Cover

Praise for Wilbur Smith

Praise for

‘A thundering good read is virtually the only way of describing Wilbur Smith’s books’

IRISH TIMES

‘Wilbur Smith . . . writes as forcefully as his tough characters act’

EVENING STANDARD

‘Wilbur Smith has arguably the best sense of place of any adventure writer since John Buchan’

THE GUARDIAN

‘Wilbur Smith is one of those benchmarks against whom others are compared’

THE TIMES

‘Best Historical Novelist – I say Wilbur Smith, with his swashbuckling novels of Africa. The bodices rip and the blood flows. You can get lost in Wilbur Smith and misplace all of August’

STEPHEN KING

‘Action is the name of Wilbur Smith’s game and he is the master’

WASHINGTON POST

‘A master storyteller’

SUNDAY TIMES

‘Smith will take you on an exciting, taut and thrilling journey you will never forget’

THE SUN

‘No one does adventure quite like Smith’

DAILY MIRROR

‘With Wilbur Smith the action is never further than the turn of a page’

THE INDEPENDENT

‘When it comes to writing the adventure novel, Wilbur Smith is the master; a 21st century H. Rider Haggard’

VANITY FAIR

Dedication

For my love

MOKHINISO

Spirits of Genghis Khan and Omar Khayyam reincarnated in a moon as lucent as a perfect pearl

Maps

Egypt

EGYPT

The two men crept along the edge of the moonlit barley field. Sweat trickled down their taut bare backs. Fingers were tightened around the hilts of bronze swords and their eyes darted. Along the horizon a red glow wavered from the blazing farms littering the lush Nile Valley, and a warm desert wind whipped sheets of smoke across the stars. The men choked on the reek of burning, their ears ringing with the cries of the dying which shredded the stillness like the howls of wild cats. This was grim work, but they were ready.

They were a mismatched pair. Piay was tall and muscular with a strong jawline, high cheekbones and dark eyes that turned the heads of the women who served the Pharaoh. Hannu, his assistant, walked with a limp. He was squat, with a thatch of black hair covering his body, and a jagged scar carved down his left cheek to an unkempt black beard. As he looked around, he glowered with eyes like hot coals.

‘Go much further and you will not return,’ Hannu grunted as they halted to search the way ahead. ‘The Hyksos swarm across this land like rats at harvest time.’

‘Courage, my friend,’ said Piay. ‘Faint hearts will not drive these invaders back to their distant home.’

Hannu snorted. ‘Courage. If that was all it took, we would have been victorious fifty years gone, when they first came here. See how courage helps when you’ve got one of their beasts thundering towards you and a crescent sword hacking off the heads of your friends.’

Piay jabbed a finger. ‘We have a job to do.’