05 The Quest by Wilbur Smith

Author:Wilbur Smith [Smith, Wilbur]
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

The hunters had killed more than forty large animals, so it was a few days before all the carcasses could be butchered, the meat smoked and packed aboard the barges. Only then could they board the galleys and continue the voyage southward. When Tinat was back with his officers he became aloof and unapproachable once more. Watching him with the Inner Eye, Taita saw that he was regretting their conversation and the disclosures he had made. He was fearful of the consequences of his indiscretion.

The wind veered into the north and freshened. The galleys shipped their oars and hoisted large lateen sails. White water curled under their prows and the shore flew by on the starboard side. On the fifth morning after the hunt they reached the mouth of another tributary. Coming down from the high ground to the west, it poured an enormous volume of water into the lake. Taita heard the crew talking among themselves, and the name ‘Kitangule’ bandied about. Clearly that was the name of the river before them. He was not surprised when the captain ordered the sail to be lowered and the oars run out once more. Their galley led the flotilla into the Kitangule and pushed against the mighty flow.

Within a few leagues they had come to a large settlement built along the riverbank. Here, there were shipyards with the unfinished hulls of two large vessels lying on the slipways. Workmen swarmed over them, and Taita pointed out the overseers to Meren. ‘That accounts for the foreign design of the ships in this squadron. All must have been built in these yards, and those who built them are unmistakably from the lands beyond the Indus.’

‘How came they to this place, so far from their own land?’ Meren wondered.

‘There is something here that attracts worthy men from afar, like bees to a garden of flowers.’

‘Are we bees also, Magus? Does the same attraction entice us?’

Taita looked at him with surprise. This was an unusually perceptive idea from Meren. ‘We have come here to fulfil a sacred oath made to Pharaoh,’ he reminded him. ‘However, now that we have arrived we must be on our guard. We must never allow ourselves to be turned into dreamers and lotus-eaters, as it seems so many of these Jarrians are.’

The flotilla sailed on up the river. Within days they had encountered the first cataracts of white water that blocked the river from bank to bank. This did not daunt Tinat and his captains, for at the foot of the torrent there was another small village, and beyond that extensive cattle stockades, which held herds of humped oxen.

Passengers, horses and slaves disembarked on to the bank. With only the crews still on board, the vessels were hitched with heavy ropes of twisted liana to teams of oxen and dragged up the chutes of fast water. Ashore, the men and horses climbed the track that ran beside the cascade until they reached higher ground. Above the cataracts the river was deep and placid, and the galleys rode lightly at anchor.

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