The Age of Ra

35. Typhons

They stumbled out of the storehouse, Steven pausing only to find a spare Lightbringer mask and pull it on.

The Typhons were coming up the valley, eight of them in a straggling line. They flew at their usual ponderous pace, and today there seemed a kind of sinister unhurriedness about it, as though the planes knew they could take their time. Their infidel prey were all in one place and far weaker than before. Almost out of ammunition. No Anubian gunships left to defend them. A single Typhon, with a full payload, would have been sufficient. Eight assured absolute annihilation.

A Freegyptian manning one of the gun emplacements opened fire, but it was a token gesture of defiance. The Typhons were too far off and were coming in too high anyway. The Lightbringer ordered the man to cease fire. Everyone. Cease fire. There was no point.

One of the warlords came over and asked the Lightbringer what they were supposed to do now. His face showed anxiety but also hope. Al Ashraqa would have a solution. He must do.

The faces of all the other Freegyptians displayed the same mixture of emotions: fear overlaid with faith. The Lightbringer would steer them out of this predicament, surely.

If only you knew, thought David.

He scanned around for Zafirah. Couldn't find her. Had she even made it to the mountain? He had no idea. She could have died down there on the plain during the final retreat, for all he knew.

In these, his last moments of life, he would have liked to see her again, one last time. Just so that he could say he was sorry for being such an idiot. Sorry, too, for everything his brother had done to her and her countrymen.

The Lightbringer called out to everyone within earshot. As far as David could glean, he was telling them not to worry, help was at hand.

Help? David thought. You lying sack of shit. What help?

There was no one nearby who was going to come to the Freegyptians' rescue. To the west David could see the forefront of the Setic task force, consisting of several dozen Scarab tanks and some heavier-duty artillery units, including a number of mobile rocket launchers. They were all in position, ready for an assault on Mount Megiddo. Doubtless the Nephthysians had called up the bombers to pre-empt that. They were determined that credit for the final quashing of the infidel uprising would be theirs, not the Setics'.

As David looked down at the Setic battalions, the word that sprang to mind was overkill. The KSD must have been truly unnerved by the Lightbringer to send down a task force as immense as this. Either that or it was an expression of how little confidence they had in their Nephthysian allies to do the job properly. But still, David was struck by the inordinate levels of manpower and firepower the Setics had committed to the field. It was a mark of how the Lightbringer had got under their skin, or, to be accurate, the skin of their god.

But then that was Steven for you. A man with a true talent for annoyance.

David felt an odd, mental snagging sensation. He reviewed what he had just been musing on. Something was there, in the train of thought that had just gone by. Something that might explain Steven's current state of confident calmness. Something that would account for it, other than that the Lightbringer dare not show uncertainty in the presence of his followers, even in the face of certain doom.

Mark. Skin. God.

Of course.

Of course!

David could have slapped himself. It was blindingly obvious. He would have realised it sooner had he not been so preoccupied with bullying the truth out of Steven.

The nearest of the Typhons was almost level with Mount Megiddo. Bomb bay doors open. Bombs at the ready.

Steven had allied himself with a god.

Which god?

Only the member of the Pantheon who ruled the bloc that presently had a vast army assembled to the north, east and west of the mountain.

Only Set himself.

A moment later, a surface-to-air missile was snaking its way up from the Setic ranks towards the leading Typhon.

A moment after that, the Typhon was a ball of reddish-purple light.

And a moment after that, the other seven bombers were on the receiving end of a blitz of long-range ordnance. One after another they popped like bubbles in the air, bathing the plain in shades of scarlet and magenta, cherry and lilac, burgundy and mauve. The echoes of eight massive detonations rippled along the valley and across the land, and as they faded an astonished cheer went up from the top of Mount Megiddo, a chorus of relief and disbelief.

Saved.

By the Setics?

The Freegyptians turned to their leader, looking for an explanation.

But the Lightbringer said nothing, and his masked face was inscrutable.

Only David understood, and even he wasn't entirely sure what was going on.

Meanwhile the Setic task force swung into action. It flowed around the mountain like floodwater and poured into the valley to smash into the Nephthysians, who could not resist, who barely had a chance to defend themselves. One army swept the other before it. Hapless, helpless, taken completely by surprise, the Nephthysians were driven back, back, back down the plain, and the Setic task force rolled on, wave after wave, southward and further, leaving debris and bodies and a shredded-to-ribbons pact in their wake.