Egypt
I love this job. I have always been in love with it. I don't know what I'd do without it to be honest. She drives me, feeds me, powers me and loves me. Where am I going to be tomorow? Next week? Next Month? I never know, and it's great. Right now, I am in Cairo. What a great place to be, good weather, friendly locals but the most important thing is what their is to discover. You may have seen films and read in books how Egypt is a place of wonder, of mummys and pharoahs. And you would be right, as it so happens I'm here on a dig right now. I've been to Cairo seven times and each time it was for a dig. One day I hope to come here while not working. More time to relax etc etc. My being here this time is because a russian investor by the name of Roman Kulikov offered the pretty sum of $2million, to the museum, if they could send a digging team to search and ultimately find the tomb of Hathor. The thing is, Hathor doesn't exist, well not until recently.
Hathor is an Egyptian goddess and as has been said, is a myth and for hundreds of years people heard the stories connected with her. Recently a "relic" was found in Thebes dating hundreds of years old and this "relic" was a Canopic Jar with the name of Hathor engraved on the side. Now you may or may not know that when some-one of importance was mummified in ancient Egypt their organs are placed in jars known as "Canopic Jars". The jars would be of great value nowadays. The one that was found fetched a hefty fee I can tell you. So Romans idea is that if he finds the tomb of Hathor, he'll find the other Jars, jewels and gold you would find in her tomb and become even richer than before. Money is everything to these people it seems. I am sceptical about our chances of finding this tomb, I still stick to my facts and history that state that Hathor is a MYTH and cannot be found. I've been working for the musem in London for about 6 years now. I'm the field guy. it's the best job. I get to travel the world recovering artefacts, bringing them back to the musuem and thus bringing the city of London that little bit of knowledge it so badly needs. My hope is that we can take the $2million, dig for a while and find something that may please him. The dig is scheduled to last for a month. If nothing at all is found after that, I'm leaving.
One thing I dislike about Cairo is the hotels. I'm not sure they can even be called hotels. The stereotypical view of a hotel is very very far from the hole that is my room. It's a 30 minute car ride from the site to my hotel and so by the time I got to the hotel I was considerably knackered. My bed was lumpy, sweaty and small. There was no point in bed sheets because it was too hot for them and so all you could do was lie on the mattress. But I wasn't really complaining. I was tired enough to sleep in the sand, and so looking forward to tomorrow and the slight possibility that we might find something I fell asleep. But after what must have been only thirty minutes my eyes forced their way open. I was dreaming surely, as I looked upon my window, a black mass was coming through it blocking out the little light that was still outside. That mass quickly took shape. It was a person, black cloth covering their whole body. Surely this was a dream, it's just the heat. The black mass spoke with a deep, slow, sand-papered voice.
"Stop the dig. Leave Egypt."
It wasn't a request and on these words I awoke completely. I didn't answer but stared at this person, it was definetly a male, he stood, arms folded now, under the window staring at me. I couldn't see his face because of the cloth but his eyes were still visible. They were so white that I doubted whether they had pupils at all. Still slightly groggy I decided to tackle him. I'd like to think that I'm a good fighter, strong, I keep myself fit and I know how to look after myself. But this person was far stronger than me. We traded blows while wrestling on the floor and in all honesty his blows were quicker, made a better noise and definetly hurt more. In my desperation I grabbed at his neck and found my hand connected onto a chain. I gripped it tight and raised it up behind his neck in an attempt to choke him. The chain broke as he struggled, he punched me once more in the chin then made his escape back out of the window. Sweating and still clutching the chain I got myself up off the floor and trudged over to the window just in time to see him take off into the streets of Cairo. This dig just got a lot more interesting.
Roman was a strange man, he was 60, short in stature, his english was not bad but he spoke with a really strong Russian accent. He was almost completely bald, wore thin, gold rimmed glasses that rested on a long, sharp nose. His mouth was screwed up as if sucking on a sweet and his ears draped down either side of his face. Of his past i don't know much but from what i've heard from people. He was apparently born into a rich family and decided to take over his fathers oil business. I never spoke to him unless it was when he would arrive in my tent with his assistant and ask how things were going.What he was doing in Egypt on a dig, a million miles from Russia i honestly don't know. To be even more honest all the knowledge known about him, which is very little i can tell you, is mostly gossip spouted by the workers. How much is true is debatable. An interesting rumour i heard about him a while ago was that he owned the Russian National Museum in Moscow. Which would explain his interest in Egypt but wouldn't explain why he has hired us to dig.
I ran into the sea of bodies, sword raised to the heavens as I forgot everything else but my hatred for these animals. This wasn't humans we were killing, this wasn't a battle we were supposed to win but if i was going to die I was going to go down fighting. And i was going to take as many of these things with me as possible. The thought of her lying on the ground face up with that hollow, dead look on her face plagued me. I so desperatley wanted to get to Gustav, to do to him what he did to her and look down upon his body and sneer. Just as he did to her. With a cry i sunk my blade into the first one i saw, it sliced into it's stomach and passed through. While it sank to it's knees and finally fell face down into the sand my eyes glazed over, my nerves calmed and again i raised my sword. Another and another fell as i fought my way up the hill. The mass, that had been so congested when the battle had started quickly began to disperse as the bodies spaced out the crowd. These things had no compassion, no honour or respect. They would stab men in the back while they fought another beast, behead them while they begged for their lives and leave the ones fatally wounded to die on the hot-sand. I watched as my men fought bravely for their lives. I fought with nothing to lose, my thoughts were on revenge, and that anger i used to lift my sword again and again and again to kill these creatures until there were none left. I could see my men fall and as we reached the summit of the hill there were only dozen of us left. But these beasts had almost been destroyed. Only a small number remained as we climbed up into the sun and after i plunged my sword into the last one we cried a cry of victory. Looking into the sun infront of us we were blinded as it sunk past the mountain ahead of us. But as the sun dissapeared behind the mountain, our vision returned and showed us something we had not anticipated. At least a 1,000 of them were under the mountain, an area that was a few seconds ago blocked by the suns rays. Gustav led them on his black horse. I could see him smiling even 200 feet away. My blood soaked sword weighed me down in the blistering hot sun and i sank to my knees in horror. He had known all along this would happen. He knew our army would defeat his first wave, that we would push them up the hill before the sun set and when it did, he knew we would see him waiting. With a 1,000 troops behind him, their daggers shining even in the darkness. It was over. I had failed to avenge her and he had once again defeated me.