Shadow of the Storm Lord

by Dan Hunter

  Manu rooted through his bag of scrolls and fished out a map. “To the north, past the great sand sea. There’s a ring of huge sand dunes, big enough to be called mountains. The Temple is right in the middle.”

  “Is it a long journey?” Akori asked.

  “The longest we’ve had to make,” Manu replied, “and probably the hardest.”

  As they readied themselves for the trip, loading up on water and food, a bleak mood hung over them. Usually, there would have been excitement, jokes, and a babble of random information from Manu about this or that. But this time, although nobody was saying so out loud, Akori could tell they were all badly shaken. Set’s appearance had cast a dark shadow over everything.

  Akori made sure he had all of his magical gifts. The Talisman of Ra, which could focus the power of the sun, hung round his neck. On his finger gleamed the Ring of Isis, which could make the wearer invisible. He placed the Scarab of Anubis in the pouch tied around his waist, remembering how its power to heal wounds had saved their lives before. On his left arm he bore the Shield of Sekhmet, which could deflect even the hardest blows, and would protect the bearer from evil magic. Lastly, he strapped to his belt the very first gift he’d received – the golden khopesh sword Horus had given him.

  The High Priest blessed the three friends before they departed. Then they walked from the Temple into the bright light of day. Their journey would lead them up the course of the Nile and into desert country. There was a great distance to travel.

  They headed past open fields where crops were growing, and saw ships going to and fro along the water. Although the sky was clear and the peaceful waters of the Nile glittered under the sun, the people they passed all looked nervous and scared. There was none of the usual chatter and laughter coming from the boats. There were no children playing by the water’s edge. After the recent drought and flood, and the dead rising from their tombs, it was as if the whole of Egypt was waiting to see what new evil Set would unleash next.

  Akori marched on. Surely if they were brave and determined enough, they could defeat this last and greatest evil?

  Then, from somewhere high above, he heard a faint noise. It was the horribly familiar braying laugh of Set, very far away. Ebe grabbed Akori’s arm and pointed wildly at the sky. He looked up. There in the huge gulf of clear blue sky was one sinister thundercloud, a huge gathering mass of darkness.

  Akori rubbed his eyes and looked again. Storm clouds on a clear day? That wasn’t possible. He had to be seeing things...

  The next second, a blinding flash of lightning ripped the sky in half!

  The three friends waited for the storm to break. But no rain came.

  “W-what was that?” Manu stammered.

  Ebe stared nervously at the sky.

  Akori frowned. “I think it was a warning,” he replied.

  “A warning?” Manu said.

  “Yes.” Akori gripped his shield tightly. “From Set.”

  Many hours had passed. There had been no more lightning bolts, but the black cloud was still in the sky, spread out like a dark stain on a blue silk sheet. There was no way to deny it – the cloud was following them, and it seemed to have grown even larger.

  The trio had been walking all day, with only short stops for food and water. They had left the Nile behind them long ago. Now, in the midst of the great sand sea, they were finally within sight of the mountains. They loomed up ahead, dark against the blue sky. Away in the west, the sun was descending towards the horizon.

  “They look like a wall,” Akori said.

  “In some ways, they are,” said Manu. “Set likes his temples to be in lonely places, where only his chosen few can reach him.”

  “But there has to be a way in!” said Akori. “Come on. Let’s scout around and see if we can find a path.” He glanced over his shoulder. As he had expected, the thundercloud was still looming above them. Warily, Akori set off across the foothills.

  “Maybe things won’t be so bad after all,” Manu said as they walked.

  “What makes you say that?” Akori asked with a frown.

  “We’re almost at the Temple, and nothing’s tried to stop us!” Manu replied. “Every other time we’ve headed out to rescue one of the Gods, some kind of terrible beast has tried to kill us. Cobras, crocodiles, lizards...and that horrible giant hunting dog, Am-Heh. He nearly devoured all of us!”

  Akori glanced up at the black cloud. It seemed to be getting closer. He shook his head and kept walking. No matter what Manu said, he knew they weren’t going to have it easy. Set was not going to give up Horus without a fight.

  The sun was nearly at the horizon, and though they had trudged for hours they had still found no way through the mountains. Struggling across the dunes was hard work and they were making little progress.

  “I have to rest soon,” Manu groaned, squinting up at the looming wall of sand. “I can’t go on like this!”

  Ebe nodded. Her hair was plastered to her forehead with sweat.

  “We have to keep going!” Akori said. “We can’t be caught out here when night falls. Who knows what could come looking for us this close to the Temple of Set?”

  “You think we’ll be any safer inside the Temple?” grumbled Manu. He was about to walk on when Akori stopped him.

  “Wait,” Akori said. “Maybe we do need to rest. What’s the use in arriving at the Temple if we’re too exhausted to fight? We’ll stop for some water and then press on.”

  They sat down, grateful for the chance to rest their aching feet. As Manu passed the waterskins around, Akori looked up at the setting sun to see how much daylight they had left.

  A dark shape moved across the horizon. Akori squinted and saw that it was a rider on a horse, only a dozen paces away!

  Startled, he leaped to his feet and yelled, brandishing his sword at the figure. How had he not heard them coming?

  “Peace be with you, young ones!” called a gentle female voice. “Put down your sword. We mean you no harm.”

  The rider approached, and Akori saw that there was a second rider behind her. Both were hooded women with long flowing cloaks. Their saddles were hung with hundreds of silver coins threaded together. There was a strange, unearthly beauty about the women. Their lips were full, their features proud and regal. Their dark skin glimmered with rich cosmetics, so they had to be very wealthy. Akori thought they might be high Egyptian nobility – princesses, maybe, or even queens.

  Manu and Ebe scrambled to their feet as the women approached.

  “Who are you?” Akori shouted. He wasn’t putting his sword away just yet, he decided.

  The woman in front halted her horse and smiled. Her skin glittered with powdered gold, and her eyes were a deep dark blue. Akori stared at her, suspicious but still amazed. She was more beautiful than any woman he had ever seen in his life.

  “We are travellers like yourselves!” she answered. “We ride from Heliopolis, the City of the Sun.”

  “And you?” said the second rider, who had halted alongside. She was just as beautiful as her companion. Her eyes were green and her skin sparkled with silver. “This is a lonely place for three children to be out wandering.”

  “We are not children, and our business is our own,” Akori said gruffly.

  “Akori!” said Manu, shocked. “Where are your manners?”

  But the women just laughed in a friendly way, as if Akori had made a joke.

  “We do not blame you for being cautious!” said the blue-eyed one. “The desert is a strange and haunted place, especially after dark. It is wise to be wary.”

  Akori glanced up at the sky. The sinister cloud was still above them – bigger and blacker than ever.

  “And travellers must look out for one another,” said the woman with green eyes. “That is the custom in the desert. Come, can we not offer you a ride? Your feet look sore, and we do not mind walking for a while.”

  “Well, my feet are very sore,” Manu began. “What do you say, Akori?”

  Akori g
lanced at Ebe. She still looked very tired. At least if they got a ride they would have more energy to fight. “All right,” he said warily.

  “We’re heading for the Temple of Set, and we need to get there as quickly as we can,” Manu said to the women.

  “Climb aboard!” they replied, and gracefully dismounted. The horses were huge elegant beasts, covered in glossy black hair, but they snuffled in a friendly way as the trio approached. Ebe reached up to stroke one of them on the nose.

  Akori climbed onto the lead horse, while Manu and Ebe clambered onto the other. Soon they were trotting briskly across the sand, with the women striding alongside.

  “This beats walking, eh, Akori?” Manu called out.

  Akori remained silent. He was glad to be off his feet, but he felt that something wasn’t quite right. The women hadn’t reacted at all when Manu said they were going to the Temple of Set. Surely any right-minded desert traveller would at least shudder when you spoke of Set? He was the most evil of all the Gods. Either the women didn’t know this...or they had no reason to fear him. The second possibility bothered him most.

  Before long, they found the long-awaited entrance to the ring of sandy mountains. A narrow pass lay between two of the huge peaks, gaping like a hungry mouth. The women guided the horses down into the deepening shadow. With every step the horses took, Akori felt more and more anxious. Why were the women not afraid?

  There was hardly any light now. The mountains blotted out what little sun there was, so that they were riding into almost total darkness. Akori tightened his grip on the leather saddle. He was sure they were being watched. On the rocky walls to either side, the shadows seemed to be moving. Out of the corner of his eye, Akori thought he saw a deformed, inhuman head peer at him as he went by. When he glanced at it, it vanished.

  Without warning, they emerged from the other end of the mountain pass. They had arrived in an open area like a great crater in the midst of the mountains. There in the centre loomed a jagged black structure. It had five towers, and looked strangely like a clawed hand clutching up from the earth. The Temple of Set!

  “Almost there now!” Manu called out to Akori. “Nice to travel in style for once, isn’t it? Makes the journey fly past!”

  The woman down below Akori looked over her shoulder. But she wasn’t looking at Akori. She was looking up at the sky, and she was smiling – a horrible, sinister smile.

  Akori followed her gaze with horror. Directly above them, the black cloud that had been following them for the entire journey still hovered. Only it wasn’t a shapeless cloud any more. It had formed into the shape of a snout-faced beast, the ears long, the deep eyes crackling with red lightning. Akori had seen that face before, glaring at him out of the fire. It was the face of Set!

  The echo of braying laughter resounded round the valley, closer and louder now. The blue-eyed woman turned to her companion and nodded.

  The green-eyed woman reached up and pulled back her hood. Akori stared at her in disbelief. Sprouting from her forehead were two long, curved horns!

  The horned woman grinned, showing sharp, leopard-like teeth. Behind her on his horse, completely unaware of what was going on, Manu was shouting enthusiastically.

  “We’ve reached the Temple already!” he cried, leaning gratefully against the horse’s neck. “Thank you so much for bringing us here, it was so kind of—”

  “Manu!” Akori yelled. “They’re not what they seem! Look!”

  Before Manu had a chance to react, the horned woman shouted some strange harsh-sounding words to the horses.

  Immediately the horses started to rear up and neigh, bucking wildly. Steam hissed from their huge nostrils, steam that smelled fouler than rotting flesh. Manu nearly went flying. Ebe grabbed fistfuls of mane and clung on tight. The creature bellowed in pain. Manu caught Ebe around the waist and managed to stay on the horse’s back – just.

  Akori desperately hung on to his saddle. The horse bucked and tossed like a ship in a storm, snorting and thrashing this way and that. Akori tried to see what the sinister women were doing, but it was hard enough just staying on the horse’s back. One thing he knew for sure was that there was going to be a fight, and he had to arm himself!

  Gripping the saddle with his legs, he clutched the Shield of Sekhmet in one hand and drew his golden khopesh sword with the other. Just then, the horse reared like a striking snake. Akori lost his grip on his khopesh and it went flying end over end, landing somewhere in the sand behind him.

  The women were removing their hoods and cloaks now, and Akori could see their faces changing in the half-light. Their chins lengthened and became pointed. Their cheeks grew hollow and their eyes turned into long narrow slits. They hissed and snarled, licking their lips. Beneath their robes, they wore battle armour made of polished leather. Each one carried a matching spear, long and slender with a gleaming knife-like tip.

  “Time to die!” hissed the nearest one, hurling her spear right at Akori as if she were spearing a fish!

  He only had one chance. He let go of the saddle and leaned backwards out of the way. The spear went whistling past, almost grazing his chest.

  The woman-creature clicked her tongue angrily, and the spear was suddenly in her hand again.

  Akori tried to regain his grip on the saddle, but the horse could feel he was loose and bucked hard. He felt himself flying through the air, then he landed with an agonizing whump on the ground.

  His side ached, but he couldn’t help that now. If he stayed there he was a sitting target. Those spears would be through his ribs in seconds. He fought to sit up – and then everything was plunged into darkness.

  Akori stumbled to his feet. He could barely see a thing. He knew he hadn’t gone blind, because he could just make out the outline of the horse looming over him. But why was it suddenly as black as midnight? Was this some kind of sorcery? And what had happened to Manu and Ebe?

  Akori looked up and saw a thick layer of darkness above him glimmering with lightning. In a flash he understood. The black cloud that had been following them all day had come down out of the sky. Now it was completely covering the hollow in the middle of the ring of mountains. It was like a lid on a pot, blocking out all the sunlight.

  Somewhere in the darkness, Manu cried out. There was a thump, followed by another. He and Ebe must have been thrown from their horse, like Akori had been. He had to move fast. He could see the demonic women now, standing out darkly like silhouettes, their spears raised. They were closing in on Manu and Ebe!

  First he had to find his khopesh. Akori looked around, peering through the darkness, trying to see where it had landed. A glimmer of lightning from above gave a split second of light – just enough for Akori to see his precious sword gleaming from the side of a dune. He ran and snatched it up.

  When he turned back he could see shadowy figures flailing about in the darkness. The women snarled and hissed while the horses snorted and stamped. Manu yelled and Ebe screamed as they tried to fight them off.

  Akori moved closer, khopesh and shield at the ready, every muscle tense.

  “We’ve been tricked!” Manu wailed. “I know who they are.”

  Akori said nothing. He didn’t want to give his position away. If the women didn’t know where he was, he’d have the benefit of surprise.

  “They’re two of Set’s wives!” Manu yelled. “Anat and Astarte, the warrior Goddesses!”

  “And you,” hissed a cruel voice, “are our prey.”

  “And our prey,” another voice growled, “never escapes alive!”

  The women suddenly spun away from Manu and Ebe and came racing towards Akori. They had known he was there all along! A spear came whirring out of the darkness, aimed at his heart.

  Akori raised the Shield of Sekhmet just in time. The spear struck it with full force and shattered into splinters.

  He heard Anat scream in rage. “My war-spear! You will pay for that!”

  She came charging at him, panting heavily, her head lowered, her sha
rp horns ready to impale him. Akori stood braced to meet her charge. As she thrust her horns at him, Akori ran and leaped into the air, flipped head over heels and landed behind her. With a yell he spun around and hacked at Anat’s side. The blade of his khopesh bit deep into her armour and she howled in pain. But now Astarte was flanking him, readying her own spear. Akori tensed, as if he were getting ready to leap again. Astarte grinned. She threw the spear – but Akori ducked instead of jumping and the spear flew high over his head. If he’d leaped, it would have pierced right through his stomach and out the other side. Astarte gave a cheated snarl.

  Still hissing and clutching her wound, Anat retreated into the darkness, leaving Akori to face Astarte. Akori felt a brief flash of triumph. Astarte was a terrifying foe, but at least she was now alone.

  Astarte began running at him, gripping her spear with both hands, its point aimed at his chest. Akori raised the Shield of Sekhmet, more grateful than ever for its protection now he had seen what it could do. But at the last minute, Astarte dug the spear point into the sand like a pole vault. The long spear flexed, and she came flying through the air at him!

  Akori covered himself with the shield just in time. Astarte landed on him with a tremendous crash, knocking him to the ground. She loomed over him, her horned image even darker than the storm cloud above. Akori rolled aside as her spear stabbed down at him again and again.

  Thinking fast, he quickly twisted the Ring of Isis and vanished, becoming invisible. Then he rolled over and over until he was well out of spear range. He heard Astarte cursing and lunging randomly at the sand, trying to find him.

  Scrambling to his feet, he ran into the dark. He had to find Manu and Ebe and get them out of there before it was too late! But how could he guide them if they couldn’t see him? He twisted the ring again and became visible.

  A flash of lightning lit up the whole region. Akori saw Manu less than a spear’s throw away. His face was frozen in panic and his hands were raised as if to ward off something terrible. The next moment, Akori saw Anat charging at his friend. Akori gave a cry and began to run to Manu’s aid, but it was hopeless. More lightning lit up the deadly scene. Manu cowered…Anat’s horns struck…they speared through Manu’s body. She flung him upward like a bull tossing a victim.