Ardeth Bay led his small band of Medjai warriors towards the oasis at Fel-Amat. It had been a long week in the desert and they were all looking forward to the respite of a bath and some well-deserved rest in the shade.
Two months had passed since the last party had passed through, searching for Hamunaptra and the fabled gold buried with it. They had thought better of their plan once the Medjai swept into their camp, raised scimitars flashing in the moonlight, and suggested that they leave immediately. Ardeth smiled to himself at the memory of an older Englishman with a bushy white mustache trying to run without pulling his pants all the way on and landing face first in the sand. If only all fools were so easily dissuaded from their gold lust.
Ardeth's horse snorted and shook its mane. He patted its neck, eyes narrowing. Squinting into the brightness, he scanned for anything out of place. A high, sweet voice blew past over the dunes. Ardeth raised his hand in a fist and the band stopped still. One of the horses shifted and pawed at the sand. The sound came again, a woman singing nearby. The voice was as clear as a bird's, the tune strange and haunting. Ardeth couldn't make out any words.
The oasis lay just over the next dune and should have been empty. It was far from the normal travel routes, and the Medjai kept its location secret. Ardeth dropped to the sand, landing with flexed knees, and motioned to two of his men to follow.
The three men crept slowly up the face of the dune, the hot sand half-burying their feet with each step. Dropping down onto their stomachs they peered over the top. The oasis teemed with men-all too clearly a party of treasure hunters. Picks, shovels, torches-all the usual paraphernalia-lay in piles beside the hobbled camels.
Ardeth swore under his breath. So much for a respite. Counting quickly he found five white men and seven native Egyptians. The laborers were setting up camp, while the others sat in a circle, marking out a map in the sand, and still that unearthly singing danced on the breeze.
"Rose! Cut out that danged caterwauling, would you?" shouted one of the men.
A young woman appeared from behind a palm tree, pulling a brush through her long golden hair. "I'm sorry, Jim. I just wanted to paint this place with music. It's so mystical." She dropped the brush into a satchel hanging at her waist and quickly wrapped her hair into a neat bun as she walked towards the group of men. "Are we getting close to the City of the Dead yet? I'm excited to see it and start preserving the relics."
"Jesus, Roy, haven't you told her yet?"
"I say, Jim, you said I could have a day."
The woman circled around to stand behind the last speaker and laid her hand on his shoulder. "What haven't you told me?"
"It's nothing, Rose. Just nothing."
The man called Jim rose to his feet. He towered over the woman and stepped close, invading her space. She took a quick step back and crossed an arm over her chest. "What your brother ain't told you, darlin', is this ain't any archaeology trip. We're here to find the gold that's buried at Hamunaptra, take it back to Cairo, and sell it for as much money as we can get."
The muscles in Ardeth's shoulders clenched and he ground his teeth. It would be a pleasure to teach these men a lesson.
Rose pulled her hand off of Roy's shoulder and touched her fingers to the corner of her lips. "Is that true? Roy, did you bring me out here to be a tomb robber?"
"Now, sis, it's not as if the dead are going to miss it."
She backed away, stumbling in the clinging sand. "Didn't you learn anything from Mum and Dad? They taught me to respect the dead. It's one thing to study them, and treat them with proper respect, but quite another to strip them of the grave goods meant to follow them to the afterlife. I won't have anything to do with it, and you mustn't either. Come with me and let's go back to Cairo. There must be another way to make money without desecrating dead Egyptians."
Ardeth held his breath. Was it too much to hope that the brother would listen?
"I'm staying, Rose, and so are you."
Too much to hope, indeed. Ardeth blew out the breath through his nose.
"I'm doing no such thing. I'll just take my camel, some supplies, and a map, and I'll make my own way back to Cairo."
Jim closed the distance between them. This time Rose did not retreat, squaring her small shoulders towards the man. "And just where do you think you'll go when you get there?" he said. "You've got no home now that mommy-dearest is dead. You're stuck with us, darlin', and I need you at the city. You've got an important job there." He grabbed her by the wrist and dragged her towards the tents. "You'd better realize that you depend on us, so you might as well put those self-righteous airs back in the closet where they came from. There ain't no place for them here."
He tossed her wrist away and she hit the ground hard. With a brisk motion, she turned away, staring out over the oasis and rubbing her wrist. Even at this distance, Ardeth could make out red marks where Jim had manhandled her. His hands clenched into fists. No woman should be treated so. Especially not one who showed such unusual good sense. He peered more closely at the map in the sand. From what he could tell, this group could actually find Hamunaptra's resting place. He only hoped he could manage to spare the woman from the bloodshed that surely must follow.
