‘Ash, it occurs to me that I’m like a dog after an ox cart, not at all certain how to handle my prize should I catch it.’
‘So don’t be a dog,’ the Mameluke said. ‘What is it you’re really after?’
‘The solution to my puzzle, a woman, revenge. Yet I have no proof yet that Silano is responsible for anything. Nor do I know exactly what to do with him. I’m not afraid to face the count. I’m just uncertain what he deserves. It’s been simpler riding through the desert. It’s empty. Uncomplicated.’
‘And yet in the end a man can no more be one with the desert than a boat can be of the sea – both pass on its surface. The desert is a passage, not a destination, friend.’
‘And now we near the end of the voyage. Will Silano have the army’s protection? Will I be regarded as a fugitive? And where will Achmed bin Sadr be lurking?’
‘Yes, Bin Sadr. I do not see his band down there with the soldiers.’
As if in answer, there was a ping off a nearby rock and the delayed echo of a gun’s report. A chip of rock flew up in the air and then plopped into the dirt.
‘See how the gods answer all?’ Ashraf pointed.
I twisted in my saddle. To the north behind us, from the hills where we’d come, were a dozen men. They were in Arab dress, riding camels, rocking as they trotted fast, their image wavering in the heat. Their leader was carrying something too long to be a musket – a wooden staff, I surmised.
‘Bin Sadr, the devil himself,’ I muttered. ‘He keeps raiders off the back of the French. Now he’s spotted us.’
Ashraf grinned. ‘He comes to me so easily, having killed my brother?’
‘The cavalry must have asked him to track us.’
‘His misfortune, then.’ The Mameluke looked ready to charge.
‘Ash, stop! Think! We can’t attack a dozen at once!’
He looked at me with scorn. ‘Are you afraid of a few bullets?’
More smoke puffed from the oncoming Arabs, and more spouts of dust twanged up around us. ‘Yes!’
My companion slowly raised a sleeve of his robe, displaying fabric neatly holed in a near-miss. He grinned. ‘I felt the wind of that one. Then I suggest we flee.’
We kicked and sped off, angling down the back side of the ridge and away from the Nile in a desperate effort to get distance and cover. Our horses could outrun a camel in a sprint, but the dromedaries had more endurance. They could go a week without water, and then drink a volume that would kill any other animal. The French cavalry we’d lost easily. These desert warriors might be more persistent.
We skidded into a side valley, our horses fighting to maintain balance as pebbles flew, and then on flatter ground leant into a dead run, trying to ignore the excited warble and random gunshots of our pursuers behind. They came after us hard, a trail of their dust hanging in their wake, frozen by the still and heavy air.
For an hour we kept them at a healthy distance, but with the heat and lack of water our mounts began to tire. We’d been days with no grazing and little to drink, and our animals were wearing out. We’d skitter up one sun-baked ridge and then drop down its other side, hoping somehow to confuse the chase, but our own dust marked us like a beacon.
‘Can you slow them down?’ Ash finally asked.
‘I certainly outrange them. But at the speed they’re coming I only have one good shot. It takes almost a minute to reload.’ We stopped at a high point and I took off the longrifle I carried across my back. Its strap had bit into my shoulder for three hundred miles, but I was never tempted to leave its reassuring weight behind. It was uncomplaining and deadly. So now I sighted across my saddle, aiming for Bin Sadr, knowing that to kill him might end the pursuit. He was a good four hundred paces off. There was no wind, dry air, a target charging head-on… and enough heat to ripple his image like a flapping flag. Damn, where exactly was he? I aimed high, allowing for the bullet drop, squeezed, and fired, my horse starting at the report.
There was a long moment for the bullet to arrive. Then his camel tumbled.
Had I got him? The pursuing Bedouins had all reined in an anxious circle, shouting in consternation and loosing a few shots even though we were far out of musket range. I leapt on my horse and we galloped on as best we could, hoping we’d at least bought ourselves time. Ash looked back.
‘Your friend has shoved one of his companions off his camel and is mounting it himself. The other warrior is doubling with another. They’ll come more cautiously now.’
‘But he survived.’ We stopped and I reloaded, but that lost us most of the little ground we’d gained. I didn’t want to be pinned down in a firefight because they’d overrun us while we loaded. ‘And they are still coming.’
‘It would seem so.’
‘Ash, we cannot fight them all.’
‘It would seem not.’
‘What will they do if they catch us?’
‘Before, just rape and kill us. But now that you have shot his camel, I suspect they will rape us, strip us, stake us to the desert, and use scorpions to torment us while we die of thirst and sun. If we’re lucky, a cobra will find us first.’
‘You didn’t tell me that before I fired.’
‘You didn’t tell me you were going to hit the camel, not the man.’
We rode into a twisting canyon, hoping it wouldn’t dead-end like the one where we’d dug for water. A dry wash or wadi gave it a sandy floor, and it twisted like a snake. Yet our trail was obvious, and our horse flanks were streaked with foam. They’d give out soon.
‘I’m not going to give him the medallion, you know. Not after Talma and Enoch. I’ll bury it, eat it, or throw it down a hole.’
‘I wouldn’t ride with you if I thought you would.’
The canyon ended in a steep rubble slope that led to its rim. We dismounted and dragged at the reins, pulling our exhausted horses upward. Unwillingly they advanced a few yards, heads thrashing, and then in frustration reared and kicked. We were as tired and unbalanced as they were. We slid on the slope, the reins jerking in our hands. No matter how hard we hauled, they were dragging us backward.
‘We have to go another way!’ I shouted.
‘It’s too late. If we turn back we ride into Bin Sadr. Let them go.’ The reins flew out of our hands and our mounts skittered back down into the canyon, fleeing in the direction of the oncoming Arabs.
To be dismounted in the desert was tantamount to death.
‘We’re doomed, Ashraf.’
‘Didn’t the gods give you two legs and the wits to use them? Come, fate hasn’t brought us this far to be done with us now.’ He began climbing the slope on foot, even as the Arabs came round a bend to spot us, warbled in triumph, and began firing more shots. Bits of rock exploded behind us where each bullet hit, giving me energy I didn’t know I had. Fortunately, our pursuers had to pause to reload as we scrambled upward, and the steep slope would be challenging for camels as well. We climbed over the lip of the latest hill, panting, and looked about. It was a landscape of desolation, not a living thing in sight. I trotted to the rim of the next ravine…
And stopped short in amazement.
There, in a shallow depression, was a huddled mass of people.
Hunched, the whites of their eyes like a field of agates, were at least fifty blacks – or they would have been black if they were not covered by the same powdery Egyptian dust that coated us. They were naked, dotted with sores and flies, and laced together with chains, men and women alike. Their wide eyes stared at me as if from masks of stage makeup, as shocked to see us as we to see them. With them were half a dozen Arabs with guns and whips. Slavers!
The slave drivers were crouched with their victims, no doubt puzzled by the echoing gunfire. Ashraf shouted something in Arabic and they answered back, an excited chatter. After a moment, he nodded.
‘They were coming down the Nile and saw the French. Bonaparte has been confiscating the caravans and freeing slaves. So they came up here to wait until Desaix and his army passes. Then they heard shots. They are confused.’