Iry-Aset took the mantle two years after the last Maahes of the old empire died, in a city ruled by a line of priest-kings and surrounded by rival dynasties. He was a temple guard from Thebes, a practical man who believed the Pride's job was to stand between the dark and the people, whoever ruled.
He held Thebes for 42 years. The Pride had no royal protection, no convoys and no stores. What it had was a Maahes who refused to leave. Iry-Aset moved between the great temples and the riverside quarters, hunting the brood that thrived on the confusion and keeping the watchers in every district alive and fed.
He died in 1026 BCE, killed holding the gate of a temple precinct during a night of riots. The watchers who survived him said he held it alone for as long as it took for the others to get out. That night, and the way he died, became the model of a Maahes's last stand for the rest of the age.
What he left behind: a Pride that did not abandon Thebes, and the standard of the open gate.
