Lachlan The Barbarian/Wolf: The Bronze Book - Or How he Came to Clash with a Lich-Lord/The Mummy

A Halloween tale

I

The night’s darkness dominated the whole of Pangaea or so it seemed, high above the heads of men and beasts the stars shone brighter than all the torches in the world. Each cluster of stars was shining and formed together the stories of old heroes, old villains and great deeds of the greatest of the gods, and the mighty giant moon glaring down upon the people underneath it. From afar the wind came hurtling across the realm, kicking up dust and traversing the great Neilos-River whispering of dark secrets as it drew hither, nearer to the city of Thinis.

She had waited until it was next time to be at its full glory, which was to occur in three nights, but it was not just to be any moon. In three days, it was to be the Day of the Dead, with the alignment of the moon and the stars to it was said open the doors that separated the realm of the living from those of the dead.

While the people of the city slept, utterly unaware of the dark figures that lurked about far to the north-west. It was there amidst the great mountains and hills to the south-west, this was a place a great many of the peasants preferred to stay away from. It was in between two of these mountains, near where an empty ravine could be found. It was into this ravine where a duo of shadows moved with all the swiftness and experience, of a pair of trained panthers.

This they did whilst growling at one another, even as they searched about the cliff-walls for an entrance to a cave, their torches flashing here and there, as they searched.

They had tied their ropes about their waists and the other end, to large stones that jutted out above them, safe of the cliffs for they feared as all men do who are not mad or foolish the long thirty meter drop. The valley below was once as beauteous as a rainforest and had housed one. This rainforest had proven itself something of an aberration and was not long for the world, disappearing several thousands of years prior to the reign of Ásdís. All that was left was an empty sand-tomb of sorts that was home to a trio of great temples built more than twenty-five hundred years prior, at a time when the Pharaohs of Deshret were among the supreme most rulers in Ifriquya.

Those ancient temples had fallen to ruin by this time, with few daring to plunder them for fear of the curses and traps that lay within. Khufu for his part a stout man of some forty years of age, bearded and bronzed by the desert, with his black hair and beard and eyes had little interest in them. Not when they were searching for the tomb of Sobekhotep said to have been dug into the cliff’s side. At first it had seemed impossible. They had searched for many hours, before Khafren’s map had shown itself to be true. They threw themselves in with all the eagerness of boys who have discovered a new toy.

It was after the older man had lit the torch that his companion saw not only his weather-beaten, bearded face creased with forty-years of life but also the nearby hieroglyphs that decorated the walls. Reveling in this ancient site that depicted a number of scenes from not only the interment of an ancient ruler, but also various, graphic scenes of his life, Khafren exclaimed with joy once more.

“Look upon these scenes and wonder, Khufu! You look upon greatness, for in ancient times Deshret was a Kingdom rather than a Queendom. In those days, the realm did not have her Three Assemblies, brought hither from across the northern waves, but a King who ruled absolutely! And few there were who ruled with as much steel, or glory as Sobekhotep did in life!” Khafren told him with such eagerness, such joy that were it winter one could have mistaken the occasion for Yule.

Khufu for his part was not quite so certain that this was an occasion to cheer and rejoice in. History meant nothing more to him, it was simply a source of gold and plunder. Ancient Pharoahs were of little in the way of interest to him, unless they were wealthy. This was why he had acquiesced to this entire quest, however what he saw depicted the further they made their way through the three-meters wide hallway of the tomb chilled his very blood.

Certainly judging by the richness of the greens, reds, blues and other colours and hues used to decorate the walls of the tomb Sobekhotep was wealthy beyond compare. The richest of all those of his dynasty, however it was how he attained that wealth that most disturbed Khufu who was not a soft man, with any inclination towards the weakness of civilization.

Fierce and cruel by nature, he was to however come close to vomiting as he watched and studied the images of how Sobekhotep had slaughtered villages indiscriminately, burnt women alive and sacrificed children upon altars. Each of these things, including the sacrifice of Sobekhotep’s own infant daughter were depicted in such a manner as to inspire horror in the likes of the grave-robber.

“He was a Pharaoh?”

“A Hyksos Pharaoh, yet a Pharaoh nonetheless,” Khafren retorted impatiently, glorying in the images he saw, “You see? He was wealthy and not only that but a renowned conqueror. He had but one failing.”

“Only one?” Khufu asked sardonically despite himself.

“Yes, he was to fall in love with a beautiful maiden, from what I can read here.”

“And this maiden?”

“She was a southern princess, one who was the daughter of the vizier of the southern Pharaoh as the land of Deshret was at that time broken in three. It happened though that he loved her but that his Queen discovered the truth and had the two of them slain with the aid of her lover, who was brother to one of his rivals.” Khafren explained full of disdain for the women in question, not that this greatly interested Khufu who was to eye with increasing apprehension the painted images and hieroglyphs on the walls.

Down the hallway they went, past craggy outcroppings, painted murals and innumerable bugs that had come to infest the ancient tomb. What worried the thief more than anything, was the shadows of this particular tomb.

This place was unlike any other he had ever raided and robbed from. There were no traps, and yet there was the air of a place haunted by evil, and full of wicked intent. He did not like it.

He did not much like his partner in this crime either, and contemplated slitting the man’s throat and bolting, but the memory of his vast debts and those he owed them to frightened him too much for him to do such an impulsive thing.

At last they reached the end of the tunnel, found a door. It was sealed shut.

Just as Khufu prepared himself to pull out a pickaxe to chisel his way through it, his escort halted him. “Hold, there is a key a servitor of mine found some time ago, in a northern market.”

Skeptical as always the thief allowed him and soon the other man had planted against one of the indentations in the door, a large scarab shaped gold object the likeness of which he had never seen before. Fascinated by it, Khufu studied it with great interest, as he mentally considered once more killing the other man.

The door though was soon opened, with a hiss and a groan after Khafren quickly turned the scarab. It was this next room that made him reconsider his plans once more; he had never seen a more well-decorated tomb, or one filled with so much gold.

There were bowls, cups, flower-containers, other ornaments all made of pure gold! They were rich now he thought to himself excitedly.

The greatest prize though was the sarcophagus at the centre of the room, one that was covered in gold and depicted the figure of a heavily bearded man, with the ancient coronet of Deshret.

Throwing open the large container, to find the broken skeletal remains of a man, who if one judged by his remains had been there for more centuries than Khufu could fathom. Desiccated and heavily wrapped up in the ancient custom that Deshret and Kemet favoured, Sobekhotep was without interest to Khufu. What was however of interest to him and Khafren, was what the ancient King held in his fingers.

Peeling the Bronze-Book they had been dispatched to retrieve with immense care, Khafren was to let loose a whoop of joy when at last he succeeded.

“Here it is!” Khafren proclaimed holding the large bronze-tome with such care that one might imagine it to be as precious to him, as another man’s child might be to him.

Overjoyed at the discovery, if only that he might leave the subterranean tomb and the skeletal figure that they had found there within the tunnels dug into the cliff-side. “At last, now let us be off that we might leave this wretched place at last!”

Their departure from the tomb took far less time than their entry had, with the two taking their time before they left to re-seal the tomb and to properly bind it with half a dozen ropes. Taking the lines back they were forced to wound them together with others they had brought, as the original lines fell quite short of the entrance as the tunnel was nearly twenty-meters long after all.

It was however when they had climbed back up the steep cliff-face that they were confronted by the sudden arrival of forty or so men.

“What? Who are you?” Khufu wondered bewildered and frightened for he did not recognize any of these turbaned figures, he knew only that with their lighter skin, thick beards and by the style of their clothes that they were foreign.

Ignoring him, Khafren addressed the leader of the group; an ancient man with a thick white beard, a steely disposition and the robes of a shaman or Hem-Netjer of some sort. He was strongly built though he was stout and there was a crazed air in his burning dark eyes. Khufu knew at once he was not a man to be trifled with. “You are late Ahlvose, what delayed ye and your tribe?”

“The matter of a wandering group of men sworn to the local nomarch,” Ahlvose countered impatiently, as he studied the other man with keen interest. “Do you have it?”

“Yes, here it is, the Bronze-Book of Osiris,” Khafren replied holding up the book in question, just before he directed Khufu, “Help the men with the ropes, we must have them begin the process of removing the corpse from the tomb.”

“What? We are going to move the corpse?”

“The sarcophagus is made of pure gold, it can be sold,” Khafren reasoned silkily which allayed the surprise and discomforted suspicions of the other man.

“I must read it!” Ahlvose told them, with such eagerness that it chilled the blood of not only Khufu, but that of Khafren as the man stole the book from within the other one’s grasp.

The two men stared with uncertainty beginning to tint their eyes, as they studied the dark figure who now held the precious Bronze Book of Thuth-Aten. If he noticed their uneasiness, Ahlvose did not pay it any mind, busy as he was caressing the book in his hands.

“What of the corpse?” He asked after several minutes of examining the Bronze-Book.

“We took it out, and tied it with the ropes as you had requested,” Khafren replied full of confidence and eagerness. “And our prize? Can you guarantee me Ásdís by these means, and the throne?”

“Yes, yes, now let us extract from the tomb the cadaver,” Ahlvose retorted at his most honeyed, just before he turned to several of his men who took up the ends of the ropes.

It was not an instantaneous thing, however as it required a great deal of tugging, pulling and exertion on the part of the cult members. Many were those who first went into the cave to extract the coffin from within it, then they worked ever so hard to pull from the cave the now re-closed coffin.

While the vast majority of those present strained at the ropes and worried more about their worn hands, Ahlvose the head of the cult fretted more over that which they were struggling over. “Careful! Careful! Pay heed you fools! Do not damage the sarcophagus, lest you wish to lose your worthless lives!”

His threats yielded the desired results almost at once. The vast majority of those present therewith him already knew to fear him.

Only Khufu and Khafren were without fear, for they were exempted from his wrath, on account of their having found the prize that concerned him so.

To the horror of those watching, the more the shaman read from the great bronze-glimmering book, the more the skeletal figure came alive.

At first, all it did was move his fingers. It was as the incantation went on that his arms began to move, his legs began to stretch out and his fingers did more than twitch.

Every eye though stared without blinking, as the figure in the box they had pulled from the canyon hole

“Wh-who?” The skeleton asked of them, confused and at a loss.

“Sobekhotep, is who you are!” Ahlvose answered eagerly as he made to help the skeletal figure regain his feet, with the half-rotted corpse struggling to do so and relying on him as might a babe upon its mother.

“Sobekhotep?” the figure stuttered in a sepulchral voice once more, eyes blinking in confusion as he studied the bearded figure before him.

“This is Sobekhotep? This pathetic creature?” Khafren grunted full of disbelief at the clumsy and uncertain manner with which the wretch had thus far comported himself. “This is the one, I spent so much of my fortune, assisting you to revive?”

“You will be amply rewarded, Lord Khafren,” Ahlvose remarked coolly, “For now he must recover, after all he has just traversed the distance of several different realms of reality, for we ripped him straight from the bowels of Tartarus.”

“Lord Khafren? You told me you were but a mere fellow grave-robber!” Khufu shouted outraged to have been lied to.

 “Who art thou, who disturbs my rest?” the figure addressed them, with his dark glowing eyes narrowing as he stared at them.

Those eyes were a bottomless abyss, Khufu thought to himself as he stuttered and murmured such to the man next to him, horrified by the manner in which this creature looked on him. He could not grasp why he had ever agreed to such a job now that he stood before an Unliving. He had assumed they were but mere fairy-tales his grandmother had loved to tell him, to scare him into behaving himself, so that the sight of one before him thoroughly unnerved him.

“I am Ahlvose, head Hem-Netjer of the temple of Amun-Re in Thinis,” Ahlvose introduced himself, he was quick however to introduce himself in his next breath when he saw those dark eyes narrow at him. “I am also secretly the head of the Cult of Sobekhotep, and it has long been my hope that I might live to see you walk the earth, once more.”

“And I am the principal financier of the cult, and thy most devoted servant,” Khafren countered eager to win for himself the favour of the ancient monarch, as he glanced resentfully at Ahlvose.

Studying the two of them, it was with more than a little discomfort that Khufu saw Ahlvose glance over Khafren’s shoulder at one of his men. A quick nod was all it took, and the throat of Khafren was slit, with his corpse thrown over the side of the cliff.

This hardly seemed to bother Sobekhotep who took about as much interest in this act of betrayal, as another might buzzing flies. Instead he was to ask of Ahlvose, “Why have you awakened me from my long slumber?”

“I have done so for thy own glorification, and that you might reclaim thy throne,” Ahlvose explained eagerly.

This was received with suspicion by Sobekhotep who continued to study him, only to at last hiss out a short breath and ask, “And who occupies it now?”

“The Pharaoh Ásdís III,” Ahlvose retorted bitterly, “She is heiress to the throne after her sister and mother, both descended from the Nordic-Dorian adventurer Eidric who set up his daughter Ásdís upon the ancient throne of Deshret.”

“A woman sits upon my throne? And Deshret?” the fury that contaminated Sobekhotep’s face as his increasingly smoother face grew enraged.

“And have for some time. As to the nation of Deshret it arose after your time, there is much to tell you of the past three millennia since your downfall.”

“Why have you not unseated her then?”

“She has a lover, a barbarian from the distant land of Caledonia,” now Ahlvose grew sulky, bitter even adding, “Many are those who have sought her hand, with the young woman relying on the Medjai, a cadre of northern barbarians and upon their commander Lachlan to protect her.”

“Then we must separate her from her lover,” Sobekhotep replied thoughtfully, rubbing at his chin with a bony hand only to stare at the bones there. Studying it for some time he looked about, “I must feed on the flesh of the living, to properly restore some measure of life to me.”

At these words his gaze fell upon some of the followers of Ahlvose, and Khufu. Each of them shrunk back instinctively, several even tried to take flight then.

Their screams echoed but briefly in the starless night air.

II

Few were the nations of the earth that could remember a time when Thinis had not been. To a great many in Ifriquya it was referred to as ‘the ancient city’. This was not to say that every wall, or every house was ancient. Since the most primordial of ages, the city had enjoyed a number of contractions and then enhancements and periods of growth. Though, the present Pharaoh was not the finest who had ruled as Queen-Regnant as she might have been dubbed in a great many other nations, the current occupant of the Golden-Throne was still quite able. Intelligent and pious, she had ruled for no more than five years by this time, succeeding after her eldest sister who had rather perished suddenly to a black pox that had left her weak and raving for days before her inevitable end.

The memory of her death continued to haunt the young Pharaoh, who had devoted herself since that time to the administration of the realm. Hardly the easiest of tasks, considering the mismanagement and corruption that was prevalent since the time of their mother, who was Pharaoh before them. One of the very worst wastrels in the history of Deshret, she had left the treasury empty so that much of the palace staff had been dismissed by Ingrid and Ásdís. This had along with their reluctance to marry one of the heirs of one of the ancient noble-houses of Deshret, had led to the two women being held in poor esteem by those very families. Ingrid had thus for this reason favoured only those descended from Nordic and Dorian adventurers.

Ásdís had made what overtures she could to the Deshretians, winning over the peasants and traditional clergy. It was however the nobility who remained unconvinced so long as she remained unwed to any of them. This had led to their first assassination attempt and second, both thwarted by Lachlan who was at first a mere sell-sword captain, one who had only been there by that time, for nary more than two months.

That day, dressed in the sheerest of cloth and eager for the man she had given herself to in the aftermath of his daring rescues of her, Ásdís sent out her handmaidens in search of her lover. She suspected he had already awoken to eat, she was informed as such by Meritites her favourite of her servants. The other woman was about the same age as her, of Deshretian and southern-Ifriquyan descent so that she was as dark of flesh and hair as Ásdís was blonde and merely tanned. Though, where Ásdís could be stern Meritites was cheerful, and prone towards playfulness so that she was well-liked by a great many.

“Lachlan, has indeed gone down to eat with the other royal guards,” Meritites informed her mistress, “And there are hearings that demand your attention, according to lord Neferkare. He says that most are quite urgent.”

“Of course, dress me,” Ásdís commanded standing up from her bed so that her servant may do so at once.

*****

The throne room was a place of the greatest importance to Deshret, sumptuously decorated it was built using only the finest marble. It had been torn down just as the rest of the palace had been in the age of Roma, by Julius Caesarius, however it was later rebuilt in his son’s reign as Princeps. It had happened that though the ancient palace had been destroyed, it was rebuilt on the same plans when the Dorian line of Pharaohs from Kharinth had arrived three centuries later.

They had rebuilt the large twenty-five meter long and wide room, with its painted frescoes and images of hunts and coronations. Notably the coronations of Maatkare I and that of her great-granddaughter the ‘Sun-Queen’ as some called her, Maatkare IV were depicted nearest to the throne along with images of Amun-Re the father of Deshret.

The floor was covered in marble and gold-paint that gave it the shimmering appearance that was shared by the walls and ceiling.

Already waiting for the young woman, was Ahlvose. The plump clergyman had been in the midst of a whispered conversation with one of his two attendants, who bowed low at the young woman’s entry. The young woman who was dressed in white with the twin-coronets of Deshret of the North and South lands; upon her brow and with her arms bound in gold armbands, rings covered in gold rings and feet dressed in small white slippers had none of her Nordic ancestor’s warrior-nature. To the contrary, her thin silk covered dress with gold trimmings, and white outer and red inner crown could not disguise one thing; she was neither a Shieldmaiden, nor a true Arn.

“Milady, I come bearing news,” Ahlvose told her desperately, arriving in the midst of the grand hall of her countless ancestors who had reigned before her, going back to the days of Narmes the Unifier. “Oh Lady of the Bee and Phoenix, heiress of the most ancient Lioness and successor of countless

Startled to hear Ahlvose one of her greatest opponents amongst the nobility of Deshret speak to her in so urgent a tone, evoked in Ásdís a great swell of alarm. She was not one to trust any of her nobility save for a few, and was not one to trust Ahlvose, and yet she could see sincere fear and panic in his eyes.

Pondering this, she took her time before she answered him, “What is it Ahlvose? You ought to know that this is highly unorthodox, for none may visit Pharaoh without proper invitation and without the court present. Not even the head of the temple of Amun-Re.”

“I understand this, milady it is only that this is of the highest importance and for your blessed ears alone,” he replied with visible reluctance.

“Oh very well, out with it I command you to tell me what this urgent news is?” She burst out with uncharacteristic impatience, for she was newly awakened and at present longed for the company of Lachlan. She hoped to leave soon that day, if only to go lion-hunting with him as she had done a mere month prior.

“It is that you have been betrayed,” Ahlvose informed her, a hint of darkness in his large glittering eyes.

“What? By whom?”

“Myself.”

Before the young woman could so much as act, or scream what air there was in the hall was suddenly drained from it, as one of the hooded cultists just behind Ahlvose tilted his hood back that she might meet his gaze. In those large yellow eyes, she saw not the steel of a living man, but that of a being far more ancient than any she had ever met. As she soon discovered not even the Earth-Elves who visited her court often, to pay homage and respect to her did not have the air of ancientness that she discovered in his eyes.

Never before had she imagined half the knowledge, she saw in those eyes. It was as she stared that she lost some measure of herself, so that she did not hear the screams echoing around her.

And then as a fog began to permeate the throne room, Ásdís began to scream also, this just before she fell into darkness.

*****

Just outside this grand hall, down in the megaron a fifty-meter hall in length, width and height that was covered in marble stones, grand golden-brown stones for the walls coloured with pictures of ancient Pharaohs and ladies, and beasts and flora, Lachlan ate. He ate in the manner of his people of the isle of Kull, that was to say with barely any usage of utensils save for his hands. He was not alone in eating uncouthly as Northmen and Caleds among many other tribes broke bread and devoured great amounts of pork tore into all the plates of food presented before them.

Not everyone who observed the former brigands, now royal guards devouring their meals with such gusto with joy, with those at the other tables grumbling among themselves. To them it seemed as though their land had been invaded, by outsiders and their once proud place as sole guards of the Pharaoh usurped.

Or so Djoser believed as he studied the foreign riffraff with utter contempt. It had been his dream since he was a boy, to raise himself up and act as a shield for the Pharaoh and her kindred.

“I fail to see why we must have that barbarian and his ilk present among us,” Djoser grumbled irritably.

“He did save the Pharaoh, Djoser,” Watjet replied weary of this conversation, which they had had a number of times before.

“Still, what could he possibly contribute? All know that barbarians of his sort are without honour, know nothing of civilized behaviour and do not belong herein the lands of the Pharaohs.” Djoser hissed furiously, “We have tolerated them for the sake of our ruler for some time, and I do not mind sharing the barracks with them, but the royal palace also? This is too much. Ingrid never allowed things to go this far.”

“Djoser, our numbers in recent generations have thinned, we must bolster our numbers,” Argued another man reasonably, even as he added, “Though I do agree, we ought to not include those from such a place as distant and as barbarous as Caledonia or Scandia.”

“Or from either of the two Empires,” added Watjet at once, referring to Orissia and Doria.

While the royal-guards grumbled and argued, and the barbarians devoured every peacock, bird and pig that was presented before them, a great tumult shook the palace. There was a cry that went up as women’s screams echoed across the whole of the great palace of Deshret.

Never in all the years of living memory of even the eldest Medjai had there ever been heard such an outcry. Every man was startled and on his feet in an instant, food forgotten and blades in hand as they made their way into the next hall.

“The Pharaoh has been kidnapped! She was seized by Ahlvose!” The handmaidens screeched as they ran from the throne room.

Bewildered and angered, the men were to at once spring into action, with the likes of the commander of the Medjai barking out, “Ahlvose? We must have several men dispatched to the temple of Amun-Re. The rest of you follow me!”

Yet before he had so much as set a single foot outside, Lachlan was outside and crying out that the enemy had taken flight. “The curs have seized her! A horse! A horse!”

He had his horse in a matter of seconds and was soon tearing off after the chariot of the man who held the flailing, veiled form of the woman he had taken on as his lover in recent months. The chariot of Ahlvose, had upon it for its rider one of his attendants not that this registered with Lachlan or the other men. They knew only that Ahlvose had vanished and that the chariot was ripping its way from the palace towards the temple of Amun-Re.

The people on the streets threw themselves out from before the path of the chariots, onto the nearby stalls or against the walls of this building or that building. Many of them cursed after first the chariot that tore a path through the city, then at the foreign Lachlan after he had crossed the torn his way through the city towards the gates after the enemy.

Out the city gates the chariot went, all while the screams of the woman in the arms of the warrior who had seized her continued.

Just outside the city, Lachlan was to discover not simply empty fields but an array of some two dozen men lying in wait near to the walls. It happened that just as he ventured out the city walls the men atop the walls were enveloped in some sort of fog one that prevented them from seeing past the end of their arms. They thus could not see the men, on horseback who were citizens of the city garrison and had stolen two dozen horses from the city watch’s stables.

The first of the men to throw himself against Lachlan met with as swift an end as any that there had been since the beginning of the world. The upper part of the man’s skull was left to decorate the side of the road, whilst Lachlan threw himself upon the next man. Tearing past blade and armour with greater force than any present had ever seen any man use, they were to fall back as the Caled made to slash at another when one of the servants of the Cult of Sobekhotep sought to attack him from behind.

Lethal and fierce was Lachlan, and of an almost primordial age in his ferocity yet even he could not do much more than sense the danger that loomed from behind him. Evasion and moving to parry the attack was impossible.

It was at that moment though that the assailant was thrown forward and then off his horse as an arrow pierced the hind left leg of the man’s horse.

“Have at them, hew them down and do not leave a single one alive!” Djoser howled mad with hatred and fury at the kidnapping of his liege-lady.

Pleased, Lachlan had only wasted the effort and time to glance back, to notice the arrival of the other warriors after he had slashed apart another dark man, who struck at him from atop his own horse.

Turning away though, he continued the hunt after the man who had stolen away what was his.

The pursuit after the screeching, terrified woman went on for some time as the dozen or so palace guards and the barbarian gave chase, each of them with their teeth bared in fury at the large figure in the chariot as they galloped after him. The hatred that seethed in the veins of Lachlan in particular frightened his prey, who sought to encourage his horses to race faster, always faster.

“Faster you beasts! Fly faster, lest that beast from the distant dreaming West, catch us! Faster!” he screeched terrified of what lay behind him.

Too late! The great barbarian with all the skill of a trained panther was to throw himself from his horse onto the other man, knocking them both and the woman from the back of the chariot.

The horse with which he had overtaken the chariot with came to a halt soon afterwards, while the chariot horses panicked and frenzied by over-use of the whip continued racing north without a thought to their master.

“Please, mercy!” These were the last of the words that he uttered, before Lachlan ran him through with his Deshretian long-sword.

Pushing the man back, Lachlan approached the young woman nearby only for him and Djoser who had just caught up to him to freeze as they stared at her as she cast off the veil that had been forced upon her. The Deshretian warrior was already leaping off his own horse to join him, and was at once by the young woman’s side before he realized who it was.

 “What?” Lachlan and Djoser said together, both utterly confused at the sight of the Pharaoh’s chief handmaiden.

It was however the considerably more panicked Djoser who was to shake the young woman shouting as he did so, such was the great pain and horror that had crept into his soul to find that the woman finely dressed before him, was not in fact his liege-lady. “The Pharaoh! The Pharaoh! Where is she? Speak woman!”
“She- she is- well that is to say I do not know, I have not seen her since I was seen in the palace!” Meritites stuttered out stricken and panicked, as she forgot not only her rank but her dignity in the face of Djoser’s rage.

“The palace, but how could it be?” Djoser exclaimed in shock at this revelation, hardly able to believe his own ears.

“She is no longer there,” Lachlan declared his emerald gaze turned once more towards the great city to the east of them, as he thoughtfully stroked his clean-shaven chin. “Yet she was also not removed from the city itself.” Scrounging amongst the corpses, he froze for a moment as he pulled from the neck of the man who had held Meritites hostage. “Djoser, look! Do you recognize this pendant?”

The pendant he held up was made of bronze, and bore the image of a bird with a sun-disk behind it, there was however upon the reverse side a single image, one shaped in the likeness of a twin-headed serpent. It was this latter image that caught both men’s attention.

“Yes I do,” Djoser told him paling, “It is the emblem of Amun-Re. But more than that, it is the personal badge of Ahlvose, who is head of the Hem-Netjer of Amun-Re in the city of Thinis.”

Neither man was to remain where they were with the still blubbering woman, just outside of the city of Thinis for very long preferring to turn about and return from whence they came.

Both knew exactly what this emblem meant; they had been duped and both knew at once where to search for where Ásdís had been taken.

“Where are you going?” Meritites called after them, sick with worry for her mistress, “Whither have they taken my mistress?”

“To the temple of Amun-Re! Hurry woman, we have not a moment to waste!” Djoser snapped as he led the way back from atop his horse, as one of his men helped her onto his own.

III

The tunnels that were to be found below the great temple of Amon, or as the Deshretian people knew him Amun-Re, were well hidden. So well hidden were they that there were few among the clergy who were even aware of their existence, as Lachlan soon discovered. It hardly surprised him though, for he was not like Hem-Netjer or Djoser who were rather naïve in regards to this sort of thing.

When Lachlan first burst into the shrine, a great many of the servants of Amun-Re were horrified at the intrusion by the barbarian, scowling and shouting. Some began to give chase, thinking that he was not showing the proper respect for the great god.

It happened however that both captain Djoser and Hem-Netjer assuaged their concerns. The two of them took to telling them, “A great travesty has occurred, and the Pharaoh has commanded that we search this place!”

The mention of the Pharaoh, calmed a great many. Few there were after all, who dared to question her orders or desires. To have done so was considered improper on account of the nature of their society. This docility won them a snort of disdain from Lachlan, who had little love for it for he could not imagine himself tamed as they were especially at such a time.

There were those however who were not so easily cowed. These were the scribes of Amun-Re, and some of the lowest ranking of the priesthood. Sincerely pious in a way that only the most lowly of men, and the finest of men could be, they objected and sought to protest the entry of the warriors into the temple.

It was when the two moved past the altar, towards the room just a short distance past it that they objected ever more strongly than before. “That is where the holies is to be found! You cannot enter there, it is sacred!”

The room in question was to the rear of the grand temple which was somewhat more square shaped than what most people might have at first realized. It was a building built long ago in the time of the first Pharaoh Maatkare, who was in the eyes of the vast majority of the people of the nation the second of the three founders. Though the temple had been enlarged some time ago, and was now more than thirty meters large and wide, and began squarely while thinning out ever so slightly near the summit, it remained a place of mystery for some.

It was not that visitors were disbarred from entering, to the contrary men and women were encouraged to come hither to worship the gods of their forefathers. The trouble was that on that day, a great deal of trouble and commotion had struck and not being a particularly brave people, most of those who lived in Thinis preferred to retreat from the temple or hide when they saw the royal guards.

The guards under the command of Khafre had cleared away the main halls, the entrance hall and had scoured the whole of the temple, this much to the horror of the lower ranking officials. They however sent for Ahlvose however he was nowhere to be found, to their even greater consternation.

By the time that Lachlan arrived in the temple, it was to find the clergy on the verge of panic and where many were concerned, apoplectic fits of fury. Khafre though was nowhere to be send in the entrance, with those who had given chase after the chariot directed to Ahlvose’s bedchambers which were on the first floor of the temple, near where the holy of holies was to be found. Naturally it was forbidden for outsiders to go there, and just as naturally the Medjai and other royal-guards had

The plump clergyman had private chambers that were more a series of apartments, more than fifteen meters long, twenty wide with a large bed that covered almost half the bed-chambers. There was a duo of tables each with four chairs, and with bowls of fruits on the tables.

Ordinarily, there was a carpet near to the bed, but it had been rolled away so that there was a hole in the ground revealed for all to see. “You see?” Khafre bellowed as he pointed at the ground, “Those knaves disappeared down through this secret tunnel! If it were not for that one thief Khufu, screeching and raising a fuss as he disappeared down it, we might not have found it!”

“Then down thither and after him we go,” Lachlan growled prepared to jump down also.

“Are you mad fool? What if there are dozens of them down there?”

Lachlan did not listen to him, and was almost halfway down the ladder before he was halted by Djoser’s hand on his arm.

“Wait! You are not going down there without us Medjai,” Djoser growled still mistrustful of the barbarian who shrugged his shoulders indifferently.

“Follow if you wish, otherwise stay out of my way, but know that none who cross my blade and steal my woman from me will be left unmarred and to live their lives.” Lachlan retorted evenly just before he threw himself down the hole that led below into the tunnels below.

Torch in hand, he soon oriented himself and after racing forward a few steps he overheard the slapping steps of his prey or rather preys’ feet striking the ground and their cries to one another. Djoser soon joined him, along with a dozen guards with many more still climbing their way down whereupon a number of them took off alongside him.

It was not long before he had outdistanced them all, save for Djoser as they ran for a number of hours down in that place.

It took some time but after a great deal of time, a number of figures appeared in the distance ahead of them, with those figures taking notice of them only to curse at them.

It was as they ran away; racing as swiftly as they could in their effort to reach the end of the great tunnel they traversed then that Lachlan and the Medjai knew they had found their traitors. It was thus with considerable consternation that they surveyed the dark tunnel hesitant at first to delve deeper into the shadows.

The first of the two to move forward was Lachlan who shrugged his shoulders as though in defeat and made to race faster after the lot of them.

It was as they neared the end of the cavern that they heard a commotion. Eager to quench his thirst for vengeance, Djoser growled out, “At last, blood let us spill theirs now for the insult they have given to Deshret!”

“Wait,” Lachlan called out in his rumbling voice, yet the other man did not heed his words.

There were three of them they came across, with the three in the midst of squabbling near a ladder that was to be found near the end of the great tunnel below the city. “You cannot leave me!” Shouted one of their number, clinging to the other two pathetically.

“Bah, see to thy own affairs!” Said another of their number.

“But they will kill me! I did not know we would kidnap Ásdís! I never agreed to that!”

“Be quiet Khufu, wait there they-” The man in question who was in the midst of speaking had no sooner spoken than a sword was thrust through his chest.

Death did not find only him, as Djoser’s steel blade was torn from within him and to be swung at the next man. Hideous and terrible was the end that was visited upon the next man, so that soon there was only the thieving Khufu left still alive.

“Wait! Wait! Please do not kill me!” Khufu shrieked terrified of the warrior, who menaced him now.

Djoser might not have listened, his blood was in his ears and his blade was painted scarlet just as the floor of the tunnel now was and said blade hungered for more blood. He might well have given way to this desire for justice, had it not been for Lachlan’s interference.

“Wait!” Lachlan hissed as he caught the man by the arm, before it could straighten and thus put an end to the kneeling thief’s life.

“Why!” Djoser bellowed just as a number of his men at last began to find their way to them.

“Because, we must have one of them guide us as you hinted at before, to Pharoah,” the barbarian reminded him to which the Medjai stared in wonder at him.

“You- you are correct,” He remarked before he turned to the thief, “You! Khufu is your name correct? You will lead us to Pharaoh.”

“And if I should refuse?” Khufu muttered defiantly, just before a pair of swords moved nearer if slowly so as though to taunt him. Hesitantly, eyes on the weapons he remarked, “Oh, well when you state it that way I suppose I have little in the way of choices. Follow me, up out through this ladder and I shall guide thee.”

Coming out from the tunnels nigh on an hour after they had first set foot into that place, the three dozen or so men were to look all about themselves in complete confusion, whereupon they realized where it was that they currently found themselves. They were near the Valley of the Three Temples.

“It is there that they have taken her,” Khufu quailed pitifully pointing to the southernmost of the three shrines.

“How do you know this?” Djoser demanded of their prisoner.

“Because, I was there when they discussed where they would take her,” Khufu replied as though he were particularly slow.

Djoser prepared to strike the tomb-raider when Lachlan caught his arm, “Wait, we have need of him.” Turning to stare hard at the simpering thief he grunted, “Why bring her there?”

Khufu did not answer. Ashamed, he looked away which as before inspired rage among his captors.

“What is this place?” Lachlan demanded unfamiliar with the great valley that seemed to beckon to them.

“It is the Valley of the Three Temples,” Djoser told him quietly, “A sacred yet supposedly cursed place, one that few tread and fewer wish to.”

By this time familiar with much of the history of the land of Deshret, if from his time there as a warrior and lover to the Pharaoh, Lachlan simply shrugged his shoulders. “Whether it is cursed or not, means little if they have taken the Pharaoh there, all that matters is that we rescue her.”

Unwilling to argue with him, the Medjai nodded his head and made to follow after him, when he was called to a half by his captain Khafre, “Hold Djoser, I did not give the order as of yet. I will be the one to decide whether we go down into that place.”

“Then quake where you stand coward, because while you prevaricate and hide, I shall rescue her and cover myself and myself alone in glory while you do the same with ignominy.” Lachlan barked out, having by this time finished tying up his line of rope about his waist and about a nearby stone. “Let the cowards keep to the city, and the braves still loyal to Ásdís follow me down into the canyon!”

If looks could have killed, Khafre might well have committed a murder then and there, however both men were blessed in that a glance could do no such thing. Several of the men looked at the barbarian, visibly torn between their instinct to follow the orders of their Captain and their desire to rescue their monarch.

To the surprise of all present, Khufu long silent and visibly daunted at the prospect of having to descend into the Valley hastily pulled a rope from his pack, and began to tie it about his waist. This drew an approving grunt from Lachlan, which made the thief flush beneath his beard while the leader of the Medjai looked on in shock, alongside the rest of his men.

“I may be a coward, but I am no traitor,” Khufu exclaimed with a glower in their direction, “If I am to die, it will be having done even just one good deed.”

Their advance through the basin was a silent affair. It was one which ought to have been louder, and might well have been, Djoser informed Lachlan, were it not for the Horus medallion that the Medjai wore about their throats. It was one with the emblem of a falcon in full flight with a sword behind it.

Glancing but briefly at it, Lachlan studied the pendants, “Most members wear bronze pendants yet you a silver one.”

“It denotes my rank,” Djoser explained with a shrug of his shoulders, though there was some small amount of pride in his voice.

While he had noticed these details, just as he had noticed how the commander Khafre bore a golden pendant, Lachlan did not offer much more commentary. He pondered the importance that men attached to those symbols, and did not say much more about them.

It was at this time that as they moved through the small miniature desert, that he was to remark with a sniff, “Death lives here.”

“Indeed, and has since ancient times,” Djoser replied solemnly, “I am surprised a barbarian such as yourself could notice such a thing.”

“And I am surprised a civilized man such as yourself could.” Lachlan retorted, his words drew a snigger from Khufu who promptly fell silent when Djoser glared at him.

Without another word between them, they continued their advance, with the worst part of their advance through it, filling each of them with the sense that they were being watched. It was a sensation that unsettled each of them, Lachlan included so that he began to glance all about him even as he pressed them onwards.

It was after several minutes of advancement that he realized with a start that of the fifteen men that had accompanied the three of them, only twelve were left. Disturbed by this, he was to count them once more before he remarked, “We have lost three.”

Djoser counted them quickly, whereupon he hissed out, “Yes, it seems so!”

It was Khufu who shrieking loudly enough to have been mistaken for a woman, so that all present cringed at the pitch of his voice stared, as he began to race ahead of them. “It is every man for himself!”

Never had a man sounded and spoken so unlike a man.

And yet, he was not alone in adopting this view. Lachlan and Djoser began their own race across the small desert, along with the rest of the Medjai. It happened that as they ran, with the darkness of night all about them, the starlit skies above as their witnesses, the Caled glanced over his shoulder. Keen to see what was happening to his men, he glanced repeatedly over his shoulder, only to find that not only did they disappear below the dunes, but that they did so, so rapidly that they had not the time to scream.

Cursing beneath his breath, he was to redouble and quintuple his efforts to reach the southernmost of the three temples. Heart in his throat, he ceased glancing over his shoulder after the third man had vanished. This was his instinctive response, nigh on a thousand generations of surviving the seas, the monsters of the deeps and those on land and the experiences of countless battles at work. A lesser man might well have fallen to tears, might well have given way to sentimentality at that moment.

But not Lachlan: He would not surrender himself to his more effete emotions. Growling, he threw himself forward with flashing emerald eyes and his teeth grinding together.

The temple once so far away, once a dot in the distance loomed large now. And it only grew nearer.

“You did not close the gates though it would have been more logical to do so, why?” Djoser demanded of Lachlan still panting though he had caught enough of his breath back to address him.

Lachlan merely grunted, still red faced from pushing the door closed, “Easier or not, you are handier with a sword than Khufu, and I suspect I shall yet have need of thee, in the battle that lies ahead.”

Turning away with those gruff words, he did not see the grateful and openly moved eyes of the Medjai following him thoughtfully. The two of them were to soon notice as they made for the door near the end of the fifteen meter long entrance hallway that led to the main hall of the temple that they were missing someone.

A glance behind them revealed Khufu shivering and shaking and clinging to one large column, “You can go in there,” he said when prompted, “I will not. I do not wish to die, heroes always die first.”

“And yet cowards still die, if less proudly so,” Djoser snapped haughtily before motioning Lachlan to follow alongside him, “Let us go and leave the sniveling pig to the dark, where he belongs.”

Nodding his eye, Lachlan followed after him though not without a snort of disgust in the direction of the robber who slunk to the ground, imprisoned in that place by his own despair and fear of Sobekhotep. All while his profound sense of betrayal and sinfulness dogged and tormented all the more, so that he began to weep, “What am I supposed to do?”

IV

The hall that the two men now found themselves within was one of the most immense that they had ever seen in all their lives. More than eighty meters wide and large, it was no less high than it was wide and large so that they were in one of the grandest halls ever built by men. It was resplendent and with walls covered in gold so that it seemed as though it were lit with a thousand lights and stars.

Though gilded and magnificent, and full to the brim along the walls and corners with more treasure and plunder than either of them knew what to do with, neither moved towards the tempting treasures they saw. Both now knew all too well, the dangers of doing so without first seeing to the destruction of the monster that dominated the bright shrine.

It was what lay at the centre of the large religious hall as they descended down the fifty steps into the hall that caught and kept their attention. There was Ásdís, beautiful and wide-eyed chained to the altar as naked as the day she was born save for the thinnest and slimmest of bolts of white cloth to cover her breasts and between her legs.

Her great blue eyes brightened with hope when she saw the two warriors racing down the steps, with her momentary distraction not going unnoticed by the tall figure that loomed over her. The man who stared back at the two warriors was unlike any other that they had ever seen before. He was impossibly ancient it seemed, old with creases and then without in the next moment, as his appearance shifted every few seconds. It was however his eyes that never changed; they were from another age entirely, full of old wisdoms and primordial curses.

His chin-beard and burning gaze and mighty build which was disguised behind a loose-fitting set of white robes, with the Queen’s two crowns now resting upon his own head. Sensing their approach he was to study them with little interest from the corner of his eyes. “They must not interrupt my ceremony.”

Surrounded by nigh on thirty cultists dressed in dark robes, who were almost one and all dark haired and dark with one or two ebon skinned southerners among them. Most were bearded with few of them half as muscular as the men who approached them. The cultists in question gazed upon the pair and Khufu apprehensively.

“I will see to them,” Ahlvose assured his Master, as he motioned for a number of the cultists with him to follow him.

Sobekhotep ignored him, hardly interested in the new arrivals or in the leader of his cult, for he had already begun the ceremony. It was as he listened to the Unliving beast before the altar that a flash of recognition lit up in Djoser’s eyes.

“I know this rite! It is one of Unlife! He seeks to sacrifice the Pharaoh to revive someone,” the hardened warrior cried out worriedly. “We must do something! We must stop them, barbarian!”

Lachlan needed no further encouragement. Never one to shrink from danger or from battle, he was to advance towards the enemy with all the grace and dignity of a panther, his eyes upon those of Ahlvose if but briefly as he studied those cultists who took up arms against them. The smirk that rose to his lips, was to serve to make them all stiffen.

“Turn back barbarian,” Ahlvose commanded with a sneer, blade in hand.

Lachlan did not answer, not in words from the corner of his eyes he studied the many members of the cult who stood before him and made to encircle him.

Wordless, as he had no need for such things before a battle, he leapt at one of the warriors to his right, hewing him apart with his first sword stroke only to then leap back before the man had hit the ground. The cultists stared in amazement at the rapidity with which he had struck.

Ahlvose no less daunted recovered first, and made to charge him, giving his men the command to attack. He was not to be alone in making a move on the Caled, however in focusing all of their attention upon him, they forgot if briefly so about Djoser.

The guardsman trained since he was five years of age, for some twenty years though a civilized man had fought in war since he was eleven years old. Though no barbarian, he was nonetheless trained and forged by life into what could only be dubbed the perfect blade of Deshret. One man soon learnt the folly of ignoring him, with another’s head soon separated from his shoulders also, as Djoser let loose a great battle-cry.

Shaken and surprised at the ferocity with which, the Medjai charged their ranks, the cult was to fall back several steps. Ahlvose furious to have already lost three of his men, made to charge Lachlan once more, only to be taken by surprise himself and forced back as he parried several of the other Deshretian’s blade-strikes.

Not wishing to be outperformed in battle, the Caled gave himself over to the battle-joy that his people were so renowned for. The next man he struck at was thrown off his feet, so viciously did the youth attack him.

Never before had any of them seen warriors who fought so aggressively, or with such precision. It happened that though they were well-trained as clerics none or almost none of them had ever trained themselves properly in the ways of the sword. So that in this way, they were a poor choice to fight against either Lachlan or Djoser let alone the both of them at once.

The former hewed and batted aside men as though they were nothing. The latter for his part was to throw himself against Ahlvose tearing asunder any who drew too close. This man might draw near to attempt to distract, as he slashed and stabbed at the retreating Ahlvose, but this man and that one were quick to lose their swords and hands.

It was as he finished ducking, parrying and otherwise slashing throats apart that Lachlan made for the altar, which resulted in Ahlvose panicking as he noticed from the corner of his eye the barbarian move towards his master. Making as though to cry out a warning, as he momentarily tore his eyes from those of the other warrior, Ahlvose soon found himself unable to cry out as the sword was run through his throat and lower jaw.

Smirking in victory, Djoser was soon distracted by the desperate attempt by the last of the cultists to stop him unsuccessfully. Fending them off, he soon made short work of them, though they succeeded in distracting him long enough, for his compatriot to end up distracted by their enemy.

As Lachlan slashed at his back, he found the mummy determined to ignore him, another slash did not halt the chanting. Growing angry by this time, and desperate, Lachlan was to slash at the Unliving man’s wrists with one great and mighty swing.

It was when the book fell from his grasp along with his hands that Sobekhotep at last focused his attention upon the barbarian. “Enough of you, you are as an insect to me, now away with thee!”

The ball of flame that appeared in the hand he re-grew all of a sudden might well have flashed and left naught but smouldering ashes where once the Caled stood. If it were not for how quickly he threw himself to the ground.

Moving quickly he threw aside the book, aware that within it lay his death and survival ere he attempt to throw himself against his foe with all his might.

To Lachlan’s surprise not only did the monstrous foe before him not budge, he simply raised an eyebrow at the attempt to tackle him to the ground. The sword that was soon introduced to his ribs hardly garnered more than a shake of the head from the ancient once-man.

It was then that the two warriors heard the sound of someone speaking. It was Djoser who had taken up the Bronze-Book, and begun to read from the text. Though by no means a sorcerer, he was however trained in the ancient tongue as a Medjai. Such was his knowledge of it that he read swifter than any member of the clergy might have, and spoke far more capably than what Ásdís could have.

“No! I will crush your body and spread your spirit across Tartarus, if you continue to read from the book!” Sobekhotep shrieked furiously full of rage and hatred for the warrior before him, who had begun to do what Khufu had begun.

Throwing himself between the two, that he might fend off the large mummy who spared him nary another thought as he made to advance towards Djoser. Striking the Caled from before him, with one mighty fist he continued to advance all while the Medjai backed away.

Lachlan realizing he could not distract the mummy turned and made for the altar, even as Medjai maneuvered his way away from the monster. Still reading the ancient spidery language of the ancient Deshretian people, he was to soon find himself near the stairs, stumbling back he paused.

The triumph on Sobekhotep’s face was painful to behold.

“Now I have you, and you have nowhere to retreat to rat,” Sobekhotep growled at him, knocking the book away and grasping the young warrior by the throat, in one smooth motion.

As he did so though, there was the sound of metal striking metal as the chains that bound Ásdís to the altar were shattered. Startled, the mummy turned to glance towards the Pharaoh he had intended to sacrifice, as she embraced her lover.

Seething with jealous fury, he roared in the most inhuman manner any man has ever had the misfortune of bearing witness to, as he declared, “Thou shalt pay dearly for this insult! All of thee have ruined my ritual, my last chance to have my Anippe returned to me!”

As he screamed a great burst of wind ensued from his mouth, as though it were a great wind-tunnel one that threw barbarian and ruler alike back. Both were thrown from their feet, and onto the nearby gold-covered, painted wall neither of them able to truly catch their breath. Neither could breath, their faces turning purple over the course of several minutes, just as Djoser’s did also.

No, not like this! Defeat cannot come to us in this form, both Lachlan and Djoser thought to themselves then, humiliated and horrified by how firmly Sobekhotep had just defeated them.

Death loomed near.

It was then that Khufu’s voice echoed across the hall, in the ancient tongue.

Neither Ásdís nor Lachlan could hear him, all they could see as they were crushed against the wall near one of the immense white and painted columns was Khufu holding the Bronze Book. Only he, Sobekhotep and Djoser could hear him as he read with some difficulty, the ancient language in the tome from Deshret’s remotest era.

“What!? Another one of them?” Sobekhotep shrieked as he stretched his arm across six meters towards the tomb-raider.

It was thence that for the first time in his life, Khufu was not afraid. He did not back away, nor did he lower his eyes from the book, nor did he shrink away. Continuing to recite from the book as the deathly cold hand reached for him, and Djoser gasped and hissed at him to get away, he concluded that which the other warriors had begun.

“Now begone monster! Away with thee,” Khufu shouted at the mummy just before he had finished the last word in the incantation.

A great wail resounded throughout the land, as the mummy’s sorcery diminished and vanished if ever so slowly, so that Lachlan and Ásdís fell from where they were, just as Djoser did.

No longer able to menace them, no longer able to keep himself whole Sobekhotep who had once appeared not unlike the most ordinary of men with the eldest of glimmering eyes decayed in a matter of seconds until there was naught left save dust.

It was then that Khufu smiled shyly, and closed the book he held.

V

Once they had left the darkness of the haunted temple behind them, to find themselves out in the open air and the first of the three temples of the valley where Sobekhotep’s body had been found, they all breathed a heavy sigh of relief. The one who breathed the air just outside the temple the most gratefully was Ásdís, for which both men offered up very different smiles. Djoser smiled at the thought that he had done his duty, and out of gladness that Pharaoh was still alive. Lachlan for his part though, smiled even as he drank in the sight of the young woman’s beauty.

He had always been of the hired-guards favoured by her, by virtue of his own strangeness and crimson hair that set him apart from others, and had reason to believe their strange bond might continue.

“We have done it! Victory!” Djoser cried out, his dark hair slick with sweat matted against the sides of his face and nape of his neck.

“Aye,” Lachlan murmured having eyes but for Ásdís, “Victory of the sweetest kind!”

He swept her up then, whilst Djoser was distracted with the unresisting Queen a question on her lips as she looked up at him soon silenced. The kiss that followed was to sear itself into her memory for the remainder of her days.

It was one of such passion that she feared it might make her erupt in flames. It was not the first of its sort she had tasted from him, and it was one that she enjoyed no less than all those that had come before it.

It was after he had pulled himself away from her, an almost carnivorous smile upon his lips as he drank in the sight of his lady that she gathered together what strength she had. He had just dipped his head closer to seek another kiss that she said to him, “No wait Lachlan!”

“What? Why?” He hissed disliking her answer.

“We cannot continue,” Ásdís pleaded with him, her blue eyes filling with tears as she turned her gaze away from his own, broken by what she must do. “We have loved and loved earnestly however this has proven an insult and a sin in the eyes of my nobility.”

“What of them?” Lachlan retorted indifferent to her pleas as he clung tighter to her, pulling her closer to him, “What do I care about their dignity and what they think a sin? You are Queen, and I have my sword, the same that sundered the lives of those who sought to undo you, and has now torn apart the cult of Sobekhotep.”

“Yes, but Lachlan, I am Queen! But more than that; I am Pharaoh!” Ásdís told him desperate to make him see sense. “I have a duty, to my nation and must therefore marry! As Pharaoh, I must give birth to the next ruler, and must be a physical symbol of the covenant between Heaven and Earth, between my subjects and their true ruler.”

Lachlan stared. He could hardly believe his ears, and at once his face became scarlet as his great mane, as disbelief transformed itself into rage and humiliation as he growled at her, “And I am to be cast off? To be thrown aside as little more than a used rag? I say to thee lady, what reason should I care for them? I have my sword, and it was by this that I claimed you and not by their consent which means little to me!”

“But you are not ruler, I am and I rule by their consent as much as that of the priesthood and Amun-Re and Oðin!” Ásdís cried out her eyes now full of tears that flowed down her lovely cheeks, “Oh please do not be angry Lachlan, it is not for lack of love that I reject you, if only you could stay and we could be together-”

“And do what? Stare as some fat, old man paws at you who were my prize, and my lady? Nay, I say NAY! By Badb, Lugh, Scotia and Ziu, I will not. I will return one day but it will not be as a lone barbarian, but as King, as ruler and with an army of wolves to tear asunder this pitiful land and reclaim that which was mine!” Lachlan bellowed furious as a wounded ox, as he at last threw her away from him.

She sought to grasp a hold of him, yet he evaded her grasp, turned away and began to walk southwards. Ásdís shrieked and wept, crying out after him as she shook with the force of the grief of her lost love, “Where will you go, my Lachlan?”
“South, across the desert if need be, whither away into an endless sea of sand and scarabs that I may be away from you that you might be left to the tender mercy of those that despise ye and you have chosen in place of me.” Lachlan retorted coldly, trembling with rage as he marched south in the direction of the lands that lay across the vast desert that stretched past the green lands of Deshret.

It was as he disappeared upon the horizon, as he disappeared from her life that Ásdís at last turned, swallowed her tears and said to Djoser, “Djoser you served my sister before me.”

“Yes my Pharaoh, and with pride,” He said having kept quiet all throughout the terrible scene that had taken place before him, his own heart sundered in two. Half of him keen to stay by the side of his Pharaoh due to his chivalric oaths, but the other half longing to go after the man he had fought side by side with.

“I would ask you to serve me with the same fervour.”

“Of course,” He agreed at once.

“Then go south.”

“Milady?”

“Go south, keep Lachlan safe, I would release you from my service,” Ásdís said to him, “It is the last act of love I can give him, and give him this.” She tore from her neck the oldest of her heirlooms that was not her crown or ruling scepter or mitre; the pendant of Amun-Re given her by her grandfather. “I have a thousand Medjai, but Lachlan will have need of one. Please, guard him!”

Though he took his status of Medjai with the utmost seriousness, though he had no wish to leave, Djoser was ever a man who obeyed his Pharaoh. Kneeling before her, he acquiesced saying as he did so though, “I shall return, and it shall be so to serve thee once more milady. This I swear on the tomb of my mother and father, and on the sword given to me by thy sister, and in the name of Amun-Re, Set and Horus the Elder who breathed in me the valour of a true Medjai.”

And so it was that Djoser and then Khufu who after glancing back and forth raced after them, went south also, and Ásdís was now truly alone. She watched him go now, taking a pair of camels as he went, loading them with water and rations and hurrying with all haste after the other warrior.

It was only after he had vanished also that she wiped away her tears, swallowed her anguish and returned to Thinis as one doomed to die, her heart heavy with sorrow and steeled for what must be done.