‘Courage, little monkey!’ Hui said, clapping an arm around his friend’s shoulders. ‘Let the fire in your belly roar! This night your life will change.’ When he saw Kyky screw up his nose, he added with haste, ‘For the better, of course. Girls will fall to their knees before you, begging you to take them. The bullies who tormented you all your life will bow their heads in deference. You will be a king among men. Embrace this moment.’

Kyky shook his head. ‘It is too dangerous. We should turn back.’

Hui smiled to hide his frustration. He had more persuading to do. ‘And lose a prize beyond all value?’ He scrambled on to a boulder and pointed towards the stars. ‘A fire blazing across the sky, that’s what the old desert wanderer had said. Where it crashed upon the earth, the sand was turned to glass and at the centre of a wide crater was a black stone. The Ka Stone, the desert wanderer called it. Not the Ka Stones that are left in the tombs, no. One filled with the essence of the gods. Why, he told me himself it had magical powers. Some say it could make a man fly with the birds, if he utters the right prayers. Others that it raises the phantoms of those denied a place in the afterlife—’

‘Some say, some say.’ Kyky paced impatiently. ‘And why did that old desert wanderer not benefit from this magic himself? Because it was stolen from him...dragged from dead fingers when every man who walked beside him was slaughtered.’ Kyky threw his hands into the air. ‘Stolen by the Shrikes! The most bloodthirsty bandits in all Egypt. And now you want to steal the stone back from them. Madness. Why did I ever listen to you?’

Hui turned away, pretending to search for the track through the jumble of rock and dust. Kyky was tired and irritable from the trek, but there was truth in his words. Hui couldn’t deny he’d been swallowing his own apprehension that now fluttered in his belly like a small bird. For all his bravado, he knew the risks. To rob a robber, that was one thing. To sneak into the camp of the Shrikes and steal their most prized possession, well, Kyky was right for once. That was lunacy.

Stay calm, he thought. You are brave.

Hui raised his eyes to the heavens again and searched the constellations until he found the Four Sons of Horus; there, just as his father had pointed out to him when he was a boy. His guide. His destiny. He felt comforted.