The Nubian city of Napata dazzled Beowulf beyond belief. Its rows of towering mud-brick houses were unlike the small, simple timber huts of his homeland's villages. Beowulf was even more impressed with the colossal limestone temples, colonnades, and idols scattered throughout the city. Not only were they huge, but they were intricately decorated with hieroglyphs and colorful murals. The population, too, amazed him. Formed of slender people with dark brown skin and woolly black hair, it must have numbered in the thousands, enough to fill whole nations of villages.
As awestruck as Beowulf was, he too was a source of curiosity for the Nubian citizenry, who could not help but stare at him as he navigated the city. Beowulf was a muscular, broad-shouldered man with sun-reddened skin, icy blue eyes, and a great red beard. He wore a conical, horned helmet and a suit of iron chainmail over a buckskin tunic. A longsword lay in a scabbard attached to his belt.
Beowulf passed a wooden sign that read "Bazaar" in hieroglyphs and entered a long street where merchants had set up their stalls. The odors of exotic foods and spices filled the street. Roadside musicians pounded on drums and blew flutes to attract passerby's money. The merchants, too, made a lot of noise, calling out to Beowulf to advertise their products. Beowulf ignored them. He was not interested in food, jewelry, pots, or anything else most of the merchants had to offer. He was looking for one thing: a woman to keep him warm at night.
At last, Beowulf reached a stall labeled "Djadao's Brothel", where a big fat merchant stood calling out to him. Beowulf approached this merchant.
"Well, who comes to Djadao today?" the merchant greeted him, "You sure look like you've come a long way."
"I am Beowulf," Odgar answered, "I hail from Geatland, to the far north of here."
"All the way from Geatland, huh? Well, what brings you to Nubia?"
"I come seeking adventure---and I hear your women are among the finest, too."
Djadao laughed, the rolls of his massive belly rippling. "You have good taste for a northern man. Well, if you're looking for fine Nubian women, you've come to the right place. You can have one woman for one night for ten gold coins."
Beowulf reached into a sack attached to his belt, pulled out a handful of gold coins, and counted them one by one.
"Odin be damned, I've only six coins," he said sheepishly, "You wouldn't happen to know how I could get four more, would you?"
Djadao hesitated for a moment, then said, "Hmm…you look like a warrior type, judging from the sword you carry. I know of a way a man like you can make some money around here, but I warn you, it's quite dangerous."
"I don't mind danger. I've fought myself out of the jaws of death many times before."
"Well then, here it goes: out in the desert east of here, there lurks a gang of bandits who call themselves the Golden Hyenas. They've been harassing caravans and gold-mining operations. If you can bring their leader back alive to the Palace, the Pharaoh will pay you enough gold to buy all my women."
Beowulf grinned as he imagined how much gold that must have been.
"I'll do it," he declared.
"That's the spirit! Just remember to return to my brothel when you come back---if you come back."
##
The desert that stretched east of Napata was a very uneven environment of yellow sand dunes and craggy cliffs. Huge boulders were strewn everywhere, as were scattered clusters of acacia trees and scrub. Beowulf stole cautiously through this terrain, carefully surveying his surroundings. Although he wore a stoic expression on his face, his spine felt cold, for he knew that bandits could easily hide here.
Something cracked under Beowulf's leather shoe.
Beowulf jerked his head down and saw that he had stepped on the skull of a human skeleton bleached white by the sun. He examined the skull and noticed that an arrow stuck out of it. The person to whom this skeleton belonged had been shot dead by some kind of archer---perhaps a bandit! Beowulf reasoned that the bandit camp was therefore nearby.
Beowulf looked up and saw the entrance to a natural corridor between two cliffs ahead of him. He guessed that the bandits were settled on the other side of this corridor, so he entered it. He was even more alert now, scrutinizing not only the rocks lying around the corridor, but also the lips of the cliffs above. If the bandits had bows and arrows, he figured, they could attack him from atop the cliffs.
Beowulf heard the sound of footsteps on the sandy corridor floor.
He halted and jerked his head side to side, searching for whoever had made that sound. He saw nothing. Beowulf grabbed the hilt of his sword and unsheathed it in preparation for battle.
"Who goes there?" Beowulf called out, "Show yourself!"
A horrible screech answered Beowulf, echoing off the cliffs. It sounded inhuman, almost like the screech of an angry chimpanzee.
More screeches followed as a horde of dark shapes erupted from behind rocks around Beowulf. From a distance, the shapes looked like those of humans, albeit shambling and dwarfish ones, but as they charged towards Beowulf, it became apparent that they weren't human at all. Most of their bodies were covered with thick black hair, and their dark grey faces were those of apes rather than humans. Their screeching mouths, stinking of rotting flesh, bore fangs like yellow daggers. Their red eyes burned with hunger.
One of the apes swung a large bone like a war club at Beowulf. Beowulf blocked the bone with his sword. The bone was cut into two upon touching the blade's edge. Beowulf then raised his sword and thrust it into the ape's mouth. The sword's bloody point went through flesh and bone and came out at the back of the ape's head. Beowulf withdrew the sword and swung it again at more apes, cleaving their heads off.
Beowulf drew his sword back for another swing, but then he felt a great weight land onto his back. One of the apes had leapt onto him from behind and was now ascending him. The ape grabbed his helmet by the horns, threw it off, and struck his head with a blunt bone. The force of the hit was such that Beowulf lost some consciousness and fell to the ground.
The clamoring troop of apes gathered around Beowulf and pounded his chainmail with bones and sticks. At first the chainmail withstood the apes' attacks, but as the pounding went on it got worn. One ape raised a bone high in the air, ready to send it crashing onto Beowulf's skull.
There was a whistle, and then an arrow went into the ape's skull. The other apes stopped pounding Beowulf and turned to see a squad of Nubian men armed with bows, firing arrows at them. The apes charged towards the Nubians, screeching with bloodlust and brandishing their bones and sticks. When the apes came too close to be shot at, the Nubians put their bows away, unsheathed scimitars, and collided with the apes.
The Nubian scimitars sliced through the hairy horde, staining the sandy corridor floor red with the apes' blood. Ape after ape fell until there were only less than a dozen left. By that point, the apes finally relented. They dropped their crude weapons, spun around, and fled the corridor, shrieking in panic.
The Nubians walked over the litter of ape bodies to where Beowulf lay and curiously studied him. One of them found his sword and helmet and presented it to Beowulf.
"Are these yours?" the Nubian asked Beowulf.
"Yes," Beowulf groaned, "Thank you for saving me."
With the Nubians assisting him, Beowulf got back onto his feet, groaning because of the pain the apes had inflicted onto him. Looking around at his rescuers, he noticed that they had gold-colored tattoos in the shape of hyenas' faces on their shoulders.
"Golden Hyenas," Beowulf gasped, "You're the infamous Golden Hyenas! I've been looking for you!"
He angrily thrust his sword just an inch shy of one of the Nubians' necks.
"Please withdraw that sword," the Nubian said, "We are not who you think we are, northerner."
"Then what are you, praytell?"
"All will be explained when we show you to our leader. Please follow us."
The Golden Hyenas began to walk down the corridor. Beowulf sheathed his sword and followed them.