CHAPTER THREE

Ardeth Bay and the other Med-jai looked on over the camp as the people settled down for the night.

"How long must we wait Ardeth?" one of his men, Rachid, asked him, moving his horse to stand next to his leader.

"Patience, Rachid, patience. They will not reach the city until tomorrow night and by then it will be too late for them to try anything, too dark. We shall stop them at that time."

"Then it is certain that they are going to Hamunaptra?"

Ardeth smiled and gestured to the surrounding desert. "Where else does this lead? There are no other cities in the direction they are headed."

"But why, Ardeth? The creature is no longer there, nor are the books. What can they possibly achieve?"

"I am not sure, but we will find out before we kill them," he muttered grimly and turned his horse away from the small encampment.

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The next morning Charlotte was woken just as the sun started rising over the horizon and forced out of the tent, covered from head to toe once again in the confining robes. She let the Englishman called Philip help her onto her camel, starting to get used to the strange mix of gallantry and viciousness the two men were made up of.

The next few hours were spent riding through the blinding sands of the desert again, and she closed her eyes as often as she could to protect her eyesight from the constant glare. She didn't notice the men in black watching them from a distance but then, neither did anyone else, intent as they were on getting to their destination as quickly as possible. She started to get a bad headache after the first two hours and was sweating profusely, but she didn't dare say anything in case she caught their fury again. All she could do was cling to the camel and hope that she wouldn't faint.

When they finally stopped to rest she could barely get down from her perch and, when she did finally manage it, she collapsed in a heap on the ground and just lay there, exhausted.

"What's the matter with you?" Philip Stewart asked, striding over to her and pulling her up. He pulled her veil down and stared at her face, angered when he saw the state she was in. "The heat's got to her," he said to the other man as he joined them. "Stupid cow should have said something!"

"No, no. She's learning, which is good. I told her not to speak unless she was told to and she's just obeying orders. Give her some water and let her rest, she'll be fine." His eyes took on an evil glint. "Won't you my dear?"

She nodded. "I...I think so..." she landed hard on the sand as he hit her again and she heard him laugh. "Perhaps she's not learning fast enough eh?" He bent down and pulled her head up. "A nod would have been enough, I never said to speak!" he taunted her and laughed again as he walked away. Philip Stewart threw a skin of water at her and left her laying there, walking over to join the other men. She turned over and picked up the water, sipping it slowly and bending her head to her knees, resting her forehead on them. Her face felt swollen and she knew she must look a complete state. She had never been slapped before in her life and now she had been slapped three times in only two days, and she felt it keenly, so miserable that she didn't know what to do with herself.

After having been given some bread and dried meat of some sort, they were on their way again. She ached in places she hadn't known existed from the uncomfortable prolonged ride, but on the discomfort went, for several more hours.

It was well after nightfall when they stopped again and this time she noticed that they were near what looked like lumps of stone, sticking just out of the sand maybe a few inches. It looked like there had been a city here once, and an earthquake had destroyed it and buried it in the sands. She didn't pay too much attention to it, just glad that they would get to rest again.

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The Med-jai waited patiently and watched from their high position as a camp was rapidly built next to what had once been the ruins of Hamunaptra. His eyes searched out the small figure of the woman and found her in the faint firelight, slumped on the sand to one side of the men, her knees drawn up to act as a rest for her head. She was unmoving and he wondered if she was sleeping. He couldn't tell anything about her from her appearance as she had remained covered all the time, the only thing he knew for sure was that she wasn't used to riding an animal for hours on end, because every time they stopped she ended up collapsing on the ground. He knew that she hadn't been given her own water on the journey either, merely handed some whenever they rested, which he knew wasn't enough for her. She would be seriously dehydrated by now, whoever she was.

He lifted his hand to his men and gave the order to move out. They picked their way down towards the city, skilled at remaining undetected and no-one in the camp was aware of their approach. Not until Ardeth gave a loud, ululating war cry and swung his scimitar over his head as he galloped among the tents, his men following closely behind.

They expertly dropped the men one by one, the workers who had obviously been hired in Cairo easy to home in on and kill. The two Englishmen were slightly harder as both had guns and were firing indiscriminately in any given direction. Ardeth's second in command, Khalid, brought his horse through a gap and cut down the shorter of the two men with a swift slice of his sword, leaving him with a fatal wound. Ardeth wheeled his horse around to deal with the last man when the woman jumped in front of him and spooked the animal, sending him flying off its back. He didn't stay down for long, leaping up and striding toward the foolish female, his hands shooting out to grab her and push her behind his back, out of the way of any bullets.

But she obviously had other ideas, resisting his movement and grabbing at his arm instead, trying to stop him from using his sword. He glared at her above the black material that hid his face from her. Her own face was exposed as her veil dropped with her frantic movements and he got his first glimpse of her. Although he couldn't see her hair under the robes, he could see her eyes and her skin. She was pale, definitely not a local and her eyes, although brown, were not the darker shade of his countrymen. He had no more time to examine her though, as he saw the tall Englishman lift his gun and point it directly at her back.

Ardeth grabbed her shoulder roughly and thrust her to the ground, stepping over her and throwing his sword, with a strong sideswipe, directly at the man's neck. Then the man and his head parted company as the sharp blade cut straight through his neck and stopped his life in the space of a second.

Charlotte gulped down the nausea that rose in her throat and turned her head away from the grisly sight, squeezing her eyes shut. She was aware of the dark robed men striding about collecting the bodies and she wondered what was going to happen to her now...and what was going to become of Billy. Were these men anything to do with all this business and, if they were, why did they kill all the other men? Her thoughts were interrupted when the man who had thrown her down there bent and pulled her back up to her feet.

She struggled wildly, using up her reserves of energy on the futile endeavour to get free. She swung her fist out and caught him on the chin, lashing out with her feet when he took a surprised step back. Her foot connected with his shin and he gave a groan, the sound quickly turning to a growl as he caught her arms hard and shook her. "Be still! I will not hurt you unless you make me do so," he hissed at her, his brows drawn down in a furious scowl. She drooped in his hold and raised her frightened gaze to his. "Who are you?" he snapped at her, his eyes glittering darkly above the black material, his brows still dipped low.

She hesitated to speak at first, but as his dark eyes cut into her, growing more and more angry by the second, she decided to just tell him everything. "My...my name is Charlotte Carnahan. Please, these men, they kidnapped me and my brother...they still have him somewhere..." she tripped over her words as she tried to tell him what had happened as fast as she could, hoping against hope that he was not connected with them in any way. It was a risk she had to take.

"Can your brother not take care of himself?" he asked, his voice seemingly softer than it had been before.

"He's only four years old, they said they'd kill him if I didn't do what they wanted and I don't know where they were holding him!"

Ardeth frowned at the thought of a young boy being held like that. He called over two of his men and spoke to them in Arabic, telling them to ride ahead to Cairo and find out what they could about the whereabouts of the child. Both men nodded respectfully and then rode out as fast as they could. If all went well, they would return with any news before Ardeth and his group reached the city themselves. He looked at the woman in front of him more closely, trying to see any resemblance between her and Evy. He couldn't see any similarity, but the name couldn't be a coincidence.

"Are you staying with the O'Connells?"

Her mouth dropped open in surprise. "Why, yes. How...?"

"I know them. I will take you back to Cairo and we will find your brother." He noticed the tiredness etched on her face and his eyes went to the bruising she had suffered. He turned her face gently with one hand, rubbing his thumb over the darkness there. "I should have killed them at a slower pace, made them pay for this," he murmured and abruptly let her go. "You are safe now, you have no need to fear my men or myself."

"I...thankyou," she said softly.

"Come, you need some rest for the night before we begin our journey, you are exhausted." She protested as he took her arm and went to pull her with him. "No, please, I need to find my brother! I can't just leave him for another night!"

Ardeth stopped and turned to look at her. "We cannot travel to Cairo right now and you would be no use to your brother if we did leave now. You are exhausted. No more arguments," he said firmly when she went to speak. "Your brother's keeper will only harm the child if he is given a sign to do so. Since these men are now dead there is no-one to give such a sign. Now, come," he said and took her elbow and led her to his horse, leaping into the saddle before lifting her to sit in front of him, his arms moving around her to take the reins. She would have stiffened at the unfamiliar feel of a man so close to her, but she was so tired that she couldn't find the voice to protest and she just relaxed back against him, her eyes closing as fatigue and worry finally got the better of her.

She never felt the horse stopping a short distance away at the Med-jai camp, nor did she feel Ardeth Bay lift her from the horse and carry her into his tent and lay her on the bedroll.

Ardeth looked down at the sleeping woman and felt an undeniable urge to see her hair. Because it had remained covered the entire time he had seen her he couldn't resist untying the robes and pulling them from her head. His mouth came open on a breath as he revealed the mass of golden curls that seemed to tumble from within the confines of the green material like a shining fall of silk. Had he seen this whilst he had been watching, there would have been no doubt in his mind that she was a westerner. Perhaps, he thought, that was why the men had made her stay covered. His hand absently touched the silken mane, taking a long tress between his fingers and testing it's texture. As if he had suddenly realised what he was doing he jerked away from her and got to his feet, laying a blanket over her still form and leaving the tent without a backwards glance.

He joined his men around the campfire, sitting between Khalid and Rachid and accepting the bowl of food they handed to him.

"How is the woman?" Rachid asked, slowly eating his own food.

Ardeth shrugged. "She is asleep, for now. I believe she will be fine."

"You took a long time putting her down, my friend," Khalid said softly, his mouth stretching into a wide smile, but his eyes never leaving the fire.

Ardeth shot him a killing glare. "I was making her comfortable," he said as calmly as he could.

"Indeed?" was all the other man said, raising one eyebrow.

"I merely made sure she was covered up. I did not want her to wake and find the two of you leering at her," he said, his own mouth twitching with amusement now.

"Huh," Rachid snorted. "What is there to leer at. Even with the robes a harsh wind would knock her down. She is too small!"

"How do you know? None of us has seen her without the robes." Khalid put in.

"And none of us are going to," Ardeth said decisively. "She is related to the O'Connells in some way and she will be treated with respect!"

"Come now, Ardeth," Khalid said, offended. "When have you known me to treat a woman with anything other than respect? Rachid too?"

"I know, my friend. I know you would not treat her badly. However, she may not be used to such humour, being an Englishwoman. Their sense of humour is..." he paused and rubbed a hand over his beard. "Unusual." He was thinking of Rick and Evy and the things they had said to him over the years. He understood them much better now than he had when he first met them, but sometimes he still found them perplexing. He focused on his food and joined in with the general conversation of his men, discussing the success of their latest kills and relaxing from the tenseness of the past few days.

Later that night he crept into his tent and checked on Charlotte again, noting that she had barely moved since he had covered her up. He took an extra blanket and moved outside again, laying under the stars and letting sleep claim him.