Dragon Magic by Andre Norton

but his driver raised a whip to beckon imperiously.
    The merchant Cha-paz hunkered forward on his knees, not rising to his feet. The courtiers made way for him as he so crawled to one side of the chariot, where the driver gave some order.
    Cha-paz backed away in the same awkward fashion, to make a gesture of his own to the man who was overseeing the slave laborers. On his hands and knees the overseer went to the side of the covered cage and loosed the ties of the matting screen, his efforts matched by those of the second-in-command on the other side of the shrouded box.

    The matting creaked, wrinkled in pleats, as they drew it aside. There was a strong whiff of the evil odor of the lau, and a strange noise as daylight reached into the cage, for the lau was a night creature and resented both light and heat.
    That shadowy form moved, rattled the cage, as a horn-nosed head struck against the thrice-reinforced bars. Cries of alarm arose from the slaves, startled from their abject abasement before the official. And the guards swung up their stabbing spears at the ready, as if they feared the monster would break free.
    Even the lord shifted his position as he stared at what he could see of the captive. Then, at a second sign from the driver, the matting fell back into place and was knotted down. Cha-paz once again was summoned closer.
    This time Ashpezaa spoke, though he did not turn his head to look at the man waiting so humbly. Then the merchant squirmed away in a hurry, saving himself from being trampled on as the chariot, guards, and followers started off.
    Those withdrew toward the city, for this was the wharf which served the temple. That much Sherkarer already knew. In this land the temple had its own merchants to buy and sell afar, and its buildings sprawled as wide as any Nubian town of good size.
    Now the whips of the overseers cracked once more and the cage on its rollers began to edge on at a very slow pace. Sherkarer got to his feet.
    Between his ankles was a bar of bronze to keep him hobbled, just as his hands were joined by a loop of rope.
    “You, offspring of a braying jackal”—the lash, used by an expert, flicked him between shoulders already tender from such attentions—”go!”
    Thus urged, he joined the line of march, though ahead of the unwieldy cage. Its stench gathered force in the heat, setting a cloud of evil odor about them. Cha-paz, on his feet now, strode with pride and importance as if he had never groveled before the official. Boxes and coffers, some of which Sherkarer recognized as part of the loot from Napata, were being carried by other slaves. A gilded statue wearing Amun-Ra’s ram head, and a decorated chest—these could only have come from the palace of the Pharaoh.

    The slaves who bore this loot were not Nubians. Sherkarer was the only one, and for that he was as humbled as if he had crawled on his belly before the white skins. He, of the Royal House, one wearing the Serpent, a slave to such as these! He was as one of the lions of the temple of Apedemek held by the triumphant enemy.
    Sherkarer was startled at his thoughts. How dared he, one who had failed the Great God, who had not died bravely in battle but had come under the slave yoke, compare himself to the servants of Apedemek?
    Thoughts such as these might bring upon him the greater wrath of the Lion One! More words from the morning hymn came to him:
    “The one who hurls his hot breath against the enemy In this his name of great power.
    The one who punishes all crimes committed against him-”
    Those of Napata must have committed some great crime or Apedemek would not have turned his face from them.
    The blaze of the sun, the pain in his shoulders where the whip had scored, his own hopeless fate, combined to make Sherkarer sick and dizzy, so that now and then he stumbled. Still he fought to keep on his feet, to march proudly as became a prince of Nubia in the hands of these barbarians.
    As he went Sherkarer took less and less