The last Maahes of the age, and the one who finished the work of withdrawal. He took the mantle when the foreign court at Avaris had held the Delta for generations, when the convoy roads were closed and the Pride's southern stores were almost empty.
Neferu-Kemau understood that the Pride could not win by standing its ground, so he taught it to disappear. He broke the Pride into small cells of three or four slayers who knew only each other. He set up a courier system based on river boatmen, a coded language based on the old temple songs, and a signal for danger that could be given without a word. A watcher in Memphis and a watcher in Thebes could exchange a message in three days without ever meeting.
He also made the first contact between the Pride and the kingdom of Kerma, the powerful Nubian state to the south. Kerma was no friend of the Theban rulers, but its watchers shared the Pride's oldest enemy, and Neferu-Kemau made a cautious pact with them that outlived the kingdom itself.
He died in 1558 BCE with no resin and no heir in sight, just as the war of liberation began in the south. The mantle found its next bearer within two years.
What he left behind: the cell system, the courier network and the Kerma pact, which together formed the foundation of every hidden Pride that followed.
