“Humblest apologies, Nomarch, but it appears the people of Sakesh have a spy of their own.”
The nomarch slammed a fist against the arm of his chair. “I don’t care if they’ve got Sekhmet herself. King Meryamun expects us to deliver—sodeliver! Fifty more hands, do you hear? Make it sixty, for good measure!”
The noise startled the ibis, and he launched back into the air. It was time to keep looking for food.
At the southern edge of the city, past blackened fields and grazing zebu, the ibis spied another large building, crumbling but still grand. An older woman was running toward it with half a dozen others, glancing over her shoulder as she went. “Faster, girls, faster now. Don’t wait for me,” said the woman, panting and red-faced.
The younger girls looked at her with concern. “We won’t leave you, Mamet Mut,” one of them said.
“Ach, I’m too old for rebellion,” Mamet Mut grunted, but it was clear even to the ibis that she didn’t mean it. She was, in fact, the perfect age for rebellion—the age when a woman no longer cares what anyone thinks and does exactly as she wishes.
The girls each looped an arm around the older woman’s and helped her along the road, a small loaf of bread and two fish slipping out of one of their packs as they went.
What luck, yes-yes!The ibis descended and grabbed the fish in his beak. He was about to take off, back to the ailing Bennu bird,when a large man caught his attention.
“More, Mamet?” asked the man with remarkably large ears. “I’m not sure how many others we can fit in the underground tunnels.” He quickly directed the group inside the building, where it appeared other men were waiting to greet them.
Mamet Mut stopped, hands on hips, trying to catch her breath. “They had nowhere else to go, Menk. But I think that’s the last of them. Everyone else has either found their own hiding places or…”
The ibis thought of the piled bodies.
“Thank goodness Omari’s message got to us when it did. If we hadn’t had advance notice, we never would have been able to save so many,” Mamet Mut said.
Menk turned to the sturdy old woman. He spoke quietly, “That wasn’t all his note said.”
Mamet Mut’s eyes widened. “What else?”
“Omari says that our people, Ankhu included, will be sacrificed in a cursing ritual that King Meryamun intends to hold at the Thonis fortress in a few days’ time. The pharaoh intends to use heka to curse all his enemies—including us.”
“Blood magic,” Mamet Mut breathed.
Menk nodded, his expression grim.
“Did Omari say anything else?”
“That we should marshal our army and prepare for war.”
The old woman’s brow furrowed. “Nothing about a rescue mission? What about Rae? What are her orders?”
“He didn’t mention Raetawy. I thought it odd, but then again, they are quite close, so perhaps her word and his are the same.” Menk looked troubled. “Though it didn’t sound like her. She wouldn’t give up on her father, not without a fight.” He tugged on one of his oversized ears. “I don’t know what to do. I’m usedto following orders, not giving them.”
“Leaders are made, not born, Menk,” Mamet Mut told him. “You said so yourself. We chose Raetawy to lead us because she has the heart of a lion that always points to justice. All we need to ask ourselves is: What would she do?”
The two fell to silence.
The ibis’s stomach growled. He took to the air, having satisfied his curiosity but not his appetite. With the two fish clamped in his beak, he wheeled back toward his aging companion.
***
The Bennu bird swallowed her fish in one gulp, then set to preening herself.
The ibis took his time with his meal. Despite his great hunger, he’d given her the larger fish. If she noticed his generosity, she didn’t mention it.
Once she was done arranging her feathers, the Bennu bird stood.
Ah, she said, clacking her beak.I feel much better now. So, tell me, where is your flock, sacred one?
No one had ever called him that before. The ibis stood a little taller.
