Текст книги "The Seventh Scroll"

Автор книги: Wilbur Smith

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They paced it out and passed the five junctions into the lowest level of

the maze, reading their position from the chalk marks on the stone

blocks of the walls at each fork. "This is it!" Nicholas told her, and

they stood together and looked about them.

"There is nothing outstanding about this spot." Disappointment was

bitter in Royan's tone. "We have passed over it fifty times before. It

is just like any of the other turns."

"That is exactly what Taita would have wanted. Hell!

He wouldn't have put up a signpost saying " marks the spot", would he

now?"

"So what do we do?" She looked at him, for once at a loss.

"Read the last epigram from the stele."

S he had her notebook in her hand. "'From the black and holy earth of

dus very Egypt the harvest is abundant. I whip the flanks of my donkey,

and the wooden spike of the plough breaks new ground. I plant the seed,

and reap the grape and the ears of corn. In time I drink the wine and

eat the loaf. I follow the rhythm of the seasons, and tend the earth."'

She looked up at him. "The rhythm of the seasons? Is he referring us to

the four faces of the stele? The earth?"

she asked and looked down at the slabs beneath their feet, "The promise

of reward from the earth? Under our feet, perhaps?" she asked.

He stamped his foot on the slabs, but the sound was dull and solid.

"Only one way to find out." He raised his voice and it echoed weirdly

through the labyrinth. "Hansith! Come down here!'

apper sat on the high seat of his yellow frontend loader in the rain and

cheerfully cursed his gang of Buffaloes, secure in the knowledge that

they understood not a word of his insults. The rain swept over them in

intermittent gusts off the high mountains. It was not yet the solid,

drenching downpour of the true wet season. However, the river was rising

sullenly, turning dirty blue'grey with the mud and sediment that it was

bringing down.

He knew that the flood had not yet begun in earnest.

The thunder that growled ominously along the mountain peaks like a pride

of hunting lions was only the prelude to the vast celestial onslaught

which would soon follow.

Although the river was lapping the top course of gabions "s dam, and was

roaring through the bypass that of Sapper he had cut into the side

valley, he was still holding it at bay. His Buffaloes were packing more

baskets with aggregate, using up the last of the steel mesh from the

stores in the quarry. As soon as each of these was filled and wired

closed, Sapper picked it up in the front bucket of the tractor and drove

it down the bank of the Dandera. He reinforced all the weak spots in the

dam wall, and then he began raising it another course. Sapper was fully

aware of the overturning effect that the river would exert once it began

to pour over the top of the wall. Nothing would be able to withstand its

power once this happened. It would carry away a rock-filled gabion as if

it were the branch of a baobab tree. it needed only a single breach in

the wall to bring the entire structure tumbling and rolling down. He had

no illusions as to just how swiftly the river could do its fatal work.

He knew that he dared not wait for the first breach to develop in the

wall before he warned Nicholas and Royan in the chasm downstream. The

river could easily outrun any  messenger he sent, and once the wall began

to go it would already be too late. It would be a matter of fine

judgement, and he slitted his eyes against another gust of slanting rain

that blew into his face. His instinct was to call them out of the chasm

now – there was already less than twelve inches of free-board at the top

of the wall.

However, he knew that Nicholas would be furious if he was made to

evacuate the workings prematurely, and in so doing aborted all their

efforts. Sapper was fully aware of the extreme risks that Nicholas had

taken and of the crippling expenditure he had made to reach this stage.

Before they had left England, he had hinted to Sapper of the straitened

circumstances in which he found himself.

Although Sapper did not understand the intricacies or the

responsibilities of being a "Name' at Lloyd's, there had been so much

publicity in the British press that he could not but realize that, if

their venture here failed, the next stop for Nicholas would be the

bankruptcy courts – and Nicholas was his friend.

The squall of. rain blew over, and a bright hot sun burst through the

low cloud banks. The flow of the river seemed undiminished, but at least

the water level on the dam wall was no longer rising, "I'll give it

another hour," he grunted, engaging the gears of the tractor and easing

her down the bank to place another gabion in position.

Nicholas worked shoulder to shoulder with Hinsith's gang as they began

to strip the paving slabs from the floor of the lowest level of the

maze. The joints between the slabs were so tight that, even using

crowbars, they had difficulty prising them apart, In order to save time,

Nicholas made the hard choice of going into a destructive search. He put

four of the strongest men in the team to work with home-made

sledgehammers, lumps of ironstone on wooden shafts, to break UP the

slabs so that they could be more readily levered out of the floor. He

felt guilty about the damage they were causing to the site, but the work

went ahead very much faster.

The high spirits and enthusiasm of the men were at last beginning to

wane. They had worked too long in the oppressive confines of the maze,

and every one of them was the head of the fully aware of the rising

level of the river at gorge, and of the mortal threat behind those

waters. Their expressions were surly and there was little laughter' or

banter, But more worrying for Nicholas was the fact that at ported the

first the beginning of this shift Hansith had re duty.

desertions. Sixteen of his men had failed to report for They had quietly

rolled their blankets during the night, picked up whatever items of

value or utility they found lying around the camp, and crept away into

the darkness.

Nicholas knew that it was no use sending anyone after them – they had

too much of a start, and would be halfway up the escarpment already.

This was Africa, and Nicholas was certain that now that the rot had

started it would Spread very quickly.

He joked and jollied them along, not allowing them to sense his true

feelings. He worked shoulder to shoulder in the excavation in an and

sweated along with them made attempt to hold them, But he knew that,

unless they Ali under these slabs to keep their interest another

discovery and expectations alight, he might wake up tomorrow to

all find that even the monks and the faithful Hansith were gone.

He had started lifting the slabs in the angle of the corner of the maze,

and they worked out from there in both directions down the arms Of the

tunnel. His heart sank as they broke up each paving slab with the

hammers only to find beneath it the solid stratum of the country rock

with no indication of any joint or opening.

"It doesn't look very hopeful," he muttered to Royan as he took a short

break to drink from one of the water flasks.

She too was looking unhappy as she Poured water from the flask into his

cupped hands, so that he could wash the sweat and grime from his face.

"I may have got the symbols for the levels wrong," she suggested. "It is

just the kind of trick Taita would play, to work out combinations which

would both give a logical solution." She hesitated before she appealed

to him for guidance. "Do you think I should start working back the other

combination-'

Her question was interrupted by a bellow from Hansith. "In the name of

the Blessed Virgin, effendi, come quickly!'

They spun around together. In "her haste Royan dropped the flask, which

shattered at her feet. She did not seem to notice that it had drenched

her legs, but ran back to where Hansith was standing with the hammer

poised for another stroke.

What is it-' she broke off as they both saw that beneath the paving

slabs Hansith had uncovered another layer of dressed stone sills.

These were laid neatly across the floor of the tunnel from wall to wall,

recessed into the surrounding rock, with knife-edge joints between them.

Their sides were smooth and plain, without engravings or markings upon

them.

"What is it,  icky?" Royan demanded.

"Either it's another layer of paving, or it)s a cover over fall an

opening in the floor,, he told her eagerly. "We won't know until we lift

one of them."

The stone sills were too thick and heavy to be cracked with the

primitive hammers, although Hansith tried his best. In the end they were

forced to dig around the first of lever it free. It took five men to

raise the end of them and it and lift it off its foundation.

"There is an opening under it." Royan went down on the space that it had

left. "Some her knees to peer into kind of open shaft!'

Once the first sill was removed it was easier to get a urchase on the

others that blocked the rectangular open I away, Nicholas shone ing.

When they had cleared them al the dark shaft that was revealed. It the

lamp down into stretched from wall to wall of the tunnel, and the head

stand up to his room was sufficient for even Nicholas full height on the

steps that led down at a forty-five degree angle.

"Surely this must be it.

"Another stairway he exulted exhausted all the false leads by now."

Even Taita must have crowding up behind them, their The workmen were

very and the ting at this fresh disco sullen mood evapora certainty of

additional bonuses in silver dollars that they had earned.

"Are we going down?" Royan asked. "I know we should be careful and check

it for traps, but we are– running out Of time, Nicky."

"You are right, as always. The time has come when we have to press on

regardless."

hand, "Caution thrown to the winds." She took his laughing. "Let's go

down together."

tious step at a They descended side by side, one cau time, with the lamp

held head high and the shadows retreating before them.

"There is a chamber at the bottom,'Royan exclaimed.

"Looks like a store room – what are all those objects stacked along the

walls? There must be hundreds of them.

Are they coffins, sarcophaguses?" The dark shapes were almost human,

standing shoulder to shoulder, rank after rank, around the walls of the

square chamber.

"No, I think those are corn baskets on one side," she said, recognizing

them. "Those on the other side look like wine amphorae. Probably some

sort of offering to the dead."

"If this is one of the funeral store rooms," said Nicholas in a voice

tight with excitement, "then we are getting very close to the tomb now."

"Yes!' she cried. "Look – there is another doorway on the far side of

this store room. Shine the light over there."

The beam picked out the square opening facing them across this lower

chamber. It was inviting, beckoning them almost seductively. They almost

ran down the last few steps in . to . the chamber lined with the reed

baskets and pottery wine jars. But as they reached the leveffloor of the

store room they ran into an invisible barrier that stopped both of them

dead and sent them reeling backwards.

"God!" Nicholas clutched at his throat, his voice a strangled choke.

"Get back. Got to get back."

Royan was inking to her knees, also gasping and hunting for breath.

"Nicky!" she tried to scream, but her breath was trapped in her lungs.

She felt that a steel noose had encircled her chest and, as it

tightened, the breath was being forced out of her.

"Nicky! Help me!" She was strangling, like a fish thrown up on the bank.

The strength drained from her limbs, and her vision began to break up

and fade. She did not have the strength to stand.

He stooped over her and tried to lift her, but he was almost as weak. He

felt his own legs buckling, no longer able to support even his own

weight.

erately as he suffocated.

"Four minutes," he thought desp i to brain death I "That's all we have

got. Four minutes and oblivion. We have to get airer her armpits From

behind her, he slipped his arms und locked his hands together over her

breasts. Again he and ied to lift her, but his strength was gone. He

began to tr ds the stairs down which they had walk backwards towar run

so lightly, and every pace required a huge effort. She was already

unconscious, lying inert in the circle of his arms. Her limp legs

trailed across the stone floor as he dragged her back.

The lowest step caught his heels and he almost toppled  his balance over

backwards. with an effort he regained and lugged her back up the steps,

her feet sliding and bumping loosely over the treads. He wanted to shout

to his lungs Hansith for help, but he did not have me air in to utter a

sound.

, she's dead," he told himself, and if you drop her no ps, his lungs

hunting for he struggled up another five ste precious air and finding

none. His strength oozed out of wobbled and as his vision slid and him a

drop at a time A

11 distorted.

"Please God, let me

"Let me breathe," he pleaded.

breathe."

Miraculously, like a direct answer to his prayer, he felt slide down his

panting throat and the precious oxygen ngth began flooding back swell

his lungs. At once his stre Royan's chest and lifted and he tightened

his grip around her bodily. He staggered up the remaining steps with her

sprawled out Of the mouth of the body in his arms and shaft on to the

slabs of the tunnel at Hansith's feet.

"What is is, effendi? What has happened to you and the lady?"

Nicholas had no breath to answer him. He laid Royan in the position for

mouth-tolmouth resuscitation, and slapped her cheeks.

"Come on!" he pleaded with her. "Speak! Talk to me!" There was no

response, so he knelt over her, covered her open mouth with his own and

blew down her throat, until from the corner of his eye he saw her chest

swelling and inflating.

He sat back for a count of three. "Please, my darling, please

breathe!'There was no colour in her yellow, corpselike face.

He bent over her and covered her mouth again, and as he filled her lungs

with his own breath he felt her stir under him.

"That's it, my darling," he told her. "Breathe! Breathe for me."

At the next breath she pushed him away and sat up groggily, staring

round at the circle of faces that hovered over her anxiously. She picked

out Nicholas's pale face amongst the black faces of the men.

"Nicky! What happened?"

"I am not sure – but whatever it was, it almost got both of us. How are

you feeling now?"

"It was as though an invisible hand had me by the throat, and was

strangling me. I couldn't breathe, and then I passed out."

"It must be some kind of gas filling the lower levels of the passage.

You were only out for less than two minutes," he reassured her. "It

takes four minutes of oxygen starvation to kill the brain."

"I have a terrible headache." She pressed her fingers to her temples. "I

heard your voice calling me back. You called me "my darling"." She

dropped her eyes.

"Just a little slip of the tongue." He lifted her to her feet and for a

moment she swayed against him, her breasts soft and warm against his

chest.

"Thank you once again, Nicky. I am so deeply in your debt already, I

will never be able to repay you."

 am sure we will be able to work something out."

She was suddenly aware of the niens eyes watching her and drew away from

him. "What kind of gas? And how did it get there? Was it another of

Taita's tricks, do you think, Nicky?"

"One Of the gases of decay, most probably," was his the lower part of

the opinion. . "Because it is trapped in passage, it must be a

heavier-than-air type. I would guess that it is probably carbon dioxide,

although it could be something like methane. I think methane is heavier

than air, isn't it?"

"Did Taita do it deliberately?" The colour was returning to her cheeks,

and she was recovering swiftly.

I don't know, but those baskets and jars are suspicious.

er that question when we have had a I will be able to answ chance to

examine their contents." He touched her cheek tenderly. "How are you

feeling? How is your headacheT

"Better. What do we do now?"

he to

"Clear the gas from the chamber, Id her, "and as soon as possible."

He used a candle from his emergency pack to, test for-the gas level in

the shaft. With it burning in his right hand he went back down the

steps, holding it low'to the floor, descending a step at a time. The

candle flame burned brightly, dancing to the movement of air as he went

down. Then, abruptly on the sixth step above the floor level of the

chamber, the flame turned yellow and snuffed out.

 wall in white chalk, and He marked the level on the shaft, "Well, at

called up to Royan at the head of the still here. Must be carbon least

it's not methane. I am dioxide."

"Pretty conclusive test," she laughed. if it goes boom, it's methane."

the blower fan," Nicholas Hansith, bring down shouted to the big monk

Holding his breath as though he were snorkelling under water, Nicholas

carried the fan down the lower steps and set it up on the floor of the

chamber. He set the fan speed at "High' and immediately retreated up the

shaft, drawing a huge breath as soon as he was above the chalk mark on

the wall.

"How long will it take to clear the gas?"  asked anxiously, looking at

her wrist-watch. Royan

"I will test with the candle every fifteen minutes.

It was an hour before the gas had dispersed enough to enable him to

reach the floor of the chamber again, and breathe the air down there.

Then Nicholas ordered Hansith to bring down a bundle of firewood and

build a fire in the centre of the stone floor, to heat and circulate the

air more rapidly.

While he was doing this, Nicholas and Royan examined one of the baskets

that stood against the wall.

"The crafty old ruffian!" Nicholas Muttered half in exasperation and

half in admiration. "It looks like a mixture of manure and grass and

dead leaves, the same as a compost heap."

They crossed the chamber, turned one of the pottery jars on its side,

and studied the powder that spilled out of it. Nicholas took up a

handful and rubbed it between his fingers, then sniffed it warily.

"Crushed limestone!" he muttered. "Although it has of acid. Vinegar,

perhaps, or even Isoonakgedagitowdirtihedsoomuetfoarnmd lost any odour,

Taita probably urine would have done the trick. As it broke down the

limestone, it formed carbon dioxide."

"So it was another deliberate trap," Royan exclaimed.

"Even so many thousands of years ago, Taita must have understood the

processes of decay. He knew what gases those mixtures would produce.

Amongst all the other accomplishments he boasts of, he must also have

been a nifty chemist."

Furthermore, he must have known that without a draught or any movement

of air, these heavy inert gases amber indefiould hang here in the bottom

of the ch  agreed. "I expect that this shaft is designed like nitely,"

she

' she pointed a ,trap. I bet that the passage rises again at the

mysterious doorway in the far wall, "in fact I can see the first steps

even from here."

"We will soon find out if you are right," he told her, because that's

exactly where we are heading right now up those stePS."

apper had placed caims of stones at the water's edge to monitor the

river level. He watched es his ticker them the way a stockbroker watch

tape.

It had been six hours since the last rain squall had passed. The clouds

over the valley had burned away in the Ithough they still hung densely

over hot, bright sunlight, a the northern horizon. Their great

dun'coloured thunderheads reared to the heavens, menacing and ominous,

fonning their own mighty ranges that dwarfed the mountains beneath them.

At any time the downpour might ed, begin up there in the highlands. Once

that happen Sapper wondered how long it would take the flood waters to

reach them here in the Abbay gorge.

He dismounted stiffly from the tractor, and went down the bank to

inspect his stone markers. The water level had fallen almost a foot in

the past hour. He forced himself not to let his optimism bubble over -

after all, it had taken only fifteen minutes for the river to -rise the

same amount.

would come.

The final outcome was inevitable. The rains rst. He looked The river

would spate. The dam would bu at the dam wall, and shook his head with

fill downstream resignation.

He had done as much as possible to delay that moment. He had raised the

level of the dam wall almost four feet, and packed in another buttress

behind the wall to strengthen it. There was nothing further for him to

do, and he could only wait.

Climbing up the bank, he leaned wearily against the yellow steel of his

machine and looked across at his team of Buffaloes, strewn along the

bank like casualties on a battlefield. They had worked for two days to

hold back the waters, and now they were exhausted. He knew that he could

not call on them for another effort; the next time the river attacked,

it would overwhelm them.

He saw some of the men stir and sit up, and their faces turned upstream.

He heard their voices faint on the wind.

Something was exciting their interest. He climbed up on to the tractor

and shaded his eyes, The unmistakable figure of Mek Nimmur was coming

down the trail from the direction of the escarpment, stocky and powerful

in his camo fatigues, his gait determined. He was accompanied by two of

his company commanders.

Mek hailed Sapper from a distance. "How is your dam holding?" he called

in Arabic, which Sapper did not understand. "Soon it will rain on the

mountains, You won't be able to hold out here much longer." But his

gestures towards sky and river were immediately intelligible to Sapper.

Sapper jumped down from the machine to gr,6et him, and they shook hands

cordially. They had recognized in each other the qualities of strength

and professionalism that they both admired.

Mek seized his company commander, who spoke English, by the arm, and the

man fell into his by now familiar role of interpreter.

"It is not only the weather that troubles me," Mek confided in a low

voice, and the interpreter relayed the information to Sapper. "I have

reports that the governMent troops are moving into position to attack

us. My intelligence is that they have a full battalion moving down this

way from Debra Maryam, and another force low the monastery at St.

Frumentius, moving up the be Abbay river."

"Pincer movement, heyT said Sapper.

Mek listened to the translation and nodded gravely. "I am heavily

outnumbered and I don't know how long I will they attack. My men are be

able to hold them when gueff illas. It is not our role to fight

set-piece battles. It is the war of the flea for us. Hit and run. I came

to warn You at short notice."

to be ready to Pull out Sapper grunted.  , "Don't worry too much about

am a sprinter. Hundred yards dash is my speciality. It's Nicholas and

ROYan you should be thinking of, them in that ruddy rabbit warren of

theirs."

but I wanted to arrange

"I am on my way to them now a fall'back position. if we get cut off from

each other in the the monastery.

fighting, Nicholas has cached the boats at That is where we will

assemble."

okay Mek–2 Sapper stopped speaking and all three I  the trail, where

there was a fresh of them looked  bank. "What's disturbance amongst the

men along the going on?"

Mek one of my patrols coming in narrowed his eyes.

"Mere must be some new development." He stopped not understand speaking

as he realized that Sapper could him, and then his expression changed as

he recognized the small, slim figure that was being carried on a rough

litter by thing-_ men of his patrol.

towards, her and sat up weakly Tessay saw him running her to the ground

and Mek on the litter. The men lowered the litter and placed both went

down on his knees beside They held each other in silence for a his arms

airoun(:

her face in his Mek gently cupped long moment. Then   features.

hands and examined her swollen and arre Some of the burns had become

infected, and her eyes were slits beneath the bloated lids.

"Who did this to you?"he asked softly.

She mumbled incoherently through her black-scabbed lips. They made me

No! Don't try to talk." He changed his mind as her lower lip cracked

open and a droplet of fresh blood welled up and glistened like a ruby on

her skin.

"I have to tell you," she insisted in a broken whisper.

"They made me tell them everything. The numbers of your men. What you

and Nicholas are doing here. Everything. I am sorry, Mek. I betrayed

you."

"Who was it? Who did this to you?"

"Nogo and the American, Helm,' she said, and although he embraced her as

gently as a father with his infant in his arms, his eyes were terrible.

/4P– -I he lowed  chamber of the tunnel was cleared of gas at last.

Hansith's fire burned bright and steady in the middle of the floor, the

rising hot air wafting away the noxious vapours and dispersing them

through the upper levels of the maze, where they mingled with

the'cleaner oxygen-rich air and lost their toxicity. By this time Royan

had fully recovered from the physical effects of the gassing, but her

confidence was shaken, and she allowed Nicholas to lead the way up the

steps that rose from the far side of the chamber.

"It's the perfect gas trap," Nicholas pointed out to her as they climbed

cautiously. "No doubt at all that Taita knew exactly what he was doing

–when he built this section of the tunnel."

"Surely he must have expected any interloper of his period to have

either succumbed to his hellish devices, lost his way in the maze, or

given up and turned back by now," she reasoned.

"Are you trying to convince me that this was Taita's last line of

defence, and that he has no more tricks in store for us? Is that it?"

Nicholas asked as he took another step upwards.

"No. Actually I was trying to convince myself, and not having much

success. I just don't trust him one little bit any more. I have come to

expect the worst from him. I expect the roof to collapse on me at any

moment, or the floor to open and drop us into a fiery furnace or

something worse." They had descended forty steps down into the se they

were now climbing was a chamber, and the stairca mirror image of that.

It rose at the same angle and the tread of each step was the same depth

and width. As their heads rose above the fortieth step, Nicholas played

the beam of the lamp down the spacious, level arcade that ened before

them, and they were dazzled by a riot of OP

colour and pattern, bright and lovely as a field' of desert blooms after

rain. The paintings covered the walls and ceiling of the arcade,

stunning in their profusion, wondrous in their execution.

"Taita!l Royan cried in a voice that quivered and broke. "These are his

paintings. There is no other artist like him, I could never mistake it.

I would know his work anywhere."

stood on the top step and gazed around in They wonder. When compared to

these, the murals in the long gallery seemed pale and stilted, the

tawdry sham that they the work of a great master, a timeless really

were. This was genius, whose art could enchant and enrapture now just as

readily as it had four thousand years ago. involuntarily, They moved

forward slowly, almost down the arcade. It was lined on each side with

small ntal bazaar. The entrance chambers, like the stalls in an orie

ched up to the to each was guarded by tall columns that rea roof. Each

column was a carved statue of one member of the pantheon of gods.

Between them they held the high vaulted ceiling suspended.

As they drew level with the first two stalls, Nicholas stopped and

squeezed her arm.

"The treasure chambers of Pharaoh he whispered.

The stalls were packed from floor to ceiling with wonderful and

beautiful things.

"The furniture store." Royan's voice was as reverential as his as she

recognized the shapes of chairs and stools and beds and divans. She went

to the nearest chamber and touched a royal throne. The arms were twining

serpents of bronze and lapis lazuli. The legs were those of lions with

claws of gold. The seat and back were chased with scenes of the hunt,

and wings of gold surmounted the high back.

Stacked behind the throne was a great Profusion of other furniture. They

recognized a screened divan, its sides enclosed in an exquisite lacework

of ebony and ivory. But there were dozens of other items besides, most

of them broken down into their separate Parts so that it was not

possible to guess what they were. They gleamed with precious metals and

coloured stones in such confusion and variety that it was too much to

take in in a single glance.

Both the alcoves on either side of the arcade were stuffed with these

marvelous collections. Royan shook her head in wonder, and Nicholas led

her on. The walls that separated the alcoves were decorated with panels

illustrate in  the Book of the Dead, and the journey of Pharaoh through

the pylons, the dangers and the trials, the demons and the monsters that

awaited him along the way.

"These are the paintings that were missing from the mock tomb in the

long gallery," Royan told him. "But just look upon the face of the king,

You can see he was a real person. Those are perfect royal portraits."

The mural beside them depicted the great god Osiris leading Pharaoh by

the hand, protecting him from the  crowded close on either hand, waiting

thei monsters that showed the face of the king as he chance to devour

him. I with a kind and gentle, if must truly have been, a man rather

weak, face.

"Look at the figures," Nicholas agreed. "They are not forward with the

right stiff wooden dolls always stepping foot. These are real men and

women. They are anatomic  and had cally correct. The artist understood

perspectiv studied the human body."

They came to the next pair of alcoves, and paused to peer into them.

"Weapons," said Nicholas. just look at that chariot The panels of the

chariot were covered with a skin of old leaf, so that it dazzled the

eye. The harness and traces the horses that would draw it into seemed

only to await and the quivers strapped to the side panels behind battle,

elins. The each tall wheel bulged with arrows and jav was emblazoned on