He glanced back and horror flooded him. The Hyksos warriors had fallen upon the rest of the scouting band. Hooves shattered skulls. Swords cleaved through necks and chests. The screams of the dying spiked deep into his heart.

Piay felt someone slam into him and he pitched into the shadows of an irrigation ditch. Snatching a gulp of air, he plunged into cold black water. Two other figures splashed beside him. One was the Egyptian soldier, the other Hannu.

His assistant grabbed him and whispered, ‘Ahead, as fast as you can, but quietly. This has bought us a little time, but that is all.’

Piay grasped the arm of the former captive and together they half-swam, half-waded away from the rolling thunder of hoof beats circling the area.

‘I will come for you, Piay!’ Sakir’s voice boomed through the night. ‘Run as fast as you can, run for days and weeks and months. But there will come a time when you turn and I will be there and then your life will be over!’

As he pushed through the cold water, Piay’s mood darkened. The faces of the young men he had commanded floated into his mind. Barely more than boys, innocent, trusting in him. He had failed them.

Could he ever make amends? Piay felt the murk of the ditch seep into him and close around his heart.

Hannu pulled at his arm and pointed. Ahead, caught in silver glints of moonlight, writhing rats swam away from them. Where the steep bank had partially collapsed, they scrambled up the black earth into the field beyond.

‘Follow them,’ Hannu breathed.

Piay dug his fingers into the soft mud and hauled himself up the side of the irrigation ditch. At the top, he dragged the battered soldier up behind him, and then Hannu. For a moment their eyes met, and Piay communicated a silent look of thanks for his accomplice’s quick thinking at the campfire.

The bellows of the roaming Hyksos warriors thundered as they searched for their prey. A moment later a roar rang out.

‘They’ve seen us,’ Hannu gasped. ‘Into the fields.’

Piay and the two men scrambled into the golden sea of barley, keeping low. Their passage opened up a channel through the crop that would be visible in the moonlight, but what choice did they have? Piay pushed on, zigzagging until they were far from where they had been seen.

Piay threw himself on his belly. The soldier and Hannu collapsed beside him. As his breathing subsided, Piay strained to listen. In the distance, hoof beats thrummed off the tracks that criss-crossed the fertile land beside the Nile, and the call and response of the barbarians echoed.

‘Let us be away,’ the soldier said. ‘My wounds are burning—’

Piay clamped a hand on the man’s mouth and pressed a finger to his lips. His instincts told him they were not yet free.