He gave the order to his men to fan out in a defensive formation. Sergeant Mal McAllister, his number two, relayed the order. The paratroopers broke off into small units and found what cover they could in this smooth-bottomed natural amphitheatre. They aimed their weapons in the direction an attack was most likely to come from, should one come: above.

''This can't be a trap,'' David said to Sergeant McAllister.

''Aye, but if it is,'' McAllister said, finishing his sentence, ''they have us in the ideal spot for an ambush.''

''That's just what I'm trying not to think.''

They waited. And waited. The cold desert wind sidled through the crags and canyons of the abandoned city, never louder than a sigh. In centuries past, Petra had been home to thousands. It had been a trading post, selling its principal resource, fresh water, which came from frequent flash floods and was husbanded in a network of dams and cisterns. The cave-dwelling citizens had worshipped deities who had been vanquished long ago, their names now forgotten, their effigies defaced. Christianity had briefly gained a toehold here, as had Islam. But in time those religions, too, had evaporated, leaving nothing but ruined monuments behind.

Petra, like so many other places, was a museum to the world's fallen gods. A museum and a mausoleum. Here lay their legacy, such as it was — a few broken idols and abandoned buildings, sacred to no one. Here were the sparse, scratched traces they had left behind, the only tangible proof that somewhere on earth they had once held sway. Now mankind belonged to the One True Pantheon, and the wind blowing through Petra sounded, to David Westwynter's ears, like a faint, mournful sob, the despair of defeated rivals. He was comforted by that.

''Sir.''

A whispered warning from McAllister.

David turned.

Men were approaching from the far end of the valley. He counted at least a dozen. They were spread out in a line, and the moonlight showed them to be clothed in ragged camouflage fatigues, with turbans around their heads and scarves across their faces, so that just their eyes were visible. Only the falcon-head nozzles on their ba lances and the maces that hung by their sides marked them out as Horusites.