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Supplied by Penguin Books Ltd Copyright © Digit Game Studios Ltd

Oisín McGann is a full-time author and illustrator. He has written and illustrated over twenty-fi ve books for all ages of reader, in genres ranging from science fi ction to fantasy, from comedy horror to conspiracy thriller. He is married with three children, a dog and a cat. Oisín now lives somewhere in the Irish countryside, where he won’t be heard shouting at his computer.

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PENGUIN BOOKS

Oisín McGann

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1 A Thousand Years Buried

Looking at the arcane symbols on the massive stone door, it occurred to Vallen Warnock that he should have listened to his wife. He stared at the door at the end of the short tunnel, examining the walls built into the ruddy-yellow rock on either side. A few strides back from where he stood the sandstorm still blasted across the mouth of the tunnel. The wind had picked up as they’d ridden up to the entrance, almost as if it wanted to drive them in. But the air was very still inside. Like so many tombs in Kemet, this place had been built to last centuries. To keep thieves out, Vallen wondered, or dead spirits in?

He glanced over at his brother Giddion, who stood beside him, gazing at the door as if hypnotized. Vallen shifted his shoulders uncomfortably, weary under the weight of his armour. Giddion, as the group’s com-mander, had insisted that they all wear their armour and colours today. Vallen resented having to wear chain mail in the desert. Even now he could feel the grit of the sand that had crept in under his collar. Bloody sand got every-where. He’d spent years in the desert and had grown to hate the sand. The storm had coated them in the stuff . His hand rested on the pommel of his sword, instinctively

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checking that it was not sticking in the scabbard. Sand played hell with your weapons.

Giddion stood, transfi xed, examining the pictograms carved into the stone and the small slot with a circle around it that pierced the middle of the door. He was taller than Vallen, with broader shoulders but the same warrior’s build. An intimidating sight, whether or not he was in full armour, as he was now. A lifetime as a soldier had left his bearded face and shorn scalp scored with scars, but he was still devilishly handsome. He blew some dust out of the slot, then peered into it.

‘We need more light,’ he grunted. ‘Someone fi re up a torch.’

Kaber had a brand ready, using the fl int and steel of his tinderbox to light the pitch-soaked rag wound round the top of the wooden club. A tiny scorpion skittered away down a crack in the fl oor as the small chamber was lit up. Kaber was a bald, coarse, barrel-shaped oaf, but fi ercely loyal to his friends – a solid man to have at your shoulder. One of the old guard. He handed the torch to Giddion, who leaned down again to study the markings by the light of the fl ame.

Vallen stood back to avoid blocking the dim light from the mouth of the tunnel. His wife’s warnings aside, there was a great deal about this situation that he didn’t like. For a start, there was the native guide who’d led the four Astartan soldiers to this place. Vallen watched him now, as the scrawny, weather-beaten little man stood to one side, well clear of that damned door. The peasant was ordinary-looking enough, but he had a fanatic’s eyes. He’d been eager to show the soldiers this tomb, but now he was



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keeping a safe distance as they investigated the slab of sandstone set into the rock wall of the tunnel.

Then there was the place itself – an entrance to a tomb out in the middle of nowhere in this godforsaken desert, the Plain of Ahten. An entrance that had not been there just a week ago. The Kemetan guide had led them to a gorge, little more than a crevasse, torn open like a wound in the undulating sand dunes. The recent earthquake had exposed the tunnel, the Kemetan had said. It was an extra-ordinary stroke of good luck. No one else knew about it yet, but word would spread. At the very least there’d be treasures to plunder, but it could mean so much more.

The Astartans had quickly recognized that it was from the right era and in the right location. Even the markings on that stone slab of a door seemed to confi rm it. This could well be the place that Giddion Warnock had sought for years. The Tomb of Amut – the infamous catacomb city where the goddess and her followers had been laid to rest. The location of the fabled Fountain of Youth.

Kaber lit another torch as Giddion studied the stone. Giddion, Vallen and Kaber were the last survivors of the group of friends who’d originally come east, part of the wave of Trinity crusaders fi ghting for the glory of God. Back when Vallen still had faith. Before he’d renounced his oath and his colours.

‘This could be it, don’t you think, Giddion?’ the last soldier in the group asked. ‘It looks like it could be the right place, doesn’t it? Think of it, boys! Ha! We’ll be famous!’

His narrow, unlined face was stiff with arrogance and insecurity. Custin was a young zealot, new to the Order



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of the Shining Lance and new to the desert. He idolized Giddion and held Vallen in contempt for leaving the order to get married. Custin was cunning and extremely skilful, but cruel – and ignorant in the way less experienced sol-diers could be. That painful mark on his neck was what veterans called the ‘idiot burn’. From when you didn’t pad your plate armour properly and then wore it out in the heat of the desert sun for an hour or more. If it touched your skin, it burned like a branding iron.

All three men were waiting, their eyes fi xed on Giddion. Vallen felt that sickness in his stomach that he got when he was in the saddle, sword and shield at the ready, waiting in the line for the order to charge into battle. Except there was no enemy. Apart from the guide, the only other people here had been dead for more than a thousand years. And yet, looking at Kaber and Custin’s restless stances, he knew their instincts were at them too. Something was very wrong with this place.

Giddion didn’t seem disturbed by it. He looked over at Vallen and fl ashed his champion’s smile.

‘Where’s that knife?’ he asked. That was another thing, Vallen thought, as he reached

into the pouch that hung on his belt. The accursed knife – a knife made of gold and some other silvery-grey metal nobody could identify, one that didn’t rust, not unlike the stellium that the elves used to make their weapons. The craftsmanship was beautiful, the handle wrapped in gold wire, the cool metal of the curved blade, as long as his forearm, engraved with fl owing markings, including more pictograms. It was priceless. And yet, months ago, Giddion had obtained it by another extraordinary stroke of good



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luck. In a backstreet in Constantu, some old codger with the same staring eyes as the Kemetan guide had off ered it up for sale. They’d haggled, but in the end Giddion had paid a fraction of what it was worth.

Vallen took a look at the blade before he handed it over, reading the pictograms for the hundredth time. Of all the four soldiers here, despite his lack of formal educa-tion he was the only one who spoke fl uent Kemetan – and the only one who could read any of it – because of Kaydi, his young Kemetan wife. But there were symbols here that even he could not interpret – they were either too obscure or too old or both. The same symbols were carved into the stone in front of him.

‘They’re the same, are they not?’ Giddion asked him eagerly, pointing at the door. ‘Vallen? They’re the same, yes?’

Vallen nodded. It was the same quote: ‘He who breaks the seal shall block the path to his grave.’ A version of those words was told in every legend of the Fountain of Youth. In the light of the fl ame, Giddion’s eyes seemed to burn with ambition and his lust for glory. This would be a greater triumph than any of his victories in battle. The hero of Flashman Valley, fi nder of the Fountain of Youth. It would seal his place in history. A history he might now look back on over centuries of immortality.

‘I’m not sure about this, Gidd,’ Vallen said. ‘Kaydi says that these words, when spoken in Kemetan, are intended as a curse .’

Custin snorted and rolled his eyes at Kaber. ‘Yes, so you’ve said,’ Giddion groaned. ‘I talked you

back into your armour one more time to share the glory



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with you. We’ve stood together in everything so it was only right that you be here now. But I fear, brother, that your Kemetan sow has well and truly cut off your balls.’

‘Call her a sow again, brother, and I’ll kick your balls up into your stomach,’ Vallen growled, then, looking round at the others smirking at him, he added: ‘And don’t think I’d go so easy on you two pigs!’

Kaber laughed. That was the Vallen they knew. Gid-dion met his brother’s eyes, knowing he’d gone too far. He lifted his chin in a gesture that might have been an apology. Then he took the knife from Vallen’s hands and slid the point into the slot in the door. It went all the way in. There was a sound like cracking glass and a wisp of vapour escaped from the slot. Giddion drew the blade back out, a look of childlike fascination on his face.

The stone door was set into a frame. This, like the tun-nel, was almost rectangular, the top slightly narrower than the bottom, but the door itself was circular. It was half a stride thick, but, with a motion that belied its massive weight, it rolled aside into a space in the wall, turning as smoothly as a millstone and with a similar grinding sound. There was no sign of the mechanism that had caused it to move. A mechanism that had to be as old as the tomb itself.

The four knights shared a stunned look of amazement. Kaber was taking short, shallow breaths and Custin was visibly shaken. There was magic at work here – a powerful magic, to have lasted all this time. Vallen’s knuckles were white as he gripped the hilt of his sword. Giddion handed the Kemetan knife back to him and gave him a scared, exhilarated grin.



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‘This is it!’ he whispered. ‘This is it, Vallen! My God, boys, can you believe it! Have you ever seen such a thing? This has to be it!’

He lifted the torch and stepped through the doorway. Beyond it, the tunnel disappeared into that old buried darkness. It was lower and narrower inside: Giddion had to stoop to avoid banging his head on the ceiling and his armoured fi gure nearly fi lled the tunnel’s width. Without waiting to see who followed, he made his way on into its depths. Kaber was the fi rst to go after him, holding the second torch, and then Custin, casting a scornful glance back at Vallen, who had not moved.

‘Lost your nerve, Vallen?’ the younger man asked. ‘Perhaps you should stand guard here. God does not favour weakness. But then not everyone has a hunger for adventure . . . and we need someone to make sure this Kemetan dog doesn’t steal the horses.’

With that, he turned and strode off after the others into the gloom of the narrow tunnel.

Adventure , thought Vallen. He’d always considered it a profoundly stupid word. A romantic fool’s word for all the ugliness he’d experienced and would have avoided if he could. No, he had no hunger for adventure, but he’d never been able to let his brother face that ugliness alone. Picking up a torch, he lit it and stepped through the doorway.

There were more carvings on the walls on either side and he cast his eyes across them as he walked on slowly. There was no rush after all. The graves weren’t going any-where. Or the Fountain of Youth, if it really was there, which he doubted. Though he could read little of them,



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many of the symbols had an ominous quality. At one point he stopped, surprised, as he came upon a drawing of a knife. It could almost have been the one he carried with him. The one that had opened the door. It was as if –

A hoarse, horrifi ed scream echoed down the tunnel, then a much deeper rumbling noise and what sounded like the snarling of animals. The strike of metal on metal, the wet thud of steel cutting fl esh. Then more screams. Vallen recognized the voices of Kaber and Custin crying out in terror, invoking their God’s name. Vallen started running, thrusting the fl aming torch in front of him, bewildered by the sounds of a desperate fi ght being waged in the tomb up ahead. What the hell was going on? He didn’t draw his broadsword – it’d be useless in this con-fi ned space – pulling out the Kemetan knife instead. The blade was still sharp and better suited for close- quarters fi ghting.

‘Vallen!’ he heard Giddion shriek from the gloom. His brother’s voice had a frantic tone he’d never heard before. Giddion never panicked, not even in the worst moments they’d ever faced together. ‘Vallen! God in Heaven, where are you?’

The sounds petered out and Vallen found himself at a three-way junction. There was a torch lying on the ground, its fl ame dying out. He cursed the poor light that showed him nothing but the dark throats of the stone passages. He listened for any sound of his friends.

‘Giddion!’ he bellowed, swivelling back and forth. ‘Giddion! Kaber? Custin! Where are you? Goddammit, shout so I can hear you!’

But there was nothing but silence, broken only by



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Vallen’s panting breath and the sputtering of the torch. Then he heard footsteps, trudging as if tired, and the scrape of steel against stone. The sounds were coming from the tunnel ahead. Vallen squinted into the blackness, gritting his teeth, trying to stay calm, to keep his body from freezing up, preparing himself for whatever was coming down that tunnel.

It was Giddion, but he wasn’t moving with his normal powerful grace. He walked as if he’d just woken up, his head down. The scraping sound was the tip of his broad-sword dragging along the ground. That was no way to treat your weapon. Everything about this was wrong. As he came into the light, Giddion lifted his head. There was a bloody mark on his brow. With a chill shiver of terror, Vallen recognized the symbol. It was carved into the door and the walls, even on the hilt of the knife he held in his hand. It was the mark of Amut.

‘Giddion?’ he said in a rasping whisper. Giddion uttered a noise like an animal, a noise that

Giddion’s throat could never make. As he lifted his eyes to glare at Vallen, there was no sign of recognition there. There was no sign of anything. There seemed to be no soul behind those eyes.

Then he swung his sword at Vallen. The blade hit the wall to his side, striking sparks. It was easy to step out of the way. Giddion grunted and swung again, smacking the wall like some idiot beginner who’d never handled a blade before. Vallen couldn’t understand what was happening.

‘Giddion?’ he said again. Then Giddion dropped the sword and grabbed his

brother by the throat. His grip was unnaturally strong.



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Vallen felt his throat being crushed and a building pres-sure in his head. His brother was trying to kill him. Vallen had tears in his eyes; his disbelief made him weak for a few moments, but then his instincts took hold. He kicked Giddion’s knee to one side and drove the heel of his left hand up between his brother’s arms, striking him under the chin. Giddion’s head rocked back and his grip loos-ened. With his other hand, Vallen pressed the knife to his brother’s throat.

‘Giddion, for the love of God, come to your senses!’ he cried.

But in his heart he knew his brother was gone. What-ever this thing was, it was a shell of a body where his brother’s soul had once been.

There were more footsteps coming down the tunnel. More sounds like those Giddion was making. More of these monstrous things. And there were other noises – voices, dozens of them. Scores of them. Giddion still had him by the throat and Vallen could not break his iron grip.

‘Giddion, please!’ he begged. ‘Don’t make me do this! Please, brother!’

Kaber appeared. He too had the mark of Amut on his forehead. He was moving the same way, as if just waking up. The same emptiness in his eyes. He was a few paces away now. Behind him, other shapes were becoming vis-ible. More lurching fi gures. Vallen tried one more time.

‘Please,’ he gasped at his brother. Then he slashed the blade through Giddion’s throat,

and when the grip did not loosen, he slashed at it again . . . and again. Blood spattered across Vallen’s face and shoul-ders. Finally, he felt Giddion’s hands drop from his neck,



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saw his body collapse to the ground. When Vallen turned and ran, Giddion’s head was hardly attached to the neck at all. Behind him, Vallen thought he heard Custin’s voice. Still screaming. Still alive. Then it was drowned out by other voices, savage and cruel . . . and joyous in their release.

The Kemetan guide leaped into Vallen’s path as he came through the doorway. The man was brandishing a knife and lunged at him. Vallen hardly slowed, defl ecting the blade, butting the man hard in the face, then stabbing him in the leg, opening an artery. The swine could bleed to death or the monsters could fi nish him off . Vallen didn’t care.

He ran out into the storm, the sand rasping against his armour, scouring his face. The tunnel opened into the side of a gorge, a crevasse that had been split apart in the earthquake. The sandstorm was blowing along its length, but the horses were tied up in the shelter of a rocky out-crop. Chargers, they were bred for battle, trained not to fl inch in the face of any enemy, but they were whinnying fran-tically now, pulling at their reins, their eyes wide with panic. They had sensed what was coming out of that tunnel.

Vallen kept his wits long enough to grab the water-skins from all the horses, then untied them, keeping hold of the reins of his own horse and Giddion’s. It was a three-day ride to the nearest settlement if you stopped to sleep, but he did not plan on stopping so he’d need a spare horse. Jamming his foot into the stirrup of his charger, Cloud-burst, he swung into the saddle and pulled Giddion’s stallion after him as he urged his mount up the scree- covered slope that led out of the gorge. As the full force



of the sandstorm hit him, he bowed his head, squinting. He could barely see a few paces ahead. Glancing behind, he could make out indistinct fi gures emerging from the mouth of the tunnel. The curse written on the knife and on the stone door ran through his mind: ‘He who breaks the seal shall block the path to his grave.’

They’d been searching for immortality and instead had released some hellish power. And though every man wished to avoid his grave, no one would choose to walk the earth as a corpse. The thought would have horrifi ed Giddion, but that was little comfort to Vallen as he rode away in the storm, knowing he’d put a knife through his brother’s throat.



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