Basmara were prancing and howling all around them. Although some looked at them their eyes passed blankly over them, then lifted to the top of the burning stockade. Taita's spell was holding.
'Quietly, slowly,' Taita warned. 'Keep close together. Make no sudden movement.' He kept the Periapt held high. Beside him, Fenn followed his example. She lifted her own gold talisman and her lips moved as she recited the words he had taught her. She was assisting Taita, reinforcing the spell. They moved across the open ground until they were almost clear. The edge of the forest was less than two hundred paces ahead, and still their presence had not been detected by the tribesmen. Then Taita felt a cold draught on the back of his neck. Beside him, Fenn gasped and dropped her talisman on its chain. 'It burnt me!' she exclaimed, and stared at the red mark on her fingertips. Then she turned, with a stricken expression, to Taita. 'Something is breaking our spell.' She was right. Taita felt it tear and shred, like a perished sail in a blast of wind.
They were being stripped of their concealing cloak. Another influence was working on them, and he could not deflect or divert it.; 'Forward at the gallop!' he shouted, and the horses headed for the edge of the forest. A great shout went up from the Basmara legions.
Every painted face turned in their direction, every eye lit with bloodlust.
They swarmed towards the little band of riders from every quarter of the field.
'Run!' Taita urged Windsmoke, but she was carrying two big men.
Everything seemed to happen with dreamlike slowness. Although they were pulling ahead of the warriors that followed them, another formation of spearmen was running in from the right flank.
'Come on! Fast as you can!' Taita urged. He saw that Basma was leading the race to cut them off. He bounded across their front with his spear balanced on his right shoulder, ready for a clean throw. His men were baying like hounds on a hot scent.
'Come on!' Taita yelled. He judged the angles and speeds. 'We're going to get through.'
Basma made the same calculation as the band of horsemen swept past him, thirty paces clear. Basma used the impetus of his run and the strength of his frustration to hurl the spear after them. He launched it high and it dropped towards Meren's heavily laden bay gelding.
'Meren!' Taita shouted a warning, but the spear was in his blind spot.
It struck his mount just behind the saddle, hitting the spine. The bay's back legs collapsed. Meren and Aoka were thrown into a tangle on the scorched earth. The Basmara, who had been about to abandon the chase, took heart and rushed forward, led by their chief. Meren rolled to his feet and saw the faces of the other horsemen looking back at him as they were carried away by their own mounts.
'Go on!' he shouted. 'Save yourselves, for you cannot save us.' The Basmara were closing round him swiftly.
Fenn touched Whirlwind's neck and called to him: 'Whoa! Whirlwind, whoa!'
The grey colt turned like a swallow in mid-flight, and before any of them realized what had happened Fenn was racing back to where Meren stood with Aoka. For a moment he was too astonished to speak as he saw Fenn tearing back towards him, with Imbali hanging on to her stirrup and brandishing her axe. He tried to wave her back: 'Go away!'
But as soon as Fenn had turned, so had Taita in the same suicidal gesture. The rest of the band was thrown into confusion. The horses
reared and plunged, bumping into each other and milling about until the riders had them under control. Then they all raced back.
Now the nearest Basmara, led by their chief, were almost upon them.
They hurled spears as they closed in. First Hilto's horse, then Shabako's were hit and fell heavily, throwing the men from their backs as they went down.
With a quick glance Taita assessed their changed circumstances: there were no longer enough horses to carry them all away. 'Form the defensive circle!' he shouted. 'We must stand and fight them here.'
The men who had been thrown struggled to their feet and limped towards him. Those on unwounded mounts jumped down and pulled them into the centre of the circle. The archers unslung their bows; Imbali and Aoka hefted their axes. They faced outwards. When they looked upon the massed formations of spearmen rushing to attack them they were in no doubt as to the final outcome.
'This is the last fight. Give them something to remember us by!'
Meren shouted joyfully, and they met the first rush of Basmara head on.
They fought with the ferocity and abandon of despair. They pushed back the attackers. But Chief Basma rallied them, leaping and screeching, and they came again with him at the head of the charge. He went for Nakonto and ducked under his guard to hit him in the thigh.
Imbali was beside him and when she saw his blood springing from the wound she flew at Basma like a lioness protecting her mate. He turned to defend himself and lifted his spear to deflect the sweep of the axe. Imbali's blow sheared the shaft as though it were a papyrus reed and went on to thump into Basma's right shoulder. He staggered back, his half-severed arm hanging at his side. Imbali jerked the blade free and struck again, this time for the head. The blade cut cleanly through the crown of flamingo feathers, and went on to split Basma's skull to his teeth. For a moment the divided eyes squinted at each other round the blade, then Imbali levered it free. The metal grated harshly against the bone as it came away, yellow brain matter oozing after it.
The Basmara saw their chief struck down and, with a despairing shout, drew back. The fighting had been hard. They had suffered heavy losses — corpses lay thickly around the little circle. The Egyptians were few, but they hesitated to rush in and end it. Taita took advantage of the pause to bolster their position. He forced the horses to lie flat, a trick that all cavalry mounts were taught. Their bodies offered some protection from the javelins of the Basmara. He placed his archers behind them and held
Imbali, Aoka and Fenn with him in the centre, then took his own position at Fenn's side. He would be with her at the end, just as he had been in the other life. This time, though, he was determined to make it quicker and easier for her.
He looked at the others in the circle. Habari, Shofar and the last two troopers were all dead. Shabako and Hilto were still on their feet, but had been wounded. They had not bothered to treat their injuries, had merely staunched the bleeding by slapping a handful of dirt over it.
Beyond them, Imbali was kneeling to bind up Nakonto's thigh. When she finished, she looked up at him with an expression in her eyes that was much more woman than warrior.
Meren had fallen on his face when his horse threw him. His cheek was grazed and his ruined eye was bleeding again. A tiny trickle of blood ran out from under the leather patch down the side of his nose and on to his upper lip. He licked it away as he stropped the whetting stone down the blade of his sword. Surrounded by the dense ranks of the enemy, wounded and broken as they were, there was nothing heroic about any of them.
If by some miracle I should survive this day I will write of them a battle poem that will flood the eyes of all who hear it, Taita promised himself grimly.
A single voice broke the silence with a high-pitched challenge: 'Are we old women or are we fighting impis of the Basmara?' The multitudes began again to hum, sway and stamp.
Another voice called an answer to the first question: 'We are men and we have come for the killing!'