The eldest of the Akkadian trio, Jesup, stepped forward, going to the king, accepting the offered pouch of rubies. Half bowing to the monarch, Jesup pledged the Akkadian's blood oath.
"As long as one of us breathes," Jesup swore to the king, "the sorcerer will die."
Jesup rejoined his fellow Akkadians, and the cloaked trio began to take their leave, again moving through the armed guards, who stepped aside for them.
"Assassin!" a deep voice called out.
Mathayus spun and Balthazar hurled the kama back at him, the scythe whipping and whirring and whirling...
... until the unmarked Akkadian plucked it from the air, like a ball a boy had tossed him.
Mathayus raised a single eyebrow as he studied the giant Nubian, who did his best to hide his amazement.
To Pheron, Mathayus said, "If you should want him killed ... that we'll do for free."
And then the cloaked trio was swallowed by the night, leaving behind a circle of fire and an astonished tribal council.
The Sorcerer's Secret
T
he desert location, where the encampment of Memnon's army was last known to be, meant a full day's ride through hill country. Starting at dawn, the Akkadians made their steady way across the rugged, rocky terrain, Jesup and Rama on horseback, Mathayus—a massive, intricately carved bow slung over his shoulder, five arrows attached to its side in a clip—astride an albino camel.
This mount—the bag of rubies had been tucked away into a hiding place of the saddle by Mathayus—was called Hanna by his master, who considered the camel a magnificent albeit stubborn creature. The elder Akkadian, the hard-bitten Jesup, deemed Hanna a filthy beast.
"When are you going to get rid of that moth-eaten bag of fleas?" Jesup had asked at daybreak, just as the broad-shouldered Akkadian was mounting her.
Hanna—who understood at least as many words as the average five-year-old child—turned toward Jesup with regal condescension and spat at him.
Mathayus laughed as the older Akkadian, on horseback, reared back; and the camel's master had no recriminations for the animal, whose neck he patted, settling her.
"Steady, girl," Mathayus said. "He doesn't mean anything by it."
But Jesup's expression had said, Like hell!
Still, even the veteran Akkadian warrior would have had to admit—if pressed—that the dromedary was far better suited for navigating the craggy, scraggy terrain than his and Rama's steeds.
As the morning turned to afternoon, the rocks gave way to sand and the sun seemed like a hole in the sky letting the fire of the gods blast through. The custom of the Akkadians was not to wear the peplum common for so many warriors in those days; rather they had shunned tunics for leather breeches ... though under so severe a sun, even a brawler like Mathayus could understand the appeal of a skirt for a man. On the other hand, when the sun fell, so did the temperature, and the wind had a startling bite, the night vivid with a moon-touched blueness that turned the desert a surreal, deceptively soothing shade of sapphire.
From the crest of a dune, they saw Memnon's city of tents, with campfires whose numbers rivaled the stars. And yet the three Akkadians advanced, a tiny assault force against an army. They performed reconnaissance, noting the positions of the various sentries ringing the encampment, perched on their individual dunes, warriors in breastplates and helmets and peplum, surrounded by torches on staffs stuck in the sand.
Poor strategy, Mathayus thought; for whatever warmth and close-by light those torches would provide, so too would the flames blind the sentries of advancing trespassers . .. like the Akkadians....
The mustached Rama, the lightest-skinned of the trio, had darkened his face with black war paint, to better blend into the night. Neither Jesup nor Mathayus bothered with this—their bronze complexions were a natural camouflage—but then Rama would have to get in closer, at first anyway.
The nearest dune-positioned sentry yawned—no doubt complacent in his duties .. . after all, what enemy remained to attack the horde that had conquered all but a tiny corner of the world? And he merely frowned and turned, curiously, at the strange whirring that flew out of the darkness like a desert bird.
This was no bird, however—the iron bola.. . flung by Rama ... came spinning out of the darkness to wrap its chain around the guard's head, with whiplash speed, the iron ball at either end knocking the man in either temple, thwap!, thwap!
The sentry tumbled to the sand—his leather armor made more noise than he did, and then very little—landing flat on his back, as if he were lounging there, to consider the night sky.
Within moments, Mathayus—who had edged in under cover of darkness to the bottom of the dune, prior to Rama's bola attack—scrambled up the hill of sand and sat the sentry up, propping him in part by placing the man's spear back in his hand ... still on duty, if sitting down on the job.
The white camel came loping up the dune after her master, just as Mathayus was unwrapping the bola from around the sentry's skull. Hanna groaned and nose-nudged the assassin—it was as if the beast were saying, after its long day's journey, No time for fun and games now... we should be setting camp for the night!
"Easy, girl," the Akkadian whispered.
The camel's response was typically stubborn: she
folded her spindly legs and sat down. Mathayus
shook his head, knowing this was no time to try to
reason with the beast... or discipline her, either. As
with any woman, there were simply things a man
had to put up with__
Mathayus looked to the left, where—some distance away at the camp's perimeter—a crude wooden lookout platform bore a single sentry. To the right, a neighboring dune also sported a sentry ... again, a bored guard who stood at the center of torches speared into the sand, his vision bedimmed by the flames. This sentry would be next.
The Akkadian's long low whistle might have been a nocturnal bird ...
... and not a signal which spurred Rama to further action.
Again, a bola whirled through the night to whip around the head of a guard, who flopped backward onto the sand.
Another nocturnal bird seemed to issue its mournful cry: Rama signaling "all clear" to Mathayus.
But Hanna's displeasure with the activities of the evening manifested itself with a honking groan, and her master clasped a hand over the camel's mouth.
"Be good!" the Akkadian whispered, glaring at the beast, who frowned a pout in response, before flapping her gums and settling.
Hanna's action almost covered the soft hiss of movement just behind Mathayus, but the Akkadian's ears were finely tuned, honed to the night, and he spun around, hand on his scimitar hilt.
But it was only the elder warrior, Jesup, who asked, "Ready?"
Mathayus nodded, and gestured toward the sentry on the wooden platform. "That one's mine."
Jesup nodded back, reminding the younger man, "Wait for the signal."
"Yes."
"Live free," Jesup said, initiating the traditional Akkadian farewell.
Then the two men gripped forearms, the leather wristguards snapping against each other.
"Die well," Mathayus replied, completing the ritual.
As Jesup slipped away, vanishing into the darkness, Mathayus quickly unslung his magnificent bow and notched an arrow ... not just any arrow. This one bore an iron tip with no feathered tail—an eye-bolt through which was tied a catgut tether line.