The masked men

The procession marched thro the Streets of Memphis to the temple of Hathor. Cheered by the crowd who were held back by the soldiers. At the front of the procession walked Hunefer the new high priest of the temple. Next to him walked princess Théti accompanied by two guards and Papyrus.

"Is everything alright Hunefer?" asked Théti. "You look so down".

Hunefer turned his face to her. Oh, I ... it's probably nothing but I got a dream tonight about a bunch of masked people attacking us.

"Do you think that we are going to be attacked?" asked Théti with a concerned face.

"It was just a stupid dream, nothing to worry about." He putted a smile on his face.

"I hope so", she looked to the crowd. "They could be easily hiding in the mass of people."

"That won't be easy with the amount of soldiers that are here, besides, we are almost at the temple."

Finally, they arrived at the temple, two guards opened the gate for them. The Procession marched thro the pylon and got into the hypostyle courtyard.

Théti smiled over her shoulder to Papyrus with a blush on her face.

Which he answered with a grin. He didn't notice that the procession stopped which caused him to collide against one of the guards.

Théti bursted into a giggle.

"Hey Papyrus, instead of starring at the princess you should better pay some more attention." snapped the guard.

"Sorry", He said with a careful smile.

He looked around. The temple was magnificent standing the time of hundreds of years. Suddenly he saw something on the roof, but before he could identify it, it was gone as quickly as it came. "Probably a bird, but better to keep his eyes open". He looked back forward and saw that the new high priest was about to say something, but before Hunefer could open his mouth an Arrow shot into the back of one of the guards.

Papyrus looked quickly up to the roof and saw an archer with a mask of Sekhmet on spanning his bow. Before he could do something, more people with masks of different gods came running out of the temple. He took his magic sword and ran to Théti to protect her. The masked men overrun them because most of the soldiers were still outside. "What was keeping them so long", he asked. He looked to the gate and saw that someone closed it, "dammed they had them." It was a complete chaos, priests and servants running away in every direction. The masked men had even more the upper hand because their weapons seemed to be of iron in contrast to the bronze weapons of the soldiers. Only Papyrus with his magic sword could stand up against them, but even for him they were with too many. He heard Théti screaming and saw that one of the masked men had taken her. He ran to her, but before he reached her he needed to jump behind a pillar because the archer on the roof had targeted him. He looked behind the pillar and saw that the masked men were retreating further into the temple. Then he heard a loud crack and saw that the soldiers had succeeded to ram the gate open. They stormed into the square.

"Where is the princess?" asked one of them.

"They took her further into the temple. He looked to Hunefer who came out of his hiding. "Is there another exit out of the temple?" he asked to him.

"Yes, there is a secret tunnel in the naos. After the tapestry, at the end, on the wall, you will find a lever that you can pull and that will open it. Someone, probably a priest must have let them in thro that way"

Papyrus looked to the soldiers. "The half of you go with the high priest he will show you where the tunnel comes out. The rest comes with me, we are going after them." Papyrus ran to the naos followed by his group of soldiers. They were lucky, in their haste the masked men forgot to lock the door. He entered the naos and walked to the tapestry and shoved it aside. A small hole came visible, he putted his hand in it and pulled the lever that was inside of it. A sort of mechanism started to work which shoved a part of the floor away.

"Keep your weapons ready and eye's open they could try to ambush us." He dropped into the tunnel. Fast walking, but still be careful he got thru the tunnel. After a long time walking, they heard a voice shouting.

"Come on, can't you handle a girl. We need to get away now or we get them all on us."

"That damned bitch is struggling like a wild cat, she even bites almost my finger of."

"This is our change, we need to get them before they get away, the ground is going up so that means the exit isn't far away. Douse the torches and be quiet." He began to sneak forward in the direction of the voices. Because of the darkness, they didn't see them coming.

"Damn, they are already here. Get her away here as fast as possible, we will try to hold them back." The leader of the masked men drew his sword, followed by the others.

The two groups clashed into each other. Blood splashing, bones breaking, it was complete chaos. Papyrus slashed his opponents away and tried to cut a way to Théti, but was stopped by probably the leader of the group. He looked to Théti, if he couldn't get to her now she would be gone. He would never forgive this himself.

On the moment the man who held Théti was going to escape, one of the soldiers broke thro, which forced the man to defend himself. This gave Théti and opportunity to struggle out of his grip, which she did. She ran away out of the tunnel.

"No, get her back!"

The masked men tried to back off and to run after Théti. They ran outside the tunnel followed by Papyrus and the soldiers, but then were stopped because the other group soldiers where coming towards them and archers spanning their bows.

"Pull back, run for your life!", shouted the leader of the masked men boiling of anger.

The masked men ran into the small Streets followed by the soldiers.

Papyrus ran to Théti who came back to them, she jumped into his arms.

"Oh Théti, I was so scared, I nearly taught they would have taken you away."

"You saved me and they didn't succeed that's all that matters. Whoever is behind this, he will pay for it."

"Princess?"

They both looked up and saw the commander of the soldiers coming towards them.

"We followed them, but on one way of the other they seem to have been able to escape in the crowd and the small streets."

"That's disappointing now we won't know who is behind ..."

They heard someone moaning, a man came towing over the ground. It was one of the masked men, but his mask had fallen off. He was very wounded, but still alive. When he saw them, he looked afraid around. Then he took something which he dragged slowly to his mouth.

Papyrus saw what he was going to do. "Quickly hold him!"

But it was too late, a moment later the man collapsed and died.