First, they had to stay alive.
They’d cut strips off their tunics and wet them in the Sea, then wound them round their heads. The sopping cloth had been wonderfully cool, but it soon dried, and now Pirra could feel the Sun hammering her skull. Her eyes were scratchy, her tongue was a lump of sand. She thought she kept hearing the trickle of water, but there wasn’t any. Only the deathlike silence of the desert.
Hylas stumbled along beside her, squinting and rubbing his temples. She worried that he might be about to have a vision. What would he see? Ghosts? Demons? If it happened, he would tell her when he was ready, but she’d learnt not to ask. He hated talking about it. ‘It’s frightening and it hurts,’ he’d said once. ‘I never know when it’s going to happen. I just wish it would stop.’
The outcrop of big red boulders wasn’t getting any closer. She wondered if it was really there, or just a trick of the gods.
A trick of the gods …
She halted. ‘Hylas, we’re doing this all wrong.’
‘What?’ he croaked.
‘Whatever gods rule this place, they won’t help us till we’ve made an offering.’
Hylas looked at her, appalled. ‘I can’t believe I forgot.’
‘Me too. We should’ve done it as soon as we got ashore. We won’t make it if we don’t.’
Hylas wiped the sweat off his face and tossed her the lion claw he wore on a thong around his neck, while she took off Userref’s wedjat eye amulet, which she’d worn ever since Keftiu. Muttering a swift prayer under her breath, she found a clump of scrub and tucked the snake’s head in its branches. It would be safe from Echo, who’d flown off to hunt; and Havoc was plodding ahead and hadn’t noticed. After touching both amulets to the offering, Pirra stumbled back to Hylas and handed him his lion claw.
‘Who did you offer to?’ he said as they resumed their trudge.
‘The Goddess for me, Lady of the Wild Things for you, and two of the most powerful gods of Egypt.’
‘Who?’ He was scanning the ground for pebbles for his slingshot.
‘Heru – He has a falcon’s head – and Sekhmet, She has the head of a lioness. I remembered them because of Echo and Havoc.’
Hylas slipped a pebble into the pouch at his belt. ‘Are there more?’
‘Lots. Userref used to tell me stories when I was little …’ She broke off. Userref had looked after her since she was a baby, and she missed him terribly. For fourteen years he’d played with her and scolded her, tried to keep her out of trouble, and told her all about his beloved Egypt. He was far more than a slave. He was the big brother she’d never had.
‘Pirra?’ said Hylas. ‘What are the other gods?’
‘Um – there’s one with the head of something called a jackal, I think that’s a kind of fox. And one like a river horse –’
‘A what?’
‘They’re very fat, with a huge snout, and they live in the river. Also there’s a god like a crocodile, whatever that is.’
He frowned. ‘When I was a slave down the mines, there was an Egyptian boy, he talked about crocodiles. He said they’re giant lizards with hide tougher than armour, and they eat people. I thought he was making it up.’
‘I’m pretty sure they’re real.’
He didn’t reply. He was squinting at the outcrop, which was now only forty paces away. ‘Your eyes are better than mine. Can you see people clambering about?’
Pirra’s heart leapt. Through the shimmering air, she glimpsed tiny dark figures moving among the rocks. ‘The offering worked!’ she croaked. ‘We’re saved!’
The nearer they got, the more uneasy Hylas became. Those people moved astonishingly fast – but they were scrambling about on all fours.
He grabbed Pirra’s arm. ‘Those aren’t men!’
She shaded her eyes with her hand. ‘What are they?’ she whispered.
They looked like a cross between men and dogs: covered in dense greyish-brown fur, with thick tails, long powerful arms, and narrow bony red faces.
Hylas wondered if they were demons. But although he felt dizzy, and the rocks and even his shadow trembled in the heat, there was no burning finger stabbing his temple, as there always was when he had a vision.
Suddenly, he felt watched.
‘Look,’ breathed Pirra.
To their right, twenty paces from where they stood, one of the creatures crouched on top of a solitary boulder. It was bigger than the others; Hylas guessed it was the leader. He saw its massive chest matted with blood, its heavy brows overhanging small yellow eyes set very close together. Glaring at him.
‘Don’t run,’ Hylas said quietly. ‘Don’t turn your back on it or it’ll think we’re prey.’
Slowly, they began to edge backwards.
The creature bared huge white fangs and uttered a harsh rattling bark. It sounded horribly like a signal.
Behind it, the other creatures had clustered at the base of the outcrop. They glanced up at their leader’s barks, then went back to their kill. Hylas glimpsed the carcass of a large white buck with a long spiral horn. He saw strong man-like hands snapping its ribs, ripping open its belly and clawing at glistening guts. One of the creatures grabbed the buck’s hind leg and twisted it off as easily as if it had been a quail’s wing.
On its boulder, the leader swung round, barking furiously. It wasn’t barking at Hylas and Pirra.
Hylas’ belly turned over.
Havoc was sneaking towards the carcass, intent on scaring away the creatures and seizing their prey, as she might scare away foxes or pine martens.
But these were no foxes.
‘Havoc come back!’ shouted Hylas.
The young lioness knew her name well enough, but she ignored it. She hadn’t been fed much on the ship, and a few chunks of snake weren’t enough to blunt her hunger. The smell of fresh meat was agonizing.
‘Havoc come back!’ yelled Hylas and Pirra together.
Havoc broke cover and charged, snarling and lashing out with her forepaws. But instead of scattering, the creatures raced towards her, barking furiously and gnashing their fangs. And now more of them were emerging from caves higher up, streaming down to join the attack, and the leader was hurtling over the sand at a dreadful shambling run.
Hylas and Pirra ran after him, Hylas yelling and firing pebbles with his slingshot, Pirra flinging whatever rocks she could find.
Havoc realized her mistake, turned tail and fled. Hylas and Pirra did the same.
As he ran, Hylas glanced over his shoulder. The creatures weren’t coming after them. They were leaping up and down at the foot of the outcrop, beating the ground with their fists.
Their leader sat on his haunches, glaring at the intruders who had dared approach his stronghold: Stay away! Don’t come back!
‘Baboons,’ panted Pirra some time later. ‘I knew Userref had mentioned them, I just couldn’t remember the name.’
‘Is there a baboon god too?’ gasped Hylas.
‘I think so. They’re incredibly clever and not afraid of anything.’
‘I could see that for myself!’
The Sun would be down soon, but the heat was still fierce. They had backtracked all the way down the shore, past where the Phoenicians had left them and where they’d killed the snake, and were now warily approaching another clump of boulders that looked as if it might provide shelter. If it wasn’t full of baboons.
With his slingshot, Hylas pelted the outcrop with pebbles.
No angry barks, no vicious dog-men swarming out to attack.
Telling Pirra to wait, he climbed towards what appeared to be the mouth of a cave, flinging rocks as he went, to flush out anything hiding inside. A couple of bats flickered out of the darkness, but nothing else.
‘It’s clear,’ he called down. Dropping his gear, he crawled inside. It was stifling, but any shade was a relief after the Sun.
Pirra crawled in too, and slumped on to her side. Her face was filmed with dust and sweat. When she peeled off her sandals, the
thongs left her feet marked with red stripes.
The Sea wasn’t far away, but they were too exhausted to stagger down and wash. What strength Hylas had left, he would need for setting snares.
He went outside again. From this vantage-point, he saw a low rocky ridge not far off, and beyond it, the endless red desert, stretching to the end of the world.
The wind carried weird yelping calls. He wondered if they were jackals. He guessed that whatever creatures lived in the desert would hide from the Sun and come out at night. That was why Havoc, feeling the onset of dusk, had plodded off to hunt. Hylas only hoped she had the sense to stalk lizards or hares – if there were any – and stay away from baboons.
Behind him, Pirra coughed, and clawed at her dust-caked hair. ‘How much water’s left?’
Hylas hefted the waterskin, then set it down again at the mouth of the cave. ‘Enough for a day. Maybe two.’
She took that in silence, running her tongue over her chapped lips.
‘We’ll rest for a bit,’ he said, ‘but we can’t sleep here all night.’
‘Why not?’
‘The Sun, Pirra. We made a mistake, walking in daylight. From now on, we’ll have to move by night, or we’ll burn up.’
‘And go where?’ she mumbled. ‘West again, and hope we can sneak past those baboons? Or keep going east, and pray that the river’s this way?’
Hylas didn’t answer. Neither sounded like much of a plan.
Taking what was left of the snake from his belt, he chucked it to her. ‘I’ll go and gather some of that scrub and wake up a fire.’
She glanced at the mangled carcass. ‘I’m not hungry.’
‘We need to eat. It’ll taste better cooked.’
The Sun was a bloody ball of fire sinking towards the horizon, but the heat was still crushing. As Hylas picked his way down the rocks, the ridge before him danced in the heat, and behind him, his shadow, stretching over the stones, was weirdly misshapen.
‘What happens if we don’t find anything,’ called Pirra. ‘Just more and more desert?’
‘I don’t know,’ he replied.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his shadow take on a life of its own.
It took Hylas a moment to realize that it wasn’t his shadow, it was a boy, as dark as a shadow.
But by then the boy had snatched the waterskin and fled.
The thief sped towards the ridge with the waterskin over his shoulder. If he got amongst those boulders, he’d be gone for good.
Hylas raced after him, whirling his slingshot over his head. The thief fell with a yelp, clutching his shin. Hylas jumped him and tried to pin him by the arms, but he was strong, twisting round and aiming a knee at Hylas’ groin. Hylas dodged, jabbed an elbow at his throat. With a choking cough, the thief squirmed out from under. Hylas grabbed his hair, but it was short as a shorn ram’s, he couldn’t get a grip. The thief scrambled to his feet and whipped a flint knife from a sheath strapped to his upper arm. Slashing the air before him, he backed towards the boulders – still with the waterskin over his shoulder.
‘Drop the waterskin!’ panted Hylas, drawing his own knife and showing the thief its lethal bronze blade. ‘I don’t want to kill you but I will!’
The thief snarled something in a tongue Hylas didn’t know and edged closer to the boulders.
Pirra ran round to cut off his escape. The thief flung out a hand and sent her flying, then fled for the rocks with Hylas in pursuit.
Suddenly Hylas caught movement on the ridge – and there was Havoc, gazing down at the thief. The thief howled in terror and sped sideways. In two effortless bounds, Havoc was on him.
‘Throw away your knife!’ yelled Hylas.
‘I’ll try it in Egyptian,’ shouted Pirra, then yelled something Hylas couldn’t understand.
Havoc lay on top of her quarry, playfully batting his head between her forepaws while he flailed like a beetle on its back. Luckily for him, she wasn’t in earnest and had sheathed her claws.
‘If you don’t throw away your knife,’ snarled Hylas, ‘I’ll tell my lion to bare her claws!’
With a hiss, the thief tossed his knife aside. Hylas kicked it out of reach, then grabbed the waterskin and chucked it to Pirra. ‘Seems he does understand Akean, after all.’
‘What’s your name?’ Pirra demanded in Akean.
The boy merely glared at her.
She said something in what Hylas guessed was Egyptian. Still no response. She flung up her arms. ‘Why doesn’t he answer?’
‘Because it’s safer to say nothing,’ said Hylas. ‘It’s what I’d do in his place.’
They’d dragged him back to the cave, Pirra having run and fetched the rope, with which Hylas had tied his arms. Night had fallen with startling suddenness, and they’d woken a small scrubwood fire. The thief huddled at the back of the cave, eyeing Havoc, who sat at the entrance, snuffing his scent. He seemed wary, but no longer terrified – which meant he was either brave, or a fool. Something about his bearing told Hylas that he wasn’t a fool.
He seemed to be about Hylas’ own age, and his skin wasn’t black, as Hylas had thought, but the rich dark brown of polished walnut wood. Hylas had never seen anyone so dark. His wiry black hair clung close to his skull, and lines of straight ridged scars on his high cheekbones seemed to have been done on purpose. His horny feet were bare, and he wore nothing but a rag tied round his hips. His jagged flint knife was familiar enough. Hylas had carried a similar one for most of his life; but thrust in his belt was a bent piece of wood like two sides of a triangle. Hylas had never seen such a weapon.
With a jerk of her head, Pirra drew him aside. ‘D’you think there are others like him out here?’ she said.
‘Let’s hope not,’ he muttered, ‘or we’re in even more trouble than we thought. But what is he? He’s not Egyptian, I know that much. Have you ever seen skin that dark?’
She nodded. ‘Sometimes they come to Keftiu to trade. They’re desert people, from a country near Egypt. Incredibly tough, amazing archers. But they’re supposed to be brave,’ she added loudly, so that the boy could hear. ‘Only a coward would steal our waterskin.’
That had its effect, and the boy glowered at her.
Putting her head close to Hylas’, she dropped her voice to a whisper. ‘What do we do with him? We can’t leave him tied up, but if we let him go …’
Hylas went and stood over the boy. ‘Are you alone?’ he said brusquely.
The boy turned his head away. The muscles of his arms bulged as he clenched his fists.
Hylas saw that his back was criss-crossed with scars: not the orderly ridges on his cheeks, but the scars you got from beatings. Hylas knew about those – he had some of his own.
They gave him an idea. Hunkering down on his heels, he met the boy’s eyes. ‘You were a slave,’ he said quietly.
Nothing moved in the surly brown face.
‘I was a slave once,’ said Hylas. Holding out his forearm, he showed the boy his zigzag tattoo. ‘That’s the mark of my enemies. A powerful clan in a land called Akea, far to the north. People call them the Crows.’ The boy’s eyelids flickered. Did he know the name? The mark?
‘Crows,’ repeated Hylas. ‘Two summers ago I was a goatherd on Mount Lykas. That’s a mountain in Akea. The Crows attacked my camp and killed my dog. My sister went missing. I was twelve, she was nine. My best friend Telamon turned out to be a Crow.’ He swallowed. He hadn’t intended to say so much. ‘The Crows caught me and made me a slave,’ he went on. ‘They made me work in their mines. But I ran away.’ He let that sink in. ‘I think you ran away too.’
The boy’s face remained stubbornly blank, but Hylas knew he was listening. ‘What’s your name?’ he said.
A long pause. ‘Kem,’ growled the boy. ‘That the name they give I.’ His voice was rough with contempt. ‘It mean – black. And I not a coward!’
‘What’s your real name?’ said Pirra.
Kem shot her an incredulous look. Why would I tell y
ou?
‘So we’ll call you Kem,’ said Hylas. ‘Where are you heading?’
Another pause. ‘My country. You call it Wawat. Egyptians call it Land of Black Stranger.’
‘What do you call it?’ said Hylas.
Kem spat something incomprehensible.
‘How long have you been a runaway?’ said Hylas.
Kem shrugged. ‘Five, six day.’
‘Your country,’ said Pirra. ‘Where is it?’
‘South of Egypt,’ said Kem. ‘Long, long way upriver.’
Hylas and Pirra exchanged glances. ‘Do you mean the Great River?’ said Pirra. ‘The one Egyptians call Iteru-aa?’
Kem started at her as if she was an idiot. ‘Of course! What other river there is in the world?’
Pirra bristled, but Hylas got in first. ‘Then we’re going the same way. We need to find the River too.’
‘So?’ snarled Kem.
‘We’re trying to find our friend,’ said Hylas. ‘He’s an Egyptian called Userref. He has something we need.’
‘But we don’t know where he is,’ put in Pirra. ‘All we know is he’s from somewhere called Pa-Sobek and he has a brother called Nebetku, who’s a scribe.’
Kem gave a disbelieving snort. ‘That all you know, yet you say you’re friends?’
Pirra glared at him. ‘He was sold as a slave when he was a boy, and he missed his family terribly, it upset him to talk of them – not that that’s anything to do with you!’
‘All right, Pirra,’ said Hylas. Then to Kem: ‘Can you get us to Pa-Sobek?’
‘Why should I?’ snapped Kem.
‘Because if you don’t,’ said Hylas, ‘we’ll leave you here tied up and you’ll die of thirst.’
Kem’s dark eyes drilled into his, trying to see if he was bluffing. ‘But I know the desert and you don’t. You leave me here, you dead too.’
Hylas nodded slowly. ‘True. But you see, Kem, you really do need us just as much as we need you.’
Another snort. ‘Why so?’