Heshtat’s companions followed him down to the bustling camps they’d seen dotting the edge of the lake from above. None of the groups of soldiers, mercenaries, agents, assassins and other dangerous potential enemies were mingling beyond their own groups, each keeping a cautious distance, but they were settled within in sight of one another. That meant there was something of a truce. As expected, but it was nice to have confirmation all the same.

  As they emerged from the jungle, their view of the situation expanded significantly. There were two main camps; Hefatiti’s delegation, and Khaemwaset’s expedition. Over a dozen smaller groups and interests were present, keeping to themselves and their small portions of the lakeside, but it was the True Thrones whose influence dominated the shore.

  Hefatiti’s delegation was identifiable for the luxury and wealth that all within the Pharaoh’s province seemed to wear like a glamour to hide the rotting corpse beneath. That was Heshtat’s view at least, a faint sneer painting his face as he took in the canvas tents ornamented with golden posts, blue and red silk awnings protruding out into a camp that was as far from military as could be achieved by a moving force.

  He didn’t doubt their power, of course. Hefatiti was known by many as the Empty Throne because he had transcended the need for a physical body and ruled his province from an empty seat in his capital. But just because he traversed the Otherworld, that didn’t mean his power wasn’t still felt in the Waking. Most of the twelve immortal Pharaohs of Amansi had since passed through the Final Door and left both the Waking and the Other behind. Their influence had crumbled, and their provinces were ruled by mortals, be it the priesthood or the guilds, or various powerful interests. Not so with Hefatiti.

  The Patron of the Arts kept a tight leash on his province, and none could doubt his power. That backing allowed the region to flourish and draw in wealth from all corners of the world. Hefatiti’s province was possibly the most powerful in Amansi, and certainly the wealthiest. It showed when one looked at their camp, and not just in the vulgar displays of gold and jewels.

  Guards patrolled the several dozen large tents, and even Heshtat could see that they were no mere mortals. They would be powerful cultivators, each a match for any of the Tomb Guard back in Idib, and Heshtat didn’t doubt that there would be some among the delegation that far exceeded them.

  If Hefatiti’s camp and its evident wealth deserved the title of delegation, then Khaemwaset’s camp—on the opposite site of the lake—deserved equally the title of expedition. It was the inverse of Hefatiti’s; orderly, tents pitched in neat rows, areas marked out clearly for cooking and cleaning, waste disposal, even a portable black smithy at one edge. Guards also patrolled the perimeter, and while there would doubtless be powerful cultivators in the mix, there were none of the ostentatious displays to be found among the Empty Throne’s delegation.

  Speckled between these two linchpins were the other groups. One camp seemed to be from the guild of architects, and Heshtat suspected they didn’t care a whit for the Eye and were far more interested in researching the temple structure itself. He respected their scholarly curiosity.

  A few of Amansi’s prominent cults had sent teams to investigate as well. Heshtat spied the Cult of the Creator camped not far from the Cult of Osirion. Wusis and Tefnut were in evidence, too, though most surprising was Sutekh. The cult of the Lord of the Red Lands was much rarer, similar to Sebek in its prominence—or lack thereof—and to see those chaotic cultists out here was a surprise. No gods were forbidden in Amansi, and Sutekh had redeemed himself in the eyes of the Ennead long ago for the betrayal of his brother Osirion… but men often had longer memories than the gods, and far bitter rivalries besides.

  They came to a stop on the lake shore, and Heshtat took it all in within moments. The startingly blue water against the volcanic sand, the cawing of birds of paradise, the throaty growls of howler monkeys and the soft slap of the lake’s occasional ripples. It all swirled around to create a susurrating background to his racing thoughts.

  “Come on,” he said, urging his companions after him. “Until we are in that temple, none of us are safe. Maatkare and I have a target on our back, and by extension so do you three. Set camp and explore once the threat has passed.”

  No complaints followed as they skirted the edge of the lake, and Heshtat had no time to take in the glorious sight. They strode as calmly as they could, balancing speed with the need to seem unhurried, lest any of the many watchers nearby see them as scared, and therefore easy pickings. Heshtat had found that it was only when one felt out of place that they began to look it, and so he tried his best to put himself back in the mind of his younger self—when he had been the most dangerous in almost any room. When he had needed to fear nothing.

  He'd been wrong, of course. Ignorant and foolish in the way only the youth could achieve with any regularity, but that confidence was useful. He wrapped himself in it now, letting his stride lengthen and loosen, his walk turn into almost a swagger, and his frown soften into a mild look of contempt for the world around him. That last part was new, but he thought it fit the character he had taken on.

  That confidence saw them far. They rounded the lake and were only a few hundred feet from the entrance when he slowed. The central pyramid reared above them into the sky, dominating their sight and drawing their attention to the gate at its feet.

  Heshtat frowned as he saw two people approach it. An old woman—more a crone than anything—and a much younger woman by her side. The old woman was stooped, wearing dark robes that hung from her bony figure, a staff the only thing keeping her up.

  They approached the temple slowly but were soon confronted by a half dozen figures that melted from the tree line to either side. They wore red silks over their tight-fitting armour, and all had a red headscarf wrapped tightly around their face, leaving only their eyes visible. Heshtat couldn’t hear the words exchanged, but the way they blocked the two women’s path was clear as day, even if he hadn’t noticed the way the two on the outside began flanking the pair. Which he had.

  The young woman looked to her older counterpart, and the crone simply stamped her staff into the dirt below. She said something no doubt impressively scathing—Heshtat had interacted with enough old women to know what they were capable of—and then pushed through even as the red-clad figures backed away to the jungle on either side of the entrance once more.

  Heshtat shared a glance with his companions. They waited as the crone and the young woman exchanged a few words before the great open gate, then the girl turned and strode forward, head held high. She reached level with the gate… and vanished. Heshtat looked around, convinced she had been snatched from the ground by an impossibly fast cultivator for a moment, before realising it was simply an effect of the temple itself.

  The ancients were capable of many stunning feats of magic, and instant forced displacement—while certainly impressive and terrifying—was not the strangest. For powerful and unexpected magic to appear in the temple of the creator himself was not particularly surprising in the end. Still, it helped answer some questions he had harboured about the temple, so he was glad to have witnessed it.

  The crone then hobbled her way back to the lakeshore, giving Heshtat and Maatkare a brief once over as she passed. She sniffed and turned away after her cursory investigation, and he was given the uncomfortable impression that he had disappointed her greatly, no matter how little that should have meant to him.

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  Squaring his shoulders and checking his weapons one last time, he turned to Maatkare and grasped his wrist in his own. “One last adventure, brother.”

  “Let us make it a good one then!”

  With that, they forged on toward the temple, and the intoxicating, overwhelming power that billowed forth.

  Then the assassins emerged from the forest, and Heshtat’s heart sank. He’d half-hoped that the doubtlessly powerful old cultivator had cowed them enough that Heshtat and Maatkare could enter unmolested, but alas. The Crimson Feathers slipped forwards from the shadows, their kohl-rimmed eyes the only features visible beneath their crimson garb. Those eyes all blazed with an inner light though, and Heshtat knew there would be none below the acolyte tier among their number. A half dozen of them melted from the trees to ring their group in a semi-circle, postures relaxed, but the threat hung clear as they stalked forwards.

  He heard his companions move, the priest already muttering prayers from his ancient tome, now open to the sky above. Neferu had vanished into the trees nearby, and Harsiese strode forwards, long hafted axe coming down to rest in the sand at his feet.

  “Not another step,” came Ahhotep’s aged voice, rasping and strained by the power he was currently channelling.

  Their leader—a tall woman who stepped forwards just enough to mark her position—called out in a clear voice, a faint edge of amusement underscoring her words. “Careful, priest. It sounds as if your heart can hardly take it.”

  She looked around, taking a moment to narrow her eyes at Harsiese and his oversized weapon, before looking Maatkare and Heshtat up and down. “So these are your hopefuls?” she asked rhetorically. “A pity to see the handsome one go,” she said, throwing a wink Maatkare’s way.

  Heshtat was faintly insulted, then found himself stifling a laugh as his friend looked over at him with a smug expression.

  The men and women behind her fanned out to either side, stepping carefully as if they could manoeuvre into advantageous positions without notice, so long as they did so slowly. Heshtat grit his teeth and squeezed the handle of his khopesh, catching Maatkare’s eye. His friend gave him a slight incline of his head, and Heshtat was relieved that they saw eye to eye on this matter.

  It was not honourable to leave their companions to this fight, but that was the situation the gods had thrust upon them. All knew the hierarchy of priorities on this mission, and their duty was to get to the temple. Besides, they’d be little use in a fight between experienced cultivators, mortal as they were. Each fight was unpredictable, but there was a reality to cultivation that sheer will alone could not breach.

  Once more he cursed his broken soul.

  “But still, we have a job to do, and the Scarlet Feathers are worth their weight in gold. We have a reputation to maintain, you understand?” the woman said, her tone almost melancholic. Heshtat found himself wondering if all the men and women he fought would be quite so melodramatic. First Senusret, and now this woman. The arrogance of power, he supposed.

  “Your reputation did not seem so important a few minutes ago,” Heshtat remarked idly, buying time.

  “It is to die for,” the woman said with a smirk. “But there are some battles that even we would exercise restraint in seeking.”

  Harsiese snorted. “If you are ready to die for this reputation, then so be it. Face me in single combat, and should I fall, my companions will leave.”

  “Oooh, now there’s a fun idea,” she said with a casual flick of her head. “But I’m afraid I must decline. We have the numbers on our side, you see, and while you and the old man there might prove yourselves vigorous combatants,” she explained, with an almost lecherous shiver as she looked Harsiese up and down. “Your two mortal friends there seem a little too weak for their own good. The woman in the trees is also far less brilliant than she might suspect. No, I’m afraid I must instead let my brothers and sisters dispose of you the traditional way…”

  She settled into a fighting crouch, a wicked looking curved dagger appearing in one hand, trailing a chain that she looped in the other. Where she had drawn it from, Heshtat had no idea, but she was swiftly joined by her five allies as iron and magical bronze rang in the clearing. Another pair of knives, a traditional khopesh, a meteor-hammer and two cruel-looking maces appeared in hands, and the air thickened with tension.

  Heshtat turned back to consider his allies. He had planned on recruiting Maatkare as soon as Cleo had told him of the mission. He’d had the thought to bring along Neferu not long after, once he had started to consider the logistics of the journey. Ahhotep had been Cleo’s idea and was possibly the most important resource they had in the team, or at least the hardest to find, but he’d understood the priest’s purpose immediately.

  Someone to join him in the exploration of the temple, someone to smooth the journey to said temple, and someone to keep their exit secure so they could leave in peace once they retrieved the damned thing they’d braved life and limb for.

  But that left one crucial issue unresolved. How they would gain access to the temple to begin with. Heshtat had given it thought, knowing it was likely for the entrance to be a choke point. He hadn’t lied to Atossa—there would be no large-scale assaults against parties, but a few assassins here and there was considered common courtesy in the politics played by the True Thrones. Heshtat had planned for that as best he could.

  An entire phalanx of Helexian myrmidons, a century of Aquiline legionnaires, a hundred blades of Sasskanian Janissaries… each would have been easily sufficient to see them through to the temple, but Heshtat, and even Queen Cleosiris, didn’t have that kind of influence.

  Instead, they had Harsiese.

  Their enemies were not average assassins, unfortunately. As the red-garbed killers crept forward, each practically bouncing side to side in their anticipation to rush towards Heshtat’s group, they played with a variety of weapons. The air twisted above the shoulders of the dual knife-wielder as she channelled her power through whatever aspect of her soul she had awakened.

  The Scarlet Feathers were a renowned assassins guild, notorious throughout almost every province of Amansi, and all were at least acolytes. The man with the meteor hammer stepped sideways, his shadow seeming to shiver and detach from his person, standing tall by his side then dropping into the same fighting crouch, incorporeal weapon raised and ready. The two mace wielders crept in front of their leader, clearly the heavies of the group, as their skin shone metallic in the daylight.

  No, these assassins were not simple soldiers, but Harsiese was no average soldier either. He was a Tomb Guard, an adept of Khet no less, and would be equal to any of the assassins alone even if that were all. But luckily for Heshtat, it wasn’t. Harsiese—the grizzled, grey-streaked veteran—was a gate breaker. “Tip of the spear,” Heshtat had asked for, and Queen Cleosiris had come through for him.

  He saw the eyes of the two men in front of him widen, and then a flash of gold rushed past his periphery. The wind came a moment later, rustling the half cloak he wore around one shoulder, and then he heard the roar. It sounded like a bear more than a man, and before he could slot together who had made the noise, the two mace wielders were already flying through the air in at least four distinct pieces.

  Heshtat couldn’t keep up with the sounds that followed—clashing weapons, screams and shouts, booming impacts as bodies were thrown into the earth at bone-crushing speed—it all blended into a sensory overload. So he put his head down, and he sprinted away.

  Heshtat had fought in a few pitched battles. Single combats and skirmishes were more familiar, but he was no stranger to war. The chaos around him now was the chaos of battle, and he used old instincts to keep himself safe—move fast and stay low.

  He sprinted around the edge of the melee. Ducked under a slash aimed at somebody else, dove beneath a body careening through the air to hit a tree nearby. He saw the red scarf fall from the man’s face and breathed a sigh of relief, which was yanked from his lungs as something crashed into his back. He rolled and spluttered, coming up to his knees with his handaxe already swinging. He yanked it aside at the last moment to avoid splitting Maatkare’s skull, and the man grinned.

  “Run, my friend!” he called as he rolled to his feet and sprinted off towards the temple, Heshtat hot on his heels.

  In a bizarre moment of deja-vu, Heshtat recalled chasing his friend down twisted alleyways in Men-nefer only days ago, and found himself wondering just how many times the two of them had run either away from or towards life-threatening danger together. Truly, there was nobody he’d rather lead or follow than Maatkare.

  And then they were before the temple gates. Massive edifices of wood thicker than a man is tall, banded in gold and iron and a dozen other metals besides that Heshtat doubted he could name if he had all the time in the world. He didn’t though, and so with a single glance back towards the battle still raging behind them, he grabbed his friend and pushed them forwards through the open gates.

  Towards their fate. Towards their doom. Into the Temple of Amin-Ra.

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