"Get him! Now!"
The words rang through the air, carrying an edge of cruelty.
"We'll teach him a lesson," another voice, equally vicious,snarled. "Show him a thing or two."
Lieutenant Bak, officer in charge of a unit of Medjay policeuntil recently posted on the southern frontier, was instantlystruck by the meanness he heard. His head snappedaround and he looked along the waterfront. His Medjay sergeantImsiba and Lieutenant Karoya, head of the harbor patrol,followed his glance. They saw three men in the distance,standing at the mouth of what they knew was a dead-endlane. The object of their hatred had to be trapped inside.
A third voice shouted, "Cast him back into the desert hecame from."
"Not enough!" the first man snapped. "We must send amessage to others like him. They've no right to defile thestreets our sovereign treads."
Exchanging a quick glance of mutual agreement, Bak, Imsiba,and Karoya raced up the broad, open street, lined ontheir right by ships moored along the riverbank and on theirleft by several blocks of interconnected buildings.
"Let's geld him," the second man yelled.
"Yes!"
The three ruffians, so intent on their victim they failed tonotice the approaching men, slipped into the lane.
Bak slowed as he neared the opening and raised a finger tohis lips, urging silence. Followed closely by his companions,he crept to the corner and peered down the narrow passagethat, hugged between two rows of adjoining buildings, lay indeep shadow. Though the three scoundrels blocked the way,he could see at the far end a man clad in a brownish kilt, witha wrap of a darker color around his shoulders. He held a longshepherd's staff horizontal to the ground as if to bar theirway. Behind him, a woman stood half-hidden by a ladendonkey, clinging to its rope lead.
"Look what he's brought with him!" one of the ruffianschortled. "As dirty as the desert she came from, but a choicebit nonetheless."
"Get him out of the way," the most dominant of the threesaid, brandishing a short whip that ended in several thongsknotted at the ends to hurt more. "Then we'll take her."
"You'll take no one!" Bak, his tone as hard as granite,stepped into the broad shaft of sunlight that reached into themouth of the passage. He was a man of medium height withshort-cropped dark hair and broad, muscular shoulders. Seniorto his two companions, he carried only his baton of office.A symbol of power that, when used with purpose, couldbe a deadly weapon.
The men swung around, startled. Their leader, the quickestto recover, sneered, "Who are you to tell us what to do?"
"Drop your weapons!" Karoya moved up beside Bak,brandishing his spear and holding before him, so none couldmistake his authority, the black-and-white cowhide shield ofthe harbor patrol. The young Medjay officer was tall andslim, with a tribal tattoo on his left upper arm.
Imsiba took his place beside them. The Medjay sergeant,the tallest of the three, was as lithe and graceful as a leopard.He carried a long spear and the black shield the men of Bak's company had chosen as their own while posted at the frontierfortress of Buhen.
"Are we supposed to be afraid of three men?" the leader ofthe ruffians scoffed. "Bah! The odds are in our favor."
Bak had to smile at how highly the man overrated himselfand his friends.
One of the men said, "Kames, maybe we'd better ..."
Kames laughed harshly. "Don't worry, my timid friend.We'll give them something they'll not soon forget." Heswaggered toward the policemen, raising the whip and slappingthe hard-packed...
)
The Gods blessed Lieutenant Bak, head of the Medjay police, with a rare brilliance--which is why he is the one to whom his commander turns in a time of need. The explorer Minnakht has vanished into the vast and merciless Egyptian desert--or perhaps has strayed perilously close to Queen Maatkare Hatshepsut's well-guarded turquoise mines--and before Bak sails north on a new assignment he is to seek out the missing man. But evil is traveling with him and his Medjays in the caravan they accompany eastward. Someone--or something--is responsible for the strange rash of deaths that is rapidly thinning the numbers of their fellow travelers. A straightforward search for a missing adventurer becomes a twisted knot of treachery and blood--one that threatens to strangle the life from Bak and his men and leave them buried for all eternity beneath the blistering sands.
