River god - Smith Wilbur (бесплатные онлайн книги читаем полные версии .txt) 📗

  'You diere, Kernit!' I heard Remrem challenge one of diem. 'Don't take such long steps, man, and swing that fat arse of yours a little! Try to make yourself alluring.'

  'Give me a kiss, captain,' Kernit called back, 'and I'll do anything you say.'

  The heat was rising, and the mirage was beginning to make die rocks dance. Tanus turned back to me. 'Soon I will call our first rest-stop. One cup of water for each?'

  'Good husband,' I interrupted him, 'your friends have arrived. Look ahead!'

  Tanus turned back, and instinctively gripped die stock of die great bow that hung at his side. 'And what fine fellows they are, too!'

  At that moment our column was winding through the first foothills below the desert plateau. On either hand we were walled in by the steep sides of the rocky hills. Now three men stood in the track ahead of us. The one who led them was a tall, menacing figure swathed in the woollen robe of the desert traveller, but his head was bared His skin was very dark, and deeply pitted with the scars of the smallpox. He had a nose that was hooked like the beak of a vulture, and his right eye was an opaque jelly from the blind-worm that burrows deep into the eyeball of its victims.

  'I know the one-eyed villain,' I said softly, so that Tanus alone could hear. 'His name is Shufti. He is the most notorious of the barons of the Shrikes. Be wary of him. The lion is a gentle beast compared to this one.'

  Tanus gave no sign of having heard me, but lifted his right hand to show that it held no weapon, and called out cheerfully, 'May all your days be scented with jasmine, gentle traveller, and may a loving wife welcome you at your own front door when at last your journey is done.'

  'May your water-skins stay filled and cool breezes fan your brow when you cross the Thirsty Sands,' Shufti called back, and he smiled. That smile was fiercer than a leopard's snarl, and his single eye glared horribly.

  'You are kind, my noble lord,' Tanus thanked him. 'I would like to offer you a meal and the hospitality of my camp, but I pray your indulgence. We have a long road before us, and we must pass on.'

  'Just a little more of your time, my fine Assyrian.' Shufti moved forward to block the path. 'I have something which you need, if you and your caravan are ever, to reach the Nile in safety.' He held up a small object.

  'Ah, a charm!' Tanus exclaimed. 'You are a magician, perhaps? What manner of charm is this you are offering me?'

  'A feather.' Shufti was still smiling. "The feather of a shrike.'

  Tanus smiled, as though to humour a child. 'Very well then, give me this feather and I'll delay you no longer.'

  'A gift for a. gift. You must give me something in return,' Shufti told him. 'Give me twenty of your slaves. Then, when you return from Egypt, I will meet you on the road again and you will give me half the profits from the sale of the other sixty.'

  'For a single feather?' Tanus scoffed. "That sounds like a sorry bargain to me.'

  "This is no ordinary feather. It is a shrike's feather,' Shufti pointed out. 'Are you so ill-informed that you have never heard of that bird?'

  'Let me see this magical feather.' Tanus walked towards him with his right hand outstretched, and Shufti came forward to meet him. At the same time Kratas, Remrem and Astes wandered up inquisitively, as though to examine the feather.

  Instead of taking the gift from his hand, suddenly Tanus seized Shufti's wrist and twisted it up between his shoulder-blades. With a startled cry, Shufti fell to his knees and Tanus held him easily. At the same time Kratas and his men darted forward, taking the other two bandits by as much surprise as their chief. They knocked the weapons out of their hands, and dragged them to where Tanus stood.

  'So, you little birds think to frighten Kaarik, the Assyrian, with your threats, do you? Yes, my fine vendor of feathers, I have heard of the Shrikes. I have heard that they are a flock of chattering, cowardly little fledglings, that make more noise than a flock of sparrows.' He twisted Shufti's arm more viciously, until the bandit yelled with pain and fell flat on his face. 'Yes, I have heard of the Shrikes, but have you heard of Kaarik, the terrible?' He nodded at Kratas, and quickly and efficiently they stripped the three Shrikes stark naked and pinned them spread-eagled upon the rocky earth.

  'I want you to remember my name, and fly away like a good little shrike when next you hear it,' Tanus told him, and nodded to Kratas again. Kratas flexed the lash of his slave-whip between his fingers. It was of the same type as Rasfer's famous tool, whittled from the cured hide of a bull hippopotamus. Tanus held out his hand for it, and reluctantly Kratas handed it over to him.

  'Don't look so sad, slave-master,' Tanus told him. 'I'll let you have your turn later. But Kaarik, the Assyrian, always takes the first spoonful from the pot.'

  Tanus slashed the whip back and forth through the air, and it whistled like the wing of a goose in flight. Shufti squirmed where he lay, and twisted his head around to hiss at Tanus, 'You are mad, you Assyrian ox! Do you not. realize that I am a baron of the Shrike clan? You dare not do this to me?' His naked back and buttocks were stippled with pox scars.

  Tanus lifted the whip on high, and then brought it down in a full-armed stroke with all his weight behind it. He laid a purple welt as fat as my forefinger across Shufti's back. So intense was the pain of it that the bandit's entire body convulsed and the ah- hissed out of his lungs, so that he could not scream. Tanus lifted the lash and then meticulously laid another ridged welt exactly parallel to the first, almost, but not quite, touching it. This time Shufti filled his lungs and let out a hoarse bellow, like a buffalo bull caught in a pitfall. Tanus ignored his struggles and his outraged roars, and worked on assiduously, laying on the strokes as though he were weaving a carpet.

  When at last he was done, his victim's legs, buttocks and back were latticed with the fiery weals. Not one of the blows had overlaid another. The skin was intact and not a drop of blood had spilled out, but Shufti was no longer wriggling or screaming. He lay with his face in the dirt, his breath snoring in his throat, so that each exhalation raised a puff of dust. When Remrem and Kratas released him, he made no effort to sit up. He did not even stir.

  Tanus tossed the whip to Kratas. "The next one is yours, slave-master. Let us see whdt a pretty pattern you can tattoo on his back.'

  Kratas' strokes hummed with power, but lacked the finesse that Tanus had demonstrated. Soon the bandit's back was leaking like a flawed jar of red wine. The droplets of blood fell into the dust and rolled into tiny balls of mud.

  Sweating lightly, Kratas was satisfied at last, and he passed the whip to Astes as he indicated the last victim. 'Give that one something to remind him of his manners, as well.'

  Astes had an even more rustic touch than Kratas. By the time he had finished, the last bandit's back looked like a side of fresh beef that had been cut up by a demented butcher.

  Tanus signalled the caravan to move forward, towards the pass through the red rock mountains. We lingered a while beside the three naked men.

  At last Shufti stirred and lifted his head, and Tanus addressed him civilly. 'And so, my friend, I beg leave of you. Remember my face, and step warily when you see it again.' Tanus picked up the fallen shrike's feather and tucked it into his headband. 'I thank you for your gift. May all your nights be cradled in the arms of lovely ladies.' He touched his heart and lips in the Assyrian gesture of farewell, and I followed him up the road after the departing caravan.

  I looked back before we dropped over the next rise. All three Shrikes were on their feet, supporting each other to remain upright. Even at this distance I could make out the expression on Shufti's face. It was hatred distilled to its essence.