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18

Rae

Rae crouched in the dark, waiting for the signal. For probably the twentieth time, she felt for her father’s dagger, making sure that it was solidly wedged into her belt. The black cloth mask—hardly more than a sack with holes for her eyes and mouth—was hot and itchy, but it did its job well. Between that and her dark tunic, she was practically invisible. A ghost in the night.

The House of the Medjay stood before her. She and ten other Horizon rebels, including Omari and Asim, were hidden in the shadows around its perimeter, where they all had a clear view of the low U-shaped building.

After the Great War, the new nomarch had built the solid, unbeautiful symbol of their control over the city on Sakesh’s northern border. On the insides of the building’s two prongs were a dozen arched portals, each hung with heavy curtains to block out the wind and blowing sand. Inside these small barracks, approximately forty soldiers slept.

Rae knew all this because the baker often delivered bread to the Medjay, and he’d made a special effort to count the men the last time he’d been there, then communicate that information to the rebels. And after several nights of surveillance, they’d also learned that only three men stood guard at the front of the building after midnight. She watched them from her hiding place, one man patrolling in front of the right prong and two others on the left. A large brazier burned next to them on each side, keeping the darkness at bay.

Most important, though, was what lay at the end of the U-shaped building, which could only be accessed through the open courtyard, past the armed soldiers packed tightly within the barracks on each side. A large windowless chamber, containing items that were nearly impossible to come by in Sakesh.

The armory.

Asim’s plan was simple. Incapacitate the guards without waking the soldiers, infiltrate the armory, and steal as many weapons as they could carry.

“We are sending a message to the Medjay—to the nomarch—to the pharaoh himself,” Asim told them at their last meeting. “For too long we have foundered in the ruins of our once great city. For too long we have allowed ourselves to remain powerless, toothless, offering up our flesh to feed the king’s insatiable hunger. No more. We will take up arms. We will defend what is ours. Out of the darkness, the City of Ra will shine again on the horizon!”

The rebels had cheered, fists in the air, and Rae had joined them. She’d nodded at the men as they dispersed into the night, and few of them even nodded back.

Rae’s heart had swelled with pride.

I was fighting in alleys, thinking I was going to earn respect. But Buto and his stupid friends have none to give. The rebels, on the other hand, were reputable men—artisans, tradesmen, some of them ex-military. Earning their respect might actually have meaning.

If any of them were nervous about the raid, they hadn’t shown it. Once the decision had been made, there was no looking back, and no one—not even the reluctant brewer—spoke a word against it. Rae had a few reservations about the plan at first, having thought about it every day while she worked in the fields. It was a simple plan—but was it too simple? What if something went wrong? At the end of that last meeting, she’d finally gotten up the courage to speak to Asim.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got a secret weapon,” the rebel leader had told her. He’d brought a large sack and shown her what was inside. “Might get messy if we have to use it,” he’d added with a grim smile, “but it’ll be a night the Medjay won’t soon forget.”

Rae’s focus jerked back to the present as she heard a distinctive kroo, kroo , much like the call of a nightjar. But it was no bird—it was Asim’s signal.

Time to go.

On bare, silent feet, she and Omari sprinted out into the open, keeping low and to the shadows, as Asim and another rebel emerged on the other side. The two pairs flanked the building, Rae and Omari on the left, Asim and his partner on the right. When she reached the outer wall, Rae pressed her back against it, listening to hear if either of the guards standing on the other side had heard their approach.

“So, what do you think of the job?” a young voice asked.

“Eh,” a second, older voice grunted. “Sakesh is a dung heap. I’d rather work with dogs.”

Rae’s cheeks flushed with anger, but she was relieved. Clearly, they hadn’t heard a thing. “You should have stayed in Thonis,” the older man continued.

The younger one chuckled nervously. “I didn’t have a choice. Our superiors made it clear that the others and I were needed here.”

The second man snorted. “Sent the best of the best, did they?”

There was an awkward silence. Then: “There’ve been shifts in the assignments at the palace lately. We were the only ones left.”

“Lucky me.”

An embittered old guard and a brand-new one , Rae thought. We can work with that.

From the other side of the building, a deep voice called out. “I think I heard something over here. Sounded like an animal rooting around, but I’m going to have a look.”

“Fine,” the older man said, uninterested.

Rae glanced over at Omari and smiled.

They waited, counting silently to ten. Other than the sound of the young man humming tunelessly, there was only silence.

But the third guard did not return.

“Eh, Hasire, get back here, will you?” the older man said after a minute or so had passed. “It’s your turn to mind this whelp. He irritates me.”

The humming stopped.

“Hasire?”

Rae clenched her hands into fists, her body tensing with anticipation.

The older man cursed under his breath, sighing. “I’m going to find out where that fool has got to. If I don’t come back in two minutes, wake the men.”

“Y-yes, sir,” the young man replied.

Rae listened to the faint sound of receding movement, and took a quiet step toward the corner of the building and the circle of flickering firelight.

“Hasire?” the older man said again, his voice distant. Then came a muted grunt of pain.

Rae’s pulse began to race as the young guard gasped. He’d heard it too. Any moment now, he would sound the alarm, dragging every soldier in the barracks out of their slumber and down onto the rebels’ heads.

Go! Now!

Rae darted around the corner. The young guard had his back to her, khopesh in hand, and was craning his neck to catch a glimpse of his companions on the other side of the building. In one fluid movement, she clamped a hand over the guard’s mouth and snaked her other arm around his neck until it was tucked into the crook of her elbow. She squeezed, pulling her elbow back to create pressure on his throat. It took a moment for the guard’s shock to register. Then he started kicking and stabbing the blade over his shoulder to try and get her off his back. In an instant, Omari was there. He disarmed the young guard and caught the khopesh before it could clatter to the ground. The guard’s blows weakened. A few seconds later, he went limp.

Rae and Omari remained perfectly still, listening for any movement from the barracks. Their struggle had made more noise than anticipated.

The barracks remained silent.

Sighing with relief, Omari stuffed the khopesh into his belt and helped Rae drag the unconscious guard to the side of the building, where they set to binding his wrists and ankles. “Curse you, Ay,” Omari whispered while they worked, “You were supposed to wait for me! I was going to give the signal!”

“He was about to squeal,” Rae retorted, tying a rough gag around the guard’s mouth. “We didn’t have time for a signal.” She glanced up. He was glaring at her. “What? Everything’s good. Flawless execution.”

Omari shook his head. “You’re impossible. Come on, let’s go.”

“I don’t know what you’re complaining about,” Rae whispered as they ran to the front of the building. “All you do is complain…”

Asim and his partner were waiting for them.

“Done?” Asim tipped his chin toward where the young guard had been standing.

Omari nodded.

“Good.” Asim turned away from the House of the Medjay and cupped one hand to his mouth.

Kroo! Kroo!

Within seconds, six more men emerged from hiding, four carrying large stoppered jars, the other two holding rolls of rough cloth. For the next step of the plan, Asim and his partner were to keep watch at the entrance while Rae, Omari, and the six additional men made their way into the courtyard.

Easy , Rae thought to herself, focusing on the armory doors. It was only about fifty cubits away, give or take, but suddenly it felt a lot farther. She imagined all those men slumbering behind the heavy curtains, daggers cradled in their arms. One wrong move, and—

She took a step forward, her toes curling into the cool, hard ground, and remembered what Asim had told her. Don’t hold your breath, and don’t stop. Move faster than your fear, and it will never catch you.

Rae started walking, slow but steady, keeping her eyes forward. In her peripheral vision, the curtains covering the barracks fluttered in the breeze, but she didn’t look, and she didn’t stop.

Before she knew it, she’d reached the armory doors.

Omari made it too. The two cloth-bearing men were behind him, each now carrying a lit rushlight. They must have stopped to light them on the burning braziers when they arrived. Meanwhile, the other four men proceeded slowly around the inside perimeter, pouring the contents of their jars along the walls, saturating the bottom edges of the barracks’ heavy curtains with a black viscous liquid. They were the same jars that Asim had shown her back at the meeting place, hidden in his heavy sack.

“What is it?” she’d asked him.

“Naft,” Asim had replied. “It comes from under the water. Not easy to find.”

Rae had never heard of it. “What does it do?”

Asim told her. She’d been fascinated, and wished she could see it work with her own eyes. But as she watched the men pour the evil-looking stuff onto the ground, she changed her mind. If things went as planned, they wouldn’t need to use it. Let us pass a quiet night , she prayed, and calamity never find us.

Tearing her gaze away, Rae refocused on the armory, which was bolted shut. “Help me with this,” she murmured to Omari.

He stepped up next to her, and together they quietly slid the wooden bolt free and pulled open the double doors. It was utterly dark inside the windowless chamber, so Rae turned to one of the cloth-bearers, holding her hand out for his rushlight. It was a simple thing, just a section of reed dipped in animal fat, but it cast enough light around the room for Rae to see what was inside. Her eyes widened.

Asim had guessed at what might be inside the armory, given what he’d seen the Medjay carrying on their patrols around the city. But it was better than that. Much better.

There were spears and javelins lined up against the wall, as well as a dozen khopesh much like the one the young guard had been carrying. Daggers and short swords lay on tables in neat, gleaming piles. They were all expertly crafted, fitted with bronze blades and fine wooden handles. Nothing like the improvised weapons the rebels had made from smelted farm tools and spare lumber. Rae was delighted to see several slingshots and two composite bows among the stash as well. But those weapons, though impressive, weren’t what caught Rae’s eye.

She spied a strange object tucked into a corner that glittered when the firelight passed over its surface. It looked like a pair of golden wings folded over each other, each feather an intricately formed scale of overlapping metal.

While Omari and the other men began rolling armfuls of weapons tightly into the heavy cloth they’d brought, Rae walked over to the object, transfixed. Upon closer inspection, she discovered it was scale armor. The wings were meant to wrap around the warrior’s chest, secured by two crisscrossing straps of leather around the back. It looked old and impossibly beautiful. She wondered where it came from.

“Rae, come on!” Omari whispered harshly. One man had already finished bundling up the compound bows and most of the blades, effectively silencing any noise the weapons might make as they were carried. Omari and the other man hurriedly rolled up the spears and javelins.

Nodding, Rae picked up the armor and was surprised when another object slipped out from inside it. A handle with a heavy head—a mace, perhaps? Her hand shot out to prevent the thing from falling, and as soon as her fingers wrapped around its hilt, a crackle of energy passed through her body, so strong she almost dropped it.

What was that? she wondered, but the shock was gone as quickly as it came. She brought the weapon closer to the light. It’s not really a mace, is it? she thought. It had a long head like a paddle, made of some kind of gray mottled stone and engraved with two eyes and sacred words. The handle was made of highly polished cedar, its grip wrapped in soft leather. Like the armor, it looked old and very, very valuable. She wondered if both items had been plundered from Rahotep’s palace long ago, and had been sitting here collecting dust ever since.

Wait a minute , she thought. I know what this is. She’d seen one painted on the outer wall of the king’s abandoned palace, back when she and her friends used to play there. It’s a sekhem scepter. More a ritualistic object than a weapon, sekhem scepters were a symbol of authority and associated with the lion-headed goddess Sekhmet.

Her fingers drifted to the little Sekhmet amulet hanging around her neck, and her thoughts to the man who’d given it to her. Strange …

“Rae!” Omari interrupted, his tone frantic. “We have to go! We’ve already lingered too long!”

“I’m coming.” Rae quickly threw off her robes and slipped her head through the winged armor. The metal feathers jingled softly as they settled onto her shoulders, cascading over her chest like liquid gold. Then she stuck the scepter and a few slingshots into her belt and pulled her robes back on. One of the jar men had come inside the room and was pouring the black naft over the remaining weapons that wouldn’t fit inside their cloth bundles.

“Go, go, go!” Omari muttered to the man with the last cloth bundle, sending him back out into the open. He was waving Rae and the jar man out of the door when what they’d all dreaded came to pass.

“To arms!” a ragged voice shouted into the night. “To arms! We’re under attack!”

The young guard had wakened.

Rae’s heart leaped into her throat as fear and regret overwhelmed her.

I should have knocked him out cold instead of choking him unconscious.

I should have tied the gag tighter.

I should have—

Omari froze, and turned to her with wide eyes.

Calamity, it seemed, had come knocking.

“Run,” she said, and tore through the armory doors, pulling Omari along behind her.

Already a few men were stumbling out of the barracks, daggers in hand, blinking into the dark as the young soldier continued to sound the alarm. Somewhere in the din, Rae heard the urgent call of the nightjar.

Kroo! Kroo! Kroo!

The two burning braziers at the front of the building toppled with a metallic clatter, spilling their red-hot embers onto the pools of naft that had been poured at their bases. There was a whoosh ing sound as the pools burst into flame. In the next instant, twin fires began traveling along the trails of naft the men had poured on each side, alighting the heavy curtains as they went. There were shrieks of surprise and pain as men who’d been coming out of their barracks were torched, their clothes and hair catching fire as they tried to push through the flaming curtains. Rae had never seen anything burn so hot, so fast.

The House of the Medjay was all smoke and screaming and chaos. A second later, Rae and Omari were buffeted by a burst of force as the naft-soaked armory behind them exploded. Rae stumbled and nearly fell, but Omari yanked her to her feet and kept running. Their only chance at survival was to get away in the confusion, to vanish into the night before the Medjay got their bearings—

Someone ahead was blocking her way. The hem of his robes was aflame.

It was Big Ears, the man who’d menaced her with a knife when she’d arrived at the first Horizon meeting. He’d lost his mask in the fray, and she could see the panic on his face as he tried desperately to extinguish his robes. Then, one of the Medjay soldiers spotted him.

Rae moved to intervene, but she couldn’t get there in time. The young soldier closed the distance first, spun the rebel around, and delivered a savage blow to his jaw. Big Ears reeled and would have gone down, but the soldier caught him and, in one fluid movement, thrust his dagger into the rebel’s gut.

No!

Before Rae could react, Omari pushed her aside and hurtled toward the two combatants. He wrested the dagger from the soldier’s grip, grabbed him by the back of the head with one massive hand, and bashed his skull against the mud-brick wall. The soldier’s head bounced back, and he collapsed, leaving a circle of blood on the wall.

Panting, Omari hoisted Big Ears’s arm around his shoulders and started to drag him away. “Let’s go!” he shouted to Rae.

She moved to follow when another soldier ran toward her from the left, attempting to cut off her escape.

“Hey! Stop!” The soldier’s face was monstrous in the firelight, ash-black and bubbling with burns. Rae reached for her dagger, but her fingers closed around the handle of the sekhem scepter instead. With a primal cry, she struck out at the soldier with a savage swing, the heavy stone paddle connecting with his shoulder and dropping him to the ground. He lay writhing and clutching his shattered arm, adding his screams to the clamor.

Rae felt fingers close around her ankle. She gasped and tried to wrest her foot free, but the grip was too strong. Then a body slammed into her hips, sweeping her legs out from under her. Rae lost her grip on the scepter as she fell and landed heavily on her back.

The impact left her breathless—but only for a moment. Her attacker still had her legs pinned, but the scepter was only an arm’s length away. If I could just reach it …

She twisted, groping for the weapon. Her fingertips brushed its handle when suddenly the man mounted her. It was the soldier who’d had stabbed Big Ears—apparently Omari hadn’t finished him off, after all.

The soldier panted, his eyes wild, and his head was a bloody mess from where he’d hit the wall. He struck her once, the blow like a thunderclap. Rae brought her arms in to protect her face. He kept hitting her, again and again, his face contorted with rage. Rae tried to block the blows, but her head was swimming, her vision darkening at the edges.

“I want to see your face before I kill you,” the soldier snarled, grabbing Rae’s black hood and pulling it free, “you stinking—”

The insult died on his lips as his rage transformed to confusion at her young battered face.

“A woman?”

It was only a moment’s hesitation, a slight shifting of his weight on top of her, but it was enough time for Rae to reach out and grasp the sekhem scepter. Her fingers closed around its handle, and with every ounce of strength she had left, she struck the soldier’s temple with a sickening, wet crack. A profusion of blood sprayed across his startled face, and his eyes, still fixed on hers, went still. Then he slumped on top of her, dead.

Rae’s breath came in short bursts as her body flooded with panic. The soldier’s head lay on her chest, his blood soaking her clothes, the smell of it nearly as suffocating as the crushing weight of his body.

Horrified, she pushed his corpse off her and scrambled to her feet, the scepter still gripped in her hand. She stared back at the soldier, lying on his stomach on the ground, his head a bloody ruin. The world spun.

Rae shook her head to clear her vision. There was no time to waste. She only had seconds before someone would notice her and attack. The edge of the building was just ahead. If she could just make it back into the city, she’d be safe. Many of the other soldiers were still emerging from their barracks and fighting the fire, still trying to comprehend what was happening.

She ran, feeling the weight of the scale armor under her robes.

Don’t hold your breath.

There was a cry behind her. More shouting.

Don’t stop.

Her robes stuck to her skin, saturated and stinking of death.

Run faster than your fear.

She ran beyond the reach of the firelight. The shadows embraced her, but even then, she didn’t stop. When the job was done, the rebels were to scatter to the four winds, so that it would be impossible for the Medjay to track them to any one place. So Rae ran through the darkened streets until they fell away to farmland, until she’d made it all the way up the path to Omari’s workshop. Only then, once she’d pushed through the doorway, did she stop running.

Omari was inside kneeling on the floor, Big Ears laid out before him. The rebel grimaced with pain as Omari applied pressure to the wound in his stomach. Rae dashed over to them, tearing off her bloody robes.

“Will he live?” she asked, dropping to her knees beside them.

“I can’t say.” Omari’s voice was laced with anger and anxiety. “But I dare not call on the healer. Even if he is a good man, he’s sure to ask questions, and I don’t know if he can be trusted with a secret such as this.”

“How about your parents? Can they help?”

“The less they know, the better,” Omari replied, echoing what she’d said to her own father. “I don’t want them involved.”

Big Ears waved away their concerns.

“You’ll call no one,” he barked, his voice full of gravel. He glanced over at Rae, his eyes twinkling with mirth despite what must have been excruciating pain. “Figured you’d be pleased to see me cut, girl, after the one I gave you.”

“All is forgiven.” Rae put her hand over his. “Just don’t die. Who will menace the new rebels if you do?”

Big Ears laughed, and a fresh spout of blood poured from the wound. He moaned.

“Be still!” Omari commanded. “If we can stanch the bleeding, you may survive. Good for you and good for us too! It would give us a lot less explaining to do come tomorrow.”

The man nodded and closed his eyes. Soon, he was either unconscious or asleep, and didn’t stir again while Rae helped Omari pack and wrap the wound with fresh cloth. But still, he breathed.

When they finished, they both went to the basin to wash the blood from their hands. In the quiet, the frenzy of battle began to drain from Rae’s veins, and the reality of what had happened fell upon her. She felt overwhelmed. Exhausted. Numb. Her hands shook uncontrollably.

Omari, on the other hand, was luminous with triumph.

“We did it, Rae,” he said, leaning against his worktable. “We took their power, and we burned their house.”

“We did.” Rae knew she should feel the same—after all, the mission had been a great success. In fact, using the naft probably sent as strong a message to the High Khetarans as the stolen weapons. It was what needed to be done; what no one else had the courage to do.

It was your fault the guard woke up.

Clearly unsatisfied with Rae’s response, Omari went on. “Don’t you see? Tonight, Sakesh burns bright with the fires of vengeance!”

“It does,” Rae said, glancing back over to the sleeping rebel.

It’s your fault that he might die tonight.

Omari’s eyes were alight. “It was exhilarating, wasn’t it? Finally getting the chance to give those cursed High Khetarans what they deserved?”

Rae nodded.

You killed that soldier.

You crushed his skull.

Your robe is soaked in his blood.

Rae was no stranger to violence. She knew what she was getting into when she’d joined the Horizon. And she’d been the one to encourage the rebels to mount this attack. It was the right thing—the only thing—they could do to fight back.

But she’d never taken a life. She’d never imagined how that might feel. She’d had no choice, of course—it had been the soldier’s life or hers. But still… she couldn’t stop thinking about the shock and blood splatter on his face when he died, and the weight of his lifeless body.

Stop it , she told herself. You’re supposed to be stronger than this. This is war. How do you expect the men to respect you if you fall apart after the first battle? A battle we actually won?

Omari didn’t seem to notice the internal struggle going on in Rae’s mind.

“This is the beginning of our journey back to greatness, Rae,” he said, glancing out the window to the starry night beyond. “Isn’t it wonderful?”

Have courage, damn you , she thought, and stood a little straighter.

“Wonderful,” she said.