The crowd went still and silent.
In the quiet, Karim heard the rumble of many feet marching.
Elyas stared at Karim with growing unease. “What is it?” he asked. “What’s coming?”
A second later, a man stumbled backward into view on the main road, his sword raised defensively.
“To arms!”he bellowed again, just as a great stone hand came down from above, grasped his head, and squeezed it like a grape. There was a pop, and a profusion of blood burst from betweenthe stone fingers. The man’s body went still before dropping to its knees and toppling to the dust below.
Shesmu the Butcher’s shadow fell over the crowd as he stepped over the body and into the courtyard. He opened his fist, releasing the wet wreckage of the man’s skull before unsheathing the second knife from his belt.
For one shocked moment, not a single person moved or spoke.
Then came pandemonium.
Zev and a dozen others loosed war cries and charged the stone warrior, while others fled in terror down the side streets, only to be cut off by the ushabti marching toward them.
“Tell them to retreat!” Karim yelled, shaking Elyas by the shoulders.
The old man’s gaze remained locked on the bloody corpse, his mouth agape.
“Tell them!”
“Retreat!”Elyas shouted, finally finding his voice.
It was too late.
No one could hear him over the screams.
Cursing, Karim pushed Elyas away from the oncoming horde and sprinted into the fray with Behkai galloping at his side. Up ahead, Shesmu’s knives were slicing toward another Hudjefa tribesman, who was too distracted by the approach of the ushabti to notice the imminent danger. With a burst of speed that felt miraculous, Karim dove into the man, driving him to the ground before the swinging blades could cut him in two.
“Run for the desert, sen!” Karim told him.
Meanwhile, Behkai had bounded onto a barrel, then a rooftop, and started barking furiously at Shesmu, distracting the stone warrior so that the man could get away unscathed.
“Behkai, watch out!” Karim cried, and the dog leaped fromthe roof as Shesmu’s enormous fist crashed into the mud-brick house.
Karim was on his feet and caught the dog before he could hit the ground.How did I do that?he wondered. His resurrection had given him a second chance at life, but he’d begun to wonder if there was more to it than that.
Karim set the dog down, his body buzzing with vital energy begging to be expended.
With Behkai at his side, he dashed back into the crush of men and ushabti, following the dog’s lead by jumping onto obstacles and using them to launch himself into the stone warriors, unbalancing some and toppling others long enough for the Hudjefa to escape. He caught a glimpse of Dumiya similarly bounding from one enemy to the next with fluid, silent grace, narrowly avoiding one fatal blow after another. Still, for many others, the damage had already been done. The ground was littered with bodies, the sand sodden with blood.
Karim had just landed on the ground in a crouch after having kicked two ushabti into each other, when he saw Zev sparring with another stone warrior across the way, their copper blades clashing. Karim could see the killing blow coming, could see the opening for a slash after the parry, but even he couldn’t cross that distance in time. He was a mere arm’s breadth away from Zev when the ushabti’s sword sliced deep across the man’s torso, disemboweling him.
Behkai rushed in from the side to attack the ushabti while Karim dropped to one knee beside Zev, lifting the man’s head off the ground. Blood burbled from Zev’s lips as he eyed Karim with fierce recrimination. “This is on you, sen,” he said with difficulty. “Hudjefa blood is on your hands.”
Then Zev’s grimace relaxed, and he was still.
His chest burning with shame and despair, Karim set Zev gently on the ground and stood. Why did death follow him like a shadow everywhere he went?
The priestess Nefermaat’s face appeared in his mind, her every word a premonition.
You had two shadows.
The oracle asked too much of him. He was nothing and no one, as Babu once said. What was he supposed to do with such a task? Such a burden?
Roaring, he threw himself into the nearest ushabti, shoving and kicking with reckless, careless rage. The stone men fell away from him like pawns on a game board, toppled but unharmed, some falling onto the corpses of men who lay beyond suffering’s reach. He lost track of Behkai in the fray and prayed that the dog would have the sense to not get himself killed.
