The captain peered past him with that strange, implacable stare, as if something lurked in the shadows.

  ‘Flee,’ Piay said as the battle raged behind him. ‘My patience is not endless. This is the last time I will show mercy.’

  ‘I have walked along the shores of the black ocean to the very edge of the afterlife,’ the captain continued, as if he had not heard Piay’s words. ‘I have heard the whispers of the gods.’

  He drew his own blade. The reflected firelight glinted along it in amber ripples as he waved it in front of Piay.

  If the liquor of the blue lotus still coursed through his veins, it did not diminish his potency. The movements of the blade were precise, the skill of a master swordsman.

  ‘My name is Sakir,’ the captain said in a rumbling voice. ‘Known by many as the Red Hawk, by others as He Who Walks With the Gods. Of all the Hyksos you could have chosen to make an enemy, you have found the worst. I do not fear death. I embrace it. And now that you have stirred me from my dreams, I will bring that death to you.’

  Piay laughed. ‘You think highly of yourself. But you are just another filthy invader trampling across the glory that is Egypt. You are a passing shadow on this land and soon you will be gone.’

  Sakir pushed two fingers in his mouth and blasted out a long whistle.

  Piay glanced at the fighting barbarians, trying to comprehend what their captain was signalling to them. They seemed unmoved, still attacking in the same chaotic manner. Suddenly Sakir swung his sword in an arc with such strength it could have cleaved Piay in two had not Piay swept up his own blade and, with a delicate flick of his wrist, positioned the weapon at an angle to deflect his enemy’s strike.

  Sakir hacked again, driving forwards. Piay danced back. He felt his concentration narrow. The Hyksos captain was as good as he’d said.

  They moved around the campfire. Piay’s nostrils sucked in the drifting smoke and his eyes stung with tears. Sakir appeared unmoved. He was barely blinking. Their blades sang into the night.

  Sweat drenched Piay’s back and soaked into his kilt. He forced a grin to hide his unease. He had never faced an opponent as skilled as this warrior. They were evenly matched.

  I will not be defeated, he told himself. I am the best swordsman in all Egypt.

  Piay kicked at the campfire. A burning sod flew up and hit Sakir’s thigh. Not a wince crossed the captain’s face. It was as if he could feel no pain.

  There was a sound like distant thunder. An instant later Piay heard cries ring out.

  Hyksos riders pounded along the track towards them. The whistle blast had not been intended for the barbarians engaged in that furious battle. Sakir had summoned reinforcements.

  Piay felt his stomach knot. Hannu had been right – he had been too confident. He should have scouted the area before launching his attack.

  Dropping, he spun on his left hand and swung one foot in an arc. Sakir’s legs flew out from under him and he crashed to the ground. Piay threw himself forwards. He stamped his foot on the wrist of his opponent’s sword-arm and rammed the barbarian’s head down. The left side of Sakir’s face crunched into the hot embers. This time he howled. The stink of searing flesh filled the air.

  Piay darted away. ‘Come!’ he yelled to his men.

  Hooking one hand under the Egyptian captive’s arm, he dragged him away.

  He glanced back and horror flooded him. The Hyksos warriors had fallen upon the rest of the scouting band. Hooves shattered skulls. Swords cleaved through necks and chests. The screams of the dying spiked deep into his heart.

  Piay felt someone slam into him and he pitched into the shadows of an irrigation ditch. Snatching a gulp of air, he plunged into cold black water. Two other figures splashed beside him. One was the Egyptian soldier, the other Hannu.

  His assistant grabbed him and whispered, ‘Ahead, as fast as you can, but quietly. This has bought us a little time, but that is all.’

  Piay grasped the arm of the former captive and together they half-swam, half-waded away from the rolling thunder of hoof beats circling the area.

  ‘I will come for you, Piay!’ Sakir’s voice boomed through the night. ‘Run as fast as you can, run for days and weeks and months. But there will come a time when you turn and I will be there and then your life will be over!’

  As he pushed through the cold water, Piay’s mood darkened. The faces of the young men he had commanded floated into his mind. Barely more than boys, innocent, trusting in him. He had failed them.

  Could he ever make amends? Piay felt the murk of the ditch seep into him and close around his heart.

  Hannu pulled at his arm and pointed. Ahead, caught in silver glints of moonlight, writhing rats swam away from them. Where the steep bank had partially collapsed, they scrambled up the black earth into the field beyond.

  ‘Follow them,’ Hannu breathed.

  Piay dug his fingers into the soft mud and hauled himself up the side of the irrigation ditch. At the top, he dragged the battered soldier up behind him, and then Hannu. For a moment their eyes met, and Piay communicated a silent look of thanks for his accomplice’s quick thinking at the campfire.

  The bellows of the roaming Hyksos warriors thundered as they searched for their prey. A moment later a roar rang out.

  ‘They’ve seen us,’ Hannu gasped. ‘Into the fields.’

  Piay and the two men scrambled into the golden sea of barley, keeping low. Their passage opened up a channel through the crop that would be visible in the moonlight, but what choice did they have? Piay pushed on, zigzagging until they were far from where they had been seen.

  Piay threw himself on his belly. The soldier and Hannu collapsed beside him. As his breathing subsided, Piay strained to listen. In the distance, hoof beats thrummed off the tracks that criss-crossed the fertile land beside the Nile, and the call and response of the barbarians echoed.

  ‘Let us be away,’ the soldier said. ‘My wounds are burning—’

  Piay clamped a hand on the man’s mouth and pressed a finger to his lips. His instincts told him they were not yet free.

  Piay sensed the sharp reek of smoke. An instant later, a dim crackling became a low roar, rising in intensity.

  Hannu understood.

  ‘They are burning the fields.’

  Piay looked back towards the irrigation ditch. Smoke swirled above a crimson line glowing in the night. The flames licked up and raced across the field with gathering speed.

  The soldier cried out. Scrabbling to his feet, he lurched away. Hannu threw himself at the escaping man like a bull, knocking him to the ground again.

  ‘We must flee!’ the man cried.

  ‘That’s what they want,’ Hannu spat. ‘They’ll be waiting for us on the other side.’

  ‘We can’t stay here.’

  Piay glanced one way, then the other, as he found his bearings, then beckoned for the two men to follow him parallel to the line of fire.

  ‘Are you mad?’ the soldier cried.

  ‘Most likely,’ Hannu grunted.

  Piay sprinted, ignoring the blaze rushing towards them. The flames leaped as high as his chest, and his ears ached from their hungry roar. Whipped up by the wind, the choking smoke swallowed them so that he could no longer see the way ahead.

  When his lungs began to sear from the hot air, Piay felt hope begain to ebb. But the wind gusted, the smoke cleared and a black expanse opened up.

  ‘Here!’ he called.

  The canal ran straight and true from the Nile, taking the life-giving water deep into the fertile countryside. The blaze scorched Piay’s flesh. He choked on thick smoke. But his step never faltered as he dived off the edge of the canal. When he thrust his head up from the chill depths, he heard the two men entering behind him.

  ‘This time your gamble paid off,’ Hannu said.

  He shook the water from his beard like a dog. In the midst of danger, Hannu was the level-headed and wise seasoned warrior, but Piay could see he had now reverted to his usual sharp-tongued self.

  With the flames crackling above their heads, they dragged themselves along the edge of the canal and when they reached a floodgate, they hauled themselves out of the water.

  At the top, Piay glanced back. Silhouetted against that infernal glow a figure stood, as rigid as one of the temple statues. Though it was too dark to tell for sure, Piay was convinced it was Sakir, and that the Hyksos warrior was staring directly at him.

  T

  he rushes along the banks of the Nile rustled in the breeze. Breathing in the dank scents of the river, Piay tentatively made his way along the papyrus beds, fearful of disturbing any resting crocodiles. When he was a boy, he’d seen one of those monstrous beasts swallow a child whole. Life was filled with lessons, his master Taita said, and he had taken this one to heart.

  Hannu whistled from further along the track. He had located the skiffs they’d hidden when they had arrived on the eastern bank earlier that night.

  The skiff was small enough for one man to row, the hull constructed from rolls of papyrus reeds bound tightly together. Astern, a filthy linen sheet was tied across a frame to shelter from the sun during the day.

  Piay crawled beneath the shelter and lay with his hands behind his head. The rescued soldier collapsed in the prow. Hannu lowered himself on to the bench and grasped the oars. He showed no sign of exhaustion. All those years in the Blue Crocodile Guards had given him a hardy disposition.

  Once they were in mid-stream, Piay allowed himself to relax and stopped glancing back at the eastern bank. But the memory of the Hyksos captain silhouetted against the fire had burned its way into his mind. He saw it even when he closed his eyes.

  ‘Tell me, my friend,’ he called to the soldier, ‘why did the Hyksos take you captive instead of killing you on the battlefield?’

  The soldier levered himself up on his elbows.

  ‘The barbarians are planning an attack on Thebes. They wanted to know the strength of our army – if we could defend the City of a Hundred Gates. I told them . . .’ His voice broke. ‘I told them nothing.’

  ‘You are a brave man. You’ll be well rewarded when we return.’

  Piay leaned back so he could watch the milky river of stars that mirrored the Nile in the heavens. An attack on Thebes! This was the kind of information that Taita had dispatched him into the enemy’s territory to find.

  And yet he could not revel in the success of his mission. Six lost lives weighed upon his soul. Six Kas forever denied the afterlife.

  It was his error of judgement, his reckless gambling, that had led them into danger. He would never be able to forget the toll of his own failings. Bowing his head, he muttered a prayer for his lost men. It was not enough.

  After a while, Piay felt he could not stare into the darkness inside himself any longer.

  ‘The captain of the Hyksos band will have to explain to his generals how he lost a valuable captive. That will teach him not to be so arrogant.’

  The soldier stirred. ‘I would not want Sakir for an enemy.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘He is crazed. His own men fear him. He has given himself fully to the dreams of the blue lotus. The barbarians whispered that he has walked with the gods and they have given him powers beyond mortal men.’

  Piay laughed. ‘What do you say, Hannu?’

  ‘I remember digging a grave for an enemy who said he walked with the gods,’ said Hannu. ‘Two or three of them, if truth be told.’

  ‘Mock all you want,’ the soldier said. ‘But I looked into his eyes, and I heard what his men said about him when he was not present. Trust me, he will never forgive you for what you did this night. His heart burns—’

  ‘And his face,’ Hannu interjected.

  ‘His heart burns with hatred and that will fuel him. He will not relent until he has his revenge.’

  ‘Let him come,’ Piay said with a waft of his hand. ‘I’m no stranger to enemies who bear a grudge. If he thinks he can slit my throat in the middle of the Egyptian army, then I will bow to his greater skills.’

  The conversation drifted into silence until there was only the gentle splash of the dipping oars and the lapping of the river currents against the hull. In the stillness, Piay drifted with his own memories. In his life, the fighting was all he had known. His master Taita always spoke fondly of the great age of peace before the Hyksos came, when there was music and art and trade and learning. But even then the Pharaoh had been at war with the Red Pretender, the false pharaoh who had seized the Lower Kingdom.

  Now, though, no one knew peace, only periods of great tension punctuated by fierce battles as one side or the other tried to gain an advantage. The Hyksos coveted all Egypt and perhaps far beyond its boundaries, too. Taita, the master tactician, knew that if the barbarians were allowed time to occupy the entire land it would be nigh on impossible to uproot them. They were clever, those barbarians, quickly getting the people on their side. Daily life was rarely disrupted for the conquered. The people were allowed to govern themselves, or given the illusion of governing, with the Hyksos generals standing in the shadows directing and taking their share of taxes.

  The people only wanted peace and the chance to live under the eyes of the gods. That left Taita’s war council with few options.

  Yes, Taita was Piay’s master, but he had also been like a father to him. Piay closed his eyes and tried to summon up the faces of his parents, but they hung, as always, in shadow. He’d seen only five spring floods of Mother Nile when they’d brought him to Taita. They’d begged the Pharaoh’s wisest advisor to teach their son so he could claim a good life for himself, one free of the hardship they had endured in the disputed territory where the Hyksos continually raided.

  He remembered crying as they walked away that night, or thought he did, but from then on his days had been a whirl of learning under his eunuch master. Taita had a dagger-sharp mind and did not suffer fools. But he was kind and quick to praise when it was merited. Piay had come to love him, and his life had been immeasurably better than anything his parents could have offered, surrounded as he was by all the riches of the court and the most beautiful women in all Egypt.

  But he had earned it. He recalled the sting of pain when Taita had lashed his rush switch on the back of his hand every time he got an answer wrong or failed to wield his sword with the necessary expertise. More than anything, Piay had wanted to make Taita proud, and in that he had succeeded time and again.

  But how would he explain the lives he had lost and the miseries he had inflicted on the men’s families? A lesser man would pretend he had played no part in it. That the gods had decided upon the outcome. But he could not lie to Taita. Honour was more important than gold – that was how he had been raised. He would take his punishment even if it destroyed him in the eyes of his master. And how devastating that would be. For as long as he could remember, he had only ever wanted Taita’s approval.

  Piay felt his heart sink, but he would not allow his guilt to show to Hannu or any others. Confidence in all things was the rule he lived by. Weakness was for lesser men.

  In the abiding dark of the far bank, lights glimmered among the swaying date palms silhouetted against the starry sky. They had returned alive. And now he would face his judgement.

  T

  he tent billowed in the night breeze and the ropes cracked. Inside, shadows swooped across the cloth from the dancing flame of the lamp. Piay took in the sweet scent of the olive oil as he watched his master pace. Piay thought back to that first night when he had been introduced to Taita and it was true – the eunuch didn’t seem to have aged a day in the intervening years. He was tall and handsome, his lips full, and his eyes were bright lanterns of intelligence, searching, incisive. He was a slave who had risen far above that role, from helping raise Princess Lostris to guiding the destiny of Egypt. Tonight he was wearing a robe of white silk studded with jewels in the shape of a falcon, the wings outstretched across his chest.

  Piay felt awe rise up inside him as he stared at his master. Many had spoken of a strange, almost supernatural power that seemed to burn within Taita, as hot as the fiercest forge. Now Piay could feel it for himself. In the half-light, sparks swirled in his master’s eyes and when Taita levelled his gaze, Piay fought the urge to sink to his knees.

  ‘There was never any doubt the Hyksos would try to retake Thebes,’ his master said, almost to himself. Taita had questioned the freed soldier for more than an hour and now the former captive had been sent away to have his belly filled and his wounds tended. ‘To possess the City of a Hundred Gates, the jewel in Egypt’s crown, has long been their greatest desire. They have never forgotten how they took the city in a storm of blood and swords soon after they first invaded our land. They know the value of that prize.’

  ‘But we did not know the barbarians were planning to attack Thebes so soon,’ Piay said. ‘With this knowledge we have bought ourselves some time to prepare our defences.’

  Taita shook his head. Piay watched his master’s face cloud as he remembered.

  ‘When the Hyksos army crushed our own in one bloody day and swept up the Nile, we had no choice but to flee. I was there alongside my Queen Lostris, and her son, the Pharaoh, and the brave general Tanus. Our tattered army would have been wiped out if we’d stayed to defend Thebes that day. As if it were yesterday, I recall standing astern in the royal galley and looking back as the City of a Hundred Gates vanished into the heat haze. My eyes filled with tears and my heart ached for what we had lost. But there was nothing we could have done. We escaped beyond the cataracts, to Kush, and licked our wounds. Finally we were strong enough to return and we retook Thebes. That day my heart soared. We vowed never to let the city fall into the hands of our enemy again. But now . . .’ His voice trailed away as he stared through the tent flap into the night.

  Piay plucked a ripe fig from the bowl, tossed it in the air and caught it. Ripping it open, he swallowed a mouthful of the sweet flesh and drank deep of the refreshing juices. When he’d wiped his chin with the back of his hand, he saw Taita was staring at him. His master’s eyes were hard and Piay sensed the condemnation that was to come.