The problem remained that Colonel Guizot had promised treasure and glory to a garrison of Legionnaires if they would but march into the desert with him, and Ardeth Bay promised there was evil out under the sand, and any action was justified to keep it buried. Granted, he’d joined the Legion d’Etranger for the goal of impressing a girl, so it wasn’t as if this was the rashest decision he’d ever made. He could still feel the cold sense of wrong in the pit of his stomach which had sent him running from Hamunaptra instead of picking through the bodies for anything that might help with the long journey back to civilization. He remembered the whispers just beyond his hearing as he stared at the jackal-headed statue, and the way the sand had leaped for him, grasping like a hundred clawing hands. First, it was not stated but heavily implied that this was a command and not an offer, and second… Rick remembered. He’d been completely ready to thank them for the water and head right back into the desert but for two things. That much had become obvious right around the time he’d recovered from the parched delirium of exposure, and been deemed healthy enough to hear their proposition without mistaking it for a bad dream: sacred bodyguards, eternal protectors, city of the dead, terrible creature, curse, and conscription. The problem that Rick O’Connell was much too wise to ever voice out loud to his fellow Medjai was that sometimes they were a little too like his old Legionnaires, in that they believed. Rick gave him the waterskin, and lifted the telescope to his eye. Whether or not the ‘destructively curious’ party caught this boat or the next one, Rick had deemed them a lower priority.Ībderrahim scowled, and thrust the telescope at Rick to trade. Unlike any of the four previous adventuring parties that had attempted finding Hamunaptra over the last three years (all to ignoble ends), Rick had to admit this one had the funds and the firepower to possibly see it through. ![]() Both of which are on that side of the river.” The Americans had been easy to spot, with their pet academic overseeing the loading of their equipment and hired help, his umbrella bobbing along like some self-declared emperor with scepter. ![]() “We’re going to have to either get on the Sudan ourselves, or meet the reed boats upriver. So Rick and Abderrahim sat on their horses in the shade of the palms on the far bank, passing their old field telescope and their waterskin back and forth, keeping watch. On top of that, the Medjai agent at the Cairo Museum of Antiquities had sent word of a worrying artifact being seen in the hands of someone who was, and Rick was quoting him, ‘destructively curious’. Somewhere in the crush of pith helmets and fezzes, a handful of American adventurers had been chattering far too enthusiastically about an expedition to the lost city of Hamunaptra. On the far side of the Nile, the bustling Giza port resembled a kicked anthill in its activity as the riverboat Sudan prepared for its departure that afternoon. Whether the mission was a familiar thing or not remained to be seen. The place changed, and the language, and… well. It served as one of a few touchstones, layering over yet another far-flung chapter of his life like a star map weapon, regiment, and comrades. As a matter of fact, Abderrahim’s conversational prowess and stony scowl reminded Rick very much of Alfredo, his old Legion quartermaster. ![]() ![]() It wasn’t that Rick didn’t like Abderrahim, either. Rick wasn’t sure if Abderrahim hated him he tended to make that sneering sort of face at everyone, Rick included, but Rick was the only one in the whole troop of Medjai that made his eye twitch like that. He also had a claw - a claw for a hand, like some sort of dryland pirate. It wasn’t that he actively disliked Abderrahim, but the man was terrible at conversation and had a face like a camel sucking on a lemon. It was the little things, really, that helped Rick O’Connell get through the day. “You have realized we’re on the wrong side of the river, yes?”
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