City of the Dead

scabbard in one sharp movement and held it at Sherybin’s throat.
    ‘What have you done?’ he said.
    The man smiled wanly, but there was fear in his eyes.
    ‘You should not have driven so fast,’ continued the pharaoh.
    ‘I might never have suspected anything.’ He was surprised at his own calm, as from the corner of his eye he saw the shapes approach, still too far away to identify individually, but in the gathering light were certainly not cattle. Horsemen. Could they see what had happened on the chariot? They were approaching without haste.
    He tried to calculate how far from the camp they had come. Sound travelled a long way in the desert, especially in the thin air of morning. Whatever happened now, would happen fast.
    He seized the reins from his charioteer’s numb left hand, and raised the sword, at the same time pushing his foot firmly into the footstrap for balance.
    ‘May Set swallow you, Sherybin,’ he said, pronouncing the curse precisely, without emotion. Fear and — possibly — shame had turned the charioteer into a statue. Thoughts flew through the king’s heart. He wanted to say more, to find out why. Above all he was appalled at the betrayal and at the speed with which it had taken place. He had little doubt of its originator. But there was no time. The horsemen were approaching, and they were doing so faster. He brought the sword down hard. The blade cut the base of Sherybin’s muscular young neck and cleaved through the collar bone down to the sternum. The charioteer was still gaping and gagging, his hands jerking up to the wound, when the king, leaving the sword where it had jammed, thrust him off the chariot with his elbow.
    The horses were uneasy. Trying to keep his own voice steady to calm them, Tutankhamun turned them. The riders were not a hundred paces away now, and he could hear them calling to each other. They had seen Sherybin fall. The chariot’s turn, accomplished in a second during the hunt, now took an age, but at last it was done. The king took a firm grip of the reins and held them taut so that the horses’ heads reared. With his free hand he took up the spear. Then, gathering air in his lungs, he lashed the horses forward and sped back towards the camp, roaring his battle cry as he did so. Behind him, he could hear the sound of hooves as his pursuers whipped their mounts forward. How many of them were there? Ten? Twenty?
    He flew, but as he continued to cry out he knew that the north wind was blowing the sound of his ever-weakening voice back to the men behind him. Nehesy would never hear him at the camp. But by now they would be up, and perhaps even saddled and riding after him. It had been clever of Sherybin to give directions to a guard, but perhaps over-confident. The thought gave the king new heart.
    Then one of his horses stumbled, and though it recovered almost immediately, the chariot had slewed round and the king knew that he had lost fatal seconds by the time he was back on course. His heart became hollow as from the corner of his eye he could see a rider gaining on his flank. He yelled encouragement at the horses and once more the light chariot flew forwards. Tutankhamun gulped air, part of him caught in a wild thrill that had little to do with the horror of his situation. He could not believe that he would die, that anyone would dare to perpetrate, plan or even imagine bringing about the death of a pharaoh. Such an act was to kill god. But through the mists of his flying thoughts came a clear one of his immediate predecessor Smenkhkare, who had died suddenly at the age of twenty, in the midst of life. How?
    He brought his senses back to his own race with death. A dark figure was riding close to his horses now, stooping to grasp their head harness. He pulled his horses back to slow them of his own accord, throwing the rider off balance, and, drawing ‘ his right arm back, thrust the spear forward blindly. He felt its point catch weight and dig in, and then the end of the shaft he held was pulled out of his hand as the figure impaled on its end soundlessly dropped from his mount, which veered away ¡ into the open desert.
    Tutankhamun looked ahead, but the rush of wind in his face forced him to keep his eyes screwed tight, and he could see little. There was no sign of the camp or of Nehesy riding to help him. A grain of sand caught in his left eye and made him j
    close it, involuntarily slowing again. His heart told him it was over. He could sense them on