‘I don’t care what it is,’ Fletcher said. ‘We’ve waited long enough – the sponsors should have woken us earlier. We have to start the raid. Now.’
‘I know what it is.’ Mason spoke for the first time. His hands trembled ever so slightly, and his eyes were closed.
‘It’s the end of the orc trainin’,’ he continued, taking a deep, quavering breath. ‘Where they separate the weak from the strong. ’Appens every year. This is terrible timin’ – the area’ll be crawlin’ with orcs.’
‘Will they come into the pyramid?’ Fletcher asked.
‘They might,’ Mason replied, his eyes still closed. ‘The shamans’ll test the young ’uns for the ability to summon today, just as ’Ominum’s Inquisitors do. If there’re any adepts, they’ll be takin’ ’em into the pyramid. They come in through this back entrance and leave through the front. That’s all I know.’
‘And that’s all we’ll know, if we don’t go out and check.’
It was Verity who had spoken. She was sitting in the corner, watching her Mite crawl over her hand. It was black, and small for a Scarab, just as Apophis had been.
‘Nobody will notice Ebony here, if she flies out and takes a look.’
As she spoke, she rummaged in her satchel before tugging out a flat rectangle of crystal the size of a dinner mat. Its edges were reinforced with a steel band to prevent it from shattering, though one edge was already beginning to crack.
‘A gift from my grandmother,’ Verity said, holding it up for all to see. Ebony alighted on it, and Fletcher was amazed at the clarity of the image as the Mite’s view came into focus. Even the Oculus back at Vocans had not been so crisp and clear.
‘Glad it will be of use,’ Verity continued, tossing her hair. ‘I’ve been lugging it about this whole trip without using it once. I’d rather have one like yours, Fletcher.’
She turned her big brown eyes on him, and Fletcher smiled at the compliment. Sylva rolled her eyes.
Ebony swooped past his head, flicking a spindly leg against the lens strapped to his face. The overlay of Ebony’s view appeared, and he felt dizzied as the Mite zoomed around the room. Athena’s view was a lot more stable and less prone to sharp turns.
‘Any objections?’ Verity asked.
‘None,’ Malik said, admiring Verity’s scrying stone.
He turned to Fletcher, since Seraph was still sleeping beside Othello and Atilla on the floor, his own snores adding to the bass chorus. All the others were awake now.
‘Let them sleep,’ Malik said, grinning. ‘Fletcher, what say you?’
Fletcher paused, listening to the ominous throb of the drumbeats.
‘We need to know when the coast is clear, so we can find somewhere better to hide in the pyramid,’ Fletcher said, tapping his chin. ‘We’re sitting ducks in here. It can’t hurt to do a bit of investigating.’
Before he had even finished speaking, Ebony had buzzed out of the chamber and into the light, the image blurring as the demon jinked left and right. Higher and higher she flew, Fletcher’s overlay filled with clear blue sky and the glare of the blazing sun. Then, just as the others began to grow restless, Ebony turned and looked to the ground.
Beyond the pyramid, a teeming metropolis spread out below. These were not the grass huts that Fletcher had envisioned, but squat, heavy buildings of carved sandstone, with small ziggurats and monoliths surrounding a central plaza. It was all built around the great pyramid, except for a thin strip of beach between the pyramid’s back entrance and the river – where they had travelled last night.
‘Holy hell,’ Cress whispered. ‘There’re so many of them.’
Thousands of orcs milled in the square, waving pennants and banners of stretched cloth, bird feathers and animal-skin. Brightly coloured body paint separated the crowd into a patchwork quilt of different tribes. Even their hairstyles were different, a strange mix of shaven patches, topknots and bowl-shaped mops.
But they were not alone. Smaller orcs cringed beside each group, wearing heavy wooden yokes around their necks, like oxen. They had been daubed with blue ochre from head to toe, and the stone floor was stained by their footprints.
‘The weaklings, chosen from among the captives after a year of indoctrinashun’,’ Mason said, tapping the scrying tablet where the blue patches were. ‘They’ll take part in the games for a place among the warrior elite.’
There was a great stairway on the side of the pyramid, leading down into the plaza, and Fletcher could see that the balustrades that lined it were carved in the likeness of interwoven snakes. A squat, rectangular block sat at the flat zenith, with a shallow basin hewn into the stone and a dark hole in the centre.
Mason leaned in and squinted at the tablet.
‘There,’ he said, prodding to the right. ‘Go there.’
The image magnified as Ebony flew closer, shaking as the wind buffeted the demon. In the end, the Mite settled at the top of a tall obelisk to watch the proceedings below.