It is 530 BC and Cyrus the Great has carved out the largest Empire the world had ever seen, making Persia the undisputed superpower of the ancient world. But there is treachery afoot, and Cyrus's life is in danger. When Darius, dispossessed prince of the Royal House of Parsa, tries to save the King of Kings, he is arrested and falsely condemned for treason.
In a fast paced tale of love, betrayal, war and revenge, Blood of Kings sweeps the reader up on an epic journey from the mud brick cities of Ancient Persia to the burning heart of Pharaoh's Egypt.Packed full of dramatic and authentic battle scenes, it recreates the sweat, blood and fear of ancient warfare, as Persia smashes Egypt's army and brings the reign of the Pharaohs to a violent end.
But it is also a book that will delight Herodotus fans, bringing the ancient Greek historian's characters to life like never before, as it follows the doomed 'lost army of Cambyses' into the Libyan Desert, marching towards a fate that would baffle archaeologists for millennia to come.
Author Andrew James spent three years living in a snake and scorpion infested oasis, in the shadow of the Oracle of Ammon, the ram-headed Egyptian god, to research and write Blood of Kings. The result is a book that is full of evocative scenes of the desert, vividly capturing both the savagery and the beauty of the Sahara.
Excerpt
Prologue
537 bc
The Nisaean plain, Medea, in the heart of the Persian Empire
Frada kicked his horse into a gallop, the hum of insects in the clover field drowned out by the hammering of hoof beats. Holding a short bow in his hands he guided the
horse unsteadily with the inexpert knees of a fourteenyear-
old and glanced up, his expression intense as he judged speed, range, angle. At forty paces it was a difficult
shot and the concentration showed, his forehead creased with strain as the wings of the bow pulled back. The
arrow flew, then gouged a splinter off the edge of the wooden post. Frada whooped with delight as he wheeled
his horse, raised his bow in the air and turned triumphantly to his companion.
Darius briefly narrowed his youthful grey eyes, recognizing
a hit but not a kill. All the same he smiled brightly,
sharing his friend’s delight. Then he too kicked his horse forward, heart pumping, eyes focused on the post. He
urged the horse faster, his ears picking out the regular four beats of a smooth gallop. Feeling the rhythm steady
he let it enter him, controlling his breathing, softening his limbs to a fluid state that kept his eyes always on the post.
Much shorter than Frada but almost as powerful in the chest, at fifty paces he began to draw the wings of the
bow back smoothly, feeling the pull of the target on the arrow, waiting until all four hooves were in the air, then
released. For the heartbeat the arrow spent in flight Darius held his breath, his whole being focused on the post. It
juddered violently, split down the centre. Darius let out his breath, then breathed in slowly, letting his lungs expand and the heady feeling of success work its magic.
He was satisfied, but not elated. He knew he had always to be better than the others. Because one day, unlikely as
it sounded, he intended to be their king.
Chapter 1
November 529 bc
The month of Aciyadiya in Year Thirty of the reign of Cyrus the Great. The land of the Massagetae, or ‘Ma-Saka’, far to the north of the Persian Empire, beyond the banks of the Yaksharta River . . .
‘There are many accounts of Cyrus’s death . . . I have given
the one I think most plausible.’
Herodotus, The Histories
They were seven days out from Bactria in a harsh, brutal land.
Darkness fell and with it came another storm, black clouds racing across a bright moonlit sky. When the troop
reached the foot of the mountain where the smoke had been rising, it was Vivana who spotted the footprints.
Darius called a halt, jumping lightly off his mare and squatting down to examine them. In the slanting moonlight he could see the depressions, but covered as they were by windblown dust, he couldn’t tell their age. He rocked back on his haunches and considered them. Surely innocent tribesmen wouldn’t be using the pass now? Not in winter.
Suspicious, he decided to scout ahead. ‘I’ll fetch you if the
pass is clear,’ he promised Frada through freezing lips.
The big man on the black stallion scowled but didn’t argue as Darius mounted up and set off alone along the winding track.
Sensing his horse’s nervousness, Darius looked up towards the jagged peak. Scattered with boulders and rocks,
the track rose sheer above him. On either side lay conical spruce trees, with a bitter wind screaming down between them. The higher his horse climbed the harder the climbing
grew, ice and gravel making the track treacherous. With a sudden jolt one of the horse’s hooves slipped on an icy
rock. Darius felt the slide, then the tension in the muscles bunching under him as the panicking animal shifted its
weight. For a moment he hung mid-balance, staring down into the plummeting valley, his heart skipping a beat, nausea tugging at the back of his throat. The terrified animal recovered its footing and stood with all four hooves on the ground. Darius steeled himself and peered over the edge, having to close his eyes until the spinning stopped.
When he opened them again his men were just tiny upturned faces in the valley below. If trouble started, he knew there was no chance of them reaching him in time.
The entrance to the pass was a dark hole set against glittering
ice, flanked by walls of rock. Darius told himself only a suicidal fool would ride in there alone; shadowed and
sheltered, it was a killing ground. But remembering the smoke, he tied the reins to his belt and urged the horse on
with slight pressure from his knees, then slipped his left hand through the loops of his shield, strung his bow and
picked three arrows from the leather case hanging at his left hip. Holding two in his hand he notched the third and held it there, fighting the tension of the powerful recurved bow.
The magi said every mountain had its own yazata, its spirit. If so, this one was dark and malicious, it didn’t want him on its mountain; it screamed at him like a howling wind that buffeted his ears, threatening to hurl him down the slope. Refusing to be intimidated, Darius looked into the opentopped
passage, where the track climbed gently until it reached a hump. Then it disappeared, reappearing further
on where it sloped down to the right, leaving a patch of dead ground in between. Darius narrowed his eyes and
focused on the dead ground. Instinct warned him that was where the ambush would be.
Tense and watchful, he clicked his tongue. Hooves were sharp against rock as the horse followed the track up
to the hump, then over it, down into the dead ground where rocky crevices were filled with dark shadow. Shouldering his bow, Darius slid his spear from its sleeve and
riding to the nearest crevice he drew a deep breath and thrust down, iron ringing off stone with a screech that
made him cringe. Careless of the blade he rode forward and thrust again, then into a third crevice and a fourth.
Puzzled, he withdrew the spear. There was nothing. No men, no ambush. Needing to be sure, Darius walked his
mount round the blind right-hand bend, heart pounding, shield up, spear grasped tightly, eyes searching the heights for arrows he still expected to come flashing down, ears straining for the slightest warning of warriors about to leap out and attack.
Again there was nothing.
Darius dropped his guard, turned the horse and trotted her out of the pass. Warm relief ran through his veins.
Halfway down his troop came into view again, just motionless specks in the valley below. He was glad they couldn’t see the sheepishness on his face. Why in the name of the Holy Fire had he been afraid of an empty pass? He shook his head; perhaps at the grand old age of twenty-one the strain of war was wearing him down. The thought reminded him of Parmys’s parting words. ‘Take
care, my love, but never be afraid; you are special. Nothing will ever harm you.’
But then Parmys would say that, because she loved him. And Parmys lived in a palace, where she knew nothing
of war. The specks in the valley grew into shapes, the shapes into men and horses, and soon Darius could make out
each individual. Spantdat, the grizzled old datapatish at the front, with Vivana, the only commoner wearing armour, easily visible beside him, and the remaining eighteen asabari
in their baggy, brightly patterned gowns and hooded felt caps in formation, two abreast, spears pointing at the sky. Next were the two baggage camels kneeling on the ground, and the string of spare mounts grazing. A short
distance away, like the outsider he was, sat Vinda. His showy horse, with its golden rosettes flashing like stars on the harness, had been easy to spot even from so high up.
‘More money than sense,’ Darius muttered, irritated by the noble’s brash display. He hadn’t wanted Vinda in his troop, but had been forced to accept him at the personal
command of the Crown Prince. Darius had given up trying to guess why.
At the head of the column another noble was sitting on the ground next to his grazing horse, face tilted up. Darius
knew that to Frada he was just a tiny dot on the mountainside, he could have been either friend or foe, so he raised
an arm and hailed him. Frada jumped to his feet, revealing his huge, muscular bulk. A Mede of noble blood, on his
short riding cloak he wore the running horse emblem of one of the Empire’s proudest, wealthiest houses. Quick
to laugh and equally quick to fight, when his anger was stirred Frada’s towering height and brutish strength made him formidable. He was also Darius’s oldest, greatest friend, a man he could trust with his life. Frada cupped his hands to his mouth and bellowed. ‘Why so long? We
thought you’d ridden on without us!’
‘Patience, brother! I found the Ma-Saka camp, captured Tomyris and single-handedly put their army to rout,’
Darius shouted back, laughing. ‘Now I’m thirsty. Have a wineskin ready, I’m coming down!’ The clatter of hooves
echoed across the valley as he cantered down the slope at breakneck speed, exhilarated now that the danger was
over.
Frada disappeared as Darius passed a large rock, but when he reached the ground Frada was waiting, a smile on
his face, wine and waterskins in hand. Sliding off his horse Darius clasped Frada’s wrists and hugged him, then
splashed wine down his throat, noticing as he drank that the asabari had shifted their line to face him, obviously keen to know if they advanced or retreated.
‘See anything?’ Frada asked casually, as Darius handed back the wine.
Vinda’s eyes were on Darius now, his expression carefully blank.
‘No. Didn’t see a thing. But . . . I did have a bad feeling.’
‘Bad feelings don’t kill!’ Frada’s laugh was a deep vibrant sound in his chest. He turned to the asabari, waving them on with one of his huge hands upraised. ‘Move out! No time to waste!’
The datapatish signalled to his men and with a clinking of harnesses and rattling of bronze the troop fell into column behind Darius. Frada took his place beside him. Hanging back, Vinda brought up the rear. Followed by his troop, Darius reached the spot where
the slope started its precipitous climb. Above him, the moon was a huge shining orb surrounded by a halo of
silver. Slanting down at an angle its light threw the land into relief, exaggerating the sharp crests of mountains and dark plunging valleys. To the north, a vast sweep of open steppe reached as far as he could see. To the south, steppe faded into patches of semi-desert. Painted in subtle
shades of silvery grey, Darius felt the land’s stark beauty like a cold blade.
After a short wait to let stragglers catch up, hooves crunched on gravel and soft voices murmured as the men
fell back into formation. An asabari cracked a joke at the last man’s expense and the others laughed. Darius called them all to silence and in moments they were climbing again, the
entrance to the pass looming above them. Caution made Darius give the order to string bows and have arrows ready, but with two datas at his back he rode easily, his earlier tension
gone. Frada was on his left talking intently, his bow clasped in his right fist, the reins held lightly in his left. Occasionally he lifted the bow, jabbing with it as he spoke.
It was a fine piece with elaborately carved griffins at each end, the eyes and beaks picked out in gold.
Low voices passed back and forth as the two friends continued an earlier conversation. Darius insisted this was
definitely the peak where they had seen the smoke; Frada said it was not. As they approached the hump which
dipped into the dead ground, Darius felt his pulse quicken. Sensing movement from the corner of his eye he looked left, seeing the bracelet on Frada’s wrist flash gold as he
raised his arm to emphasize a point. Something made Darius turn further, twisting round on his saddlecloth to
look behind. But all he saw was the asabari drawn up two abreast, the datapatish at the front on the right, his bow slung over his shoulder, his face watchful but relaxed.
Facing forward again, Darius saw Frada raise his bow high then suddenly jerk his arm sharply. There was a thud,
a cry, and the bow flew into the air. It spun several times, moonlight glinting off the golden griffins, then crashed down on a rock, the rattle of horn and wood against stone
deafening in the silence of the pass. Frada jerked his body and shouted in alarm, his chin pulling in towards his neck, his face pointing down as though staring at something, his shoulders hunching over as though taking a blow, then his body twisting away so his face was hidden. He seemed to leap from his horse, his short cloak flapping as he hurtled to the ground. Behind Darius an agonized scream was abruptly cut off. Dragging the reins he spun his horse,
ignoring the whistle and rush of air that brushed past his head, and stared at Spantdat as his arms flew up. The datapatish’s face was twisted in shock, lips drawn back, teeth bared, a dark liquid trickling from the corners of his
mouth. The same dark stain slashed across the saffronyellow scarf hanging loose around his neck. Above it the
datapatish’s throat gaped open where the man’s voice box had been ripped out by an arrow. Another arrow was
sticking from his chest and a third from his right thigh, his leg hanging limp against the horse’s flank.
Darius was stunned. It had all happened in a moment, with one withering hail of arrows, and already two other
men were down, writhing on the ground. His troop was being cut to pieces, they needed to take cover. He opened
his mouth to shout an order then gasped at an impact so forceful it buckled the reinforced armour at the back of
his left shoulder, spinning him round and throwing him forward over his mount’s neck. There was a thin, high
whistle then a ringing metallic crack as an arrow slammed into the bronze chest armour of his horse. The ground
seemed to plummet as she reared up. Darius jabbed his knee into her flank and fought with the reins, trying to get
her into a turn but there was a second impact and she bucked, tilting him forward to stare in horror at the
ground that was suddenly rising to meet him. He gripped her flanks with both knees, the muscles in his groin and
inner thigh clenching tight as he struggled to hold on. Again she bucked, then reared. Disorientated, Darius felt
his knees lose contact with her flanks and he was tossed into the air. Thrown forward then hurled backwards and
up, his spine arching, the overlapping bronze scales of his armour creaking as the leather-backed corselet flexed to
its limit, first one way then the other as his spine whiplashed under the shock. The armour held him like a cage,
straining against its bindings and cutting painfully into the
back of his shoulders. The air around him was ripped by arrows and screams as the ground rose to meet him. Darius’s last thought was that the Ma-Saka had been cunning, letting him live while he scouted the pass, drawing everyone into their trap. Then an explosion of pain
overwhelmed his body as he struck the ground.
Professional Reviews
Dr J Curtis
'This is a brilliantly written and scrupulously researched historical novel that uniquely captures the atmosphere surrounding the rise to power of Darius, the greatest king of Ancient Persia. His story is interwoven with parallel events in Egypt and Greece, making this novel of absorbing interest to anybody with an interest in the ancient world'
Dr John Curtis, OBE, FBA, formerly Keeper of the Department of Middle East, the British Museum
Fourth Book in the Southern Swallow Series finds the Academician Li K'ai-men in exile on Hai-nan Island. China has a new invasion threat. A showdown between ingenuity and technology explodes as the Sung Dynasty tries to preserve itself.
