Heshtat left the yawning pit in the centre of the hallway for a moment to backtrack to the entrance. He dug through the carelessly placed canvas for climbing supplies, before retracing his steps once more. He wasted no further time in hammering a metal piton into the rough rock beneath the torn away slabs of the hallway.

  While not a master of dungeon delving like Maatkare, or even an apprentice like Neferu, Heshtat had been trained in many disciplines long before joining the illustrious ranks of the Tomb Guard. He was familiar enough with climbing to secure the rope tightly to the piton with a solid knot before wrapping it around his shoulders.

  The trouble with abseiling though was that it required at least one hand free, so the axe had to go back into the loop at his belt and his curved sword returned to the iron ring on the opposite hip. He turned sideways on, feeding the rope slowly behind his back and shoulders, and began to walk down the sheer sides of the pit, descending foot by foot into the darkness with only the paltry flame of his torch held before him to light the way.

  Once more, the shadows danced and waved around the hole, and they seemed to beckon him further with every step he took. A scuttle of legs to his left made him flinch, but it was just a scarab beetle crawling across the wall, disappearing into a small hole. Its iridescent carapace shimmered in the light of his torch, and he took the sign for what it was, steeling his nerves.

  The scarab was a sign of Nebet—the maternal goddess of childbirth, cycles and protection. Far better that this be a tomb dedicated to her benevolent domains than to that of Ammat. The apotropaic influences had put him in mind of the Gobbler, the maw that yawns wide beneath the Afterworld and protects all from the resurgence of the demonic, but if Nebet was the chosen deity of this place instead, then perhaps whatever lay buried within would not be quite so sordid as he had first suspected.

  Then he remembered the blood and quickly lost his burgeoning optimism. Still, there was hope. This was an ancient Tomb, its foundations laid far before The Desolation, and so it was more of a storage house for offerings to the dead than it was a well-defended fort to protect the deceased on their journey through the Other to the After. As such, it would not be filled with magical traps, other than those simple ones to deter grave-robbers. There should be no ushabti dolls guarding the valuables, no terrifying creatures lured through the Other by the spiritual weight of what lay inside.

  Heshtat held tight to the flame of hope, even as his torch flickered in the fell breeze before him. Strange, to have such air movement deep within the earth. He was still high above the base of the ravine in his estimation, but he should be a least a hundred feet deep into the sandstone cliff itself. But then these tombs were endlessly complex, with hidden passages and storage rooms worked into the design over centuries of iteration.

  Neferu would no doubt know which period of Amansi’s history this particular one hailed from, to which god it was dedicated, and for which purpose it was built. Using all that accumulated knowledge she would know the rough layout without even needing to map it. Tomb delving, after all, was an art that demanded one become fluent in many disciplines—if they wanted to retire, that is.

  And yet, despite all that knowledge and experience, he was following a trail of blood down into the earth rather than the sound of his friend’s voice. A lesson there in amongst all of that, Heshtat thought.

  Soon, the torchlight reflected off more stone slabs beneath him, and he dropped the last few feet to land in a soft crouch, hand resting on the hilt of his Hyksos axe. Turning slowly, he surveyed what seemed to be a crossroads that he had descended to. Three hallways, two leading to either side and one in front.

  And beneath him, a thick pool of blood.

  This was… too much. He spotted footsteps leading off down the central hallway but hesitated. They were too even, too well paced to be from an injured woman. He’d born enough wounds in his time to know that even if one was stabbed through the chest or arm, it affected one’s gait. It was hard not to limp even with a broken arm—something about the way you balanced.

  Was it even Neferu’s blood? He knelt down to touch the pool, still sticky and warm—no more than a few hours old, by his best guess. He raised a red-daubed finger to his nose, sniffing deeply. Nothing more than the copper scent he was so familiar with, but what had he expected? It had been near enough a decade since he’d lost his preternatural senses.

  Then he heard the scream.

  A thud and a groan, as if a sack of meat dropped from a great height onto the stone below, and then something was running at him. The torch gave him only a dozen feet of vision, and he took a step back, propping the light source against the wall behind him. There was another terrified shriek, and then the sound of bronze being drawn against iron echoed around the maze-like corridors. His khopesh was in one hand, his axe in the other, and Heshtat sank into a fighting crouch. Time comes for every man to meet his doom. Either he would die this day with weapon in hand, or he’d send some abomination back to its rightful place in the Otherworld.

  “Heshtat?” He heard a voice question, shock evident in its tone. A familiar voice.

  Neferu came sprinting around the corner, bag over one shoulder jangling with every step. She grunted as she slammed into the wall before continuing on with her run, and Heshtat recognised the thud and groan he’d heard a moment before but mistaken for something far more grim.

  The woman was panting, short hair bouncing with every step, save for the strands stuck to her sweaty forehead. Her brown eyes were wide and rolling, and she shouted at Heshtat like a woman possessed even as she ran straight at him.

  “Run, you fool!” she screamed, and then Heshtat saw what she was running from.

  A corpse, baleful eyes glowing a sickly green and skin stretched so tight across its leering skull that it looked like every tiny movement would crack the parchment-like covering. Behind it came another, both slamming into the hallway from the 90-degree turn and then bounding forwards in a flail of unnaturally long limbs.

  Heshtat took it all in within moments. He still held the whisp of power within his broken soul that he had nurtured all week and knew that now was the time to use it. He would be leaving the city soon enough anyway, so there was no reason to horde the meagre fortune. None of the nine aspects of his soul were awakened, but he still remembered the pathways he had once cultivated.

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  His pushed that whisp of power to Sah—the Spiritual Body—and focused on his eyesight. It took an immense effort of will to control the sluggish essence within his soul, and one far from commensurate with the pitiful working he was aiming for, but such was the way for one with a broken soul. It should hardly even be possible for an unawakened, but Heshtat had had long years of practice.

  The pain was hardly worth commenting on, familiar as it was worthless; simply the price of success. Abruptly, his vision changed. The world around dimmed, and then blazed forth once more. Lines of power flowed through the walls and ceiling, tracing the patterns worked into the carvings. Neferu’s silhouette was visible as triplicate lines of delineated power flowing through her body, corresponding to her three awakened aspects, while his own would be visible as nothing but a shadow—a negation of essence.

  Behind Neferu, the two corpses roared and scrabbled towards them, their mouths open in silent howls and green light spewing from their throats and eyes, any hole in their body leaking the vibrant, sickly hue.

  It had been nigh on a decade, but Heshtat hadn’t forgotten what it meant. In this spiritual sight, he saw their power and knew them to be little better than mortals. The power they exuded was weak. Pathetic, really. Chaff through which he could wade like a sharpened scythe on harvest day.

  Except he wasn’t that man anymore. He was a mortal, even weaker. While their claws would barely chip stone, his hands would break upon it. While they would fall beneath the enchanted blades of even awakened soldiers, let alone acolytes, he held only mortal bronze.

  Neferu was nearly upon him when the spiritual sight faltered and the world was plunged into gloom once more. She made to run past Heshtat and down the hallway to his left, but he grabbed her.

  “The rope behind me!” he shouted, already turning back to face the incoming threat.

  “No time!” the shorter woman yelled. “Follow—”

  But Heshtat didn’t hear her next words over the sound of the unholy screeching of the desiccated guardians as the first one hit him. It squealed, a sound like a thousand beetles buzzing in unison, when his axe took it full force in the neck, almost severing its head. The leering skull hung on by little more than a strip of gristle, bobbling about as the creature ploughed into him, and he felt his breath leave his lungs in a whoosh as he was slammed into the wall behind.

  He scrambled to his feet, frantically interposing the blade of his khopesh between his neck and the raking claws closing in on him, and was pinned back against the wall once more as the power behind the blow set his arms to shaking. The creature roared in his face, and the effect was made all the more eerie since its head was upside down and thumping about against its chest with each small movement in their struggle.

  He heaved his blade up, taking the claws above his head as he slipped below and out between the long legs of the creature, coming up in a spin to once more bury his axe into the remainder of its neck, finally ending the horror where it stood.

  Then he was hit in the back and sent flying.

  Heshtat skidded along the stone, carving a furrow in the thick layer of dust, rolling end over end until he jolted to a halt. His head was ringing and vision blurry, especially so outside of the range of his torch’s feeble light, but he could see just well enough to make out the shadow of the second desiccated creature crouched above him, arm drawn back to plunge into his chest. No doubt it would dig about in his ribcage for those precious organs and gorge itself on his most sacred flesh. What a way to die.

  Then its entire chest caught fire, scraps of dry skin and whisps of ancient cloth immolating in heartbeats. It screeched and fell back, Neferu appearing from behind it wielding Heshtat’s discarded torch in one hand and a manic grin on her face. She stabbed down again with the torch, setting the creature further ablaze and stamping on its merrily burning body with entirely too much passion as it twitched and writhed on the ground.

  She laughed wildly, turning wide eyes back to Heshtat once it was clear the creature wasn’t getting up. “Now we are even!” she cried, her native Idib accent bleeding through stronger than normal in the high-stress situation. “Come. There will be others soon,” she continued, reaching down to help Heshtat to his feet. “Not that I am not glad to see you, but… why are you here?”

  He made towards the rope but was pulled away by his friend. The dark-haired woman pulled a jug from the bag slung over her shoulder and unstoppered it, upending the thick liquid over the two long-dead corpses with a splash.

  “Pig’s blood,” she explained even as Heshtat shook his head to clear it of the ringing. That only made things worse, and he stumbled against the wall. Neferu continued unabated though, sounding strangely cheery in the gloom. “It should buy us a few minutes. They’re drawn to it, you see.”

  “Is that the trail I followed down here?” Heshtat asked, breathing ragged.

  “Of course, whatever else? Oh, you thought…?” She chuckled. “Fool of a man. You should know better than to bet against Neferu in a tomb raid!” She made the pronouncement like a queen being introduced, never mind that it was herself doing the introducing. She’d always been one for a little grandeur, though. Probably Maatkare’s influence bleeding through.

  Heshtat stood once more, fumbling at his belt for his weapons before realising they were still scattered with the remains of the creatures. He made to gather them but was interrupted by a screeching from the same tunnel Neferu had come careening out of a moment prior. This time it sounded like more than a couple, though. The scrabble of many clawed feet against stone was not reassuring, and Neferu grabbed his arm, dragging him away in a sprint.

  He wanted to turn back for his weapons—he’d had that axe for years—but the shorter woman’s grip was iron. They stumbled away for a few more moments before Heshtat’s mind caught up, and he turned and ran after his friend as they weaved through corridors and hallways. A storage room slipped by on their right, the open doorway letting just a hint of ruby light emanate out into their path.

  What wonders lay inside, just out of reach? Enough power to open a channel and awaken his soul, no doubt. Heshtat put the dangerous thoughts behind him, ignoring the siren call of greed and power. He had long experience with that now, given his job for Senusret. Far before that, too.

  “Are you ready?” Neferu shouted from ahead, turning her head just slightly to catch Heshtat’s eye.

  “For what?”

  Her answer was a wild laugh as they careened around another sharp corner, the hallway opening up into a wide audience room, split down the middle by a deep channel. Water sluiced through the canal before disappearing into the darkness beyond the reach of their flickering torch.

  “Just do as I say!” Heshtat’s friend shouted, though there was a distinct note of glee in her voice that he didn’t like.

  They hopped over the channel, weaving through pillars as wide around as three men, and Heshtat chanced a look back at the hallway they had emerged from. Green light was building there even as he watched, and the pounding and scraping of a multitude of limbs skittering across the stone was growing stronger with each second that passed. He’d seen them move, and knew they’d catch up before long.

  He turned back to his friend, seeing the floor disappear only a dozen feet before them. “What do-—”

  “Jump!” Neferu cackled and then launched herself out into open air.

  Heshtat was a few paces behind and had just enough time to watch his friend, and the corona of torchlight she held, leap forwards before dropping into the darkness. He could see nothing beyond the rapidly vanishing sphere of light, but he was moving too fast to stop now anyway.

  He shook his head, screamed a curse in the gods’ tongue, and then leapt. Wind rushed by his head for a moment, and then he dropped. He braced himself for a hard landing but felt only air beneath his feet. Cursing Neferu’s name to any god he could think of, he plummeted into darkness.