Imsiba, who had dropped off the ship, raced to the end of the quay, waited until Inyotef cleared the vessels, then heaved his spear. It missed the pilot by the width of a finger and slid into the water on the far side of the skiff. Inyotef glanced up at him and sneered. Bak swam alongside. Imsiba jerked a pole supporting a long red pennant out of the hands of a startled bearer and hurled it at the skiff. Inyotef ducked away from the ungainly missile, but the banner slapped him across the face. He flung it aside with an angry snarl and rowed rapidly away from the quay.
Taking advantage of the distraction, Bak heaved himself into the stern. The boat bucked beneath his weight, throwing Inyotef off-balance. The pilot scrambled into the prow, where the sail had been stowed, braced himself between the hull and the lowered mast, and swung an oar in a hard, mean are. Bak ducked, bumped the rudder stanchion, heard the sharp crack of splitting wood. He grabbed for the rudder, missed, glimpsed it sliding into the water. The boat rocked wildly, its stem swerving toward the half-rotted trunk of a palm tree carried along on the stronger current of the open channel. Bak half fell, half sat on a crossbeam. Inyotef lowered the second oar into the water to steady the boat. He was too far forward to row with any authority. An inflated goatskin lay midway along the keel, a hairy gray wall between the two men's feet.
Holding the- free oar aloft, Inyotef eyed Bak along its length. "You always were a stubborn swine. I should've ended your life and your prying the day you set foot in Iken."
"Why didn't you?" Bak spoke automatically, his thoughts on the oar and how best to take it away from the pilot. It would do as a makeshift rudder until he could beach them on a riverbank well away from the rapids.
Inyotef snorted. "A man can be stubborn, yet not have the wit to be dangerous."
Bak noted the backhanded compliment, or was it meant to be an insult? "You've tried hard enough to correct your error. Your use of the sling, I took as a warning. But the snake in my sleeping pallet was meant to kill. As was my skiff when you cut the mooring rope and jammed the hal yard, and Huy's skiff so cleverly sabotaged."
"You've Nebwa to thank for giving me purpose." Inyotef laughed, cynical, mocking. "If he hadn't sung your praises so loud and clear, I'd not have realized how formidable an opponent you might be."
"I understand why you wanted to be rid of me, but why slay Huy?" Bak asked, shifting his weight so he could lunge forward.
Inyotef looked at him with the wariness of a feral dog. "Of all the men who traveled north with the hostage prince Amon-Psaro, Huy was the only one who truly cared about his well-being, the only man to ask questions in Waset after he came back from afar. I feared what he might've learned."
Bak vowed again. to tell the king of Huy's presence in Iken-if ever he had the chance. "I'm surprised you didn't slay me long ago for what I did to your leg."
Inyotef lowered the oar as far as the edge of the hull, husbanding the strength in his arm. "You're no more responsible for my injury than that wretched horse," he scoffed. "It was I who stood too close to the gangplank that day, I who laughed so loud I frightened the beast."
Bak let the news sink in, tasted it, savored it. Yet he was not surprised by the deception. "I doubt your blade pierced Amon-Psaro deeper than his rib cage, Inyotef. You've failed to slay him."
"Perhaps." Inyotef glanced at the line of scratched and bleeding flesh across Bak's breast. "But he knows now I can reach him, and he knows I'll try again. I've nothing left to lose."
The man's single-minded determination made Bak's head swim. "Let's go back to Iken."
"You'll never take me prisoner."
Bak's voice hardened. "I'll not let you escape." "We've reached a stalemate, it seems." Inyotef's eyes glittered with cold amusement. "You're too close to throw your dagger with any force, and too far away to drive it into my breast. Nor can I use my dagger to good effect. If you come close, I'll brain you with an oar. Yet if you continue to sit there, holding me in the prow, I can't direct the course of the skiff."
Bak eyed the river ahead, flowing swift and smooth, safe-at least for the moment. The ship carrying the deities and priests, and the flotilla of smaller boats, had swung into the channel that would take them to the island fortress. A quick glance back showed him Amon-Psaro's ship still moored at the quay and the smaller boats fluttering around, their masters confused by its failure to sail. Imsiba would follow, he knew, but how long would it take him to commandeer a boat?
The skiff appeared to be floating toward the southern end of the long island, a deceiving image, he knew. Soon the current would split apart, carrying the vessel to the left, down the western channel where the shoreline touched the desert north of the city, or to the right into any of several narrow channels with swift and angry waters and fearsome rocks, or into the awesome rapids below the island fortress.
A frightful thought, one Bak refused to dwell on. "Can I trust you to come near? to row this vessel? I think not. I've met few men as deceptive as you, as clever with a falsehood. You came close to getting away with Puemre's murder."
A gloating smile formed on Inyotef's face. Bak lunged forward, grabbed the oar resting on the edge of the hull, and wrenched it out of the pilot's hand. Inyotef snarled a curse, tore the second oar out of the water, grabbed it with both hands like a bat, and swung. Bak ducked away and raised his oar,, The weapons collided with a loud crack, showering them with droplets of water, striking with a force so strong it shook Bak's teeth. The skiff rocked violently; water splashed inside.
Inyotef laughed. "Do you wish us both to die, my young friend?"
Bak wiped the water from his face, the nervous sweat.
"If by chance you get away, where will you go? With the desert on either side of the river, with word spreading to north and south, how can you hope ever again to place yourself in Amon-Psaro's path?"
"Go?" Inyotef snorted. "I'll slay him here and now." Bak swore a silent oath. The pilot had just wiped out any middle measures he might otherwise have taken. He had no choice but to capture or kill. "You hate him that much?"
"He destroyed my sister."
Without warning, Inyotef swung his oar. Bak parried the blow, rocking 'the skiff, skewing its path. The vessel swerved sideways to the current and drifted to the right, choosing the channel that could carry them to the island fortress. A likely source of help, Bak thought, trying not to hear the roar of the rapids blocking the first side channel, a siren song to a boat without a rudder.
"You'd cause a war merely to satisfy a misguided sense of family honor?"
"Misguided?" Inyotef's laugh grated. "He made her love him. While she dreamed of a lifetime in his arms, he walked away as if she didn't exist. He took her life as surely as I'll take his."
There was no stopping him. He had lived too long with his hate, spent too much time dwelling on revenge.
The fortress appeared beyond the long-island. The traveling ship was moored against the landing, the priests passing through the gate and the gods making their precarious way up the path. Sailors and soldiers were unloading offerings and priestly accoutrements. Most of the flotilla had landed across the channel on the long island, where the passengers would have a good view of the king and his followers. The wait would be long and tedious; the vessel carrying the royal party had not yet set sail.
"Amon-Psaro will soon be safe in the island fortress," Bak said, raising his voice so he could be heard over the rapids in the side channel. "You'll never lay hands on him then."
"I'll die trying," Inyotef said doggedly.
The skiff swept past the two small islands at the mouth of the channel, sailing faster than before, drawn downstream by the maelstrom at the far end of the island fortress. Bak could no longer wait in the illusory hope the pilot would let down his guard. He stood up, setting the vessel to rocking, and waved to the men on the shore, yelling, hoping they could hear him over the thundering waters.