Shield of the Sun, Part 28

 Kefu spent the night in the Aamu camp, rose at the first hint of dawn, and checked on the Bedouin, he was dead. He ate a small bowl of cold dura porridge and stared nervously at the animal that the Aamu had ridden. The beast was feeding on the fodder and looked quiet enough, but he wondered if it would stay quiet when attempt to ride on its back. Having seen the leader ride on this one and the speed of the others as they ran last night, he knew that if only he could ride the beast he stood a good chance of reaching Kemet long before the Aamu army.

The Aamu would probably spend several more days in celebrating their victory, before packing up camp and marching to Kemet on foot. Hanno had told him of the wheeled machines each pulled a pair of the beasts and how the surprise of their attack had broken the army of Kemet. But since they were small in numbers Kefu didn’t think they would stray far from the main body of the army.

The tethered beast gave a snort and skittered away at his approach, he cursed and then tried talking to it gently as he move slowly forward. The beast eyed him warily, but let him approach and stroke it’s neck and muzzle the way he used to stroke that of his uncles donkey. He had ridden his uncles donkey as a boy and while this animal was a little taller than a donkey it shouldn’t be any harder to ride, he hoped. Leaving the beast tethered he scrambled up onto its back, apart from a few shuffling steps the animal put up with his presence.

He dismounted and looked closely at the tether. It was fastened to a stake driven into the sand and the other end was attached to one side of a rope harness about the beasts head. He wondered how he would hold on once he remounted. Then he remembered that the Aamu leader had stopped the animal from escaping the night before by grabbing the trailing tether and before mounting had discarded the stake and tied the loose end to the other side of the harness. With one problem solved he moved on to the next, he needed to carry some fodder for the animal in case it was needed.

Some of the donkeys that were in the army’s baggage train had carried fodder on their backs but the vast majority of the donkeys carried supplies, and fodder for those animals had been cached alongside the water. However the donkey men and the merchants who were behind the army would have fled back across the desert and he wasn’t sure if there would be any fodder left in the caches. There was a rope nearby, possibly for that purpose and he used it to tie the fodder into a large bundle and fashion a sling so the it would hang at his back. Lastly he took a blanket that covered one of the dead, folded it in half and placed it over the beasts back. His uncle, who was well built man, always placed a blanket over his donkeys back if he were to ride any distance. He said it cut down on the blisters.

His preparations completed Kefu clambered onto the beast, kicked in his heels and fell off. The beast carried for a few paces then stopped, turned its head and snorted. Picking himself up he remounted, adjust the bundle of fodder so that it wouldn’t unbalance him and kicking in his heels gently, held onto rope. The animal moved off at a walking pace and to Kefu’s amazement he didn’t fall off. There was only one problem they were going in the wrong direction. Now what was he to do?

They need to go to the right. He pulled on the rope attached to the right hand side of the harness and was surprised when the animal responded. Kefu chuckled to himself and pulled left, again the animal obeyed. For a while they travelled a zigzag course, still at a walking pace, as he practice his commands and then he sucked in a breath and dug in his heels again. The animal broke into a trot and he clung on with whitened knuckles and clenched knees. He had increased the speed without falling off, but how did he stop? He hauled back hard on the rope. The beast stopped dead. He didn’t, he flew through the air with the grace of flailing sack and somehow landed on his back. The animal shook its head, snickered and showed its teeth. Kefu lay until he recovered his breath, then stood, dusted himself down and remounted. He had a stubborn determined streak and no way would he give in until he could at least manage to gain rudimentary control of the animal. He remounted and this time after allowing the animal to trot for a while, he pulled back steadily and slowed to a walking place he pulled back again and they came to a stop.

The Sun God Ra was midway in his journey across the sky when they reach the second cache and Kefu groaned with pleasure as he dismounted. His backside was sore, his spine felt as it had compacted and his thighs felt as if they were rubbed raw. But he had travelled in four hours, a distance that would have taken a day on foot, so he was pleased. Here again someone had beaten him to the cache and there were a few broken jars lying around. Worse still there was a large hole where the fodder had been. He dug up two full water jars, poured some into a broken jar for the animal and drank some himself. When his thirst was sated he refilled the broken jar for the animal, scattered some of the fodder from his bundle and used the blanket as a shelter from the sun.

So used was he to travelling through the night and sleeping through the hottest part of the day that he fell asleep. As he slept he dreamt of his wife Teu and his children, his son Aha and his daughter Neffer. In the dream it was the day of Aha’s third birthday and they were sitting outside in the sun. He with his arm around his wife and she with her head on his shoulder. They were laughing as his five year old daughter, who had help her mother prepare the birthday feast, was force feeding him with sweetmeats. At their feet the birthday boy was sitting in the dust of the yard making grunting and growling noises as he played with the carved animals that were his birthday gift from his father. It was a happy family scene from only a year ago and he smiled in his sleep at the memory of that happy day.

His family home was in the settlement of Ma’adi that sat on the opposite bank of the great river to that of the pyramids of the old Pharaohs. The settlement was to the north of the royal city of Memphis and stood directly in the path of the invading army and his happy dream turned to a nightmare as he saw in his minds eye a pack of starving dogs tearing at a body that lay amongst the burnt embers, all that remained of what was once a thriving village. The picture of destruction was so vivid that cried out in despair and came awake in an instant to find the animal staring at him with shocked brown eyes. He assumed it had been dozing and his shout had startled it awake.

‘What?’ he asked.

The animal snickered and kicked the empty broken jar and it was only then that he realised that it had been standing there right through the hottest part of the day. Quickly he fetched more water and after seeing to the animal took a drink himself. After quenching his thirst he checked the hole where the fodder had been and managed to find a little that had been missed. He shook off the sand, added some more from his bundle, gave both to the animal and then ate himself. It was only more cold dura porridge which made a monotonous diet, but would suffice to keep him alive. Beside the only other food he carried with him were a few strips of dried serpent that had been given to him by Hanno, and those he intended to leave until he was absolutely desperate.

It was still hot but the fierceness had gone from Ra’s rays now and even though he was still sore and dreaded getting back onto the animals back, the urgency of saving his family overcame all thoughts of pain. He flung the bundle of fodder over his back tied his food pouch and a water skin to his belt. Mounted up, he set off for the next cache and slid slowly down from his blanket saddle four hours later, after reaching his destination. If anything the soreness he felt was worse than it had been that morning, he was frightened to move and he was certain he would never be able to sit again. After standing quite still for some time, he plucked up the courage to move, staggered over to where the water jars were buried and groaned as he sank carefully to his knees. Uncovering one water jar he groaned even louder as he stood and carried it over to where the animal waited patiently. After poring half of the water into another broken jar, he took a drink and upended the rest over his head. The water though not particularly cold refreshed him and even seemed ease some of the stiffness in his back. He check the cache, this time there was no fodder, it had all gone, so dug up another jar of water, gave some more to the animal. After Spreading some more fodder from his now depleted bundle, he filled his water skin and sat down to work things out.