Day 5

It was happening again. The Mitanni had come back to stir more chaos. Their men had already proven stronger than ours time and time again. Marching through the valleys to come here, each time was different, they pillaged, murdered even raped the women in my village. They had been known for kidnapping people.

This time was no different from any other time. They started with looting our village, demanding we hand over our effects or else they will start hurting people. I stayed back within the crowd of people I’d known ever since I can remember. Our leader had likely sent for help, there has always been a group’s of boys and men who had been given the job to go get help if we were ever attacked.

Sending someone for help never worked, the Pharaoh and his royal court always dismissed us. We weren’t of royal descent; we had no importance to someone like the king. Our village was east of the great city of Thebes, half a day as the crow flies travelling unless you had a horse or camel.

Their armour had changed since the last time they were here demanding payment. It looked better; not just their usual leather, they had chains made into a protective tunic covering their torso. Even if our king answered our plea his soldiers wouldn’t stand a chance against these Mitanni warriors.

One woman refused to separate from item that the Mitanni was demanding she hand over. Screams left her throat as she was shoved tot eh floor by a brute carrying some kind of club with spikes, I couldn’t imagine the damage that would do if it were inflicted upon some poor soul.

The giant raised his club high ready to strike down upon the woman screaming for help on the ground. A single arrow came hurtling through the air piercing the club. The Mitanni warriors all looked to the direction which the arrow had come; horses could be heard galloping, men shouting their battle cries, archers upon chariots drawing arrows as quick as they loosed their arrows.

Egyptian soldiers charged into battle, archers upon chariots, and the best of fighters on horses while the rest carried spears and sickles ran into battle. The villagers fled whilst the Mitanni warriors were distracted, some fleeing to their homes, others escaped to the valley.

I wanted to run as I watched the scene unfold before my eyes. Men being slaughtered, dropping like flies, blood splattering in every direction.

I was rescued from the trance that had captured my mind when I felt my body hit the sand. An Egyptian soldier stood over me a dead Mitanni within arms from myself, this man saved me. Upon closer inspection he didn’t look like your standard soldier to me, he was wearing more armour, more jewellery which suggested royalty.

Could it be the Pharaoh himself had joined his soldiers to rid his land of the invaders? He extended his arm out to me, an offer to help me to my feet. I fell back off my elbows at his offending leather clad hand; he hesitated but leaned closer, his hand still held out for me to take.

I thought about taking his hand, so much as reaching for his hand, I stopped when another Mitanni warrior lunged for the man reaching out to me. He dropped his hand as he turned to fend off his attacker. I scrambled to my feet then and fled the battle grounds.

There was an oasis I could disappear within just through the gorge that hardly anyone knew about. The stories surrounding the gorge all told us that Seth had cursed the gorge forbidding anyone from entering it. I myself had never entered the gorge, I knew of the oasis it led to from stories.

The entrance was dark almost like the sun never touched this land. I could feel the cold radiating from the stone, fallen rocks covered the gorges floor mixed with other debris, cracks travelled up the stone walls. Not taking any chances with the Mitanni, I went for it, sprinting into the mouth avoiding the gorges teeth I almost lost my balance because of my sandals sliding upon the stone. I finally succumbed to gravity and collided with the bedrock that made up the gorges inner walls.

Looking over my should the gorge appeared to stretch on forever; I can’t have covered that much distance. I pushed myself from the wall ready to continue my journey to the oasis. Both directions looked exactly the same; it was as if I was staring into a mirror. Turning this way and that I lost all sense of direction, where had I come from? Where was I to go from here?

Just as I was becoming dizzy from spinning in circles trying to figure out which direction I should be going I was pulled reverie by a warm hand gripping my shoulder. I shrieked, hands flying to shield my ears from the excessive sound bouncing off the canyons confines.

The owner of the offending hand steadied my shaken form as I almost lost my balance again. It was the man from before, the one who saved me from the Mitanni. He looked worse for wear compared to when I last saw him, a graze on his cheek likely the reason for the dirt and blood covering his face like makeup.

He spoke, loud and clear in our native tongue, my mind focused on his voice, how it sounded, what he was trying to say to me.

“Wake up”

He said that over and over, he started to shake me as his voice grew louder. Steady shakes became violent before I felt him let go of me. As I was about to hit the jagged ground I jumped awake in my seat.

“It’s nice of you to join us miss” Was all the man from my dream said, but he wasn’t just the man from my dream, he was my history professor. My history professor who specialised in Egyptology...