An evil-looking blur.
He was about to scream out, his eyes widening as the huge black orb began walking over his shoulder, but suddenly a flash of metal flew across his vision. He flinched, but the weapon whooshed past him, inches away from his face, carrying the bug with it.
And the knife had sliced a small wound into the meat of his shoulder.
He pulled back. The injury stung, but it was better than dying at the hands of — whatever the insect had been.
“Um, thanks?” Baahir said, unsure of what to say.
Ali passed by the Egyptologist to retrieve his blade and slapped him on the shoulder. Baahir cringed.
“Did I get you?” Ali asked, looking at his hand. He found blood.
“Yeah, but it’s fine — I’m fine.”
Ali wiped it off on his pants. “You need to work on your reflexes.”
“You need to work on your aim,” Baahir mumbled.
“What was it?” Zahra asked, checking on her brother.
Ali paused where his knife had come to rest. “You, my friend, should count yourself lucky.” He picked up both the blade and the creature.
“What is that?” Baahir asked, squinting in the low light. From this distance, he couldn’t identify the thing that Ali had impaled.
“Androctonus… very dangerous.”
“Andro-what-now?” Baahir asked. He didn’t recognize the name.
“Androctonus,” Rabia repeated. “They’re also known as ‘man-killers.’ They’re one of the deadliest species of scorpions on the planet.”
“Scorpions?” Baahir felt the blood drain from his face. He knew how deadly the ones in this region were. “How — how are they still here?”
Zahra answered. “Very likely that the builders of this place put a nest inside the walls. It offered enough protection for the little creatures, so they stayed. Their whole colony is here, feeding off their dead comrades, waiting for someone to come.”
“So, they could rain down on my head,” Baahir said.
Rabia nodded. “You should consider yourself fortunate. I doubt anyone besides Ali could have made that throw.”
Baahir swallowed back his fear. “What about you?”
She patted her rifle. “I prefer guns.”
Baahir faced Ali and raised a shaky hand. “Uh, thanks again.”
He gave Baahir a playful wink. “Any time.”
The others continued to look around, marveling at the artistry of the pictographs. Baahir, on the other hand, didn’t give a damn about artistry. He was still shaken up by the scorpion incident, and what it meant.
That was certainly not the only booby trap we’re going to come across.
He stood by the exit, applying pressure to his shoulder wound, and when he became too antsy, he voiced his discomfort.
“Can we go, please?” he said, eyeing the ceiling.
He was answered by soft laughter and approaching feet. Soon, the foursome was on the move again, descending another spiraling set of steps. It too wound around like a corkscrew, but instead of ending at a second circular chamber, they exited into a long narrow cavern.
“Woah,” Baahir said. The grandness of the space devoured his voice.
Zahra and Rabia stepped around Baahir, joining him on either side.
His sister craned her neck back. “Definitely, ‘woah.’”
Chapter 93
Zahra
The ceiling above the space Zahra was standing in now was made up of countless crags and stalactites. The latter had formed thousands of years ago, back when water was plentiful in northern Africa. Ground-penetrating radar confirmed that much of the Sahara had been flooded for thousands of years. There was even evidence of riverbeds beneath the sand, and she had heard a theory that Atlantis had once been in that same body of water.
Some believed that Thoth, the Egyptian god of science, mathematics, and writing, had come from a majestic empire located there.
A kingdom to the west of the lands of Egypt, Zahra thought, recalling something her mother had said.
Zahra had always thought it was interesting that most ancient civilizations talked of a great teacher coming from a kingdom in the middle of an ocean. Their technological advancements and progressions were similar, yet they had never had contact with other civilizations.
“You hear that?” Baahir asked.
Zahra had not. She had been too lost in her own head.
But she did now, and the constant white noise disturbed her.
Then, it was gone.
“It’s not water,” Ali said from the rear of the group. He had stayed back near the base of the stairs.
“Agreed,” Zahra said, inching forward.
She swept her light back and forth, but found nothing except for a long, thin landbridge. On either side of it was nothing. The ground just disappeared into the abyss. So, she focused on what she could see. The bridge.
“We need to cross.”
Baahir snorted out a laugh. “Yeah, okay…” Zahra turned and looked at him. “Oh, you’re serious?”
“There’s no other way,” Rabia added. “If Khaliq came this way, he would have crossed here too.”
“He did.”
Everyone followed Zahra’s flashlight beam, seeing what she had spotted in the dusty stone pathway. Two sets of footprints beckoned them along.
“Khaliq and… Feroz… I think,” Baahir said, sounding unsure of the second man’s name.
She cautiously took another step out onto the bridge. It held her weight fine, so she kept going. The others followed her, but wisely kept their distance from one another. If someone should fall, they could inadvertently drag someone else along for the ride. Zahra’s light struck the bottom of the pit, but there was only blackness to greet it. She paid it no attention and returned her light to the bridge. They were a third of the way across when Zahra stopped.
“That can’t be good.”
Everyone leaned around her to see what she was looking at. A piece of the bridge had broken and collapsed into the pit on the left side of the chamber.
She lifted her foot but placed it right back down. Her light had shifted back to the path, and she noticed something. Only one set of prints continued past the breakage.
“Someone fell in,” she announced softly.
Zahra edged right and shuffled forward, thinking lightweight thoughts. The bridge was still two feet wide where it had failed, giving the group plenty of room to pass. Their speed was good — slow and steady.
And with the next step she took, the bridge crumbled beneath Zahra’s feet.
She worked her arms as she lost her balance, but it was no use.
Zahra fell.
Chapter 94
Zahra
Zahra flailed wildly as she entered the abyss. She was close enough to the bridge that she hit the side of it, then noticed it began to slope outward as it met the floor of the cave. She tumbled end over end, but it was like falling down the edge of a half-pipe.
She’d get a few more bruises, but at least she would live.
Twenty feet later, Zahra’s feet touched down, then her ass. Her momentum sent her tumbling down the embankment. She landed on her stomach, covered in dust and grime. She just laid there and silently assessed the damage. Nothing felt broken, though she was definitely bleeding from several new spots.
“Zahra!” Baahir yelled, finding her with his light. Two more beams landed on her, and she turned over onto her back and lifted a feeble hand, and waved. “Oh my God, you’re alive!”
“Yeah…” she mumbled. “I’m still here.”
A sound like sizzling electricity filled the cavern, echoing all around Zahra. She sat up fast and discovered that she wasn’t alone. There were other bodies with her, and one was fresh and had been picked apart.