Heshtat winced at the sound of bronze being drawn from an iron ring and ducked aside into a thin alley between two haphazardly leaning shopfronts. A split-second after he rounded the corner, something clanged against the stone where his head had been and clattered off down the street. Judging by the sound, it was sharp, metallic, and had been moving very, very fast.

  Heshtat had an ear for fast-moving metal after all his years training and fighting. It wasn’t one of his most dazzling skills, nor one that he often bragged about, but it was there, and it had its uses. Right now, for example, it was telling him that if he didn’t break line of sight, and quickly, he’d end up very, very dead. Or wishing that he was, at any rate.

  “Up!” he shouted at Maatkare, who was sprinting for all he was worth a dozen feet ahead of him.

  “I’m trying!” his friend called back, even as Heshtat gained on him. “But I see no fucking sign for ‘up’ anywhere, and I don’t have time to stop and look!”

  Despite the chaos and the danger, Heshtat couldn’t help the grin that split his face. The wind rushed past, and though he had no hair to float in the breeze, his sleeves billowed out stylishly at least. He sprinted past a washer woman, stepping back and clutching her basket to her chest, and he threw her a wink as he went.

  Gods, he’d missed the rush of the chase. The Medjay would bring him before the Pharaoh in chains, and he knew they’d likely set to peeling his fingernails off amongst other ghastly horrors, but after a lifetime of running from the creatures that inhabited the Other, such worldly fears weren’t quite as gripping any longer. Hells, he was fairly sure one of his own companions was half-possessed by a shadow demon of some kind—a little light torture just didn’t put the fear in him as it once had.

  “What the fuck are you smiling about?” Maatkare screamed as he chanced a look back. Then his face changed abruptly. “Duck!”

  Heshtat dived into a roll without hesitation and watched an axe, of the same hyksos design as his own now lost golden sidearm, flip by end over end above his head. He came to his feet and leapt up the series of stone steps Maatkare had started to climb, his longer legs and taller frame propelling him quicker than his friend.

  He reached the top of the dozen or so steep steps dividing the levels of Underbridge, and turned to watch the two Medjay agents steadily gaining on them. The one in the lead was even now palming a bolas from his belt and whirling it above his head. Heshtat grabbed a nearby fishing basket and threw before the agent could release the weapon, and thankfully his aim was true.

  He caught Maatkare’s eye with a smirk as he heard the cursing from below, the man struggling to disentangle himself from the basket lodged on his head even as he sprinted on through the narrow alleyway. Heshtat turned and ran, pulling his friend along behind him up another flight of steep stone steps to the layer above.

  They slipped left into a wider alley, but this one had washing lines hung across at head height, obscuring them slightly from their pursuers. They made good use of the extra few seconds and bolted through a warren of perpendicular streets, zigzagging and circling back on themselves as often as making any real progress.

  Heshtat hushed his friend, straining to hear anything useful over the background murmuring of thousands of people crammed together. Shouting echoed from their left, frantic and angry, so he pointed to their right, hurrying his friend onwards into a covered market.

  They weaved through spice stalls, merchants selling beads and precious gems, stands laden with olives and fermented cheeses from the east and even silks from the Jade Lands brought by camel over half the world away. They did their best to blend swiftness with stealth, no longer sprinting and taking care not to knock people aside lest they cause a commotion that would summon their pursuers.

  Why they were being tracked was a mystery, but for the Pharaoh’s agents to be hunting them was a bad omen. That their immediate action upon Heshtat and his friend running was to pursue aggressively and attempt to at least maim them with weapons did not bode well either. All in all, it didn’t paint a pleasant picture of Khaemwaset’s intentions, and Heshtat would happily spend the rest of his life never meeting the Pharaoh, despite his initially high opinion of him.

  They slipped out of the market and into a wide street with shops on either side and a constant flow of humanity moving in both directions. Flipping their cowls up, they blended into the current, losing themselves amongst the unwashed masses and letting the river of people carry them out and down, towards their prearranged meeting point with the others.

  At least when in the presence of Ahhotep and Harsiese, they would not be so easily taken. Those two adepts would be able to slow down and likely kill at least a dozen of the Medjay unless they sent some of their more senior members out after them, and he doubted they would do that. Still, he wouldn’t fully relax until they were heading upriver by ferry.

  ***

  “Enemies everywhere,” Neferu confirmed. “The Scarlet Feathers have been contracted by many rival groups for the same purpose, and there have been many independent sightings of the Nephil on the move.”

  They sat around yet another scarred table in yet another crowded tavern, tucked away in a little corner and conversing in quiet voices. They had moved from their original meeting point as soon as they’d all been accounted for, and now hid in a rundown old ramshackle establishment near where they’d depart later in the day.

  Heshtat turned to Ahhotep, the thin priest grinning beneath his deep cowl.

  “Much the same from me, I’m afraid to say. Waset’s high priest is a talkative fellow, and he had some pretty whispers to share, let me tell you, young man!” Heshtat raised an eyebrow as the priest leaned forwards conspiratorially, the green light behind his eyes glinting slightly in the orange glow of the tavern’s hanging lamps. “The priests of Anterabad move in the shadows, and their new Prefect has given them greater support than the last. They flock up the river, to see Amin-Ra’s temple with their own eyes.”

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  Harsiese shrugged when Heshtat turned his way. “I was just buying things,” he said. “But even I have heard mutterings. The populace are aware of a growing excitement, and while they don’t know the cause, they see the signs of war. The guard are out in force, the Pharaoh has been in seclusion for longer than usual, and the guild of architects has put many of its grand plans on temporary hiatus without good reason given. A shift is coming.”

  Heshtat and Maatkare shared a look. ‘Leave the politics to our queen’, he had said. Heshtat couldn’t quite share his friend’s optimism, but he was equally unable to parse the many signs. Obviously, war loomed large on the horizon and the balance of power was soon to shift, but beyond that vague prediction, he could say nothing else of use.

  “Right then,” he began, making sure to meet the gaze of all his companions. Harsiese, simple and earnest. Ahhotep, shadowed and sly. Neferu, eager and hopeful. And Maatkare, smirking and steadfast.

  “Our enemies gather, and our task becomes more deadly by the day. We’ve a boat to catch. Let’s get this over with, shall we?”

  ***

  Men-nefer slipped away downstream in a rolling, rocking flow. Heshtat and his companions watched it retreat into the horizon as Atossa’s crew carried them away upriver under the power of their navigator—a young woman with a divine channel to Nu and precious few words to share with anyone.

  That was fine though; Heshtat was happy to let the crew work in silence while they stood at the aft and watched the world pass them by. He was still replaying the conversation he’d had with Maatkare earlier.

  He knew he was no longer the man he’d once been—that was as obvious in a physical sense as things got—but he hadn’t realised the depths of despair he had sunken to recently until his friend gave voice to it. He didn’t trust her. His queen, his friend, his Cleo. His faith had once been unassailable—she was the best of them, and why she had loved him back had always been a puzzle. But now he was adrift, cut loose in a confusing mire of hidden agendas and secretive intentions.

  He’d heard the rumours—those vicious words the people spoke when around their own kind and away from the palaces and guards and all the ceremony of royalty. ‘The whore-queen of Idib’ she’d been called, opening her legs to foreign rulers and selling Amansi to the enemy. Not that anyone had had much familiarity with the Aquiline Empire before the famed ‘General of the West’ had arrived, but the children of Amin-Ra had a superiority complex to rival the gods themselves and held a mild antipathy for anyone not born in the Nikean embrace.

  But Heshtat knew that epithet was unearned. It hurt the most, that one—a reminder of what she had sacrificed for her people and what he had lost himself—but he knew it had been the only play left to protect Idib from the hungry claws of her rival kings and Pharaohs. In any case, the citizens of Idib province had quieted their grumbling when she had born the general a son. An heir had ensured that her people became his, and there was even talk of citizenship for the people of Amansi at one point. Cleosiris had put such talk to rest, thankfully, but still; she had given up her freedom to ensure the realm could survive the predations of her rivals, and the only price was her enduring the predations of one of the most notorious conquerors from across the Bleeding Sea.

  Heshtat hated it. He hated it with a bitterness and a passion that somehow surprised him even now, feeling the coiling flames stoke themselves higher in his chest even as he watched the fiery sun fall below the horizon inch by inch, surrounded by his companions.

  But he didn’t hold those actions against her—she had done naught but her duty. It all stemmed from his original failure. And if he’d been stronger, if he had taken the power once on offer to him and made that devil’s bargain…

  He turned away from those thoughts quickly—they never led anywhere good, and he’d long ago made his choice.

  Back to his former lover, his current queen, and her foundational sacrifice. In many ways he was awed by it. He shouldn’t have been—it was nothing he wouldn’t have done, nothing he hadn’t given up himself before he’d met her, though he’d broken those vows too in the later years. But it was still humbling to witness from afar. So why the distrust?

  Maatkare was right. Her father had been a bastard. Never mind what secrets Cleo had hinted at, or even his lecherous habits—the man had left as his inheritance a broken province, with poverty and violence a natural part of their world. They’d dreamed of fixing it once, together, and that shared dream only existed because of her father’s failure. That original sin had brought them closer once. Ironic then, that its fruits had eventually forced them apart.

  Maatkare shook him from his thoughts with a clap on the shoulder. “Come. We should get below decks and out of sight.”

  He nodded and followed his companions into the bowels of the ship, mind still adrift in bitter seas.

  ***

  While she may have been quiet and withdrawn, at least in front of Heshtat and his companions, one couldn’t argue with the navigator’s competence. Over the next few days, she steered them through the dangerous waters of the Nikea as if she was the very water goddess herself and not just channelling a sliver of her power. Atossa, too, was a fair captain regardless of whatever else one could accuse him of.

  Heshtat had spent an evening with him and his crew and had enjoyed the comradery they extended to him as a fellow man born of the Badlands. The twins had put aside their unsettling attentions, and now that he was on their boat, Heshtat found himself enjoying the company of most of the crew.

  Killers one and all, they nevertheless had their charm. Cyrus—a bear of a man that seemingly refused to wear anything except glistening oil over his chiselled torso, no matter the rain or shine—ribbed and egged on the quiet and more withdrawn Cambyses—a slim sailor with forearms gnarled and scarred as old oak. Roxana was a beautiful woman who seemed entirely aware of the effect she had on men and revelled in the attention from her crewmates, though there seemed to be a level of respect undergirding it all that spoke well of Atossa himself as captain.

  Narses was a notable member of the crew, with arms near as brawny as her male counterparts and a smile so dazzlingly white that it was impossible not to laugh along with her jokes, though those too were excellent in their own right. She seemed to be the heart of the crew, from what Heshtat could tell, her easy humour and charisma binding an otherwise disparate crew into an irascible group of siblings.

  It was the following day that they were to reach the islands, and after discussing their impending landing with Atossa, Heshtat headed over to speak with Harsiese and Maatkare.

  “You have it?” he asked of his friend, and Maatkare grinned, handing over a small bag.

  “Of course, my friend! When have I ever let you down?”

  Heshtat snorted. “I seem to recall more than one occasion where you overslept and left me to face the sword-dance alone. Seti took great pleasure in teaching me the error of your ways.”

  “Ha!” Maatkare laughed, eyes lighting up with joy at the memory. “Old greybeard always was an ornery bastard, I recall.”

  “He was fair and well-liked by all. You just happened to be annoying as all hells back then,” Heshtat countered.

  “Ah, but that was then. Now, my good friend, I am a far more pleasant companion, am I not?”

  “Now you’re worse,” Heshtat said, waving the man’s reply off and turning to Harsiese, who for his part was standing with a smile on his face.

  “It does an old man’s heart glad to see such bonds in the young,” the big man said with a grin of his own.

  “Not you too,” Heshtat said with a roll of his eyes. “Anyway, I had a purpose in asking you here beyond levity. I need to have a discussion with our holy friend, and I have a favour to ask.”

  Maatkare caught his tone towards the end and grew serious, but Harsiese didn’t know him as well, and still kept a teasing lilt to his lips. It dropped at Heshtat’s next words though.

  “Give me an hour—if I don’t emerge, descend below decks and kill anything that moves.”