The Age of Ra

survived did so by virtue of gaining a purchase in territory that was sympathetic, or at least not hostile. This was the case in, for example, South America, where the children of Horus would never have succeeded in obtaining joint custodianship had that part of the continent not been so strongly under the sway of its neighbour to the north, their father's realm.

The same was true in Africa, where toeholds were available only to lesser gods who had some connection, however tenuous, to Nephthys or her husband.

The Lightbringer's orders to David, Zafirah, and their team were simple. Go into Libya. Find sites sacred to lesser gods. Blow them up.

They located a Wepwawetian monastery on the very first day.

It was a primitive, semi-subterranean edifice, more tomb than dwelling, more cave than tomb. A dozen monks occupied it, pallid creatures, their modesty barely preserved by the tattered remnants of black robes. Their bodies were so thin as to be almost skeletal, emaciated by a meagre diet of jackal flesh and baked dung beetle. Wepwawet was Anubis's son and a regular chip off the old block, pure darkness and annihilation, so his worshippers delighted in mortifying themselves, spending their lives teetering as close to the brink of death as possible.

Consequently the monks were too feeble to put up any resistance as the Lightbringer's troops rousted them from their sarcophagus-style beds and dragged them blinking into the sunlight. Held at gunpoint, they stood in line like living scarecrows, swaying and moaning while David supervised the laying of charges inside the monastery.

When the blast happened, the monks cried out in a strange sort of ecstasy. As their holy home collapsed in on itself in a vast billow of dust, they looked both aghast and perversely gratified, as though this act of violent desecration confirmed everything they believed in. All was ruin and decay. Life was a bleak catastrophe. Here — here was the proof.

One of them, apparently the abbot, hissed a command to the rest. The monks immediately began advancing on their captors, ignoring requests to stay put or be shot.

David realised what they were up to. He shouted to Zafirah, telling her to tell the others: on no account were they to open fire.

But too late. They did.

Bullets flew. The Wepwawetian monks went down happily, willingly. It was an act of mass suicide. They died with blissful smiles on their skull-like faces.

''They could see no need to carry on,'' Zafirah said later. ''What we did, destroying the monastery — it made their lives complete.''

''Yes, well,'' said David, guiding the ZT around a rock outcrop. The off-roader's initials stood for Zemlya Tantsovschik, Land Dancer, but it hardly lived up to the name. It was murder to drive, the steering wheel asking for effort all the way from your shoulders to your wrists before it would rotate even a few degrees. The ZT could be said to dance in the same way that a portly octogenarian babushka could be said to dance. ''Nobody else dies. Not if we can help it. That's not what we're here for. Our targets aren't civilians, remember. Or even enemy troops.''

''No. The gods. Only the gods.'' Zafirah smiled grimly. ''I wonder if we're not insane, David Westweenter. What are we doing, provoking them like this? It's asking for trouble.''

''Of course it is. But the Lightbringer'' — he nearly said Steven — ''has calculated the risks. He thinks he knows how this is going to play out.''

''And do you trust him?''

''I do.''

''You sound surprised.''

''I am, a little. But only a little.''

''Is it because he's an Englishman like you? You wouldn't have gone along with this if he was from any other country? Compatriots sticking together.''

''That's not it. I just feel…''

David wasn't sure what he felt. He knew only that he felt something. Whenever Steven spoke about his plans, his grand scheme, his crusade, it sounded right. Sounded plausible. Sounded like a cause worth fighting for and a confrontation that could be won.

''I don't know,'' he said. ''I mean, this goes against everything I believe in. Used to believe in. Somewhere inside me a faint little voice is going 'Don't!' But there's another voice, a louder one, and it's saying 'Why not?' I've never heard it before, I don't recognise it — but I quite like it.''

''I hear that voice,'' Zafirah said. ''I think it may be the voice of freedom.''

David adjusted his grip on the steering wheel. ''I think it may be too.''

It was a tiny village, a handful of houses clustered around a water hollow. In the hollow, a stone effigy of the hippopotamus-headed goddess Tawaret squatted, thigh-deep in the muddy water, belly bulging, breasts heavily pendulous.

''Ugly bitch,'' Zafirah commented. ''I hope someone will shoot me if I ever let myself get that fat.''

''Fertile, though,'' said David. ''Isn't that the point? Tawaret's all about the babies.'' He gestured at the largest of the nearby buildings, into which the villagers had all been herded, as much for their own safety as anything. They were howling with rage and indignation from inside this makeshift corral. ''At least half the women are pregnant, and I've never seen such a high child-to-adult ratio as in this place.''

''The women lie beside the statue for a day,'' said Zafirah, ''then lie beside their husbands at night.''

''Stinking of brackish water…''

''But it still works. Perhaps it's the only time they do lie with their husbands. The poor men are so desperate, they'll forgive the smell.''

David inserted a blasting cap into the last of the charges, then waded out of the hollow, unspooling wires as he went.

There was a massed scream from the house as the effigy exploded, followed by high-pitched ululations of despair.

The Freegyptian vehicles were pursued as they left the village. Women chased them down the road, cursing and hurling rocks.

Only women, though, David noted. The village menfolk had looked… relieved?

An intimidated local gave them directions. Follow the river, three miles, where it bends, there is the shrine to Sobek.

What they found was an altar stone on the riverbank and a heavily tattooed priest holding down a young sheep, barely a lamb, preparing to sacrifice it. A cluster of onlookers chanted rhythmic prayers. The sheep's terrified bleating sounded close to a scream.

The priest raised his left arm. He had no hand, only a stump with a hook attached. He brought the hook down towards the sheep's throat.

David fired into the air, and everyone shrieked and froze. The priest remonstrated with the new arrivals, furious that the ritual had been interrupted. While he was shouting at them the sheep wriggled out of his grasp and skittered away, tossing its head.

''Not much to destroy here,'' Zafirah observed. ''That altar stone will have to do.''

Then there was a thrashing in the water, and a ten-foot-long crocodile emerged, clawing its way up the bank.

The locals retreated in alarm. Even the priest backed off, rubbing his hook-ended arm. He, it seemed, had better reason than anyone to be wary of this beast.

The crocodile eyed them all with a slow, yellowy stare. It shuffled over to the altar and opened its jaws wide, revealing tooth upon tooth. It thrashed its tail, eager for the offering of a meal, which the sheep's bleating had promised.

The rifle David was carrying was a Brazilian-made Anaconda, loaded with.303 brass-jacketed fragmentation rounds. He brought it up to his shoulder and took careful aim.

The crocodile turned towards him.

A sacred animal. For an uncanny moment David felt as though he was looking down the gunsights straight