come to journey’s end more than two hundred miles from the land of their birth.
And of course all of this was in complete defiance of the black king, N’jakka, and naturally Pharaoh would deny all knowledge of it. If ever N’jakka dared to accuse Khem directly, then the blame would be laid squarely upon the Arabbans, who must have crossed Khem from the east in secrecy to strike at Nubia unbeknown to Pharaoh and certainly without his consent. N’jakka could protest as much as he liked, but that would neither change matters nor return his people to their burned and ravaged villages.
On this occasion, however, the slavers had overestimated their own strength. They had taken so many prisoners that they soon found themselves short-handed, and during the final leg of the march along the forest trails to Phemor more than a hundred blacks had managed to free themselves and make their escape. Since then, in groups large and small, they had been pursued by enraged slavers and many had been taken a second time. Kindu and his friends had been recaptured only an hour or so before Khai had stumbled across them… .
After a while, breaking out of the forest and starting across a wide band of savannah, the blacks indicated their desire to call a halt for the night and Khai was only too glad to concur. The muscles of his calves already felt like water and he dreaded the thought of how they would feel the next day. Now the three male blacks went off in different directions and left Khai with the girls. In a little while, there sounded a series of whistles and birdcalls, and some moments later, the blacks returned. One of the young men had found a camp for the night—a patch of thorn bushes hidden in tall grasses less than a hundred yards away.
The Nubians used the swords of the Arabbans to cut a way into the otherwise impenetrable barrier of thorns. They cleared a boma big enough to use as a sleeping area. Then, as night set in and distant sounds of nocturnal predators began to fill the shadowy air, Khai’s new-found friends beat the grass about until a small deer was startled into flight. Despite the poor light, Khai managed to bring the animal down with a single arrow.
By the time they had a fire going outside their thorn bush refuge, its smoke could not be seen against the darkening sky. Khai had not eaten since Myhna gave him a crust of bread aboard her barge, and as choice cuts of meat began to sizzle on the ends of pointed sticks his mouth watered with anticipatory relish. The only thing they were short of was water, but they decided against seeking a stream in the night. They must simply go thirsty until morning; then they would be able to drink their fill of dew from the broad, dish-shaped leaves of certain large plants, many of which grew in large patches on the savannah.
Beneath a sky full of stars and the soft glow of a rising moon, Khai drew straws for night-watch with the black males. He drew the shortest straw and so took first shift. Worn out, nevertheless he sat alone outside the clump of thorn bushes with a curved sword in his hand, and all he could think of in the star-bright night was sleep and how wonderful it would be when it was his turn to crawl under one of the large Arabban blankets scavenged along with the other possessions of the slavers. Soon, despite a firm resolution to stay awake, he nodded off to sleep where he sat; and slow but sure the pitted face of the moon slid across the sky.