❝death is only the beginning.❞
Mara El-Masri's fascination with the long-ago world of ancient Egypt started with the stories her stepfather would tell her when she was a child. Her brother Talib El-Masri is missing, left after their mother's funera...
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SUNSET CAME FAR QUICKER THAN MARA EXPECTED. With it darkness fell across the oasis, the sounds of night clearer as danger approached. It wouldn't be long until Alex was in their sights and soon back in his parents' arms. That also meant it wouldn't be long until they saw Imhotep again or until the Scorpion King woke for the first time in four thousand years. The sky may have already been pitch black, but things were about to get far darker than before.
They found some higher ground to recoup after the crash and came up with the new plan now that they were at Ahm-Shere. It didn't take very long to agree on one: while Mara, Jonathan, and Evy were to provide backup from above, the ridge they were currently standing on, Rick, Jamil, and Ardeth were to be on the ground in the middle of it. Once Alex was safe, Jamil and Ardeth would be leaving to prepare for the fight against the Army of Anubis should it arise, and then the priority for the rest of them would be the golden pyramid to their west and the scepter Jonathan had stolen back from Izzy, to see if Mara's theory was right. Hopefully by the time this was all over, Izzy would have the dirigible fixed and ready to take them far away from the oasis.
Mara slung the quiver around her, adjusting it on her back so that she would be able to reach it easier when needed. She had about two dozen arrows to spare, maybe a bit more, which meant she had less to fight with than the others with their guns and bullets. She'd have to be careful when choosing when to shoot if she wanted to leave the oasis with at least one arrow left. She still remembered fighting Imhotep's priests at Hamunaptra and realizing she was out of arrows when one was about to stab her with a khopesh. She didn't want to repeat that experience.
"You hear that?" Rick asked suddenly.
"What?" Ardeth said.
"Nothing. Absolutely nothing."
Mara glanced at the trees below them, taking a shaky breath. It would be one thing if they could hear Imhotep and the cultists or even see them, or any of the animals Ahm-Shere had within its habitat, but all there was to be heard was silence and hardly anything but. It made the place much more foreboding than it had been before. Mara hadn't thought that possible.
Mara started to reach into the bag for her wooden bow, thankful that it like the arrows hadn't been broken in the crash, when she heard Jonathan say from her left, "My word. I say, chaps, look at this. Mara, come see this."
"What is it?" Mara asked him, briefly leaving the bag to go see what he wanted her to.
Jonathan had pulled aside a curtain of vines against the rocky wall to reveal that inside were multiple shrunken heads, at least thirty by her count, all arranged neatly in the concave they had been put in. An odd sight indeed for where they were—who had put these there? Jonathan didn't seem to think it was as odd as she did, because he added, "Shrunken heads. I'd love to know how they do that."
