The She-King: The Complete Saga by L.M. Ironside & Libbie Hawker

Author:L.M. Ironside & Libbie Hawker [Ironside, L.M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Running Rabbit Press
Published: 2014-02-22T00:00:00+00:00

From the nearest tower, she watched as the garrison ringed the camp, met the raiders with a clash of bronze, a shout of anger and hatred, a sound that rang and carried across the distance to her ears. Nehesi tore linen from his kilt, soaked it with water from a soldier's discarded skin. He dabbed at her broken lip.

Hatshepsut stared beyond her guardsman's shoulder to the battle. A tent had caught fire; the smoke obscured the field, and she growled in her impotent fury, waving her hands in desperation as if she might clear the view, as if she could will the Egyptians to victory if only she could see.

“Easy,” Nehesi said. “This lip is bad. Let me clean it.”

She winced. Suddenly she could feel the pain of it, and she burned with hatred for Thutmose.

“We must go out to them. We must help.”

“And what can you do for them, begging your pardon, Great Lady? You are seventeen, and a woman.”

“I can fight.” Tears flooded her eyes. The field obscured further, bled into a mess of smoke and brilliant color, the banners and blood of men. “I will fight! Give me a spear; I will kill them all, every last Kushite! I could do it. I could.”

“I know.”

The eerie brazen wail of a Kushite horn sounded. And again, a quavering call. Nehesi made an abrupt sound, part laugh, part grunt. “They're sounding the retreat. We have beaten them, Lady!”

Hatshepsut dashed the tears from her eyes. She leaned from the tower, across the parapet, the rough new stone pressing the breath from her lungs. A breeze lifted on the river, and the smoke moved into the hills, sluggish and dark. Several tents had collapsed and two had burned, but the Pharaoh's striped pavilion still stood. The Egyptian forces had drawn into a tight ring around the pavilion. Bodies lay scattered across the plain. And far beyond the remains of the encampment, a ragged band of men made for the mouth of the ravine, pursued by a handful of chariots.

She turned from the scene, her body tingling with relief . She shook violently as the madness of the battle left her, leaving in its place a watery, dizzy weakness. She laughed, threw herself into Nehesi's arms. He supported her down the tower steps, into the fortress's yard, through the gate. A lone chariot drove to meet them: the general, who reined his horses to a stop, leapt to the ground and raised both his palms to her in awed salute.

“Great Lady,” he said. “The gods alone know how many men you saved today. At the pace we were moving, we would never have seen the ambush before it had taken our rear.”

She did not know what to say. She stood leaning on her guardsman, blinking at the general. Suddenly aware that she had lost her wig, she raised a trembling hand to her head, self-conscious and overwhelmed.

“Come, Great Lady. This battle is yours.”

Nehesi helped her into the chariot. Her knees felt on the verge of collapse; she held tight to the rail, swaying.

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