Osorkon: Prince of Thebes

Prologue

In the house of a god, a chosen son was slowly dying.

On a bier, surrounded by bundles of healing herbs and smouldering cones of sacred incense, Nimlot, High Priest and First Prophet of Amun, drew his last laboured breaths.

Dressed in the ceremonial robes of his office, Nimlot had asked, or rather demanded, to be brought to the house of his god for communion when the time came. The white linen shendyt and leopard skin draped over his shoulders were the same garments he had donned every day for the past decade. His last day would be spent no differently.

The flickering illumination of pitch-soaked torches did little to disguise the waxen pallor of the High Priest’s skin. Temple physicians moved softly around the central table, wafting incense smoke from swinging braziers and murmuring prayers of benediction, but otherwise leaving him untouched. There was little else they could do except wait and ease their lord’s passing into the underworld.

Two figures stood apart from the gathering in silent vigil, the blessed few permitted to witness their lord’s final hours. Shrouded in similar accoutrements to their lord, these two together represented among the most powerful men in Thebes, if not all Upper Egypt.

One of them, the most senior, knelt beside the bier and took the High Priest’s hand in his own. All present could feel the approaching chill of death but the Second Prophet, the High Priest’s own son, felt it mixing with the bitterness of his own grief. Despite the cloying heat of the temple sanctum, Nimlot’s hands were icy cold.

‘Father,’ Takelot whispered. ‘I am here.’

Nimlot stirred, but said nothing, just as he said nothing since the sunset hours before. Takelot laid a hand on his father’s brow, smoothing away the wrinkles that appeared as whatever visions Nimlot’s dying mind was conjuring continued to torment him.

‘He is already passing into the realm of shadows,’ came a soft voice behind him. Harsiese, the Third Prophet, laid a hand on Takelot’s shoulder. ‘It won’t be long now.’

Takelot let the hand remain and glanced up as a fourth figure joined the gathering. Like the other two, he kept the smooth, shaved head and pristine robes of the priesthood, but where Takelot and Harsiese were lean with a life of austerity, Senmut had clearly enjoyed the trappings of religious life. He wiped his sweat-beaded brow with a linen cloth, the exertions of his expedition beyond the temple walls having worn on him.

‘The crowd wait for your word,’ said the Fourth Prophet of Amun.

‘Then wait they shall,’ snapped Takelot. ‘My father has life in him yet.’

‘As you say,’ the other man said mildly.

Harsiese headed off another retort before it could form on Takelot’s lips. ‘Brothers, not here. Not now.’

Takelot shot Senmut a final glare and returned to his father’s side. The three prophets lapsed back into silence, listening to the rhythmic chants of the physicians and murmuring their own prayers for the High Priest’s spirit. It had been these three, with the addition of the High Priest’s own grandson, that had carried the funereal bier and led the solemn procession from the House of Healing to the House of Amun.

‘Take me home,’ Nimlot had said, as he had felt his illness reach its inevitable end. Despite the protests, and there had been many, the priests had conceded their leader this last honour and moved him into the god’s sanctum with delicate care. Even so, they had been sure that the journey alone would kill him, but he had hung on, clinging to life with all the tenacity and devotion he had shown in his priestly duties.

As Ra’s chariot had dipped below the western horizon, word of the procession had quickly spread. All of Thebes knew that the final hour of their lord’s chosen had come. Crowds of Theban citizens, young and old and rich and poor, stood beyond the temple courtyard’s walls, for only sanctified priests were usually allowed within the precinct proper.

‘He is so cold,’ Takelot murmured, feeling a bead of sweat drip down his own nose.

Nimlot stirred again. His bloodshot eyes flickered open as spasms wracked his thin frame.

‘I see… I… see.’ Nimlot’s eyes widened, caught in a rictus expression between awe and terror. His fingers gripped Takelot’s wrist in a final seizure, an iron vice that dug deep into the younger man’s arm.

‘The Rule of Ma’at must be maintained. Promise me!’ The flesh around Nimlot’s eyes darkened with shadow, his eyes glowing with fell light, and his voice took on a timbre that he had never possessed in life.

‘Promise me!’

Takelot was vaguely aware of Harsiese and Senmut recoiling towards the wall, while the physicians threw themselves prostrate in divine fear. Takelot staggered backwards, trying to pull away but the old man’s grip was desperate, imbued with strength beyond the mere physical, beyond even the possible.

‘Promise me!’ Bloody spittle flecked his sunken cheeks and bony chin, and his eyes blazed as they met Takelot’s terrified stare.

‘I promise, father,’ whispered Takelot.

The light faded instantly from Nimlot’s eyes. ‘I see… fire’ he wheezed again, before his final breath rattled from his chest. His head fell back limp, his face finally relaxing from the pained grimace that had ravaged his features.

Senmut stared wide-eyed at Nimlot’s corpse. ‘What?’ he gasped finally. ‘What was that?’

Takelot closed his father’s eyes. His heart hammered in his chest, so it was with reasonable assurance that he assumed that he was still alive. He had not in fact been drawn into the underworld with his father where the divine was real and reality the plaything of gods. Takelot peeled his father’s death grip from his wrist, watching blood leak from where fingernails had cut through skin.

‘The voice of Amun,’ whispered Takelot reverently. ‘My father is safe in the embrace of gods.’ It should have been enough but as Takelot looked back Nimlot’s body, suddenly devoid of life’s energy, a very mortal pain constricted his heart.

‘Watch over us, father,’ he whispered again, kissing Nimlot’s forehead.

Several of the temple acolytes bustled in to collect the corpse, apparently unaware of the miracle that had just occurred. They brought with them fine linen shrouds to wrap the body for delivery to the priests of the mortuary temples, lest the taint of death contaminate the temple.

Takelot rose, wiping a single tear that threatened to spill down his cheek. As Second Prophet, it was his solemn duty to inform the city of the High Priest’s passing. He paused at the chamber threshold. There was one other that must know, for he was the only one with the authority to bestow the rank of High Priest on another. Takelot strode back and took Harsiese aside.

‘Send word to Tanis, tonight. Inform Pharaoh that his son is dead,’ he said, before leaving the two prophets to oversee the shrouding.

Eyes clouded with sorrow, Takelot did not see the flicker of unease cross the Third Prophet’s face, nor the sideways look Harsiese shared with Senmut at the mention of the king.

Chapter One

The dust cloud billowing in the horsemen’s wake caught the last rays of the setting sun, marking the warriors’ passage in a brilliant haze of red and orange. With the measured rhythm of those born in the saddle, the ten riders traversed the rocky outcrop without difficulty, heedless of the scree they sent tumbling into the valley below.

Tanned dark from the harsh desert sun and swathed in linen robes and baked leather armour, the riders rode in loose formation through the labyrinth of stone. Under their linens, their armour was rimmed with copper and inlaid with fine weaving of blue and green. They rode as natural warriors, trained since birth, forged and hardened in the harshness of the Western desert.

Grim-faced and spattered with dried blood, their hands never strayed far from their weapons, their eyes never ceasing in their vigilance.

As they crested the next rise, the foremost rider held up a halting hand as he surveyed the terrain. Dusky eyes peered through the folds of his head scarf as he scanned for familiar signs. Here and there, fingers of bare rock rose through the desert sands like jagged fingers, worn down over thousands of years of harsh sunlight and biting winds. Long shadows broke the flat landscape, the blanket heat of the day finally relinquishing its stranglehold on the land as the sun neared the western horizon.

The outcrop was one of a series of rock formations that made up the south-eastern edge of the Dakhla Oasis, natural fortifications that had, until quite recently, been a silent barrier between desert and fertile marshlands. The oasis had once been home to ancient cities of noble grandeur, but they had faded to obscurity in dynasties long gone. The cool shores were now home to a cluster of villages living in the ruins’ shadow, surviving on lake fish and trade with the nomadic camel herders who migrated through the oases. This island of greenery lay within Egyptian borders but, until recent events had forced their hand, was thought to be far beyond the practical reach of the Nile cities.

The riders, and the man they called master, knew that and knew it well. The oases were not fertile farming land to be tended to with hard labour, but beacons of life for even more prosperous trading routes, and where trade and riches flourish, bloodshed is always soon to follow. The trade route that his people called the Islands of Life ran from Middle Egypt in the east to Libya in the north-west, and made the journey from southern Kush through the desert possible, if not eminently desirable. It was ripe for the picking by those bold enough to do so and with Pharaoh’s armies preoccupied by wars in distant lands, whole tribes of Libyan horsemen had fallen upon the hapless caravans with rapacious hunger.

Riches of gold and ivory, spices and fine fabrics had fallen into their hands like ripe figs falling from the tree. Drawn by their success, more riders from the west had come, buoyed by the absence of Egyptian authority.

Or so they had thought.

The lead rider frowned, bloodshot eyes straining to pick out details against the darkening horizon. To the far east lay a distant shimmer, another oasis of cool blue, idyllic and life-saving in a desert landscape utterly inimical to all but the most robust life. Reluctantly, they had come far from the safety of the stony labyrinth and out to the edge where the desert stretched on for eternity.

Absently, his hand went to the pendant hanging around his throat, the silver icon of a cat. An unpopular belief among his people, for the cat was a god of the river cities, but the icon gave him comfort for the man who had given it to him years ago had promised great things. Those promises had been broken, shattered. The leader nudged his horse forward to the next rise, and despite himself, he felt his gorge rise as he took in the scene below.

The plains at the eastern edge of the oasis were a charnel house. Carrion birds circled high in the sky, a thick black cloud that stretched on for miles in every direction over a battlefield of complete devastation. The desert sands ran with rivers of red and the screams and moans of the dying sullied the evening stillness. Vultures and ravens squawked and tore at the dead, competing greedily for morsels that would have taken ten times their number to consume.

Vengeance had come swiftly. One by one whole tribes had been swept away in the face of Pharaoh’s divine anger. The lost gold and treasures were steadily reclaimed and the people sold into slavery, until the opportunists had either fled or died.

The leader snarled as he trotted his band over the next pass. In just a few months, his people had been annihilated, scattered to the winds, their history reduced to a mere note at the bottom of some Nile general’s list of victories. Tribes that were allies and tribes that were enemies, all had been swept away, their boastful strength exposed as a crude lie.

An arrow thudded into the sand at his horse’s hooves, sending the beast rearing in fright. His men burst into action, drawing their swords but not knowing who they faced or from where the attack would come.

‘It seems you had some trouble finding the agreed upon place,’ said an imperious voice from above. Silhouettes of chariots and riders loomed over them.

‘You tried to kill me,’ snarled the rider.

‘If I had wanted Akhetep to shoot true,’ said the lordling, ‘You would be dead by now.’

The one called Akhetep had another arrow nocked to the string already, holding the bow loosely but at the ready.

The rider peered up at them, his eyes narrowing in bitter hatred. With a firm kick his mount spurred into action and his men followed him, racing up the next rise to come level but downwind of the Egyptians.

The lordling eyed him coolly, the tension crackling in air that stank with death.

Neither spoke for several moments, each measuring the other. Finally, the one called Akhetep lowered his bow and spoke.

‘Who among you speaks for Chief Harelothis?’

‘Great Chief Harelothis,’ corrected the leader of the riders. ‘And I speak for him.’

The lordling met his gaze and at a slight tug on the reins, the two horses that led his chariot marched forward in lockstep. In unison, the horses mirrored each other’s movements, and the riders regarded the horses warily. Who knew what supernatural pacts the Nile people had forged?

The prince, for the lordling wore the trappings of royalty, halted his chariot beside the leader’s mount and though he looked up at the rider, the bandit warrior felt momentarily dwarfed by the presence in those pale olive eyes. The prince wore a breastplate of shimmering bronze scales lined with silver and gold filigree over a linen shendyt of impossible white. The cloth headdress he wore, striped red and white, was equally clean and an inkling of an idea formed in the rider’s desperate mind.

The prince measured the horseman up, eyeing the fine sword and spear and the detailed work on his greaves and breastplate, and was evidently satisfied he was speaking with someone of authority.

‘I am Osorkon of Thebes, son of Takelot and great-grandson of Pharaoh. This land belongs to the Twin Crowns and to the glory of the Two Lands in unity. I will give you this warning once and once only. Tell your chieftain to surrender and his people will not come to harm. Resist, and I will put your citadel to the torch.’

The rider snarled, his horse stamping its hooves as it sensed its rider’s agitation.

‘What is your name?’ asked the prince.

‘Dashir of the Meshwesh. That is all you need to know.’

‘Fair enough,’ replied the lordling. ‘You have encroached on our lands, Dashir. Your people have slaughtered caravans that feed the cities on the Nile. You have stolen sacred items belonging to the Nile cities. Your reign of terror over our lands is over.’

‘Your lands?’

Dashir watched the prince carefully. His skin was dark, like the Libyan’s own. The horseman had heard stories of his ancestors migrating east, but here in front of him was evidence of Libyan ascension. The prince felt the scrutiny, and though he held the reins lightly, his free hand never wandered far from the javelins arrayed on the front rack.

Dashir looked along the line of charioteers and saw the same skin, the dusky brown and pale eyes of old Libya. His expression was one of barely concealed disgust.

‘What has happened to you? To you all? Your ancestors threw in their lot and bent the knee to foreign kings and now you stand here perfumed and pampered, demanding that we do the same.’

‘We are the kings now,’ replied Osorkon. ‘The Meshwesh of the Nile have endured and we have prospered, but through order and justice, not bloodshed and betrayal.’

‘My mistake, you are not one of us. We follow the strong, not some old man on a wooden chair in a stone house.’

‘And yet that old man on his wooden chair will win this day without ever knowing your face or your name. What is the power of your chieftains compared to that?’

‘The power of physical strength. The strong prosper and the weak die in droves. We respect strength, we are loyal to strength.’

‘I am not so far removed as to forget the treacheries of the Meshwesh. Brotherhood is a loose term among your kind, isn’t it?’

The horseman laughed and spat on the desert sands.

‘You will see. One day, you will fall upon yourselves. And when you do, you will know that you cannot escape your fate.’

‘Just as you cannot now escape yours,’ replied Osorkon. ‘There is nothing left for you but surrender.’

Dashir bristled at that final word. ‘And walk into slavery?’

‘Slavery is better than death.’

‘For who? Not for a free rider of the Meshwesh.’

‘Then for the sake of your people. If you fight, you die, and your women and children will be taken to work in the fields. If you surrender, you will join them in peaceful servitude. Consider it repayment of the debt you owe for murder and banditry.’

‘We take what we want, such is our strength.’

‘Then clearly your strength is lacking,’ smirked the lordling, gesturing at the great pile of burning dead in the valley below.

Dashir bared his teeth at the prince and the idea in his head returned with full force. Slowly and unthreateningly, he inched his blade from its sheath, letting the burnished iron rest over the pommel of his saddle.

‘Right now, both of us. Fight me man to man for the final victory.’

As one, the Egyptian host raised their bows, pinning the Meshwesh riders where they sat. To move was death, for three arrows would hit each before their swords cleared the sheath.

The prince shook his head sadly. ‘Look to your right, Dashir. I have already beaten you. Your best warriors are dead. Your fighting force is decimated.’

‘You have suffered too. We reaped a tally on you.’

Osorkon nodded solemnly. ‘And they will go unto the halls of Osiris and be reborn in the Field of Reeds. More do not have to die. Convince your chieftain to agree to our terms.’

‘We will hold out. We have food and water for months.’

‘This is not a siege. You do not have the men. I have no desire to see more bloodshed, but if you resist us, we will kill you all.’

The prince gestured behind him and his charioteers steered their charges further up the hill, revealing the full splendour of the valley below. Behind the Egyptians lay the eastern edge of the oasis, a fine green line that was now dotted with precise rows of white that ran far along its edge. A sea of tents lined with military precision perched on the edge of the oasis, and from this height, figures the size of ants streamed between the shelters and the cool waters.

The sight of the military encampment was not what made his heart sink. He had expected the Egyptians would make camp soon after Dashir himself had ordered the retreat only hours earlier. What he had at first thought to be the shimmer of another oasis in the distance had grown and spread even as they spoke.

His riders, men he had ridden into battle beside more times than he could count visibly recoiled at the sight of the second army. The prince followed his gaze outward and nodded soberly, the full weight of knowledge in his eyes. He had known, of course. How could he not?

Dashir’s expression hardened. With reluctance, he slipped his sword away and with grim certainty knew that he was witnessing his last sunset.

‘Enough, we will not sell ourselves for your profit. My master, the Great Chief has already given me an answer. He replies that your people claimed these lands for your own from weaker powers centuries ago. Our people will do the same to you. You may kill us tomorrow, but others among our people will endure. The Meshwesh live harsh lives and we will stay strong. You will fall.’

‘Then why did you agree to meet me?’

‘So that we know which man is responsible for our deaths. Every soul lost will curse you with their dying breath. You are damned for all eternity.’

The prince met his gaze, those powerful olive eyes seeming to bore into Dashir’s very soul. ‘Our dynasty will not last forever, but it will outlast you,’ said Osorkon, tugging on the reins and leading his detachment back down into the oasis valley.

‘Sleep well, Dashir,’ called Osorkon over his shoulder. ‘Tomorrow you join your ancestors.’

The second Egyptian army came out from the desert gloom like an army of spirits. Flickering lights dotted the darkened skyline as the new arrivals lit torches to announce their coming, a normally unforgivable sin for an army on the move, but a risk negated by news of the Meshwesh’s crushing defeat.

Osorkon waited impatiently at the edge of his camp where the firelight ended abruptly and the long desert night stretched on. Now, the stars above were reflected in the desert below and a stir rippled through his commanders and captains at the sight.

‘How like Bakenptah to make a statement,’ muttered Osorkon, peering into the night for the first details of the advancing army.

Beside him, Akhetep chuckled softly but said nothing. Osorkon was still dressed in the finery that had so dazzled the Meshwesh horsemen, but the significance of the gesture was clearly lost on the prince himself. If he intended Bakenptah to be humbled by the display, he might well be surprised, thought Akhetep.

The rhythms of the army on the move had drawn hundreds of Osorkon’s men from their campfires to witness the new arrivals. The trudging footsteps of spearmen and archers carried easily through the air alongside the creaking rumble of chariots and the padded rhythms of cavalry.

Osorkon smiled as the first figure emerged from the darkness, a boy dressed as a lord, followed by hundreds, then thousands of soldiers. He raised a hand in salute, stopping his chariot metres from Osorkon’s own.

‘Better late than never, I suppose,’ said Osorkon.

‘I would say we are right on time. It seems my brother is putting on a parade,’ replied the boy, dismounting from his chariot and stepping forth.

‘Oh, this? It’s so you remember your place, little brother.’

‘By your side, as always.’

‘Bakenptah,’ said Osorkon, striding forward and embracing his brother tightly. Soldiers on both sides cheered at the reunion, a roar that woke the oasis and filtered easily into the nightmares of the Meshwesh.

Osorkon held his brother’s shoulders, studying him carefully. The kohl around his eyes was smeared and dust caked his face, giving his skin a reddish tinge. His armour was similarly filthy and the bronze scales shone dully, but he was healthy and well and the brotherly concern Osorkon had tried to suppress faded into relief.

Bakenptah grinned, showing white teeth in a tanned brown face.

‘You worry as much as our mother,’ he said.

‘She would kill me if anything happened to you,’ Osorkon replied only half joking, though his worries had clearly been in vain.

Half a head shorter than Osorkon, Bakenptah was just as broad and at sixteen years to Osorkon’s nineteen, he was a growing source of competition.

Bakenptah’s skin was darker and his cheekbones more prominent than they had been. The boyhood softness, already beginning to fade at the campaign’s outset, was now gone, Osorkon noted approvingly. They were more alike than ever but for one startling distinction. While Osorkon had the pale olive eyes of their mother, Bakenptah’s were the colour of midnight water like their father. While Osorkon’s eyes seemed a gateway to the hidden and unknown, Bakenptah’s seemed to be constantly roaming, seeking out strength and weakness wherever it could be found.

Osorkon’s gaze lingered a moment longer before he looked up at Bakenptah’s coterie. Like their lord they wore fine armour of bronze and silver, caked in dust and dirt, but they stood proudly and unbowed from the march and Osorkon’s heart sang to have such venerable warriors by his side.

‘Forgive me, my lords,’ he said. ‘I have not forgotten you. I was merely fussing over my baby brother. I see you, Ukhesh of Hermopolis and you, Kaphiri of Thebes. You have taken good care of him, no doubt?’

‘We have done our best, Lord Osorkon,’ replied General Ukhesh with a wry smile.

‘I am sure you have. Your burden ends here. Your men must be tired and hungry. You will find good camping ground on the northern edge. My men have already drawn up your pickets.’

‘You have our gratitude,’ said General Kaphiri, already leading his mount north. Over his shoulder, General Ukhesh bellowed his orders and within minutes, the first tents were being laid out and the first campfires sprang to life.

Bakenptah watched them go. ‘We have much to discuss,’ he said, his light-hearted manner suddenly giving way to something more troubled.

‘Wash and change first. You must be thirsty,’ replied Osorkon.

‘For news mostly. Tell me of this Great Chieftain.’

‘I will, but it’s a tale best told over wine and there is a jug of Harsiese’s latest vintage waiting for us in my tent.’

In the heart of the Egyptian camp, Osorkon’s command tent sprawled at the edge of a central thoroughfare like a palace. Equally distant to the most likely points of attack, the tent was stationed by royal guards at every edge and, perched by the glowing braziers at the entrance, runner boys warmed their hands and feet and kept a watchful eye on the main tent flaps.

Inside, coiling fingers of frankincense and myrrh smoke mingled with the outside scents of the camp, the tantalising smells of cooking fires and the all too similar stench of funerary pyres. Osorkon had ordered the Meshwesh burned as was their custom, while the Egyptians that had fallen were even now being packed with natron salt to preserve their bodies for transportation back to Thebes. The mortuary priests that tended the dead had already exhausted most of their supplies and their frequent petitions simply added to the growing list of concerns as the campaign against the Meshwesh entered its final days.

Ten months of bitter fighting culminated now at the bastion of the Great Chieftain, the hegemonic leader of the Libyan tribes that had caused so much strife in the Egyptian west. For weeks, Osorkon’s army had been forced to sit and watch from Kharga as Harelothis’s force solidified their position at Dakhla, for the Libyan host had rivalled the Egyptian army and more and, until yesterday, were more than content to sit behind their natural fortifications. What news had spurred their desperation to break out, the Egyptians could only guess, but the impending threat of Egyptian reinforcements had surely spurred Harelothis to action.

In the centre of the room, a great map of the western desert was spread over a cedarwood table. Two wooden blocks sat east of the oasis. In the north, six more blocks marked the positions of other Egyptian armies, while the sole red marker belonged to Harelothis’s survivors, a mere thirty-three leagues from Thebes.

‘They have come too far into our lands. How did the King ever let this happen?’ growled Ukhesh.

Osorkon looked up from where he was studying the terrain. ‘Pharaoh has his own battles to fight, general. Even he cannot be in all places at once.’

Ukhesh dipped his head, the older man merely speaking aloud the frustration that tore at them all.

‘In any case, they haven’t come far enough,’ said Osorkon. ‘If they had they would be in a much stronger position. They should have come further and reinforced near Kharga. Any army coming against them would have no resupply. Instead, we have as much water as we need. Now they have left themselves open to attacks from refreshed armies.’

‘You’ve done well, brother,’ said Bakenptah, surveying the map. Under the dust and the dirt, Bakenptah once again looked the young lord and as he put his military mind to the task, Osorkon watched him silently.

Bakenptah raised his goblet and peered over the lip at his brother. ‘I don’t suppose you want to wait them out?’

Osorkon shook his head. ‘They have a lifetime’s supply of water underground and it could take months for them to starve. I have already given them until sunrise to surrender.’

‘Which they won’t.’

‘Which they won’t,’ agreed Osorkon. ‘The career fighters, Harelothis’s chosen, will fight to the end, but they have their women and children with them. The rank and file will not be as stubborn. They fled readily enough today.’ Behind him, his staff officers cheered in agreement.

‘Yes, so fast that neither your horsemen nor your chariots could catch them,’ smirked Bakenptah, watching as his brother’s commanders bristled. ‘Do not underestimate the common soldier. You have given them the options of slavery or death. Either way, they lose their families. They will fight you to the last.’

‘Perhaps’ said Osorkon.

‘Perhaps?’

‘You give the Meshwesh too much credit, Bakenptah. Had you arrived a little earlier you would have seen the truth of their prowess,’ replied Osorkon, watching the barb strike home.

‘Like a honey badger breaking apart a hive, we will be stung but it is nothing we cannot weather.’ Akhetep leaned over the table, moving the wooden blocks in an impenetrable ring around the oasis rock formation. ‘Cut off the exit points and launch a few volleys of fire arrows. Something in there is bound to be flammable.’

‘There are women and children in there,’ growled Osorkon.

Akhetep shrugged and wandered to the tent door, peering out into the night.

The evening breeze played host to songs of celebration tinged with the sombre atmosphere of brothers-in-arms lost. Droning dirges of mourning and magic blended with the triumphant rhythms of victory and hope as the wineskins were passed around burning braziers and tales of battles both recent and long ago were told and retold with increasing vigour.

‘I don’t want any more bloodshed than necessary. If they surrender, take them alive. No harm is to come to the women and children. They will fetch good prices, or the men may take the women as wives as they see fit,’ said Osorkon.

‘Agreed,’ said Bakenptah. ‘We have expended much blood and coin on this campaign. I don’t expect your forces have fared any better.’

‘A frontal assault then?’ asked General Kaphiri.

‘A frontal assault will see half our men dead,’ said Bakenptah.

Osorkon nodded and gestured to the map. ‘It would, which is why there is a third option.’

Bakenptah leaned forward, his good-natured smile returning. ‘I am intrigued. Go on.’

‘My medjay assure me that there are three main roads that lead into the central chasm. Harelothis’s camp sits at the highest point under this rock face. These two paths are wide enough for perhaps twenty men shoulder to shoulder, but only this one is wide enough for chariots, three maybe four abreast.’

Bakenptah’s goblet stopped halfway to his mouth. ‘You want to ride chariots into that? A wall of spear and shield will