Somehow they kept struggling onwards, or at least most of his force did. Fifty or sixty chariots burned out their last teams of horses, and Trok left them scattered back along the road.

  The sun came up on the second day, warm as a kiss after the chill of the night, but it was a treacherous kiss. Soon it stung and dazzled their bloodshot eyes. For the first time Trok faced the possibility of dying here on this dreadful road to nowhere.

  'One more hill,' he called to his last team of horses, and tried to whip them into a trot, but they stumbled up the easy incline with their heads hanging, and the sweat long ago dried to white salt on their flanks. Just below the crest Trok looked back down the straggling column of his army. Even without counting them he saw that he had lost half of his chariots. Hundreds of dismounted troopers were staggering along behind the column, but even as he watched he saw two or three fall and lie beside the track like dead men. There were vultures in the sky following them, hundreds of dark specks turning in high circles against the blue. He saw some slant down to the feast he had prepared for them.

  There is only one way,' he told Ishtar, 'and that is forward.' He cracked the whip over the backs of his team, and they went on painfully.

  They reached the top of the hill, and Trok gawked in astonishment. The scene in the valley below him was like nothing he had ever imagined. The ruins of the ancient city rose before him. Their outline seemed ghostly but eternal. As he had been promised, the city was surrounded by fields of cool green, and a network of sparkling water canals. His horses smelt the water and strained against the reins with renewed strength.

  Even in his desperate haste, Trok took time to assess the tactical situation. He saw at once that the city was helpless and undefended. The gates stood wide open and from them poured the panic-stricken rabble of the escaping populace. Carrying their children and pathetic bundles of possessions they streamed away up the narrow but steep-sided valley to the west of Gallala. A few foot-soldiers mingled with the refugees, but they were obviously in rout and out of hand. There was no sign of cavalry or of fighting chariots. They were a flock of sheep before the wolf pack, but the wolves were parched and weak with thirst.

  'Seueth has delivered them into our hands,' Trok shouted with triumph. 'Before the sun sets this day you will have more women and gold than you can use!'

  The cry was taken up by the men who followed him over the ridge, and they rode down as fast as their exhausted horses could move to the first irrigation ditch. They spread out along the length of it, the horses sucking up the blessed liquid until their bellies swelled as though in pregnancy. The men threw themselves full-length along the bank, plunging their faces under, or filling their helmets and pouring it over their heads and down their throats.

  --

  'You should have let me poison the irrigation canals,' Nefer said flatly, as they watched from the other side of the valley.

  'You know better than that.' Taita shook his silver head. That would have been an offence that the gods would never forgive. In this bitter land only Seth or Seueth could contemplate such a foul deed.'

  'On this day I could play Seth willingly enough.' Nefer smiled bleakly, but he said it merely to provoke the Magus. 'Your two rogues have done well.' He glanced at the two ragged Bedouin who knelt beside Taita. 'Pay them and let them go.'

  They place no value on gold,' Taita explained. 'When I lived at Gebel Nagara they brought their children to me, and I cured them of the Yellow Flowers.' He made a sign of blessing over the crouching men and said a few words to them in their dialect, thanking them for risking their lives to mislead Trok, and promising them his future protection. They kissed his feet then slipped away among the boulders.

  Taita and Nefer gave their full attention to the unfolding battle in the valley below. Trok's men and horses had drunk until their bellies bulged and now they were mounting. Even though he had lost so many chariots on the approach march, Trok still outnumbered Nefer's forces at least three to one.

  'We dare not meet him on open ground,' Nefer mused, and looked down upon the mass of refugees escaping up the valley below them. To begin with there had been very few women in the city - Nefer had deliberately kept their numbers down to eke out the reserves of food for his fighting men - and even they, including Mintaka and Merykara, together with all the children, the sick and wounded, had been evacuated from Gallala two days before. Meren had gone on one of the wagons carrying the contents of the treasury, the gold they had lifted from the false pharaohs. Nefer had sent them all to Gebel Nagara, where Trok would never find them, and the tiny spring of water would just support them until after the battle was decided.

  Now Gallala was stripped of everything of value, every chariot, weapon and piece of armour. He gazed down on the refugees with satisfaction. Even from this close it was difficult to tell that they were not women and civilians, but disguised foot-soldiers. Many of these stalwarts were tripping and stumbling in their long skirts and shawls. The bundles they carried in their arms were not swaddled infants, but their bows and swords wrapped in shawls. Their long lances had been cached among the rocks higher up the valley were his main force was concealed.

  All Trok's chariots had finished watering and they were coming on across the pastures in tight and ordered formations, wave after wave of fighting vehicles. The water had revived then miraculously, and before them lay the promise of plunder and rapine.

  'Pray Horus that we can entice Trok to take up the pursuit and enter the valley,' Nefer whispered. 'If he does not take the bait and seizes the undefended city instead, then he denies us the water and grazing. We would be forced to come to battle on the open ground where he would have every advantage.'

  Taita said nothing. He stood with the golden Periapt pressed to his lips and his eyes turned upwards in the attitude the Nefer had come to know so well.

  The enemy were close enough now for Nefer to be able to pick out Trok's chariot among the moving mass of vehicles, as it wheeled into a position across the mouth of the valley crowded with the fleeing refugees. Trok was in the centre of the leading rank, ten of his chariots on each of his flanks, on a front wide enough to sweep the valley from side to side. Behind him the rest of his chariots were formed up. The dust settled around them and a terrible silence fell over them. The only sound was the faint babble and hubbub of the fleeing rabble in the gut of the narrow valley ahead of them.

  'Come, Trok Uruk!' Nefer whispered. 'Order the charge! Ride into history!'

  In the leading chariot in the front rank of the massed forces, Ishtar the Mede crouched beside Trok's massive armoured figure. He was so agitated that he reached up to tug at the ribbons of Trok's beard.

  'The smell of the Warlock hangs in the air like the reek of a ten-day-old corpse.' His voice was shrill, and saliva frothed on his lips and flew in a cloud with the force of his emotion. 'He waits for you up there, like a man-eating beast. I can feel his presence. Look up, mighty Pharaoh!'

  Trok was distracted enough to glance up at the sky. The vultures had dropped lower.

  'Yes! Yes!' Ishtar pressed the small advantage. 'They are Taita's chickens. They wait for him to feed them with your flesh.'

  Trok looked back up the valley at the prize that lay before him, but the shadows of the vultures flitted over the earth between them and he hesitated.

  Hidden among the boulders on the steep side of the valley Nefer watched him. He was so close now that Nefer fancied that he could read his expression.

  'Forward, Trok!' Nefer murmured. 'Sound the charge. Lead your army into the valley.' He could sense doubt in the manner that Trok fiddled with the reins in his hand, and turned his head to look down at the skinny figure of Ishtar beside him.

  The Mede's blue-painted face was turned up to him earnestly, and he touched Trok and tugged at his armour with the force of his entreaties. 'It is a snare laid for you by the Warlock. If you never trust me again, you must trust me now. There is death in the air, and the stench of treachery. I can feel Taita's spells like bats' wings beating against my face.'

  Trok scratched his beard, and glanced over his shoulder at the ranks of chariots parked wheel to wheel and his troopers leaning forward in cruel anticipation of his order.

  'Turn aside, mighty Trok. Seize the city and the water fountain. Nefer Seti and the Warlock will perish out there in the desert, as we so nearly did. That way is certain. The other way is madness.'

  On the hillside Nefer narrowed his eyes as he watched his disguised troopers scurrying away up the valley, and he knew that the moment was passing. 'What is holding Trok? Will he not commit to the charge?' Nefer cried aloud. 'If he does not charge now ...'

  'Look to the head of the valley.' Taita had not opened his eyes. Even in his agitation Nefer glanced up the valley, and stiffened with alarm. His fist tightened on the hilt of his sword until the knuckles turned white as bone.

  'It is not possible!' he growled.

  Near the top end of the valley, but fully visible from where Trok's chariots were drawn up, was a slab of rock. Square and ochre-coloured, it stood like a man-made monument beside the road. On top of this, above the stream of fleeing refugees, had appeared a single figure. It was a woman, young and slim, with long dark hair that hung to her waist. Her chiton was the crimson of the royal House of Apepi: it stood out brilliantly, a speck of colour in the bleakness of bare rock and sand.

  'Mintaka!' Nefer breathed. 'I ordered her to go with Meren and Merykara to Gebel Nagara.'

  'We know that she would never have disobeyed you.' Taita opened his eyes and smiled ironically. Therefore, it seems that she must have misheard you.'

  'This is your doing,' Nefer said bitterly. 'You are using her as bait for Trok. You have placed her in mortal danger.'

  'Perhaps I can control the khamsin,' Taita said, 'but not even I can control Mintaka Apepi. What she does, she does of her own free will.'

  Below them Trok had turned to give the order for his chariots to wheel away, to let the rabble escape, and to seize the fountain and the city of Gallala as Ishtar was urging him. Before he could speak he felt Ishtar stiffen beside him, and heard him whisper, This is something that Taita has conjured.'

  Trok jerked around and stared up the long rising valley. He saw the tiny figure in the crimson dress, standing high on the yellow rock platform. He recognized in an instant the object of all his hatred and rage. 'Mintaka Apepi,' he snarled, 'I have come for you, you adulterous little dog-bitch. I will make you plead for death.'

  'It is an illusion, Pharaoh. Don't let the Warlock deceive you.'

  'That is no illusion,' Trok said grimly. 'I will prove it to you when I bury my prong in her warm flesh, and prod her until she bleeds.'

  The Warlock has blinded you,' Ishtar howled. There is death all around us.'

  He tried to leap down from the footplate and run, but Trok seized him by his lacquered locks and hauled him back. 'Nay, stay with me, Ishtar the Mede. I will let you have a taste of her sweet crevice before I throw her to my bully-boys to finish off.' He raised his clenched fist high above his head and shouted, 'Forward! March!'

  The chariots on either hand rolled forward together, and the ranks behind followed Trok into the valley, the sun sparkling on the javelin heads and the dust rose around them like smoke. The tail of the fleeing refugees was three hundred paces ahead when Trok gave his next order.

  'Forward at the gallop! Charge!'

  The horses leaped away, and in a rising thunder of hoofs and wheels they swept up the narrow valley.

  Trok has committed,' Nefer said softly. 'But at what cost? If he takes Mintaka ...' He could not bring himself to go on, but he stared in anguish at her tall lithe figure standing serenely in the path of the storm.

  'Now you have something to fight for,' Taita said gently.

  Nefer felt all his love and deadly concern for Mintaka become battle rage, but it was a cold hard rage that sharpened every one of his senses and filled his being to the exclusion of all else.

  As the phalanx of chariots swept by below where he stood on the side of the valley, he stepped out from behind the rock that had concealed him. The complete attention of Trok and his troopers was fixed on the helpless victims ahead of their racing chariots. They had no eyes for the tall figure that appeared suddenly high on their flank. But all Nefer's men could see him clearly. They were hidden among the boulders down both slopes of the valley. Nefer raised his sword above his head, and as the last chariot sped past he brought it down sharply.

  The wagons were poised on the steep gradient, with their wheels chocked and lashed to hold them. They were screened from view with dried grass the exact colour of their surroundings, and they were so heavily laden with rocks that the axles sagged. At Nefer's signal his wagoners pulled out the wooden chocks and slashed away the lashings that held the wheels. From both sides of the valley the wagons rolled forward, gathering speed, bounding down on top of the massed chariots below.

  When Ishtar screamed at his side, Trok tore his eyes from the Mintaka's figure at the far end of the valley, and he saw the huge vehicles tearing down upon his squadrons. 'Back!' he shouted. 'Break away!' But even his bull voice was lost in the uproar. The charge once launched could not be stopped, and there was no space to manoeuvre in the narrow floor of the valley.

  The first wagons crashed into the head of the charge. There was the rending of wood, the screams of crushed men and horses, the thunder of wagons overturning and capsizing, shedding their loads of rock.

  Suddenly the way ahead of Trok was blocked by one of the cumbersome carts, and his horses swerved into the chariot running beside him. In an instant the magnificent charge was transformed into a shambles of shattered and overturned vehicles, and crippled horses.

  The wagons had sealed off the valley at both ends. Even the chariots that had not been smashed and capsized were now bottled up in a struggling mass. The whole purpose of the chariot, its strength and threat, was its ability to run and turn, to charge and pull back at speed. Now they were immobilized, held by walls of stone, and Nefer's archers were on the slopes above them. The first volleys decimated the unprotected charioteers. Within minutes the valley was transformed into a slaughterhouse.

  Some of Trok's men jumped down from their trapped vehicles and charged up the sides of the valley on foot. But they were exhausted by the gruelling approach march, and burdened with their armour. The ground was steep and rugged and they moved only slowly. From the cover of the boulders and walls of hastily erected stone zarebas, Nefer's men met them with long lances and hails of javelins. Most were cut down before they had reached the first rank of defenders.

  Trok looked around him wildly, seeking some way out of the trap, but one of his horses was dead, crushed by the spilled load of rocks from the wagon that blocked his way forward. Behind him the other vehicles were so crowded that there was no room for him to turn or back up. Arrows and javelins were singing around him, clattering against the sides of the chariot, clanging off his helmet and breastplate.

  Before Trok could restrain him, Ishtar took advantage of the confusion to spring down from the footplate and scuttle away between the wrecked chariots and plunging, shrilling horses. Then Trok looked ahead again, and incredulously he saw Mintaka still standing unmoved on the top of the ochre rock pile just ahead of him. She was staring at him with a cold look of revulsion on her lovely face that turned his rage to madness.

  He snatched up his war bow from the rack at his side and reached for an arrow from the quiver, but then he changed his mind, threw the weapon aside and shouted at her over the heads of his rearing and plunging horses. 'No! An arrow is too good for a bitch in heat. I am coming to get you with my bare hands, I want to feel you struggling as I squeeze the last breath out of you, you filthy little harlot.'

  He drew his sword and sprang down to the ground. He ran forward under the hoofs of his rearing horse, and scrambled over the overturned body of the wagon. Two of Nefer's men jumped out from behind the rocks to oppose him but he hacked them down and ran over their twitching corpses. His eyes were fastened hungrily on the girl in the crimson dress standing tall and proud ahead of him, the flame to the moth.

  Nefer saw Trok break out of the trap, and he ran down the slope, springing from rock to rock. 'Run, Mintaka! Get away from him,' he shouted urgently, but either she did not hear him or she would not listen.

  Trok did hear him, and he stopped and looked up. 'Come on, then, my pretty boy, I have enough blade for both you and your whore.'

  Without breaking his run, Nefer hurled the javelin in his hand, but Trok caught it neatly in the centre of the light targe he carried on his shoulder, and the weapon spun away, clattering on the rock, and landed at Mintaka's feet. She ignored it.

  The throw had been enough to divert Trok for the moment, and Nefer sprang down on to the level ground in front of him. Trok went on guard as Nefer confronted him and then his face twisted into a ferocious grin. He crouched behind the bronze shield and waved the sword in his right hand. 'Come, puppy,' he said. 'Let us test your claim to the double crown.'