Kyky said: ‘You promise me this is the right decision?’

‘I have no doubt,’ Hui replied.

Yet, with the camp so close, it was impossible to deny the reality of what lay ahead.

The campfire crackled.

The fork in the road. The path to destiny.

Squinting against the smoke, Hui saw a guard hunched beside a rolling dune. Just the one, by the look of it. And why would there be more? No one in their right mind would attack this band of throat-slitters.

The guard was as unmoving as one of those hillside rocks, his legs tucked up, his forehead resting on his knees. Asleep. The gods smiled upon them.

Qen glanced at the moon. ‘Too bright. We might as well have danced in there at noon.’

‘At noon, our hosts would not be sleeping, drunk,’ Hui replied. ‘It was this night or not at all.’

They had come too far to turn back. Soon they would know what plan the gods had for them.

Hui glanced from one face to the other, and then, with a nod, he crawled forward, keeping one eye on the slumbering sentry. He sensed Qen and Kyky follow him.

Though his elbows and knees burned, he dragged himself along at a slow pace, as silent as a tomb. Drunk the Shrikes might be, but rogues like that would always sleep with one ear cocked and a hand on a sword.

Crawling into a strip of moon-shadow along the edge of the camp, he steadied himself and waited for Qen and Kyky to join him. From inside the nearest tent, snoring rumbled.

He cupped his hand against his ear. They had to be alert for the slightest sound of stirring.

Now was the time of greatest danger.

Blood thundered in his temples as he crept around the edge of the tent, keeping low. At the end of a maze of guy-ropes and pegs, the campfire flickered lower and the circle of orange light receded. No one stirred.

Soon he was crouching in front of what he was sure was the booty tent. When he was certain he could hear only silence within, he touched the three leather thongs that tied the tent flaps shut, and with deft movements plucked each knot loose.

He could feel the eyes of Qen and Kyky upon him. Steeling himself, he eased the flap aside.

A blade of light from the dying fire carved through the dark in the tent. Waist-high baskets made from tightly-bound reeds were stacked against a multitude of clay pots. One basket was overflowing with silver amulets and copper plate, gleaming necklaces embedded with lapis lazuli, and gem-studded headbands ripped from the wealthiest female victims of these raiders. One of the lids of the clay pots had slipped, and inside it Hui glimpsed grain. The rich scent of oil hung in the air. The bandits could barter everything here for whatever their hearts desired.

Hui slipped inside. Qen and Kyky followed.