Piay sensed the sharp reek of smoke. An instant later, a dim crackling became a low roar, rising in intensity.

Hannu understood.

‘They are burning the fields.’

Piay looked back towards the irrigation ditch. Smoke swirled above a crimson line glowing in the night. The flames licked up and raced across the field with gathering speed.

The soldier cried out. Scrabbling to his feet, he lurched away. Hannu threw himself at the escaping man like a bull, knocking him to the ground again.

‘We must flee!’ the man cried.

‘That’s what they want,’ Hannu spat. ‘They’ll be waiting for us on the other side.’

‘We can’t stay here.’

Piay glanced one way, then the other, as he found his bearings, then beckoned for the two men to follow him parallel to the line of fire.

‘Are you mad?’ the soldier cried.

‘Most likely,’ Hannu grunted.

Piay sprinted, ignoring the blaze rushing towards them. The flames leaped as high as his chest, and his ears ached from their hungry roar. Whipped up by the wind, the choking smoke swallowed them so that he could no longer see the way ahead.

When his lungs began to sear from the hot air, Piay felt hope begain to ebb. But the wind gusted, the smoke cleared and a black expanse opened up.

‘Here!’ he called.

The canal ran straight and true from the Nile, taking the life-giving water deep into the fertile countryside. The blaze scorched Piay’s flesh. He choked on thick smoke. But his step never faltered as he dived off the edge of the canal. When he thrust his head up from the chill depths, he heard the two men entering behind him.

‘This time your gamble paid off,’ Hannu said.

He shook the water from his beard like a dog. In the midst of danger, Hannu was the level-headed and wise seasoned warrior, but Piay could see he had now reverted to his usual sharp-tongued self.

With the flames crackling above their heads, they dragged themselves along the edge of the canal and when they reached a floodgate, they hauled themselves out of the water.

At the top, Piay glanced back. Silhouetted against that infernal glow a figure stood, as rigid as one of the temple statues. Though it was too dark to tell for sure, Piay was convinced it was Sakir, and that the Hyksos warrior was staring directly at him.

The rushes along the banks of the Nile rustled in the breeze. Breathing in the dank scents of the river, Piay tentatively made his way along the papyrus beds, fearful of disturbing any resting crocodiles. When he was a boy, he’d seen one of those monstrous beasts swallow a child whole. Life was filled with lessons, his master Taita said, and he had taken this one to heart.

Hannu whistled from further along the track. He had located the skiffs they’d hidden when they had arrived on the eastern bank earlier that night.