River god

Taita, a supremely talented eunuch slave serving the powerful and corrupt Lord Intef, secretly loves and serves Intef's daughter Lostris — who is herself in love with the soldier Tanus, a match her father would never permit. When Tanus is condemned to death for speaking too bluntly to Pharaoh, he's given a reprieve: eliminate Egypt's bandit threat within two years, a mission that uncovers Lord Intef himself as the bandits' leader.

Lostris is married off to Pharaoh, but a stolen night with Tanus leaves her secretly pregnant with his child — a boy raised as Pharaoh's own heir. When the horse-and-chariot-wielding Hyksos invade and kill Pharaoh, the surviving Egyptian nobility flee up the Nile into exile, where Taita rebuilds Egypt's military technology from what he's seen used against them. Wilbur Smith's Ancient Egypt series opener is a sweeping tale of intrigue, invention, and loss.