Warrior Heroes: The Pharaoh's Charioteer Read online

  The other chariots drew up, the guard lowered his spear, Thami slumped to the ground, and the danger was past.

  * * *

  “For as long as I can remember it has been Thami’s desire to become a charioteer in my father’s army. He takes any opportunity to hunt so he can practise his skills.” Finn and Nefi were sitting by the campfire, going over the events of the day. The afternoon had passed uneventfully enough since the failed lion hunt, and the hunting party had set up camp in the open desert. The group had seemed subdued after Thami’s near miss, and after an evening dinner around the campfire all but two temple guards, who were posted as sentries, and Finn and Nefi, who wanted to talk, had retired to their tents.

  “‘We will make sure the Nubians can take him easily’,” said Nefi quietly. “What if they mean Thami, Finn?” Finn said nothing. He wanted to reassure her but in truth he shared her fear. He and Arthur had discussed the same thing earlier that evening while the temple guards were making camp. They had agreed that Arthur would do his best to stay with Thami at all times so they had some chance of influencing events.

  “If the Nubians were to capture Thami,” Nefi went on, “it would force my father to do what so many of his advisers want – to make war against Nubia. I just know that the high priest is planning something awful.”

  Finn had to agree, although there was still much that didn’t make sense. For one thing, he wondered, if the plan was to stage a kidnap, and assuming that the temple guards were part of the plot, why would they let Thami risk his life hunting lions? He would be no use to them dead.

  “Another reason why that guard was so determined to drive the lion away!” said Nefi, keeping her voice low.

  “I don’t want to tempt fate,” said Finn, “but if we’re right about this plot then where better…”

  He was interrupted by muffled shouts coming from the direction of the tent they were supposed to be sharing with Thami and Arthur. They scrambled to their feet and rushed back to it, both fearing the worst. Somewhere beyond the torches that ringed the camp they could hear horses’ hooves disappearing into the distance.

  Finn lifted back a flap of the tent and they both rushed inside. Nefi wailed. The tent was completely empty.

  EXTRACT FROM WARRIOR HEROES BY FINN BLADE

  CHARIOTS

  The Egyptians preferred using chariots to simple horse riding, especially when they went to war, and the pharaoh used the taxes he raised from the food that was grown in Egypt to pay for lots of chariot workshops.

  The basic design of a chariot was a platform, quite low to the ground, which sat on two large wooden wheels, with a metal guard wall at about waist height running around the front and sides. This guard wall would have offered some protection against enemy spears and arrows as well as rocks kicked up by the wheels. It was also something to lean on or hang on to if things got really exciting!

  The chariot was usually harnessed to two horses, who could then speed the charioteer around while charioteers were hunting or fighting. There were normally two people in each chariot. One would drive the horses, sometimes with his hands and sometimes with his body, by looping the reins around his waist. The other was a shield bearer, who would use his shield to protect both of them from enemy attack.

  The most useful weapons for charioteers were bows and arrows and spears – weapons that could be used from a distance.

  Chariots were expensive to make and expensive to maintain, not least because you needed two well-fed and well-trained horses. As a result, the charioteers were generally wealthy, elite soldiers, a little like European knights many centuries later.

  CHAPTER 5

  Arthur gasped when the blindfold was removed.

  He had been in complete darkness from the moment that a sack had been pulled over his head. There had been no warning. No sounds of a scuffle. Somehow the kidnappers had floated past the temple guard sentries undetected. In fact the only voices Arthur could remember were those of Finn and Nefi calling out as they ran over from the campfire. When he and Thami cried out for help they were swiftly knocked unconscious, and by the time they came round they were each slung across the back of a horse, bound and blindfolded.

  After several uncomfortable hours Arthur was dragged down off his horse and allowed to lie on a carpeted floor for a while, before being hauled to his feet again. He was marched up a long, steep flight of steps. He heard doors opening and closing, felt the ground beneath his feet become smoother, the air cooler and then warmer again, and then, with no warning at all, the blindfold was removed.

  White-hot daylight stung his eyes and he cowered back from it, groaning. He was totally confused, having switched from night to day in an instant, and he began to panic, his breath coming in rapid, ragged gasps and his torso convulsing against the ropes that still bound his hands.

  “Breathe deeply,” he heard someone say and repeat over and over. Slowly he regained control and began to relax. He looked around and squinted through the bright light at Thami. “Breathe deeply,” the boy kept saying. Arthur nodded. He began to take in a little more of his surroundings.

  They were in a small courtyard, circled by smooth walls that looked to be covered in something like beige cement. The ground was bare earth, the same colour as the walls. In front of them was a huge man, his skin as dark as Thami’s mother’s. He was clearly very important. Most of the other men in the courtyard appeared to be soldiers who were standing rigidly to attention, while the big man was seated on a raised platform with an overhead screen shading him. He looked the boys up and down, one after the other, lazily swishing a fly swat around in one hand as he did so.

  “You are Thamose,” he said at length in a soft, low voice, waving the fly swat in Thami’s direction, “son of the pharaoh of Egypt and his Nubian queen.” He let the words hang in the air, and Arthur felt suddenly very conscious that he was at the heart of some very dangerous politics. “And do you, my prisoner, know who I am?”

  Thami nodded and stared at the big man defiantly.

  “You are the Nubian general, and this is your fortress in the western desert. What do you want with my friend and me?” Thami’s royal breeding was showing. He sounded supremely confident, and the general chuckled.

  “Why does a general take a prince captive?” the big man asked, smiling broadly.

  “To start a war!” Arthur cut in, his senses now fully restored. Even as he said it, he knew it sounded stupid. Why would the Nubians actively seek to provoke Egypt, the most powerful kingdom in the region, maybe in the world, into open war?

  Thami shook his head.

  “You don’t want a war, General, but that is what you’ll get. You want to hold my father to ransom. You want him to agree payment of tributes to you in return for my release. Well, he won’t do it!”

  The general stood and looked down at Thami steadily. “You are a symbol, boy,” he growled. “He won’t pay tribute just for your life. He will pay tribute to prevent war. I know the pharaoh is weakened in his own palace by his closest advisers. They plot and scheme. The high priest wants one thing; the generals want another. Plenty of people want to overthrow your father. He can’t risk going to war so he’ll pay. My messengers are on their way to Thebes as we speak. You should pray that the pharaoh listens to them.”

  “You have been misled, General,” said Thami. “Certainly there are those who wish to overthrow the pharaoh, and certainly the high priest is one of them, but that is not all he wants. He also wants Egypt to make war on Nubia. The high priest sees your presence here as an insult. You must know it is he who set up this kidnapping! He hopes to use it as a means of persuading my father to go to war, not to pay you tribute!”

  “General, please,” said a young man Arthur had not noticed before, stepping out from behind the platform. “This is what I was afraid of before the raid. Egypt is not as weak as our spies are being led to believe. We cannot risk a war – it could easily end in defeat for us and there are those in Thebes who long for that to happen. Eve
n if we are not defeated we cannot conquer Egypt! We need not fall into the high priest’s trap. Let the prisoners go now before it is too late. Think how many will die if we go to war…”

  Doubt flickered across the general’s face for a moment, but then he scowled.

  “You question my judgement too much, Prince Shaharqo. I will always be loyal to your father but remember, military decisions are mine. Guards, take them!” He swished the fly swat at the boys as soldiers grabbed an arm each and led them away.

  Arthur did his best to remember every detail of the fortress as they were marched through it. The word ‘fortress’ had made him think of a castle, but as they were pushed along he soon realised they were in more of a fortified town than a castle. They walked along narrow, dusty lanes between terraced buildings, passing groups of soldiers at every turn, then up steps and eventually out onto the outer wall of the fortress, which was at least ten metres high. From here they could see out across the desert, although Arthur was surprised to observe that immediately around the fortress were trees and green fields.

  “We are at one of the desert oases,” said Thami, following Arthur’s train of thought. “There is water here, hence the fortress.”

  They continued along the wall to a short, stubby tower, which they stooped to enter through a narrow doorway. From here the stairs led down again, and continued down by Arthur’s reckoning to below ground level. At the bottom of the final flight of stairs the boys were pushed into a small, windowless room, lit by an oil lamp and furnished comfortably enough with rugs and cushions. Without a word, the guards cut the ropes that bound the boys’ hands, then turned and re-climbed the stairs. They had passed no other doors onto the stairs as they went down, and Arthur concluded that the only way out was back up the tower and onto the fortress wall.

  Deprived once again of natural light, the boys soon lost all sense of time. They were free to move around within the small cell and Arthur even ventured up the steps again but soon confirmed that, although they were not locked in, the only way out was the tiny doorway that linked the tower to the wall – and that had two armed guards outside it.

  Arthur was alarmed to note that Thami’s mood had deteriorated badly. Gone was the mask of regal confidence and authority he had displayed in front of the general, and the prince now lay sprawled in a corner, his face a picture of despair.

  “This isn’t over yet,” said Arthur carefully, “and it’s not your fault in any case.”

  Thami snorted. “I will be the reason that my mother’s people and my father’s people go to war. What else is there to say?” Already the horror that would haunt him for the next three thousand years was taking hold.

  “Then we must try to escape,” said Arthur briskly. “What we can’t do is give up. You are a prince of Egypt, a son of the pharaoh, a hunter of lions and a future charioteer. We will fight this until it’s over. Yes?”

  Slowly Thami lifted his head and his gaze settled on Arthur. He seemed smaller than before, as if stooping beneath a great weight, but he gave Arthur the slightest of nods.

  “Let’s start by seeing if we can make a rope out of these rugs,” said Arthur, keen to give them both something to do. The rugs were woven very tightly, and just to extract one row of thread was a painstaking task. To extract enough to twist into a long enough rope to descend from the fortress walls would take them days, and as they settled into working rhythms, the repetitive finger-picking had an almost soothing effect.

  They worked in silence like this for a while, and Arthur’s thoughts turned for the first time to Finn. What would his brother be doing now? Had he been taken captive too? And what of Nefi? Better not let Thami start thinking like this, he thought, snapping back into his present environment.

  “We should talk through exactly who is plotting what,” he said abruptly. Thami looked up and nodded, and they began to discuss the possibilities. They kept coming back to the idea that the high priest was at the centre of the plot and that he had helped the Nubians kidnap Thami to provoke all-out war.

  “But is the high priest hoping the war will damage the Nubians or your father?” Arthur wondered out loud.

  “I think it’s both,” Thami replied. “He’s always made it obvious that he hates my mother and her people. And he would happily see the Nubians crushed. But most of all he wants to be rid of the pharaoh so that he can acquire more power for himself and the temple by helping someone else onto the throne. War suits him in every way.”

  “I wonder how the high priest managed to fool the general here so well. He seems clever enough…”

  “I have been wondering exactly the same thing,” said someone from the stairway. Both boys jumped and dropped the rugs they were working on. Whoever it was had come down the stairs without a sound. He stepped into the room and Arthur recognised him at once.

  “Prince Shaharqo!” Thami exclaimed.

  Arthur swallowed nervously. Had the prince heard them talking about escape?

  “It gives me no pleasure to see an Egyptian prince a prisoner here,” said Shaharqo, and he seemed sincere. “I think that the general is being led into a trap, and unless someone stops him he is going to lead our whole army to war and a great many soldiers will die.”

  “Yes,” said Thami desperately. “What did your spies suggest would happen if I were taken hostage?” Arthur grew hopeful. Maybe Shaharqo could be persuaded to let them go in secret.

  “We were told that the high priest wanted to force the pharaoh into a position where he had to pay us tribute, and therefore would be seen as weak by others in Egypt. My father, the king of Nubia, thought it was an opportunity to enrich our kingdom.”

  “But the high priest hates Nubia,” said Thami. “He has been pressing for war for months now. And I know my father. The Nile will run dry before he pays tribute to another king. We have to stop this. The only person who will benefit from a war is…”

  “The high priest,” they all said at once.

  Arthur was overwhelmed by the size of the spider’s web they were caught in. The idea that one person’s political ambition and lies could be the reason for two kingdoms to go to war was almost too much to comprehend.

  “There is something I should tell you, in the spirit of trust,” said Shaharqo. “I led the raiding party to kidnap you. I did not like the plan, but I know my duty.”

  Thami shrugged. “That doesn’t matter now,” he said.

  “I haven’t finished. There were two other youths at the camp when we took you. A boy and a girl. I left a man behind to see what happened. He reports that the boy and the girl ran away from the camp. He tracked them because they weren’t heading for Thebes. They were following us…”

  CHAPTER 6

  As they stood in the tent where their brothers had been sleeping, Finn and Nefi knew they had a matter of seconds to act.

  “Come on,” Nefi hissed. “If we stay we won’t be able to do anything. If we run we may be able to help them.” Finn needed no more convincing. Apart from everything else, he had no desire to stay with the temple guards now that Thami was no longer with them. They heard voices approaching outside, and Nefi rushed to the back of the tent and slashed at it with her knife. Finn followed her through the cut and out into the night. Stooping low, they ran towards the tethered horses. One of the men was keeping watch over the animals, guarding against hyenas or anything else that might attack in the night. Nefi and Finn dropped to the ground behind a small ridge of earth but as they did so the shouts of the men near the tent caught the guard’s attention and he ran towards his friends. The horses, sensing something was up, were grinding their teeth and pawing at the ground.

  Nefi chose the two that were calmest and cut their tethering ropes before leaping up onto one of them. They were much smaller than modern horses, but nonetheless Finn struggled to get on as there was no saddle and no stirrups. After two failed attempts Nefi brought her horse alongside and reached out a hand to help Finn onto his.

  “They’re gone!” one of the
guards shouted from the other side of the camp. “The boy and the girl are gone!”

  Finn and Nefi kicked their horses into action and sped away.

  From time to time it seemed to Finn that they were being followed.

  They had left the camp far behind, and Nefi had found her way back to the line of hills that the lion had escaped into the previous day. Once they had gained the upper ridge line, Nefi said all they had to do was follow it until morning and they would arrive at the oasis.

  The moon had disappeared, but although the desert sky seemed to be filled with more stars than Finn had ever imagined, they did not provide enough light to see by. Certainly there was no hunting party coming after them, but now and again Finn was sure he could hear another horse’s hooves. Each time, they would rein their horses in and listen and each time there would be no sound, but the feeling would not go away until finally they heard, below them rather than behind, the sound of a solitary rider overtaking them and speeding ahead towards the Nubian fortress.

  Finn and Nefi stared at one another, dismayed. It seemed too much of a coincidence to hope that the unknown rider was doing anything other than reporting their approach to the Nubians. They dismounted, both suddenly exhausted. They had not slept all night and the adrenaline that had kept them going so far left them empty now they knew they were not being followed by the temple guards. They had no food or water, and no shelter, but pressing ahead towards an enemy who knew they were coming seemed foolish. They sat huddled together with the blankets from the horses’ backs around their shoulders. Finn was amazed by how cold he now felt, when during the day the desert was almost too hot to bear.

  “We were stupid to think we could help,” he said glumly. “We should have let the guards take us back to Thebes.”

  “They would never have let us warn my father though. They’d have killed us before letting that happen. We had to run. All we can do for now is try to survive. Anyway, get some sleep. We’ll need energy tomorrow if we’re going to make it.” Nefi lay down and Finn did the same, and they both drifted into a restless, uncomfortable half-sleep.