The dark patch vanished. A trick of the shadows or his mind? The camel snorted and spat at Ramses again.
"Oh, muck off," Ramses muttered and flipped� the beast off.
He turned back toward the pyramids and kept walking. This time, he pulled out his minicom and raised the screen, pretending to take a photo of the pyramids. Instead, he pointed the camera over his shoulder.
He took a few more slow steps.
And in his minicom's monitor, he saw her.
A woman behind him.
A woman in a dark robe, slinking across the dune, holding a knife. The camel walked beside her.
Ramses struggled not to gasp. He forced himself to keep walking casually, though his heart pounded.
How was this possible? Had somebody followed him here from Port Addison?
He took a few more steps.
The woman closed the distance behind him, knife raised. On the sand, her footfalls were silent.
Ramses spun around.
The woman froze, her green eyes wide. A gust of wind blew back her hood and her long black hair billowed. She took a step forward, knife raised, then froze again. She spun on her heel and began to flee.
"Wait!" Ramses pursued her. "Hold on there!"
She kept fleeing. But Ramses had longer legs, and he drew near. He reached out, about to grab her cloak, and—
The woman's camel reared before him. The beast spat—and the glob hit Ramses square in the face.
He blinked, fell back, and landed in the sand. The camel snorted, haughtily raised his head, and trotted away.
Ramses began to push himself up.
The woman leaped forward again. She kicked sand into his eyes. Ramses yelped, blinded. With a battle cry, the woman lunged at him. With sand in his eyes, Ramses heard more than saw the blade slice the air.
He rolled aside. He grabbed the woman's wrist, holding her blade aloft.
She screamed, struggling against him, but Ramses tightened his grip on her wrist. She spat on his face.
"Why does everyone keep spitting on me?" Ramses cried.
And still she screamed wordlessly. She kicked, and her foot found his shin.
Now it was Ramses who screamed.
The woman was relentless. She grabbed a handful of sand and flung it into his eyes, blinding him again. Her knee drove into his belly. Before Ramses realized what was happening, she was straddling him, her blade pressed against his neck.
"Move and I slice off your head!" she said.
Ramses groaned, blinking sand out of his eyes. It stung like hell.
"You're worse than a Ra damn alien!" he said, then yelped with pain as her knee pressed deeper.
"Who are you?" the woman demanded. "Are you one of them?"
He moaned, still blinded. "One of who?"
"Them!" The woman twisted his collar. "The ones with scales. The sky-reptiles. The demons who can take human form."
"What? No!" Ramses blinked some more, and finally the woman came into view. "What the hell are you talking about?"
She glared at him, still holding the knife to his throat. She was a young woman, probably in her twenties. Her skin was brown, her eyes startlingly green. A necklace of beads hung around her neck, and her robes were black and patched.
She isn't one of the colonists, Ramses thought. I would have remembered such a beauty.
"The sky-reptiles!" she said. "The enemies of Gaea. Those who devour us, who take our shape." She sneered. "I saw them take human form. A woman with the body of a serpent. Are you one of them?"
He tilted his head. "A basilisk? You think I'm a basilisk?"
Her eyes widened. She bared her teeth. "Do not speak their name, fool! It is cursed! You will summon them here."
Ramses pushed her wrist again, more gently this time. She no longer resisted, and Ramses sat up in the sand. He took a deep breath and rubbed his eyes.
"I'm no serpent," he said. "I'm all human. Did you see that jet I flew here?" He jerked his thumb back at his Firebird, which lay in the sand a few hundred meters away. "Does that look like a basi—" He caught himself. "Like a sky-reptile ship? That's a human vessel. A Mark 1-C Firebird starfighter, in fact. Best damn starfighter in the galaxy, if you ask me." He raised his chin. "And you're speaking to the best damn pilot."
The woman frowned. "Who are you that you speak so strangely? We saw lights in the sky. Many nights in a row. Explosions above like burning stars. Are you from the great battles in the night kingdom?" She gasped and covered her mouth. "A djinn! A prince of the nether realms!"
What the hell? Ramses thought.
"My name is Ramses," he said. "I'm human. You know, human? Like you."
She drew back, crouched, and hissed like a wild animal.
"Liar! You came from the sky." She snapped her teeth at him. "From the Deep Shadow. Like the dark ones. Like the demons before them. From the kingdom of night. I saw you descend. Leave! I banish you! The Children of Gaea defend this realm." She brandished her knife. "Leave, impostor!"
Ramses heaved a sigh. "Let's try this again." He pointed at himself. "Ramses. Human." He pointed at her. "You?"
Her body was tense, still locked in a crouch, blade still raised. She was like a tigress ready to pounce. She glared silently as if choosing between fight or flight.
"Najila," she finally said. "Najila of the Gaeans. Human. A true human. Not an impostor like you. Reveal your scales!"
She grabbed his shirt and pulled it open, exposing his skin. A frown creased her face.
"Hey, baby, normally I like to buy a girl a drink first," Ramses said.
"You have no scales," she whispered, brow furrowed. "But you come from above. From the sky."
A suspicion blossomed in Ramses. Impossible. Utterly impossible!
"Where are you from?" Ramses said.
She sneered, eyes aflame. "I am a child of Gaea!"
He nodded. "All right. I don't recognize you from the colony. Did you make your own way to Earth? Did you flee the scorpion gulocks? What galactic arm did you hide in? Are you one of Tom Shepherd's people?"
"You speak so strangely," Najila said. "Yet you appear to be like me. Are you a lost child of Gaea?"
Her voice was softer now. Curiosity filled her eyes. But then she glanced back toward his Firebird, and she inhaled sharply.
Ramses remembered. He had painted a dragon onto the starfighter's hull. A scaly reptile.
"Najila," he began, "it's not what—"
"You are one of them!" she whispered, spun around, and fled.
Ramses leaped to his feet and moaned with pain. The damn woman had hurt him. He ran after her, slower this time, kicking up sand. She was riding her camel now, and he was falling behind.
But Ramses doggedly pursued. Could his suspicions be true?
Could Najila have been born on Earth?
It seemed impossible. No humans had lived on Earth in two thousand years, not until Leona had founded Port Addison.
And yet …
Could others have made it here first? Ramses thought. We thought we were writing history. That we were the first humans on Earth since the Hydrians destroyed it in antiquity. Were we second to the finish line?
"Najila!" he cried after her, running across the dunes. "Come and talk to me."
He stumbled down the dune. Knowing he had to find her. Had to learn where she was from. Had to protect her. She was part of Earth's story—and she was getting away.
"Najila!" he called, but was forced to stop at the bottom of the dune. Her camel was already three dunes away, galloping toward the Nile.
Ramses paused, panting, then spun around. She had a camel? Well, he had a Firebird!
Let's see her outrace a Ra damn starfighter.
He was running back toward his Firebird when ten more camels emerged from behind a hill.
Ramses froze, still far from his Firebird.
The camels galloped toward him. Men in dark robes rode the animals. Men with whips and gleaming swords.
"This day keep
s getting better all the time," Ramses muttered.
The camels rumbled toward him. The robed men raised their blades.
Ramses fired a shot into the air.
"Stand down!" he shouted. "Stand down or I will shoot!"
They ignored him. They kept charging.
Ramses had never shot another human, and he wasn't about to start now. Yet as the dromedaries barreled down on him, he had to do something.
He fired warning shots at the camels' hoofs, not trying to hurt them, just deter them. One camel tumbled, spilling its rider from the saddle. The man slammed into a second camel, knocking it down too. But the other animals kept galloping.
"Stand down!" Ramses shouted, raising his gun again.
They didn't stop.
As much as it hurt him, Ramses would have to use deadly force.
He pulled the trigger as a whip shot out.
The bullet went wide. The leather thong cracked the air, moving faster than sound, and leaped forth like a striking asp. The whip caught Ramses's rifle and yanked it from his hand.
A second whip wrapped around his leg, ripping pants and skin.
The camels raced around him, raising clouds of sand, circling in closer like a constricting basilisk. The swords gleamed. Ramses could not see the men's faces. Scarfs concealed them, revealing only dark eyes.
Ramses raised his hands.
"Hello, friends!" he said. "My name is Lieutenant Colonel Ramses al Masri of the Human Defense Force. Thank you for the show! I always do enjoy watching a good camel race. Now, how about we all settle down for a round of coffee and—"
The whips lashed, wrapping around his limbs and torso. Ramses thumped onto the sand. When he tried to rise, the men leaped onto him, held him down, and slipped a sack over his head. As they bound and hoisted him up, Ramses sighed.
This was not how he had imagined his vacation.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
When the robed men dragged him into their village, Ramses thought he had gone back in time.
I'm at the dawn of civilization, he thought. I'm back in ancient Egypt, the kingdom of my forebears.
The village spread alongside the Nile. There were no permanent buildings, only tents, but those tents were beautifully woven, their fabric mosaics of gold, red, and yellow. Sheep grazed nearby, and several camels were busy chewing their cud. Reed boats swayed at piers, and wooden irrigation tubes pumped water toward a field. Spiced ducks, pots of oatmeal, and flat breads were cooking over campfires.
If the robed men weren't dragging him by ropes, Ramses might have enjoyed this excursion.
The villagers turned to stare at him. Both genders wore long robes to protect them from the sun. These fabrics too were elaborate, embroidered with stars, ibises, and pomegranates. Many of the villagers wore adornments of clay, stone, and even precious metal. Children held wooden swords and dolls. They gaped as the robed men pulled Ramses forward.
Najila was there too. The young woman Ramses had met by the sphinx. He made eye contact with her.
"My dear Najila!" Ramses said. "Care to tell your friends here what a lovely fellow I am? They seem to have me all wrong."
"Silence!" said one of the men dragging him—a bearded, muscular brute. "Do not talk to my daughter. You talk to me, Amon, son of Nenet."
The burly Amon lashed his whip. The thong sliced Ramses's back. He gritted his teeth, refusing to scream.
"I'd rather your lash wasn't part of the conversation," Ramses said.
Amon whipped him again.
"Tuck your forked tongue behind your fangs," the man said. "I know you're basilisk scum."
Ramses swallowed a retort. He had no idea what was going on. What was this place? Who were these people? He wanted to get the hell out of here. But mostly, he wanted answers.
These people shouldn't even exist, he thought.
The men shoved him into the village square, a circle of packed earth between the tents and corrals. They stepped back, but they kept their hands on their whips. Amon wiped sweat from his beard and turned toward an embroidered tent.
"Mother Nenet!" Amon said. "We've brought the stranger before you. Will you come judge his worth?"
An elderly woman emerged from the tent. She was hunched over, leaning on a cane. Her brown skin was deeply wrinkled, her hair wispy and white. She must have been in her nineties. As she shuffled forth, her bracelets of tin and copper jangled.
When she reached Ramses, the old woman raised her head. He saw that she was blind, her pupils hidden behind milky cataracts. She reached out knobby fingers and jabbed his face.
"Good afternoon, ma'am," Ramses said. "I'm pleased to meet you. My name is—"
"Hush!" She frowned and kept rubbing her nubby fingers over his features. Finally she turned toward the others. "He feels human enough to me."
Amon grunted. "We know that Xerka, the Queen of Serpents, can take human form. This one too came from the sky. My daughter saw him fall. He must be one of them. A basilisk."
Growls and curses rose across the village. People whispered about a cursed word, about the serpents who must not be named. Men raised whips and blades, and children cowered.
"I assure you, I'm no Ra damn serpent," Ramses said. "I'm a paragon of humanity and manhood! And, if I might add, rather a splendid specimen too."
The old woman slapped him—hard. "Silence! Do not speak of Ra here. He is a wicked, forgetful god who abandoned us. We worship only Mother Gaea. I will not allow you to blaspheme here."
Ramses fumed. An instinct to fight rose in him. He was a senior officer in the Human Defense Force. Before that, he had been a captain in the Heirs of Earth. He had spent two decades battling scorpions and basilisks—foes far worse than a few villagers. He wanted to lunge at that bearded brute, grab a sword, and tear through his tormentors.
But he forced himself to take deep breaths, to calm himself.
"You are not my enemies," Ramses said. "You are humans. A human must never hurt another human. We have a common enemy, one you named. The basilisks!"
Nenet stared at him with her blind eyes. Her brow furrowed.
"I see honesty in you." She nodded. "I see goodness and courage. There are ways to see without eyes. You speak truth."
"Grandmother!" Najila stepped forward. The young woman's cheeks were flushed, her eyes flaming. "You cannot believe him! He's deceiving you—like he tried to deceive me. We have to inspect him for scales." Her flush deepened. "All of him."
Nenet turned toward her granddaughter. "There are places I cannot see, and I will not touch."
The old woman might have been blind, but Ramses swore he saw a twinkle in her eyes.
Najila groaned. "Fine! I'll do it." She turned toward Ramses and her eyes hardened. "Remove your clothes."
"No coffee date first?" Ramses said. "Not even a kiss?"
The young woman sneered. "Do it! Or I'll have my brothers whip them off."
"Kinky, but I think I'll pass on the whips," Ramses said. "Very well! I shall let you feast your eyes upon the greatest work of art you've ever seen, rivaling even the sphinx."
He undressed, held out his arms, and turned around slowly. Many in the crowd looked away, abashed, while mothers covered the eyes of their children. A few women tittered.
Najila huffed, moved closer, and examined his body. She even reached out to touch his skin. A few young women stepped forward to help her, then retreated, blushing, as their fathers scolded them.
"See?" Ramses said. "No scales."
Najila backed away and crossed her arms. She looked at her grandmother. "He's clean. But I still don't trust him. If he's not a child of Gaea—where did he come from?"
Ramses tilted his head. He looked at Najila, then at her grandmother, then at the rest of them. He pulled on his clothes, contemplating. Could it be?
Finally, he gave voice to the suspicion that had been brewing inside him.
"You were born on Earth." The thought spun his head, but Ramses plowed on. "Your parents were too. And their pa
rents before them. Your people—the children of Gaea. You were never exiled, were you? Two thousand years ago, when the Hydrian Empire destroyed the world—you stayed here."
Nenet stared at him with those milky white eyes. She nodded. "We stayed."
Ramses felt dizzy. He clutched his head and sat down hard.
"I think," he said, "that we need some coffee—and a long talk."
As the sun set, the villagers brewed coffee in silver dallahs, much like the decorative pot Ramses had carried with him throughout his exile. But he had always drunk coffee made from mocha-flavored powder created in chemical mixers. Here was the real thing—hot, thick, bitter, and heavenly. Several young women served spiced chickpeas, roasted fowl, and flatbread dipped in olive oil. As they served Ramses, the maidens shyly lowered their eyes, then retreated in fits of giggles.
Ramses spent an hour telling his tale. About how humanity had survived in space, cowering, dying, fighting. About the great Heirs of Earth and the legendary Old Lion. About humans finally returning from exile, colonizing the world again.
For a long time, they listened. The children gasped when Ramses told of great space battles. A blushing woman asked Ramses to strip naked again so she could examine him for scales—just to be safe. Everyone lowered their heads and shed tears when they heard of the gulocks, of the scorpions butchering millions.
"And so we've returned to rebuild," Ramses said. "To raise humanity again on Earth. We didn't know humans were already here."
Elderly Nenet turned toward her granddaughter. "Najila, will you share our tale with Ramses? My voice is weary, and yours is young."
Najila sat by the campfire, wrapped in a robe, a mug of spiced wine in her hands. All her earlier fury and fear were gone. The firelight painted her young, fair face.
She's beautiful, Ramses thought. This village, this river, this world—it's so beautiful. Well, maybe not Amon. But the rest is quite lovely.
Najila spoke softly, gazing into the fire.
"We too have tales of the squids," she said. "You called them the Hydrians. In our lore, we call them the Amitites, the soul-eaters. They appear in our ancient texts—demons who descended from the sky, who flooded the world with a great sea. Most of the world drowned. In our tales, some humans grew wings and flew away from the flooded world. The winged ones were believed to have settled among the stars. I now believe those tales were about your people, Ramses."
The War for Earth (Children of Earthrise Book 4) Page 22
