‘Or the crocodile that ate this poor bastard,’ said a third, making all his comrades laugh.

  Piay waited a few moments, then very cautiously raised his head. The men around the hole had all turned their heads in another direction, and Piay soon saw why – they were looking towards the oncoming figure of Tallus, the Cobra.

  In his black robe, and with his wild, silver-streaked black hair and beard, he looked like a pool of shadow in the torchlight. He came to a halt and stared down at the body, one hand gripping his long staff with the crescent atop it.

  ‘You have failed again,’ he said in his low voice.

  Under his heavy brows, his eyes were lost to darkness, but when he looked from face to face each man shifted in discomfort.

  ‘Once they’re in the hole, they thrash like a fish on a line,’ one of the men protested from the back. ‘It’s the fear – drives them mad.’

  ‘Then perhaps one of you fearless men should do it,’ Tallus said in a calm voice.

  The man who had spoken bowed his head.

  ‘Go and tell your master that he is needed here,’ the Cobra said. ‘It is time to make a decision.’

  Piay felt his chest tighten. The only master here was Akkan. But there was still no sign of Myssa – and where were the Shrikes? Had Khin lost his nerve now that the prospect of confronting his terrifying brother was a reality? When he left, was he really just running away?

  The man who had been sent to fetch Akkan ran back to the group. Soon after, Piay sensed movement on the far side of the camp. But as he stared he realised there was not one figure but two.

  His heart began to thump so hard he thought his enemies might hear it.

  The Cobra stepped to one side and Akkan walked towards the circle of warriors and wise men. But all Piay’s attention was focused on the shadow just beyond Akkan’s shoulder. His blood pounded harder, matching the beat of the silent prayer he was uttering. Then the torchlight glistened on soft, dark skin, and he felt a rush of relief so powerful he thought it would wash his wits away.

  It was Myssa. She was still alive, seemingly unharmed. Akkan had not broken her. On the contrary, she held her head up as proudly as ever. Piay felt overwhelmed by his love for Myssa. He had never doubted her strength, not for an instant, and her mind was sharp enough to find ways out of any trap set for her. But he knew what the Child-Killer was capable of and that had filled him with a fear so deep that he could only now bring himself to admit it.

  Yet when she stepped fully into the torchlight, Piay felt surprised. Myssa was now wearing a dress of brilliant yellow, quite unlike the one she had been wearing when Akkan captured her.

  Now, in his tumbling emotions, Piay felt his anger simmer. Had Akkan offered Myssa this fine dress as a bribe to convince her to do his work for him? Or had the warlord dressed Myssa to show her off as his prize?

  Piay gritted his teeth. He wanted so badly to separate Akkan’s head from his body. He glanced at Hannu and saw that he thought the same. They were ready.

  Then a throat-rending cry tore through the night. An instant later, frantic activity erupted on all sides as the Shrikes thundered into the camp, all of them howling war cries that merged into one great roar. As they raced forward, the Shrikes shook their plundered weapons, those dented swords and stained spears, the filthy rags that clothed them reeking of sweat and blood and mud.

  The Hyksos warriors had been caught off guard, but they reacted with the speed of seasoned veterans. They snatched out their crescent swords and whirled into a circle with Akkan, Myssa and the Cobra at the centre.

  As the first of the Shrikes dashed forward, whirling his sword above his head, one of the Hyksos warriors swept his blade, backhanded, across his attacker’s exposed abdomen, tearing open his belly. The Shrike’s battle cry became a howl of pain and he fell to the ground, his hands clasped to his body, desperately trying to contain the guts spilling out through the open wound.

  Other Hyksos were dispatching their enemies with similar efficiency, but some were being overpowered, and for every Shrike that fell, two more appeared in the clearing to take his place. Piay waited, biding his time for the moment when – he hoped, he prayed – he could take advantage of the confusion, slip through the Hyksos defences and snatch Myssa from the heart of the circle.

  She was still completely calm, Piay saw. His pride in her grew even greater. Akkan, too, looked self-assured, still confident in his men. Or was it his faith in Seth and the power the god had given him that gave the Child-Killer such certainty in his capacity to survive?

  Piay could not spot Khin anywhere. He, too, must be biding his time, waiting for that one moment when Akkan could be caught unawares.

  The fight raged on and Piay watched a Hyksos warrior being assailed by four attackers, their axes hacking as if they were cutting fresh wood in a shipyard. Unable to defend himself from every strike, the warrior collapsed under the assault.

  Piay braced himself. Soon . . . soon. He looked at Akkan even more closely, wondering where, precisely, to stab his hidden dagger when the moment came.

  The Shrikes were still flooding into the camp, fresh meat replacing the slaughtered. There couldn’t be many of them still waiting in the night. But as the latest wave crashed into the camp, Piay glimpsed something that chilled his blood.

  White foam frothed from the mouth of one of the Shrikes at the rear, stark against skin almost black with filth. His eyes spun and he reeled into the torchlight before collapsing to the ground, racked with convulsions.

  Piay gasped, but he already understood what he was seeing.

  Caught up in the brutal battle for life, no one seemed to notice the fallen Shrike. But then others clutched at their throats, gagging and choking, falling to their knees, crashing face down, dying without a single hand laid upon them.

  ‘Oh no, that’s all we need,’ Hannu muttered. ‘The Sons of Apis have arrived.’

  A

  s one, the attacking Shrikes realised their comrades were falling around them, untouched by any weapon. Terror was etched into their faces and they lurched away from the battle with the Hyksos, for they were mere mortals and now some supernatural force surely assailed them.

  Akkan’s men would not be distracted by such a sight, Piay knew, and he was right. The warriors seized their moment, hacking down those Shrikes now caught between death on both sides. The thieves and murderers fell in their ones and twos, their blood soaking into the rich, fertile soil, desperate to flee but afraid of whatever waited for them in the night.

  Victory was within Akkan’s grasp.

  Piay crept to the edge of the shrubs, ready to make his move. The perfect moment had not arrived. Now he would just have to count on the element of surprise, and the good luck with which he had been blessed in so many battles.

  But before he could move, a howl rose up somewhere deep in the night like a beast caught in the convulsions of death. It swept closer and closer, and then Khin crashed out of the undergrowth, his hands waving in the air, his face twisted with such terror it seemed he had no wits left. His ruby-red robe swirled around him as he ran, and his hands and face were the same colour, though whether it was his blood or someone else’s, Piay could not be certain.

  So terrified was the great and powerful Akh-Seth that he thundered past the poisoned Shrikes and into the very orbit of his hated brother. Piay glimpsed Akkan give a contemptuous grin. He hooked one foot under Khin’s legs and as the Shrike leader crashed down, the Child-Killer stepped over him and pressed the tip of his blade against the back of his brother’s neck.

  ‘Stay down,’ he barked. ‘Move and you die.’

  From the direction Khin had fled, another figure staggered to the fringes of the torchlight. It was one of the Hyksos guards. His skin had turned as black as ebony from whatever poison coursed through his veins, and blood sprayed from his mouth as he hacked painfully. In his left hand he held the head of the other Hyksos guard.

  The few remaining Shrikes backed away as if he had the plague, straight into the flashing blades of the Hyksos war band.

  The blackened guard crashed to his knees, hovered there and then tipped forward, dead.

  The grim scene was not yet over. Piay sensed movement in the darkness beyond the acacia. Figures floated like ghosts, wrapped in the interplay of shadow and moonlight. The Sons of Apis hovered there on the fringes of perception, pale faces turned into death’s heads by those black tattoos. Silent. Summoning dread by their very presence.

  Their leader stepped forward, surveying the camp with the same cold attention that Piay had witnessed that night when the hood had been ripped from his head in the palace in Thebes. With a gradual movement, he raised his right hand. His fingers curled around whatever he was holding.

  ‘Protect yourselves!’ the Cobra roared.

  The warriors and the wise men tore at the scarves hanging around their necks and wrapped them across their noses and mouths.

  Would that debilitating dust the Sons had released in the palace of Thebes still cloud men’s minds out there in the open, where the slightest breeze would whisk it away? Piay wasn’t sure, but the leader of the Sons seemed confident enough. His gaze didn’t waver, and as he stood there his men pushed forward through the vegetation.

  ‘How many of you are prepared to die?’ Akkan roared.

  He pulled his sword away from his brother’s neck and stepped in front of his men, levelling his blade at the cult’s leader.

  The two men looked at each other, neither feeling the need to speak. One of the Hyksos warriors, panicked by all that had just happened, hurled a throwing-spear at the tattooed figure.

  The spear was well-aimed. It was heading straight for its target’s chest.

  The Son of Apis did not appear to move a muscle. His gaze never left Akkan’s. Yet the spear flew harmlessly past him.

  Piay had been waiting for the tattooed man to fill the air with his poison dust. But then he realised that he felt no need to do that. He was sending a message to Akkan: we can kill you and all your men just as easily as we killed these Shrikes.

  Then two more thoughts tumbled into Piay’s mind.

  He’s not even trying to get the Eye back. He wants it to be out there, being fought over. That weakens all those who are trying to solve the riddle.

  And then, cutting through his speculations, another, more urgent realisation.

  This is the time!

  The Hyksos’ defensive circle had fallen apart. Now Akkan, his warriors and the Cobra were gathered in a line, their entire attention fixed on the tattooed man and the Sons of Apis lurking, unseen, behind him. Myssa stood behind Akkan and the Cobra, watching the two men at the centre of the drama. This was the perfect moment to rescue her.

  Hannu knew it, too. When Piay nodded to him, they eased back through the shrubs and crept along the track that led towards the river. As they rounded the edge of the copse of acacia, Piay caught a clear view through the camp, with the backs of the Hyksos war band turned towards him.

  He pressed his finger to his lips and then crept forward between two tents. The torches were dying down now, the circle of amber light closing in on Akkan’s men and Myssa. The dark seemed to grow deeper and more impenetrable beyond it.

  Here was his chance.

  Piay waved his left hand to signal to Hannu to hold back, and then he crawled away from the tents without making the slightest sound, keeping low so any movement would not catch the edges of any of his enemies’ vision. No one flinched. The Sons of Apis had not moved, nor had they retreated. Khin continued to lie face down, his hands over his head as if he could deny the existence of whatever had terrified him in the night by keeping his eyes averted.

  Myssa watched the stand-off, as rigid as all the others. She, too, knew the threat the Sons of Apis posed. Piay weighed how he could gain her attention without extracting any cry of surprise.

  His heart pounding, he crept on until he was level with the hole in the ground, his senses filled with the reek of the dead body. Reaching out a steady hand, he touched the hem of Myssa’s dress – the merest brush, not enough to startle her but enough, he hoped, to get her to look round.

  She did not respond. Piay tried again. This time she shivered with awareness and glanced back.

  When she saw him, her eyes widened, but she did not start. Piay felt a flood of relief. Instead she wrinkled her nose – in puzzlement, it seemed, almost as if she was trying to comprehend how he had got there.

  Piay pressed a finger to his lips again and beckoned as he backed towards the tents.

  His intention could not have been clearer. Yet Myssa remained rigid, staring at him. Piay beckoned again, more furiously this time.

  Why is she not following? Is she afraid of being caught? That is not like Myssa.

  Then her eyes glittered and her face hardened. She whirled around, crying out, ‘An enemy! Here, among us!’

  Piay gasped, disbelieving. Ahead, Akkan and some of the wise men glanced back and saw Piay crouched there.

  The leader of the Sons of Apis silently turned on his heels and walked away, his message delivered, taking his men with him. Now Akkan had just one more, far less imposing threat to deal with.

  Piay’s thoughts tumbled over themselves as he struggled to understand what he was witnessing. He lunged to grasp Myssa’s wrist and pulled her back towards the tents. Yet Myssa only dug in her heels and wrenched her arm back.

  ‘You will not take me!’ she spat.

  ‘Myssa, I beg you!’ Piay pleaded. ‘This is our last chance!’

  ‘I will not go with you!’ Myssa’s eyes blazed with what looked like loathing.

  Piay felt as if he had turned to stone, and in the time it took him to recover his wits, he realised he had lost his chance to escape.

  ‘You should have kept running.’ A smile ghosted Akkan’s lips, as cold and cruel as the man himself. ‘That would have been the action of a wise man.’

  Piay peered deep into Myssa’s eyes, desperate to see something that could explain her rejection of him. Nothing else mattered at that point, not Akkan, not the Sons of Apis nor the quest for Imhotep’s secret: just Myssa.

  But there was no respite. Those eyes told a deep and painful truth. In the short time they had been apart, Myssa had turned away from him.

  ‘She has made her own choice. You have lost her to a stronger man, someone who can give her what she desires.’ Akkan paused, letting the words that were to come gather weight. ‘She is to become my bride.’

  Piay reeled. That could not be. Myssa had professed her love for him so many times in so many different ways. Had it all been some grand deception?

  He looked at Myssa, his eyes pleading with her to acknowledge him. But her stare remained cold and unknowing.

  Akkan looked around, to make sure that the Sons of Apis were still hanging back, then he sprang forward and slammed the hilt of his sword against the side of Piay’s head.

  Piay fell to the ground, quite unconscious. When he came back to his senses, he was lying on the ground looking up at the Child-Killer.

  ‘You are a fool to come here,’ Akkan said. ‘It has cost you your life.’

  P

  iay’s eyes fluttered open. The bright light of a new day flooded his vision, and with the gradual sensation of swimming up out of the depths of a deep lake, his memories of the night before returned. He recalled Myssa standing there glaring at him, but no Myssa he could comprehend. This was a stranger in every way he could imagine. Desperation swelled within him, and the grief of all-consuming loss. He felt as if he had been cut off from dry land, from everything he knew, and he was drifting out into the ocean.

  Craning his neck, he looked around. Myssa was nowhere to be seen. Nor was Hannu – and that at least gave him some hope that his friend had escaped the mayhem unscathed.

  Near that gaping hole in the ground, the Cobra and his acolytes bowed their heads together in deep conversation. The body that had been dragged out the previous evening was nowhere to be seen.

  Around the perimeter of the camp, Akkan’s warriors peered out across the fields, hands close to their swords, alert to the slightest hint of danger. The Sons of Apis had drifted away into the night, but who knew when they might be back.

  Piay pushed himself up to his feet. His hands were bound behind his back.

  This is getting to be a bad habit, he thought, with bitter humour. He had no idea why Akkan had decided to keep him alive, but it was not out of kindness; he knew that.

  Not far away, Khin lay, also bound, his ruby-red scarf gagging his mouth. His Shrikes were all dead, his Hyksos guards, too. He had lost everything, and now he had nothing left but to throw himself on his hated brother’s mercy.

  Beyond Khin, Piay could see the perfectly worked limestone edging the lip of the hole and facing the walls leading down into the dark. Nearby a stone lid lay shattered. From the remnants he could just make out the broken design of the Eye of Horus.

  ‘Imhotep,’ he whispered to himself.

  A gentle purring rumbled and Piay looked around to see Bast prowling up to him.

  ‘Hello, little goddess,’ he said. ‘Does Myssa still love you, at least?’

  The cat hunched down not far from his head and stared at him. Piay squirmed as he looked into those intense eyes. They never failed to unnerve him.

  ‘Hear my plea,’ Piay whispered to Bast. ‘Help Myssa. Help her find her way back to me. Help—’

  ‘And now you speak with cats. What possessed your master Taita to invest so much in you?’

  Piay jerked around to see Akkan staring down at him, legs apart with his hands upon his hips. But it was Myssa who drew Piay’s gaze. She stood beside the Hyksos leader, their shoulders almost touching, and it was that closeness which made Piay shudder. Her face was as stony as he remembered from the previous night. It was almost as if he looked upon a different person.

  Piay winced from a pain so acute he could have been stabbed. Yet deep inside him, he knew that if he gave in to these feelings he would be lost. He swallowed his despair and showed a defiant face.

  ‘Undo my hands,’ he said. ‘Face me, man to man, sword against sword. I’ll show you why Taita placed his trust in me.’