‘Run!’ Piay called.

  After the wait and the worry, what they had all feared most had finally come to be.

  Sakir was here.

  ‘O

  nly with Seth guiding him could Sakir find us.’

  Piay crashed through the palms. Sweat soaked his back from the suffocating heat under the verdant canopy.

  Myssa scooped Bast into her arms as she hurried.

  ‘And Seth speaks to him through the blue lotus.’

  ‘Little matter the how,’ Hannu said. ‘Now there is only running, and hiding, and fighting for our lives.’

  Piay glanced back at the rowing boats sweeping towards the beach. Three ships. Perhaps twenty crew to remain on board each one. That left perhaps one hundred pursuers, no doubt with enough scouts who could track their progress through even the densest forest.

  ‘As long as they are chasing us, they have the upper hand,’ Piay said. ‘We need to make them afraid. A desert cat is never more dangerous than when it is cornered.’

  At a mangrove swamp where the sandy soil gave way to pools of brackish water over which clouds of flies droned, Piay caught Jabilo’s arm.

  ‘We need you, my friend. Your skills. Only you can save us now.’

  Jabilo grinned. ‘Yes, big man.’

  ‘Use your tracking skills to find us the most dangerous paths – the ones where the slightest slip could end your life, where the wild beasts roam, through the swamps and the high passes and the gorges where the white water rushes. And then we will put our faith in our own abilities, and in the gods to guide us.’

  From Myssa’s arms, the cat stared at him with unblinking green eyes.

  ‘We will put our faith in Bast.’

  O

  n they fled, barely snatching moments of sleep. The world blurred in a haze of exhaustion, as they stumbled through the twilit world of emerald and shadow. Piay clawed his way past trees soaring up more than twenty-five times a man’s height, clustering close on every side.

  Jabilo found wild mushrooms for them to eat as they hurried on. They sprouted everywhere, strange growths with huge creamy folds or distended brown caps. The young warrior ripped up root vegetables for them to gnaw on, too. They were bitter and left an unpleasant aftertaste, but they filled their growling bellies.

  Occasionally the cries of the Hyksos dogs rang out at their backs. Piay felt relief that their pursuers did not seem to be drawing closer. Their strategy must be to hound their prey to the point of collapse.

  When the rain came, hard stones of water cascaded through the canopy, so thick and fast they could barely see more than three spear-lengths ahead of them. On it pounded, through the day and into the night until Piay could barely remember what it was like to be dry.

  New streams gushed down channels, turning the ground into sucking marsh that hampered their progress.

  As they stumbled past a swelling pool, Hannu grabbed Piay’s arm and shouted above the roar, ‘I do not like this! I cannot hear if those barbarian curs are close.’

  Piay nodded. ‘We need to shelter. At least this damnable rain should hide our tracks.’

  ‘Take us to the high ground. I have a plan.’

  L

  ightning danced across the slate-grey sky. The thunder boomed and the rain drummed. Piay crouched on a narrow plateau on a blade of rock stabbing up through the forest canopy in the foothills of the mountains. Wiping the streaming water from his eyes, he squinted through the sheets until he saw Jabilo sprinting up the uneven path that curled around the precipitous cliff. Using his spear to balance himself, the Abantu warrior bounded with a grace and speed that belied the dangers of the winding track.

  When he leaped on to the plateau, he hurried to Piay’s side and ducked low.

  ‘They are coming.’

  ‘You left a clear sign pointing the way?’

  ‘They will find us.’

  Piay nodded. He peered over the lip of the plateau into the half-light. Hannu crawled beside him, streaked with rock dust and earth, his knuckles gashed, fingertips bleeding from his exertions.

  ‘A good plan,’ Piay said.

  ‘A reckless one,’ Hannu said. ‘You have corrupted me.’

  ‘Desperate times require desperate measures.’

  Piay strained to look down the path. In the rumble of the squall he could hear nothing.

  Silhouetted against a sky turned white by lightning, Myssa crawled over a rock from where she had been keeping watch. She waved furiously.

  ‘Ready yourselves,’ Piay said.

  Hannu and Jabilo crawled along the plateau into the gloom.

  Piay glimpsed movement along the narrow path. The Hyksos were feeling their way along the treacherous, rain-slick route.

  When Myssa slid in next to him, Piay surprised her with a kiss, then he scrambled along the edge to where Hannu and Jabilo crouched. Myssa was just visible in the dim light – enough to see her signal.

  ‘Start small,’ Piay said. He grasped a rock as big as a coconut and lifted it to his waist.

  For what seemed like an age, he braced himself, his gaze fixed on Myssa. She raised her arm. When she swept her hand down, Piay held the rock out over the edge and let it go.

  In another flash of lightning, he watched the projectile hurtle towards the line of barbarians creeping along the ledge.

  The rock hit the warrior who was behind the leader, shattering his skull. He flew off the path onto the treetops below. The man who was at the head of the column half-turned, lost his footing and pitched over after his comrade. His scream spiralled up.

  Piay ducked back before he could be seen. Even above the rolling thunder, he could hear the cries of alarm echo down the line. The barbarians most likely believed they’d been victims of a random act of nature. They’d still be edging forwards, though more cautiously.

  Piay glanced along the line of boulders and rocks that Hannu had rolled into place along the rim of the plateau and he nodded. Hannu and Jabilo raced along the line. At intervals, they pressed their backs against one of the boulders, dug their heels in and pushed. Once the stone began to trundle over the edge, they scrambled to the next one.

  The rain of rock thundered down the cliff side. Piay leaned out to watch.

  Mangled bodies flew into the abyss, turning amid the endless shower of stone and rain. Screams and cries of pain echoed around them. Piay couldn’t tell how many of the Hyksos had been crushed, but he witnessed a good twenty die.

  Here and there the boulders smashed the path. Voids appeared along the narrow track, making it impossible for anyone to climb to the plateau.

  Hannu’s plan had bought them some time.

  Once all the stones had been used up, Jabilo bounded up with Hannu limping close behind.

  ‘Good work,’ Piay said above the thrumming of the downpour.

  Jabilo beamed. Even Hannu managed a smile.

  ‘It won’t be the end of it, but it will do for now.’

  ‘And this won’t be the end of it for us,’ Piay replied. ‘We will fight back whenever we can.’

  Glancing over the edge of the precipice when a lightning flash lit the surroundings, Piay glimpsed a sole warrior staring back at him. It was Sakir, rigid, cold, unruffled by the mayhem.

  Piay had hoped the Red Hawk would have been in the vanguard of the pursuit and been one of those blasted into the storm by the falling rocks. Perhaps his dark god Seth had warned him. Perhaps the instincts of a seasoned warrior had come into play. But Piay felt pleased that the Hyksos leader had seen him and knew who was the architect of this defeat inflicted upon him.

  Their final battle would come. But for now, let Sakir carry with him the knowledge of who had bested him yet again.

  T

  he storm blew out in the early hours. By that time, Piay, Hannu and Myssa were trekking behind Jabilo on another path winding away from the plateau to higher ground. Three days later, without sign of pursuit, they had already climbed the low slopes of the mountains.

  In the light of morning, Piay looked out over this inhospitable land from another plateau. Beyond the rainforest to the south and south-west, savannah stretched to the horizon. To the north, light glimmered off some great river that reached out across grasslands.

  Piay glimpsed rivers flowing everywhere, just as Hanbaal had said. At least those waterways offered some hope of a faster voyage back to the Elephant Kingdom, rather than fighting their way through tracts of dense vegetation.

  Ahead, the mountain range soared up, a brown slab of rock that seemed to climb to the heavens. From its reaches, the roar rumbled out that he had heard when they first set foot on this strange land. He felt disturbed by that sound. What was waiting for them?

  P

  iay pushed through a wall of fronds and spiky leaves and paused to wipe the sweat from his brow. Was it his imagination, or was the dense forest beginning to thin out as they moved up the mountain slopes? He prayed that was so. The going had been hard and slow and not a moment had passed when he didn’t fear the Hyksos closing at their backs.

  ‘Hold!’

  Jabilo crouched in an attacking posture, his spear levelled at Piay’s back. The Abantu warrior’s face hardened, his eyes growing half-lidded. Behind him, Myssa’s hand flew to her mouth. At her feet, Bast arched her back and hissed.

  Jabilo flicked the tip of his spear up and raised his eyes.

  ‘Slow, big man. Slow.’

  Piay craned his neck by degrees. A pair of moon-eyes stared at him. He stiffened as he took in the creature swaying a hand’s breadth above his head.

  ‘Bad poison, big man,’ Jabilo breathed. ‘One bite – dead.’

  The tree cobra’s sinuous body gleamed like the wet black earth along the banks of the Nile, the huge eyes seeming to glow in the small head. The lower part was coiled around a branch and the spiky tail lashed the air. That powerful cylindrical body was a good head or two longer than he was, he estimated.

  These serpents were lightning-fast, Piay knew, and its venom was as lethal as Jabilo had said. The chance of escaping those fangs was slim.

  The cobra’s ebony hood flexed. It was preparing to strike.

  Piay held his breath and began to retreat.

  In a blur, the snake whipped forwards. Piay flung himself onto the ground, tensing for those fangs tearing into his flesh.

  When he yanked his head back, he glimpsed the long body thrashing above him. The skull was impaled on the tip of Jabilo’s spear. The tail coiled and lashed, not yet realising that it was already dead.

  Piay felt his heart beating so hard he thought it was about to burst out of his chest. Eventually relief began to surface and he jumped to his feet and clasped Jabilo’s arm.

  ‘I owe you my life, my friend,’ he said.

  Jabilo lowered his eyes. His face tightened with a seriousness Piay hadn’t seen in him before.

  ‘What is wrong?’ Piay asked.

  ‘I would ask . . .’ With a shake of his head, Jabilo held out his hands, unable to find the words to express himself.

  ‘Let me.’ Myssa stepped up. After a moment conversing with the Abantu warrior, she said to Piay, ‘In the days since he left his village, Jabilo has seen wonders beyond his imagination.’

  ‘And terrors too, I’d wager,’ Piay said.

  ‘Jabilo says you have opened his eyes to the world. His village . . . the simple life there . . . offers nothing for him in his days yet to come. His only family is his father who has beaten him since he was a boy.’ Myssa reached out and rested a hand on Piay’s arm. ‘He wants to stay with you, to learn from you . . .’

  ‘Me?’ Piay couldn’t understand this request at all.

  ‘He calls you big man, but he is not talking about your stature. In the tongue of the Abantu it means “important man”. “Good man.”’

  Piay glanced at Jabilo, who kept his eyes lowered.

  ‘He wants to return to Egypt with you and to be your assistant.’

  ‘But I already have Hannu—’

  Piay bit off his words and studied Jabilo. He felt humbled by what had been said and undeserving in a way that he had never experienced before.

  ‘He’s been loyal,’ Myssa whispered. ‘And he saved your life.’ She narrowed her eyes and Piay felt chastised.

  If he examined his feelings, he was sure he would discover that he was afraid of the responsibility. Young men had depended on him that night in the fields and their trust had been misplaced. But here was a chance to make amends.

  ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Jabilo will become my new assistant and I will teach him all the arts of peace and war, as they were taught to me by Taita. It will keep Hannu on his toes to know he has a rival.’

  Myssa smiled. ‘I think Hannu will be relieved to no longer be the centre of your attention.’

  When Myssa relayed his response to the Abantu warrior, Jabilo grinned and bowed his head several times. Piay squirmed with embarrassment. Hannu marched up from where he had been scouting ahead. He glanced at the serpent dangling from Jabilo’s spear.

  ‘Good. I have had my fill of mushrooms. Though some fish would have been better.’ As he looked around, he sensed something had transpired. He dismissed his suspicion with a wave of his hand and added, ‘While you were wasting your time talking, I have made an important discovery.’

  P

  ools of brackish water shimmered among sickly trees and islands of yellow grass and sedge. Piay wrinkled his nose at the reek of rotting vegetation and mud. The swamp boiled in a large bowl covering most of this plateau, formed by the heavy rains streaming off the mountain.

  Hannu crouched beside him, pointing across the bleak expanse.

  ‘See those narrow tracks winding through the bog? One would think a war band would be able to pick their way through to reach the other side.’

  ‘Slow going, no doubt, but – yes, a way, if treated with caution.’

  Standing, Hannu kicked out his right leg and clods of black mud flew.

  ‘Except they’re not. Those tracks are like a desert mirage. They trick the eye into thinking they are solid ground. But out in the bog they become sucking mud covered with moss. One step on it and a man would be dragged to his death.’

  ‘You are sure?’

  ‘I stuck a branch in it and couldn’t find the bottom.’

  ‘Then there is no way forwards.’

  Hannu shook his head. ‘There’s a way, around the edge. It’s long and difficult and anyone tracking prey wouldn’t waste their time going that way.’

  Piay grinned. ‘It seems you have done it again.’

  Hannu folded his arms. ‘I have my uses.’

  Piay turned to Myssa. ‘I have my first task for Jabilo as my new assistant.’ He glanced at Hannu. ‘There was no time to tell you.’

  ‘Poor bastard,’ Hannu said. ‘He seemed to have such a happy life.’

  ‘What would you have me tell him?’ Myssa asked.

  Piay pointed to where the ridges of mud and grass entered the swamp.

  ‘Tell him to leave signs that make it appear we took those paths across the swamp. Flattened grass. Broken branches. Footprints in the mud. Do it with every one he finds, so the Hyksos will think we have tried to deceive them. I would think Sakir would send men along every one of them to save time.’ He nodded. ‘Now let us see how clever these barbarians are.’

  P

  iay moistened his cracked lips with the water from his hide. Waves of heat crushed down as he perched on a rock on the track into the highlands that Jabilo had found. The air was sweeter and the trees had thinned the more they climbed, providing a clear view back along the way they had come.

  The route around the swamp had been as hard as Hannu had suggested, the vegetation so thick that sometimes they had to use their swords to hack a path. But in the deadening heat of the afternoon, they broke through on to the rising slope and heaved their way up the mountainside.

  The cry cut through the soaring birdsong. Another followed, and another – a cacophony of alarm, ringing across the mountainside from the bog below. Shouts of warning merged with screams as the panic spread.

  Piay imagined the lines of barbarians weaving across the swamp, balanced on those narrow ridges of earth to avoid plunging into the pools of brown water and sucking mud. He could almost see their terror as man after man found the solid ground vanishing beneath their feet. Attempts to rescue those being sucked under would only have dragged others into the bog. Perhaps some tried to flee the way they had come, losing their footing or knocking some of their comrades to their deaths.

  How many of their pursuers had been destroyed now? Perhaps half of them?

  Piay turned to the others and said, ‘Let us seek out the Scarlet Feather while the gods still favour us.’

  A

  milky mist floated among the trees. Piay shivered. It had grown cold. The forest had thinned and patches of darkening sky were visible among the high branches. On the western horizon the sun burned low and shadows spread across the ground. Ahead, ivory clouds had gathered on the indigo peaks and were creeping down the slopes.

  ‘Close now,’ Piay said. ‘This is the place where Omari said we would find the bird. At first light we’ll begin our search.’

  ‘Something troubles our young friend.’ Myssa was watching Jabilo sweeping his fingers across the earth as he examined some trail invisible to the eyes of others.

  ‘Sakir couldn’t have got ahead of us,’ Hannu said.

  Before Piay could ask the Abantu warrior what he had found, a roar rumbled out among the trees.

  Hannu halted, his eyes widening. They’d heard that troubling sound so many times, but never so close.

  What creature could have caused that blood-curdling roar?

  ‘Do we go back?’ Myssa whispered.

  ‘Whatever is there stands between us and the thing we need most,’ Piay murmured. ‘We have no choice but to go forwards.’

  He pushed on into the drifting mist, hoping his advance would encourage the others to set aside their fears.

  The pearly cloud thickened and soon he couldn’t see more than a few trees ahead. The roar echoed again and was answered by another. How many of the beasts were there? As more voices chimed in, it seemed the hidden beasts were celebrating the setting of the sun and the night creeping in.