The Age of Ra

Golden and purple beams of ba sizzled blisteringly around them. Private Robbins took one full in the spine. He arched backwards, slumping bottom-first onto the ground. Gasping and mewling, he groped for the hole in his back where several vertebrae had been fused together in a twisted mass of melted bone. His legs were splayed in front of him, useless. A second beam penetrated his skull from their rear. Briefly Robbins's head was lit up from the inside, like a crimson lantern, before his eyes burst and his teeth exploded from their gums and he keeled over, smoke pouring from his mouth and nostrils.

Colonel Wilkins was shouting again, giving more orders in Arabic.

It was just David now, and McAllister, and four other men, versus some thirty or so enemy soldiers.

They ran on.

Then, ahead, like dark ghosts, yet more of the enemy appeared. They emerged from behind rocks, from cave mouths, from ledges on the valley wall. They moved slowly, stiffly, shufflingly, as though every step was an arthritic effort.

David's breath caught.

Mummies.

He and his paratroopers skidded to a halt. The dead creatures in front of them advanced with a grim, swaying purposefulness, arms outstretched. They were wrapped from head to foot in cerecloths and linen bandages, which rustled as they walked. Their joints creaked, and their jaws worked, opening and closing with a terrible, empty clicking sound.

David felt nothing but a weary dread.

Mummies. He loathed mummies.

His men began firing. Fear — the innate, visceral fear of the undead — disrupted their aim. Shots went wild or else only clipped their targets. The mummies lumbered closer, little perturbed to have small chunks blown off them. Even the occasional direct hit in the body didn't faze them. They staggered, then resumed their advance, lacy fireglow chasing across the singed parts of bandage.

''Knees!'' David yelled. It was elementary tactics. ''Wide beam setting! Cut them off at the knees!''

He demonstrated with a blast that sheared a mummy's leg in two. The creature toppled onto its face. Even downed, it kept going, crawling along with its arms and one good leg.

The nearest of the mummies reached the paratroopers. It lunged for Private Carey, enfolding him in an embrace of hideous strength. Carey barely had time to cry out as the mummy crushed him to its chest, shattering his ribs and spine and bursting his heart.

Then Wilkins's voice rang out. A one-word command in Arabic halted the mummies in their tracks. Then, in English, he said, ''Put down your weapons, Osirisiacs. Surrender. There's no way out of this. We have you pinned down. Surrender, or go to meet Anubis like dogs.''

David glanced at McAllister and the other three.

He saw it in their eyes. They didn't want to die here, now, like this. They would if he asked them to. If that was his decision. But they didn't want to.

Neither did he.

He laid down his lance and raised his hands.

Within moments, he and his men were having their wrists bound tightly behind them. Colonel Wilkins strode up and looked David in the eye.

''Interesting,'' he said smugly. ''I had you pegged as the go-down-fighting type. Clearly there's a streak of cowardice in the supposedly fearless British soldier.''

''No,'' David replied. ''It's just that, as long as I'm alive, I can still kill you.''

''Ah,'' said Wilkins, as if musing on this. ''Ah ha.''

He gut-punched David, then kicked his legs out from under him.

''Kill me?'' he spat, as David writhed in the dust. ''I doubt it, Lieutenant Westwynter. But I'll tell you this. By the time I'm done with you, you'll be begging me to kill you.''

2. Epoxy

Wherever Private Martineau had been taken to be tortured, it was near enough for his agony to be heard easily. Every sob, every howl, every plea for mercy. Even, at the end, his soft imploring moans as he called for his mother.

The torture lasted half an hour, although seemed longer. When it finally stopped, the remaining four paratroopers could only look at one another and wonder which of them would be next.

All four — David, Sergeant McAllister, and Privates Henderson and Gibbs — were in bad shape. The Nephthysians had worked them over thoroughly before chucking them into this cave. David had suffered a particularly severe beating at the hands of the Nephthysian whose ear he had ripped off with his crook. Fair dos, he supposed, although every time he moved, the pain went from tolerable to excruciating and he was inclined to think far less charitable thoughts about the man.

Outside the cave entrance, daylight burned, too bright to look at. Three Nephthysians were on guard duty out there. They talked in low voices and smoked acrid-smelling cigarettes incessantly. Every so often one of them would come in to check on the captives and deliver the odd kick.

David wished there was something he could say to lift his men's spirits and give them hope. But there was nothing he could think of. It was all very well to believe that you would be brave in a situation like this, that you'd tap into some hidden reservoir of courage which would enable you to tough it out. But the truth was, a bunch of strangers intended to hurt them as cruelly as possible then kill them, and no amount of bravery could counterweigh that. Nor did it make any difference that David and his men had undergone capture scenarios as part of basic training. A capture scenario was an unpleasant experience, but was, all said and done, just theatre. Sitting there blindfolded while members of your own regiment yelled at you and battered you with sticks — it was like hard- boiling an egg in the hope that it might survive a hammer blow.

David was shit-scared. That was all there was to it. He was shit-scared and he knew it and he didn't mind admitting it to himself, and this was the only thing that made him feel the slightest bit less miserable. No false bravado. No illusions. He was man enough to acknowledge that most unmanning of emotions, plain terror.

Two Nephthysians came for Private Henderson.

Henderson's suffering went on for longer than Martineau's, perhaps three-quarters of an hour all told. At some point during that period, Private Gibbs pissed himself.

An hour after that it was David's turn. He was dragged out of the cave, hauled down some stone steps carved into the hillside, and deposited in a larger cave. This one had been hollowed out to form two adjoining chambers, a larger outer one and a smaller inner one, linked by a low doorway. The outer chamber had slit-like windows, several alcoves, and what had clearly once been a cooking area, with a flue for the fire smoke and a recessed hearth framed by the remains of a tiled surround.

Now, for additional homeliness, it had been furnished with a collapsible table and a pair of canvas chairs, in one of which sat the man who called himself Colonel Wilkins. He looked hot and bothered. Sweat sheened his forehead and his cheeks. Dried blood stippled the front of his fatigues.

David was made to sit in the other chair. The Nephthysians who had brought him took up position on either side of him, but Wilkins dismissed them with a flick of his fingers.

''The lieutenant and I are both civilised men,'' he said. ''I am sure we can work things out through amicable discussion and nothing more.''

Wilkins was now talking with a faint Middle Eastern inflection, no longer having to pretend to be American.

''Date?'' he asked, proffering a plate of the fruits. They looked deliciously fat and plump, and David could imagine crushing one between his teeth, bursting open its sweetly fibrous flesh, gulping it down.

But he shook his head. ''Under the…'' he began. His voice was a papery rasp. He ran his tongue around his mouth and tried again. ''Under the terms of the Global Convention for the Proper Treatment of Prisoners of War-''

''Let me stop you right there, lieutenant,'' said Wilkins, holding up a hand like a traffic policeman. ''One, I