‘D’you want the last wing?’ said Pirra with her mouth full.
‘You have it,’ said Hylas without looking up.
‘There’s some skin left, and a bit of reed root.’
He shook his head. He was plaiting two large nets out of reeds, and planned to sling them between pairs of date-palms, so that they could sleep clear of the ground.
‘What’s bothering you?’ said Pirra. ‘Is it the fact that I rescued you, and not the other way around?’
‘Of course not. Anyway, you didn’t rescue me.’
‘Yes I did.’
‘No you didn’t, I’d already got rid of the crocodiles.’
‘You sound like Kem, trying to prove he’s not a coward.’
Hylas sighed. ‘I wish we knew where he was. And you don’t understand, it’s important for him to prove himself.’
Pirra snorted. ‘Why?’
‘He told me that in his tribe, for a boy to become a man, he has to prove his bravery. He’s supposed to slip into Egypt and steal a weapon from a warrior. It’s how he got caught and taken for a slave.’
‘Well it sounds daft to me,’ said Pirra.
‘You’re not a boy, it’s different for you.’ But Hylas understood Kem’s need to prove himself, as he felt it, too. His own father had been a coward, who’d refused to fight the Crows. And because of that, Akastos, the man whom Hylas admired above all others, had had to leave his farm and wander for years in exile. Hylas longed to make amends to Akastos. He longed to wipe out the stain of his father’s cowardice.
‘So what’s bothering you?’ said Pirra, slitting the reed root with her knife and frowning at it.
‘Nothing,’ lied Hylas.
She made a face, and gnawed the sweet, sticky root. ‘You keep rubbing your temple. Have you had another vision?’
‘No!’ he snapped. Sometimes, Pirra noticed too much. And he didn’t want to talk about what he’d seen just before the crocodile attacked. In the beginning, his visions had been fleeting corner-of-the-eye glimpses of ghosts. Later, in the House of the Goddess, they’d been more distinct. And now … He’d seen his shadow moving by itself. It had been so clear. Were the visions getting stronger?
That frightened him more than river horses or crocodiles, because he didn’t know where it would end. And it seemed to put a wall between him and Pirra. How could he protect her when he didn’t know what was happening to himself?
Havoc flopped over and clouted him with one forepaw, then rolled on to her back and lay inelegantly with all four paws flopping outwards.
Hylas scratched her belly and picked off a tick. ‘She doesn’t realize she’s nearly full-grown,’ he remarked. ‘You need to grow up, Havoc. I can’t look after you for ever.’
Havoc rumbled contentedly and gazed at him through slitted eyes as he raked her fur for more ticks. Pirra asked what he was doing, and he held one up for her to see. It was the size of his little fingernail, and swollen with blood.
‘Yuk,’ she said.
‘You’ve got one on your leg.’
‘What? Where?’
‘Behind your knee. Hold still, I’ll pinch it off.’
The skin behind her knee was pale gold and incredibly soft. Touching it made him dizzy and hot. ‘There,’ he muttered, tossing the tick in the fire.
A tiny bead of blood welled up where the tick had been and Pirra rubbed it away with her finger. ‘Thanks,’ she said quietly. In the firelight, her face was high-boned and handsome. Her eyebrows reminded Hylas of two little wings, and her bright eyes met his without blinking.
Jumping to his feet, he grabbed one of the nets, then lashed it to the trunk of a date-palm at head-height and gave the knot a vicious tug. ‘Time we got some sleep,’ he said angrily.
Pirra cleaned her knife on her tunic and looked at Hylas, who was tying the other end of the net to a tree. His tawny mane hung in his eyes, and the firelight caught the golden hairs along his jaw. He was scowling. She could see a muscle twitching in his cheek.
She knew what was wrong. Most of the time, they were exactly as they’d always been: sometimes squabbling, sometimes doubled up with laughter, sometimes silent in the way that only best friends can be. Then one of them would glance at the other, and there’d be this heat crackling between them, like the air before a storm.
They were both fourteen summers old. They couldn’t go on being just friends for much longer. People didn’t, they became mated pairs. Hylas knew this as well as she did. What was holding him back?
On Keftiu, she’d been pretty sure it was because she was highborn and he wasn’t. But these days, she was no longer the daughter of the High Priestess, she was just a girl with a scar – so it couldn’t be that.
A girl with a scar …
Havoc ambled over and gave her a rasping lick on the cheek. Pushing the young lioness aside, Pirra touched the mark on her face.
She’d been twelve when she’d done it. At the time, she’d been proud, it made her look different. Now she hated it. She’d tried everything to make it fade, but nothing had worked. Was this what was coming between her and Hylas? Her scar?
Havoc went to Hylas and rubbed against his thigh, and he twisted another tick off her ear and tossed it high, and she leapt and snapped it up in mid-air.
Despite herself, Pirra chuckled.
Hylas’ lip curled. ‘We’d better get some sleep,’ he repeated. But this time, he didn’t sound angry.
Pirra eyed the two nets slung between pairs of date-palms. ‘You really think we can sleep in those things?’
‘Well, you’re welcome to lie on the ground with all the snakes and the scorpions.’
‘What about ticks? Will we be avoiding them too?’
‘Oh, yes.’
She shot him a doubtful glance. ‘Are you just saying that?’
‘Oh, yes.’
She chucked a duck bone at him and he laughed and chucked it back, and things were all right again between them.
Pirra’s sling was scratchy, and sagged so much that she was almost doubled up inside it. As she wriggled about trying to get comfortable, she realized with a jolt what she was missing. With a cry, she jumped to the ground.
Hylas was beside her in an instant with his knife in his fist. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘My wedjat!’
‘What?’
‘My amulet! The Eye of Heru, the one Userref gave me! Oh, Hylas, it’s gone!’
‘When did you have it last? Before or after you found me in the tree?’ Hylas stifled a yawn, and hoped Pirra didn’t notice.
She was far too upset to notice anything. ‘Um – after, I think. Yes, I’m sure, the thong kept coming loose – but I fixed it!’
‘It’s good that it was after, we can retrace our steps tomorrow. We’ll find it, Pirra. It must’ve got snagged on something and fallen off.’
‘Tomorrow?’ She was aghast. ‘But anything could’ve happened to it by then!’
‘Well I’m not floundering around in a swamp in the dark, with river horses and crocodiles and who knows what else!’
‘Hylas, please, we have to find it tonight!’ She was wringing her hands, and there was a pleading note in her voice which wasn’t like her. Pirra never pleaded.
With a sigh, he cut a length of papyrus stem and lit one end in the embers, then jammed his knife in its sheath. ‘You stay here – I’ll take a look. But I’m not going far. If I don’t find it soon, we wait till dawn!’
He hadn’t gone ten paces when he realized it was hopeless. It was much too dark, and his feeble light only made it harder to see.
But as he headed back to camp, he caught a glint of bronze in a shaft of moonlight – and there was the amulet, dangling from a papyrus stem not five paces away.
He was about to retrieve it when a man emerged from the shadows and moved towards it.
Hylas swayed as lights flashed behind his eyes and the burning finger stabbed his temple. He dragged his hand to the knife at his hip, but couldn’t grab the hilt, his fingers wouldn’t ob
ey. And deep in his spirit, he knew that against the being who stood before him in the moonlight, no weapon would be of use.
It had the form of a tall man with broad shoulders and a narrow waist. It wore a kilt of pleated white linen with a green sash knotted at the waist, and on its naked chest, a broad gold collar set with blue and red stones. Its black hair was long, with a fringe across the brow, and its face had a dreadful shimmering brilliance, like the night wind turned to gold.
This is a god, thought Hylas.
It hurt to look. He must not look. To see the face of a god is something no mortal can survive.
With a supreme effort, Hylas wrenched his gaze away. But then, from the corner of his eye, he saw the shimmering head begin to change. The ears grew tall and sharp, the face narrowed and stretched – and became the long black pointed muzzle of a jackal.
Not possible, thought Hylas.
But anything is possible for an immortal.
The jackal-headed god bent over the wedjat amulet – and seemed to sniff the bronze. Then it drew back, and rose to an appalling height, towering over the very tops of the papyrus – and turned its terrible bright gaze on Hylas.
He felt his spirit shrivel inside him. His arm was heavy as a log as he shielded his eyes and staggered backwards into the reeds.
A sharp pain pierced his ankle. With a cry he glanced down and glimpsed something small scuttling off into the dark.
He fell to his knees. His ankle was burning.
The jackal god was gone. Now Pirra was bending over him. In one hand she clutched a length of burning papyrus, in the other, her wedjat amulet. ‘Hylas? What’s wrong?’
He couldn’t speak for the pain, worse than anything he’d known: clawing, scorching, shooting like lightning up his leg.
‘Hylas!’
‘Scorpion,’ he gasped.
‘A scorpion,’ Pirra said in disbelief.
Hylas was baring his teeth and fumbling for his knife. ‘Cut it open, suck out the poison!’
‘Where did it sting you?’
‘Ankle,’ he panted.
‘We’ve got to get you back to camp –’
‘No, do it now!’
‘It’s too dark out here, I might cripple you!’
Somehow, she dragged him back to the fire. Havoc stared at them with her ears back. Echo flapped her wings and gaped in alarm.
Hylas collapsed, clutching his leg and taking great heaving gulps of air. The sting was just behind the ankle bone, a small red dot ringed with white. Pirra drew her knife. Her hand shook. She couldn’t do it. Hylas grabbed the knife and jabbed it into the wound. In the moonlight, his blood ran black. Pirra bent and sucked the wound, and spat, again and again.
A dark hand seized her arm. ‘What bit him?’ cried Kem.
With a snarl she twisted out of his grip. ‘You! What are you doing here?’
‘What bit him?’
‘Scorpion. You get away from him!’
‘Was it green or black? Did you see?’
When she didn’t reply, Kem took Hylas by the shoulders and shook him. ‘Hylas! The scorpion! Green or black?’ But Hylas only moaned.
Pirra touched his cheek. ‘He’s burning up.’
Hylas gripped her wrist so hard that she nearly cried out. ‘I saw it,’ he whispered, staring up at her with unseeing eyes. ‘It was like a man but the air was on fire – it had the head of a jackal …’
She went cold. The jackal god Anpu was Lord of the Dead. She turned to Kem. ‘Can you save him?’
He looked at her. ‘No. From this I can’t save him.’
She blinked. Then she bent over Hylas. ‘I will not let you die,’ she said fiercely. ‘Kem, we’ve got to get him to a village. They’ll have a wisewoman, or a healer.’
‘A village?’ cried Kem. ‘You mad? They’d kill us!’
She hooked her arms under Hylas’ arms. ‘Help me carry him, it’s not far to the boat –’
‘Listen to me! To Egyptians, you’re just barbarians and I’m a runaway slave!’
‘A village is his only chance! You will help me get him there. I will not let him die!’
‘Are you hearing me? I told you –’
‘Just do it. I’ll see to the rest.’
He is floating on a Sea of poison. His eyes are full of light, the glare is blinding. It is the jackal god, coming to take him away. Pirra is grasping his hand. He clings to her. She will keep him from being taken.
The jackal god comes closer. Hylas tries to cry out, but he can’t speak. Helplessly, he gazes into the blazing fire.
Now he is lying on hard earth. Pirra is still holding his hand. Someone is binding his leg. He tries to kick, but he can’t move. The binding on his ankle is painted with tiny weird pictures: a vulture, a wasp. They are twitching, coming alive …
Someone pushes his neck on to a block. He struggles, are they going to chop off his head? A rough hand holds him down. Another forces sludge between his lips. ‘Drink,’ says a voice. ‘You will be worse, then better.’
He retches, spewing up his guts. The world is spinning, nothing makes sense. He sees a bird with black eye-stripes, like an Egyptian. A lion the size of a hare, staring at him with luminous green eyes.
A girl bends over him. It isn’t Pirra, it’s Issi. In disbelief he gazes up into his sister’s sharp little face. She is scowling at him. ‘This is just like you, Hylas,’ she complains. ‘You’re always telling me to watch my step in the reeds, and now you go and get yourself stung!’
‘Issi … You’re alive!’
‘Of course I’m alive, it’s you we’re worried about. What were you thinking, stumbling around in the dark?’
‘You’re alive …’
He wakes to the night song of frogs. Issi is gone. Havoc is a furry weight against his back. Her deep slow breathing rumbles through him. For a moment he is at peace.
Then the whirling sickness pulls him under.
Hylas drifted awake. Havoc was gone. He was in a thatched lean-to, lying on his side on a wovengrass mat, still with his neck on that wooden block.
A child was kneeling beside him. It wasn’t Issi. The sense of loss was overwhelming.
This child was younger, about eight summers, and naked except for a string of green beads about her waist. She had a beaky red nose and red-rimmed eyes, and was painfully thin. She was also bald. Even her eyebrows had been scraped off. Hylas wasn’t sure if she was human.
A man appeared behind her. He had the same beaky nose, and wore a bizarre red wig that seemed to be made of palm leaves. The wig was slightly crooked.
Scowling at Hylas, the man barked in Egyptian and forced him to drink from a clay pot. It was sour grey sludge. Hylas spluttered. Darkness bloomed.
When he woke again, cattle were lowing and geese honking. He tried to get up, but couldn’t move his limbs. He smelt dung fires and baking bread. I’m in a village, he thought hazily.
His leg no longer hurt, it was violently itchy and swathed in ragged bandages crusted with brownish salt and painted with those weird little signs: a vulture, a wasp …
‘Don’t scratch,’ said a familiar voice. ‘That’s hesmen, the sacred salt.’ A snort of laughter. ‘I know about that, remember? Five years in the mines, digging it up.’
Hylas opened his eyes. ‘Kem!’ he croaked.
The black boy gave an uncertain grin. ‘How you feel?’
Hylas tried to smile, but the effort was too great. ‘Where’s Pirra?’
‘Asleep. She stayed with you all day, all night. Wouldn’t leave till you were outta danger.’
Hylas shut his eyes. ‘Glad you back,’ he mumbled. ‘Didn’t think you’d deserted us.’
‘Pirra did.’ Kem paused. ‘When the border guards came, I thought you were hiding on the ridge and Pirra follow me into the Great Green. When they gone, I find no Pirra. I go back up the ridge. Can’t find you there or in the Great Green. That for true, Hylas.’
Hylas wanted to tell Kem he believed him, but he didn’t have the str
ength. He lay watching a beetle crawl backwards over the ground, pushing a ball of dung with its hind legs. Through the doorway, tiny green birds flitted about in an acacia tree. They had black eye-stripes, like Egyptians.
‘Bee-eaters,’ said Kem.
Is that what they are, thought Hylas. ‘How’d I get here?’ he asked Kem.
Kem told him how he and Pirra had spent most of the night trying to find a village, and about the villagers fending them off with sickles and spears, until Pirra had made them take Hylas to their healer.
‘That girl!’ Kem shook his head in grudging admiration. ‘It don’t matter she ragged and muddy, she just order them, like she a priestess! She whistle to Havoc and tell those villagers, Look at this boy with hair like the Sun, he guarded by a lion, creature of great goddess Sekhmet! Then she call down Echo from the sky and tell them, Look at me, I got falcon of Heru on my arm, and mark of the Moon on my face!’
‘Clever,’ mumbled Hylas.
‘For true. And me? Ha! So they don’t think me runaway, she tell them I’m her slave! Oh, she enjoy that, ordering me about!’
This time, Hylas did manage a smile.
When he looked again, Kem was gone and Pirra was kneeling beside him. There were dark shadows under her eyes. She looked exhausted and tense. ‘How do you feel?’ she said shakily.
He wanted to tell her that by holding his hand, she’d kept him alive, but he didn’t have the strength. ‘Weak,’ he said. ‘I don’t like this block under my neck.’
She gave him a tremulous smile. ‘It’s a headrest, they all sleep on them. If I take it away, they’ll only put it back.’
The villagers had given her a coarse linen shift fastened by two straps at the shoulders. With her crinkly black hair and the wedjat on her breast, she could be Egyptian – if it weren’t for her pallor, and the leather cuff on her forearm. Hylas thought she looked good, but when she caught him watching, she flicked her hair across her cheek to hide her scar.
‘I saw a miniature lion,’ he said. ‘Didn’t you once tell me about miniature lions?’
‘It’s a cat. The Egyptian name is myu.’
‘Ah.’ He paused. ‘Where’s Kem?’