Chapter 31
Neff
Neff had never seen a person die before.
She’d been at her grandfather’s bedside the night he passed, but that was different.
In the fortress, she witnessed Meryamun crush a man’s skull.
She heard the wet crack as the stone mace connected with the prisoner’s head, saw the blood spatter through the thin hood.
The gruesome sight reminded her of the day she’d cried tears of blood.
You must make your own mistakes, Nefermaat, the High Priestess had told her. You may doubt yourself, but never doubt the goddess. You are on this path because she deemed it so. Stay on it, no matter where it leads.
Neff knew the path would be difficult. Still, she never imagined it would lead to this.
When the dead man slumped and fell into the pit, something inside Neff broke. All remaining vestiges of her childhood died in that moment, along with the innocent man. She neither cried nor screamed. The contradiction of being both empty and overwhelmed left her numb.
It took Rae’s war cry to tear her from that stupor.
Even then, what could she do? With her hands tied behind her back, she couldn’t reach the tiny linen bag tucked into the folds of her dress. The guard’s grip on her had only tightened as the battle broke out, and although she’d hoped he would be tempted to join the fight, he stayed at her side.
When Rae cracked the earth with her scepter, Neff felt a surge of triumph. It’s starting. Her certainty was bone-deep and primal. She knew it the way her fingers would recognize the contours of her mother’s face among a sea of women.
Rae couldn’t carry the fight on her own, though. Arrows fell like rain all around the courtyard, and the rebels were dying.
I’ve got to get free! Neff thought.
Rae shouted something in her direction. A moment later, the guard next to her yelped. Neff turned to see him land hard on his back before he was dragged off the platform and onto the ground below by a rope looped around his ankle. Then came a hard thump, a cry, and then nothing.
Neff peered over the edge of the platform to find Tamerit, Rae’s companion, standing over the guard’s unconscious body.
“I hope I hit him hard enough,” she said to Neff. Then she hoisted herself onto the platform and got to work on Neff’s bindings.
“Hurry,” Neff said as another rebel took an arrow in the back.
The second the ropes loosened, Neff yanked her hands free and pulled the tiny linen satchel from her dress.
Before she could speak, a hand closed around her ankle.
The guard had recovered himself and snarled up at her, trying to pull her down.
Tamerit cursed and lashed out, trying to dislodge him. “Let her go!” Tamerit shouted.
Suddenly, a discarded black hood rose from the dirt, as if by some unseen force.
All at once, the floating hood launched itself at the guard’s back.
The guard gasped as the air was knocked from his lungs.
His grip on Neff’s ankle slipped, and Tamerit gave him a kick square in the temple. “Now, stay down!” she yelled.
He did.
The floating hood rose up to the platform and settled at Neff’s side, bobbing gently. Tamerit stared at it in wonder.
“What in Ra’s name is that?” she asked.
“That’s Medjed,” Neff replied, giving the hood an appreciative pat on the head.
Tamerit blinked, waiting for an additional explanation that didn’t come.
Ripping the wig from her head, Neff raised her arms to the sky.
“I call to you, Neith, Goddess of War! Heed me, Fierce Hunter, and unmake the weapons of my enemy! Weaken the sinew and splinter the bow, so that they are useless against me! For I, too, am a creature of war! The word is the deed!” With that, she threw the satchel into the burning brazier.
The fire flared and turned a deep crimson.
All along the ramparts, one archer after another exclaimed in dismay as their bows disintegrated in their hands. The volley of arrows stopped.
The rebels noticed and raised a cheer. They were still outnumbered, but at least now they had a chance. Rae and the one-handed man—who Neff assumed was her father—had managed to free the rest of the prisoners.
They need a way out, Neff thought, and pulled the little clay pot she’d prepared from the hidden pocket in her dress.
“Herihor, with me!” came a shout from behind her. Neff whirled to see Meryamun, surrounded by a phalanx of palace guards, heading to the entrance of the citadel. The ram-faced Heka priest peeled away from his brethren to follow the king.
“You two!” Meryamun continued, gesturing to the other Heka priests. “Don’t let them escape! Use the spell!”
Once Herihor joined them, the head guard led the group up the steps and into the citadel. As they went, she saw two of the guards struggling to control a smaller figure held captive between them.
Neff gasped.
“Rae!” she screamed, pointing. “They’ve got Kenna!”
The rebel warrior turned away from the battle to see the doors of the citadel slam shut.
Neff said to Tamerit, “He brought the priest with him to continue the ritual! He’ll gain immense power from spilling his own brother’s blood!”
Neff choked back a sob. She couldn’t bear to lose Kenna.
“Please, Rae! Please help him!” she cried out.
Rae shouted, “We have to get the prisoners out first!”
The two remaining Heka priests began to chant, each pulling long black cloths from their belts, which appeared to have been inscribed with sacred words written in red.
In unison, the priests wrapped the cloths around their eyes and continued chanting, their hands reaching out toward the battle before them.
Neff recognized the spell. To Make a Man Blind to His Brothers.
“Oh no,” she whispered.
Tendrils of black smoke rose from the priests’ hands and drifted toward the fighting men.
Neff watched as a thin finger of smoke fell upon one of the rebels’ eyes, turning them black.
The man had been about to engage one of the guards, but he began attacking one of the other rebels instead.
His fellow warrior took a blow before defending himself, clearly confused by the turn of events.
The smoke continued snaking toward its next victim.
“Ra preserve us,” Tamerit said as the battle turned against them once more. “Quick, Nefermaat! The spell!” she urged.
Nodding, Neff went to unstop her little clay pot when there was a flash of movement at the end of the platform.
Sitamun barreled toward them, snarling, and shoved a surprised Tamerit off the edge. She slapped Neff’s hand, knocking the clay pot out of her grasp, and struck her hard across the face.
Neff cried out, her cheek burning as stars leapt in front of her eyes.
Sitamun lunged for her, but Neff ducked out of the way, scrabbling after the clay pot. It rolled across the platform, just out of reach.
Sitamun lunged for her legs, and Neff collapsed flat on her belly. The princess, her full weight pinning Neff, chuckled in a way that reminded her of the king. Neff’s fingers brushed the side of the pot but could not get purchase on it.
“It’s already too late, little seer,” Sitamun said. “Even if you could give them a way out, there will be no one left to run.” Neff craned her neck to look at the princess. Her smile wasn’t her own. It was Mery’s.
“Give up now, Nefermaat,” she said. “And perhaps he’ll let me keep you as a pet. Do you know the punishment for betraying a king? It’s quite severe.”
Sitamun’s words were like an echo of a nightmare. They wormed into her heart, breaking her resolve, manipulating her spirit. They’re Meryamun’s words. Meryamun’s power working through the enchantment.
Neff moaned, squeezing her eyes shut against despair.
“It’s over,” Sitamun purred, crawling up her body like a serpent consuming its prey whole.
“No!” With a final, desperate heave, Neff lunged toward the pot, and her fingers closed around it.
She flipped off the seal with her thumb and shouted as the breeze pulled the ash from inside and set it flying.
“Winds of the east! Heed me, for I am Shu, your god and ruler! I command you to blow as you once did when the earth was new, before my sister Maat tamed you! Blow so that no man nor edifice can stand against you, so that all must fall before your power!”
Men exclaimed as a sudden wind buffeted the courtyard, a wind scented with myrrh and smoke and honey. Neff dropped the pot and shielded her eyes as a swirl of sand peppered her face. She focused on the great door to the fortress, which was guarded by half a dozen soldiers.
Concentrate, she told herself. Look for the darkness at the center of the light.
The princess shouted at her, shaking her, but Neff kept her eyes on the gatehouse door.
Let it surround you. Let it become your world.
A resounding boom echoed across the courtyard. Neff felt the platform tremble beneath her, but still, she did not break her gaze.
“What was that?” she heard someone shout.
One.
Then again, boom. Closer now.
More than half the fighters had taken notice, pausing their skirmishes to try and determine the source of the sound.
Two.
Neff felt herself weaken, her head growing light. It was hard to breathe with Sitamun’s weight crushing her. Just a little longer.
She thought of Kenna.
You can call me brother, if you wish.
With a cry of effort, she concentrated all her remaining strength at the gatehouse door.
Boom.
The final door burst open in a flurry of blowing sand, causing every man in the courtyard to shout.
Three!
When the dust settled, a man astride a black stallion stood in the doorway with the wind at his back. His dark, wavy hair danced in the breeze.
The lamb, the lamb, the lamb…
He wore a rough, dark schenti, with sheepskin leather spaulders and bracers. His chest, however, was bare, and bore a scarab-shaped scar over one side.
The horse pawed the ground eagerly, and the man pulled the reins taut. His eyes met Neff’s across the courtyard, glinting with an otherworldly light.
Neff’s heart soared.
“Advance!” Karim commanded, and from behind him, a host of Red Land tribesmen charged into the fray.