Free City of the Dead by Anton Gill Page B

hit by a horse’s hoof?’
    'It’s possible. But a horse is unlikely, because if they’d still been in the shaft, the chariot wouldn’t have capsized.’
    ‘And if he’d struck the chariot itself?’
    ‘It’s possible,’ repeated Nehesy, but he looked doubtful again.
    ‘Why is it unlikely? What is it?’
    Nehesy shook his head. ‘He must have hit the shaft somehow - or perhaps the hub of one of the wheels.’
    ‘Why only that?’
    ‘Because the body of the chariot is made of electrum — it’s very light. If a man’s head — or a block of wood or stone -anything hard - were to hit it, it would dent and cave in.’
    Huy was silent. Somehow, he had to see the chariot. But doubts were turning into certainties now.
    The dogs were specks on the desert, two hundred paces away, near the low rise of a dune. They would not respond when Nehesy called them.
    ‘Let’s go,’ said the huntsman, if they won’t come, they’ve found something.’
    They mounted the chariot and drove the short distance. As they came to a halt once more, the horses shook their heads uneasily.
    There would have been more of a stink if it had not been for the drying quality of the sand. As it was, the usual sweet stench, which filled your mouth and nostrils like foul rags, driving its long fingers down your throat and into your stomach, was replaced by a strong, musky odour. The dogs had not uncovered much yet — the meat was too bad for them to eat and in any case they were well enough trained to see that this was no food for them. From beneath the sand an arm rose, the fingers crooked except the index, which pointed towards the sky- Nehesy fetched a wooden spade from the chariot, strapped there to dig out bogged wheels, and began to clear away the soft sand of the dune.
    The man was a husk - skin dried, eyes gone, mouth open, the cavities, cleaner beetles were busily at work. He might ave been caught in the act of swimming, the raised arm Caching diagonally back from his shoulder. Nehesy scraped away further, while the dogs watched with detached, intelligent interest. The hair of the corpse was dark and choked with sand, a forest in which small creatures crept. It stared at them forlornly from its eyeless orbits.
    There was an untidy wound in his ribcage near his heart - someone had slashed at him from horseback. In his other hand he grasped a small linen bag. Huy took it and opened it. It contained five kite.
    ‘A hard fee to resist,’ said Huy. ‘Your tracker?’
    ‘Yes. But why leave him here?’
    ‘There probably wasn’t time to take him with them. How would they have done it? A quick burial. It’s far enough away. No one would have expected anyone to come up here again within days — and with dogs.’
    ‘But why kill him?’
    ‘That’s another question,’ said Huy. ‘Maybe he changed his mind, decided to try to warn the king. Perhaps there was a panic. Perhaps they never intended to let him live.’
    ‘And why leave the money?’
    ‘He’d earned his fee. Take it back, and his Ka would have sent a ghost after it.’
    Nehesy nodded.
    They reburied the remains of the tracker, as deep as they could, and Nehesy left the wooden shovel stuck in the mound above him as a marker. Huy recited what protecting words he could remember from The Book of the Dead:

‘I am yesterday and I know tomorrow.
I am able to be born a second time...
I rise up as a great hawk going out of its egg.
I fly away as a hawk whose back is four paces long...
I am the snake, the son of the earth, multiplying
The years I lay myself down, and am brought forth every day.
I am the snake, the son of the earth, at the ends
Of the earth. I lay myself down and am brought forth
Fresh, renewed, grown young again every day...
I am the crocodile presiding over fear.
I am the god-crocodile at the arrival of his soul among the shades.
I am the god-crocodile brought in for destruction.

    The sun was already above the distant hills. They climbed into the chariot and