Monsters in the Sand

Excerpt: Austen Layard discovers Nineveh Zagros Mountains, Persia.

Out now (In shops from February 2009)

Chapter 1

Austen sensed a movement behind him.

His musket was on the ground, beside his left boot.

Don’t turn around, he told himself.

On the other side of the river, a stone clinked. The back of Austen’s neck prickled.

Facing the cliff, his back to the river, he was a perfect target. He imagined muskets aimed between his shoulder blades.

Austen slowly closed the leather covers of his sketchbook. He slipped the sketchbook and pencil into the bag hanging by his sword. Ironical, if I died copying this sculpture of the Tree of Life.

Careful not to make his riding cloak move, he primed both pistols tucked in the red belt around his waist.

About ten paces away, on the sandy edge of the stream, his horse whinnied nervously. Now. In one smooth action, Austen knelt, lifted his musket and swung it around.

Across the water, between two boulders, a puff of white smoke twisted up like a curl of hair. The shot cracked and a musket ball buzzed past his cheek, so close he felt the vibration. A spray of rock chips thudded into the back of his turban.

Austen fired at the shadow beneath the smoke, then ran for his horse.

No more shots came. Only one sniper. How long for the man to pour gunpowder, slide in a lead ball, lift the glowing matchlock to ignite the gunpowder, and take aim?

Austen leapt into the saddle. A matchlock flared between boulders. Austen fired both pistols at the flame. A scream, the flame jerked and the musket fired into the sky.

No other sound came from the shadows.

But a thunder of galloping horses rolled into the valley. Riders, waving muskets and spears, charged around a bend of the river. Plunging hoofs scattered sand.

Austen turned his horse. More cavalry. Bakhtiari - the most feared fighters. And he was clothed as a Persian warrior in turban, cloak, riding trousers, belt with pistols, sword, and daggers.

Horsemen fanned out to surround him. Firing into the air, men screamed war cries, and closed the circle around Austen. Savage faces laughed. ‘A Brown-Beard.’

A thicket of spears prodded his chest and back. ‘A vermin in disguise. Spy, spy, spy.’ Sharp steel pushed harder and harder.