Pirra reined in her horse in a cloud of dust. From below her came a raucous din: she was nearing the battlefield.

Her body was screaming for rest, and her mount was heaving and blowing after its headlong gallop from Lapithos. Maybe somewhere the Sun was still shining, but thunderclouds shrouded Lykonia in menacing gloom, and it was so hot she could hardly breathe. Surely the storm would break soon?

In the distance, a voice was shouting: ‘I will make the dagger safe for all eternity!’ It was Telamon. He sounded triumphant.

Wildly, Pirra cast about, but she couldn’t tell where he was, and when he shouted again, he sounded much further away. Setting her teeth, she urged her horse towards the battlefield.

The din grew louder. Through a haze of dirty brown smoke, she saw smashed shields and scattered fires, men sprawled or twitching horribly, waves of warriors and rebels crashing against each other. Where was Hylas?

She spotted him in a group of rebels making for the edge of the field not fifty paces to her right. He’d lost his helmet and his face was bloodied, but he was grimly alive, limping beside a black-maned horse on whose back lay Akastos – whether dead or unconscious, Pirra couldn’t tell.

As she put her horse towards them, she saw Periphas run from the smoke, push back Akastos’ hair, and peer at his face.

‘He’s still breathing!’ he yelled. ‘Nomios, get him to safety! The rest of you, come with me! The battle is not lost, we have everything to fight for!’

Hylas turned on him. ‘But Telamon has the dagger! I couldn’t stop him!’

‘And I know where he’s taking it!’ cried Pirra, cantering down to them.

They stared at her, and it flashed across her mind how she must appear: a wild-haired girl covered in soot on an exhausted horse lathered in sweat.

‘He’s taking it to his Ancestors!’ she panted. ‘Hekabi thinks he’s going to throw it down the crack in the Ancestor Peak – then it’ll be safe for ever!’ She was about to add that Issi was up there too, maybe heading for the Ancestor Peak, to try and stop him – but Hylas had enough to deal with, without learning that Pirra had found his sister, only to lose her again.

‘Hekabi’s right,’ Hylas said in an altered voice. ‘That has to be what Telamon meant. He’s going to throw it to his Ancestors.’

‘This peak, do you know the way?’ said Pirra.

He didn’t reply. He was appraising her exhausted horse, and she guessed what he was thinking: it would never make it up the mountain.

‘Take Jinx,’ said Periphas. ‘We’ll use the girl’s horse for Akastos.’

The swap was swiftly made, Periphas gently easing the wounded man off the black-maned horse called Jinx.

Hylas jerked his head at Pirra. ‘You get up first.’

‘What? But he’ll be slower with two of us –’

‘I’m not leaving you on a battlefield!’ Boosting her on to the horse’s back, he jumped up behind her and gathered the reins.

As if to mark his words, a great shout rang out behind them, and the Crow warriors attacked with fresh savagery. Pirra recognized their leader as Ilarkos, a ruthless warrior who she knew would fight to the death. The rebels knew it too. Pharax might be dead, but Telamon had the dagger, and Pirra saw the weariness in their grimy faces; even Periphas’ shoulders sagged.

‘Do you see that red glare in the foothills?’ she shouted while Jinx snorted and side-stepped. ‘That’s Lapithos! We set it on fire! And listen to this, all of you! Koronos is dead!’

‘Dead?’ cried Periphas in disbelief.

Pirra nodded. ‘It’s true, I saw his corpse!’

With shining eyes, Periphas raised his sword. ‘Koronos is dead!’ he roared, and the rebels within earshot took up the cry. ‘Koronos is dead!’

‘Hold tight,’ Hylas muttered in Pirra’s ear. As she grabbed fistfuls of Jinx’s coarse black mane, Hylas yanked the horse’s head round and dug in his heels.

‘How much further d’you think Jinx can take us?’ panted Pirra.

‘Top of that ridge,’ said Hylas. ‘From there it’s too steep, I’ll have to continue on foot.’

Pirra noticed that he said ‘I’, not ‘we’, but she made no remark. She asked how he knew that Telamon was going the same way, and he said, ‘Because this is the shortest trail, and I’ve seen his tracks.’

They’d slowed to a jolting trot as Jinx picked his way up a stony trail between tall pines. With a double load, the stallion was tiring fast: several times, he’d stumbled and nearly pitched them over his head.

For the tenth time, Pirra debated whether to tell Hylas that she’d found Issi. He ought to be told – and yet what good would it do? It might prove a fatal distraction, at a time when he needed all his wits to stay alive …

They came to a stream, and of one accord slid off and fell to their knees to drink, while Jinx threw down his head and took long thirsty slurps.

A crash of thunder, and the stallion jerked up his head. ‘Why won’t the storm break?’ muttered Hylas. He glanced at Pirra. ‘Did you really set fire to Lapithos?’

She wiped her mouth on the back of her hand. ‘Hekabi did, I just helped. She’s still up there, she said the main thing was for me to take the horse and find you.’

‘The House of Koronos burns …’ muttered Hylas. ‘But I haven’t wielded the dagger.’

‘Not yet,’ said Pirra.

As he rose to his feet, he asked if she’d seen Havoc, and she nodded. ‘Echo was with her, I think she’s looking forward to the storm.’ She flashed him a grin, but he didn’t smile back. His face was gaunt with fatigue and there was a darkness in his eyes that she’d never seen before. She wondered what horrors he’d experienced on the battlefield.

Suddenly, she knew that she had to tell him about Issi. He needed to know that his sister was alive, in case – in case Hekabi’s prediction came true, and he was killed.

‘Hylas,’ she began, ‘there’s something I –’

‘Jinx can’t carry the two of us any further,’ he blurted out.

‘What?’

‘You know that, don’t you?’ His face was drawn and determined as he picked up the reins. ‘You have to stay here, Pirra, where it’s safe. I have to go after Telamon alone.’

Despite the heat, she’d gone cold. ‘Then – you’d better go, hadn’t you?’ she said shakily.

For a heartbeat he met her eyes. He gave a curt nod and prepared to mount – but then he turned and pulled her into his arms. It hurt because of his breastplate, but she didn’t care. She breathed his smell of forest and horse and sweat; she raised her head and kissed his mouth, and he kissed her back, hard. Then he leapt up on Jinx and cantered off.

Pirra fixed her eyes stubbornly on the ground: she would not watch him go. Then she changed her mind – but she was too late, already he was out of sight among the pines.

Pirra sniffed and wiped her eyes with her fingers. She knelt and re-tied her sandal. Then she started up the trail, after him.

It was only then that she realized that somehow, before he left, Hylas had managed to take off his wedjat amulet and slip it over her head: so now she had a powerful charm to keep her safe – while he had none.

Telamon’s horse was stumbling with exhaustion, but still he kept beating its flanks with his stick. He’d nearly reached the end of the trail: nothing could stop him now. Koronos was dead. So was Pharax, and Akastos – the so-called Lion of Mycenae. The gods had chosen him, Telamon, to rule.

Above him, the Ancestor Peak loomed blood-red against the charcoal clouds. Below him in the foothills, he glimpsed a blaze of orange flame. Earlier, his horse had shied in terror as he’d galloped past the fiery chaos that Lapithos had become, and for a moment, his courage had faltered. ‘The House of Koronos burns,’ the Oracle had said …

But I have the dagger, not Hylas, he’d told himself. So what if Lapithos is burning? I’ll have it rebuilt, bigger and more splendid than before.

He’d felt a fleeting regret for Pirra, shut up inside – but so be it. It was her fate to die, it wasn’t his fault.

A crash of thunder and a blinding flare of lightning showed him the end of the trail. His horse reared, nearly pitching him off, and he yanked savagely at the reins.

That was when he saw it: someone – something – crouching above him on the trail. In the gloom, he made out a small hunched form and a sharp grey face. Tawny eyes glaring at him through a thatch of barley-coloured hair.

‘Issi?’ he croaked. But it couldn’t be her. Issi was dead, she had to be.

Then from high overhead came a rushing sound, as of vast leathery wings. His horse squealed in terror, he struggled to control it. When he looked again, Issi’s ghost was gone.

Springing down, he ran to the place where she’d been – but he could find no tracks. He went cold. Ghosts, he thought.

Whipping out the dagger, he slashed at the empty air. Was his father’s ghost here too? And Alekto’s? And Pharax’s and Koronos’?

‘I never touched any of you!’ he whispered. ‘The gods wanted you to die!’

More thunder, more lightning. Wildly, he glared at the churning black clouds. Were the Angry Ones wheeling above him? Were They following him up the mountain?

The sight of the iron ring on his finger gave him courage. Not even the Angry Ones could touch him. Nothing could. Now only Hylas was left, and he was far below on the plain, perhaps already slaughtered in battle.

As lightning flared around him, Telamon felt a tingling in his bronze breastplate, and the power of the dagger coursed through him. His will hardened. It would be a wrench to fling the dagger down the chasm of his Ancestors, but he would do it.

He was Telamon, High Chieftain of Mycenae. He could do anything.