Dusk fell, and four people stole through the city under cover of night. Two of power, two of potential, and all four tethered by strings of fate.

  Heshtat took the lead, Neferu and Maatkare following close on his heels as they bickered good-naturedly about the coming journey. Harsiese brought up the rear, carrying two large sacks full of equipment and provisions. Neferu would let nobody carry her personal tools but had seemingly no problem forcing others to carry the mundane items they’d need for a week-long journey. It made sense though—due to his greater cultivation of his soul, Harsiese could carry far more with far greater ease. Heshtat’s pride might prickle at it, but it stood no chance against the weight of his duty.

  Besides, Heshtat was too busy checking over his new gear and the path before them to concern himself with such trivial matters. He had been forbidden to cultivate for ten years now, and in that decade, he had lived as a mortal. He had stayed weak as a babe in comparison to the strength he had known for most of his life and had been forced to watch those he should have scorned bully and cajole others in his presence, simply because he was helpless to do anything about it.

  Things were changing now, though. The Temple of Amin-Ra allowed none to enter who had existing channels to the gods, and so only unawakened mortals could venture through. Heshtat would need to stay so for the first leg of their journey, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t accumulate power of any sort. It was to be a dangerous journey, after all, and dangerous journeys required dangerous people to brave them.

  Before they had left, Cleo had given him three artifacts of power. The first was the most obvious; a sword. His battered bronze khopesh, still lying forgotten in Nebet’s ancient tomb, had been replaced by one with an obsidian edge. Dark as the night and twice as deadly, it glittered on his hip where it hung, catching the moonlight on its sickle-shaped blade. When he focused, Heshtat could feel the pulse of essence within it, and he had no doubt that if he could activate that spiritual vision once more, he’d see lines of bright fire racing through the blade.

  On his left forearm he wore a bracer of hammered bronze, looking more like knapped flint than worked metal due to the hundreds of tiny indentations on its matte surface. It was his defence against the limits of his mortal body and by far the most powerful and rare of the artifacts granted to him by his queen.

  Not a shield, or anything approaching the durability that would be his if he awakened the Khet, but a final protection against death. It was single-use and would activate only when he interposed it between himself and a deadly blow, but it should save his life. Sadly, he expected it would be very necessary on this journey.

  Finally, around his neck hung a pendent. An ankh, made of startlingly blue opal and bound with reeds picked from the bed of the Nikea beneath a red sunrise and blessed by a high priest of Osirion. It was nothing more than a common repository for essence, able to be filled and emptied by one that was spiritually aware, but it was a well as deep as any that money could buy.

  Heshtat could not cultivate due to his cracked soul—he could not draw power from the Other during his dreams, nor hold anything more than a mere whisper of essence within his perpetually leaking soul—but that didn’t mean he couldn’t direct a sliver of essence with careful application of his will. This pendent simply gave him access to the great repository of power that all of his potential enemies would wield as if second nature.

  Not enough, not nearly enough, but he now had a way to both harm his enemies and to survive their blows. Cleo had prepared him as well as she could, now she just had to hope that two decades of training for the elite of two different empires had given him the tools needed to survive the coming storm. When he considered exactly what he was up against, he decided he may as well do a little hoping himself, too.

  They wove through streets with the calm efficiency of those used to movement. Eyes tracked them, and it took some patience to keep up the steady jog. Heshtat was halfway tempted to sprint through the jumble of interconnected alleyways and stairs, but he knew to do so would be folly. It would take them half an hour or so to leave, no matter how they rushed, and that was long enough for them to be seen. Four people sprinting through the night would draw far too much attention.

  Still, he found himself checking rooftops and alleys as they moved. Shadowy figures still lurked in places—it was Idib, after all, and to expect nothing strange to occur in the entire city was na?ve—but none seemed particularly focused on them. Harsiese soon put the lie to that thought, interrupting their quiet conversation as they slipped from the inner city into one of the outer districts.

  “We’re being followed. Two on the rooftops ahead, one slinking behind us a street over.”

  His voice lacked some of that earlier exuberance now, professionalism lending it an edge of steel as he reported the findings his greater senses had unearthed.

  “Are any of them tall and bald with a long dark cloak?” Heshtat asked.

  “Yes,” the grizzled Tomb Guard confirmed. “How did you know?”

  Neferu rolled her eyes beside him as they kept up their even gait. “That’s a generic description at best. Who would go skulking around at night without a long dark cloak? And you’re bald, too!”

  Heshtat chuckled, running a hand over his freshly-shaved scalp. It was still strange for him despite the many years he’d worn the style—or lack thereof—but like most things about the man he had become, he didn’t really recognise it as himself.

  “They’ve dropped from the rooftops ahead,” Harsiese said quietly. “I expect we’ll meet them at the mouth of the next alley. The one behind is speeding up to meet the others.”

  Heshtat hummed to himself, holding in a sigh. It was something he was working on—he had the sneaking suspicion that he was prematurely aging himself with his habits, and had resolved to replace the exhalation with some other gesture that made him feel a little more youthful. Though it was unlikely he’d live out the coming task anyway. He held in another sigh.

  “Stay back,” he ordered, slipping into a tone of command without realising. “Harsiese, I want you behind us and quiet. I’ll try and bluff my way through without giving you away, but I need you close if things go bad. If it looks to be coming to blows, feel free to show off a bit-—they will be acolytes at best. Neferu and Maatkare—on my flanks. If they attack, I want you distracting the henchman while Harsiese takes out the snake.”

  “The snake?” the old Tomb Guard asked, giving a reassuring pat to the hefty great axe slung across his back. He repositioned the heavy bags he carried to make drawing the weapon easier, and even Heshtat had to admit to being a little intimidated by the large, curved axe head that clung to the haft like a crescent moon peaking through the clouds.

  “You’ll see,” Heshtat replied.

  Neferu gave him a quizzical look, then flashed him a grin and a jaunty salute. “Aye aye, captain.”

  Maatkare was dependable as ever, uttering no more than a grunt as he readjusted his weapons belt. Heshtat smiled. It was good to once more be surrounded by companions. To once more lead a group on a mission. No longer alone, now with a purpose, he took a deep breath of the cool night air and let the grin stretch his face as moonlight kissed his skin.

  They soon rounded the corner to find three figures in the street blocking their path, and Heshtat reluctantly let the expression fade. He came to a stop around ten feet away, recognising Senusret and his right-hand man, as well as a dangerous-looking Numidean that he’d never seen before. They had fanned out across the road, and now the two groups stood across from one another, fingers on weapons.

  “Going somewhere, Heshtat?” his oily boss asked, affecting the air of an unconcerned man. Heshtat could read the lie in his body language though. He was tense, hands out to the side and ready to move. The two men flanking him had their hands on their weapons and hard looks in their eyes.

  “I don’t work for you exclusively,” he replied evenly.

  “And it seems other employment is treating you well,” the tall man said. “Shiny new weapons, and is that armour I see?” He sniffed. “I never had you pegged as the type for personal protection. You have always given off a frankly suicidal demeanour.”

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  Heshtat simply watched the man. It was not a good sign when Senusret became too talkative. It usually meant he was building to something.

  A moment later, the man spoke again. “Where are you going?”

  “Why does it matter?” Heshtat replied.

  “Because I own your debt.”

  Heshtat paused. “A temple near the city. I will say no more than that.”

  “How long will you be gone?”

  “A few days,” he lied.

  He was still hoping for a way to diffuse this, but with every question, with every moment that the crime lord pushed further, the doubt grew. This line of work was built on unspoken conventions, and all who worked in the shadows knew not to pry too deeply. Senusret certainly knew better. Which made his current curiosity a dangerous thing.

  “Let me see your sword,” the man demanded once the silence had stretched to awkwardness.

  “Don’t get greedy, Senusret,” Heshtat said, his voice holding a hint of warning now. The tightness was back in his chest once more, the old anger beginning to smoulder. “We agreed, when all of this started, that you wouldn’t interfere with my business and I would make you money on the side in return for you restraining your men. When did that change?”

  The serpentine man laughed, his broken voice catching and turning guttural. “That was never our deal. Those were just lies that you told yourself because you were too proud to acknowledge the truth.”

  “And what truth is that?” he asked, knowing he wouldn’t like the answer, but needing to hear it anyway.

  “You’re a dog,” Senusret said, smiling as he saw Heshtat flinch at the word. “See? You’ve always known. Tentamun was right—you’re a dog on a leash.”

  The man leaned forwards, spreading long arms to either side and grinning even wider. The moonlight reflected of the pate off his smooth head, and with his dark cloak and skeletal build, he looked like a spectre.

  “And that leash is long. I’ve allowed you considerable freedom in how you conduct your ‘business’, as you call it, and I’ll admit freely that you’ve made me a lot of money because of it. But you’ve pushed too far in recent times. You came to my house, made demands of my men, and now you call for me to restrain my greed? As if I am the one seeking to take from my betters?”

  He shook his head sadly, and the theatricality of it all made Heshtat sick. “No, Heshtat. You don’t make demands of me. You still have a leash around your neck, and I am reeling it in. Now give me your weapon.”

  The last was delivered with intensity, the veneer of pleasantness finally falling away to leave Senusret hissing like the snake he was. Heshtat grunted as he felt the compulsion take root in his soul. The crime lord may have been an adept of Shuyet—the Shadow—and that is what made him feared by the people on the street, but he was also a practitioner of Jb—The Heart—and that is what made him dangerous to even his rival crime-lords. As only a mere awakened his compulsion was meagre, but he could sniff out lies as easy as breathing.

  Heshtat was just thankful that the man’s talents lent themselves more toward detection than compulsion currently. He knelt, brushing his palms in the dirt and sand of the road. He let the familiar gesture soothe his soul, ground him in the familiar, and remind himself of who he was and what he fought for. Alongside an effort of will and the last dregs of essence in his broken soul, the gesture was enough to overcome the minor compulsion Senusret had laced into his words, but Heshtat still reached for his blade.

  “I looked into you, you know. I know who you are, Heshtat. Did you not think I would investigate how a washed-up drunkard could be just so effective? How a man that had awakened not even a single aspect of his soul could take on the tasks I needed? Where my men—awakened, even acolytes—struggled to tread? You didn’t think I would find that suspicious? That I would not investigate?”

  The tall man had begun to pace back and forth, gesturing aggressively as he spoke. “And now you steal away under cover of darkness, surrounded by servants of the queen, and I finally understand why you flinch every time someone calls you a dog.”

  He leaned forwards with an ugly leer on his face, as if sharing a secret that he knew would sting. “I simply thought you didn’t like to be reminded that you worked for me, but I realise now it is deeper than that, isn’t it? You were someone else’s bitch long before you wore my collar.”

  Heshtat’s anger was hot now, palpable and pulsing in his head. Senusret was so close, barely two feet separating them. He could kill him now, he knew. Just whip his khopesh from its iron holster, sheathe it in the smarmy bastard’s neck, and let his life’s blood stain the sands below. Senusret would probably kill him too, but he knew how quick he could be with a draw, even as a mortal. He could get it done.

  But Senusret surely knew that as well. He’d just admitted to learning of Heshtat’s past, and if there was one thing he knew of the slimy man, it was that Senusret was thorough. He’d know. Hells, he’d seen Heshtat kill men with his own eyes before and surely knew what he was capable of. So to stand before him and taunt him openly, to make a mockery of something Heshtat had shown himself willing to fight and even kill over… it meant he wanted Heshtat to try.

  He let his gaze wander to the unfamiliar Numidean man on Senusret’s left. Tall and broad like all good enforcers, he nevertheless had something off about him. His features were broad and blank; nose slightly squished, eyes a little too close for comfort and a mouth that looked like it had never tried for a smile in its life. That was all depressingly typical of Heshtat’s former coworkers, but this man had an aura to him as well. He was a little too stable on his feet as he stood, his air a little too casual for a mortal seeing violence on the horizon speeding his way.

  Senusret was powerful by his own means—an adept of a powerful aspect where Heshtat was weak as a kitten. But Heshtat wasn’t alone, and still the crime lord was confident. What sort of a monster had he found, and what was the man here to do? Heshtat desperately wanted to kill the crime-lord that had caused him such strife these last few years, but his ability to do so was perhaps less certain than he might expect.

  And more importantly, he wasn’t here for revenge. No, he had a greater purpose now, and he owed it to Cleo to try one last attempt at diplomacy—he would not wish to flee the city and start a gang war on the same evening.

  “Don’t force this issue,” he said quietly. “I will pay off my debt, Senusret. There’s no need for anyone to die this night.”

  “No, Heshtat,” his boss said, almost forlornly as he leaned back. “I know who you are. But if you think I would let a former Tomb Guard out from under my thumb, then you have not been paying attention to who I am and how I operate.”

  Heshtat could feel the threat of violence hanging heavy in the air. He knew as well as any man could that at some point, words were useless. Some people were determined for a confrontation from the moment they saw you, and there was little you could do to restrain them. With words, at least.

  “If you knew who I was,” Heshtat found himself saying, voice a gravel growl in his ears. “Then you’d never have come here.”

  He knew it wouldn’t help calm the situation, but the situation was well past calming at this point, and it felt good to let out some of the fire burning its way through his chest. The oily man laughed and gave his own rejoinder, but Heshtat hardly heard him over the roaring of blood in his ears.

  He was a consummate swordsman. A master of the blade, some would say. Been training with it his whole life. And yet, during his time roaming the Otherworld, protecting his charge from the denizens of that nightmare realm, he had learned that sometimes skill with the blade was not the most important factor in a fight.

  Surprise. Savagery. These tools could help one far more than a simple cut.

  Neferu shadowed his left shoulder a few paces back, Maatkare on his right, and he knew they were watching him for a signal. Senusret’s two men stood opposite, and the two pairs of three faced off against one another. It was a potent scene, hands reaching for weapons while Chonsu’s gift speared down from the heavens to brush them in the sharp relief of pale moonlight. The night hung by a thread, ready to be severed in the fire of violence.

  And then Harsiese stepped forwards. A heavy thump as he dropped the two large sacks he’d slung across both shoulders, the soft footsteps of a big man walking lightly across sand, and then a subtle shing! as his axe whispered from the binding on his back.

  “I know you think you run part of this city,” Harsiese growled, standing tall behind Heshtat. Even the hulking Numidean at Senusret’s side looked small by comparison as the grizzled Tomb Guard loomed forward, axe bare and glinting in the light. “But you don’t. There’s a reason your kind scurries around the outer districts and stays far from the palace and temples. You’re nothing but a rat chasing scraps, so fuck off back to your nest, little men.”

  Heshtat could barely breathe through the aura that bled from his companion. He was a titan, a hulking bear of a man seeming only seconds away from rending and tearing his way through whoever stood before him. How he’d never seen the violence this man was capable of was a mystery, but he saw it now. Every muscle was aligned for a single purpose, and he seemed like the Lord of the Red Land himself—Sutekh reborn, his purpose terrible and his wrath swift to follow.

  Senusret and his second-in-command shrank back from Harsiese and his intimidating aura, but the Numidean stood calmly, staring down the Tomb Guard with an inscrutable expression on his blocky face. Then he too backed away, and the three swiftly fled further into the city.

  They waited a few moments, letting the figures lose themselves to the night, before Harsiese turned. He no longer loomed above them, no longer stretched in their perception until he looked poised to eclipse the moon in the sky. Instead, he was just a man once more, and not even a particularly big one. He was well muscled, sure, but they all were. Heshtat was taller and only slightly less broad in the shoulder.

  But he hadn’t felt it a moment ago. Gods, that aura was monstrous, and it didn’t come from simply cultivating the Khet.

  “What was that?” Heshtat asked after blowing out a breath.

  Harsiese only shrugged. “I’ve some minor skill with Ba. Opened a channel to Sutekh. As you can see, the aura comes in handy from time to time.”

  Neferu whistled. “Remind me not to make an enemy of you, big man.”

  Heshtat couldn’t disagree. Still, it was one thing to intimidate a local crime-lord, and quite another to cow the roving assassins and veteran mercenaries they would have to face before their task was over.

  “Come, then,” he said to his companions. “We have a journey across the desert waiting for us.”