The Age of Ra

21. Anubians

At dawn, not far from the border, David found Steven atop a low ridge, facing east. Behind them the encampment was coming to life, the Lightbringer's army getting ready for the push into Arabia. Ahead, the desert was lit in shades of virgin pink and baby blue. The camp was filled with clatter and bustle as meals were eaten and tents put away, but from the landscape ahead came a tremendous, primordial silence that seemed to sweep all before it, the engulfing soundlessness that must have existed at the world's beginning and would be all that remained at its end.

Steven, hearing the crunch of footfalls, twitched his head. He had been lost in contemplation of the sunrise. He turned.

''Dave,'' he said. ''Glad it's you. Don't feel up to talking to anyone else just at this moment.''

''What's the matter?'' David asked.

''Nothing,'' his brother said. He rubbed a hand back and forth over the top of his mask, as though trying to carve the white sphere of his head even smoother. ''Nothing. Just… vertigo, that's all.''

David glanced around. The ridge they were standing on was a bump in the earth, barely twenty feet high. ''This is hardly Everest.''

''Not actual vertigo, dimwit. Metaphorical. We're about to take an immense step. A step over a precipice, it feels like.''

''Doubt? You?''

''Not so much doubt. A sense of… I'd say destiny, except you'd laugh.''

''I would, too.''

''This is it, Dave. Today we make the move that'll bring the full wrath of the Nephs down on our heads. The Setics probably as well. Once we cross the Arabian border there's no going back. We go from nuisance to threat. We'll no longer be something the Nephs try to brush off, we'll be something they're duty-bound to crush.''

''But that's what you want, isn't it? That's why we've come all this way. To draw the Nephs out. To face them in open battle.''

''Absolutely. And if we can get them to confront us on the particular battleground I have in mind, then we stand every chance of winning. After all, he who chooses the battleground has half won the battle already, as some wise man once said. Probably me. If they go for us before then, though, we're pretty much buggered.''

''The way I see it, we're pretty much buggered whatever happens. We're taking on one holy power bloc, possibly two, with three-thousand-odd men and largely outmoded weaponry. Chances of outright victory? Nil, I'd say.''

''Remember your Classical Civilisation at school?'' Steven said. ''Three hundred Spartans defeated a million Persians at Thermopylae. The right tactics in the right location can work wonders.''

''As I recall, the Spartans all died.''

''But they saved Greece, and their memory lives on.''

''You're not in this for posthumous fame, though,'' David pointed out.

''No. I'm after the world's freedom, nothing else. Your freedom, mine, everyone's. An end to religious wars. An end to multiple, fractious divine dictatorship. A better future. Getting the human race up off its knees and standing on its own two feet. We may well die achieving it but I'd prefer not to. I'd much rather live to enjoy the benefits of what I've done.''

''But still,'' David said, ''you're feeling that this is the moment you could back out, if you were going to.''

Through the mask Steven scratched one side of his face, the scarred side, pensively.

''I'm feeling like Caesar must have when he was about to invade Rome and spark civil war,'' he said. ''This is my Rubicon. I have to forge ahead, knowing that there's no real alternative. Happy, in a way, that there's no real alternative. Why are you talking like this anyway? You thinking you'd like to back out?''

''Not me.''

''I wouldn't blame you. I wouldn't hold it against you either. If you want to call it a day, Dave, feel free. I mean it. You've done all that I could have expected or asked for. More. You can bow out now with my complete blessing. I'd be disappointed but I'd understand.''

''No,'' David said firmly. ''I'm here to see this through — all the way through.''

''Spoken like a true Westwynter.''

''Spoken like a true brother, I think you'll find.''

The Lightbringer mask creased into a smile. ''If we were the hugging kind we'd hug right now, wouldn't we?''

''But we're not the hugging kind.''

''I know. Born British, boarding school education, emotionally constipated parents — it's a recipe for repression. I think even a manly bonding handshake is beyond us.''

''How about a clap on the shoulder?'' David offered.

''A mutual infliction of slight pain? That'll do.''

David clapped him on the shoulder. Steven clapped back.

''And don't worry about what's coming,'' Steven said. ''It's like a game of senet. Whatever the other fellow does, there's always at least one move you can make to counteract it. And then there's the throw of the sticks, the element of randomness that can bring you a stroke of good fortune when you're least expecting it and most need it, and hang on a tick, what in the name of hell are those?''

Steven leaned forward, peering at the horizon.

Out of the low orange sun seven black dots had appeared. A sound could be heard, all but swallowed by the vast desert stillness, a throbbing bassy pulse that resonated through the bones of the skull. The black dots grew larger, each taking on a recognisable outline.

''Helicopter gunships,'' Steven breathed. ''Shit. The Nephs aren't messing about. They're coming for us already. Right! We need to get those Scarab tanks front and centre, pronto!'' He snatched the shortwave handset from his belt and switched it on.

''Wait.'' David laid a hand on his arm. ''Just hold on.''

''Hold on? The fucking things'll be on us in no time!''

''They're not Nephthysian. Profile's wrong. No Neph choppers have wheel farings like that. Those ones haven't got camouflage paintjobs either. Not khaki desert-pattern. Plain black.''

''Black?''

''Anubian.''

Steven's next question was ''What the fuck are Anubian gunships doing all the way over here, about a million miles from home?''

David was wondering the same thing, and he was minded to think that Steven was right. The tanks with their ba artillery should be brought into play to defend the encampment.

Instinct was telling him something different, however. The choppers were not flying at top speed and they were taking an all too obvious line of approach. If this were a sneak attack, they'd be coming in from two sides at once and would almost certainly have opened fire already. They were well within range. The element of surprise had been theirs. They had chosen not to take advantage of it.

Why?

David had a sneaking suspicion he knew why.

The gunships roared over his and Steven's heads in a chevron formation, then over the camp. Down there, people were milling about in confusion. David could see armaments being broached, men running to the Scarab tanks.

''Order everyone to stand down, Steven,'' he said. ''It isn't what it looks like.''

''You sure?''

''If it were, we wouldn't be alive and having this conversation.''

Steven barked into the shortwave in Arabic. Then, together, the two brothers set off down the hill at a run.

The helicopters landed a mile beyond the camp, their downdraught kicking up a small sandstorm. Steven and David commandeered a jeep and drove out to greet them. By the time they got there the choppers' engines were powering down, their rotors resolving from disc-shaped blurs to sets of whirling vanes and finally coming to a rest. They were C39 Cranes, superb aircraft, Japanese-conceived and Indonesian-built, sizeable yet agile beasts, sporting a full suite of conventional and ba-tech offensive capability. In design they were all smooth planes and sharp angles. Even their undercarriage was cowled for extra sleekness and aerodynamicity. Viewed side on, their shape was reminiscent of a meat cleaver. Their function was much the same.

David's guess was that they had flown up from the Indian Ocean. Anubian aircraft carriers prowled the international waters there, keeping an eye on things across the way from the Malay Archipelago. Refuelling stops could have been made in Ethiopia and Arabia, at commercial airports and most likely at gunpoint.

This was a rogue unit. The helicopters would not, could not, be here under official sanction. The men in them were deserters.

A door opened outward from one of the choppers and a black-clad soldier emerged. He jogged through the thinning dust clouds holding his hands high to show he was unarmed.

Reaching the jeep, he saluted the Lightbringer.

''Squadron Leader Hideo Nonomura,'' he said, his black leather flight gear creaking as he gave a tiny, tight bow. ''Former subject of the Demigod Emperor of the Anubian States. Former member of the Imperial Navy 'Sea Dragon' Special Airborne Regiment. Now wishing to be a loyal disciple of the Lightbringer of Freegypt. My men and aircraft are at your disposal, sir. We wish nothing except to meet death in your name.''

Steven turned to David. ''What was I saying?'' he said in tones of barely restrained delight. ''The sticks in senet. We've only just gone and thrown a bloody six!''