Sting of the Scorpion Read Free

at the strangest creature he had seen in his entire life.
    “No, you’re not,” said Karoya, as she helped him to sit up.
    Ramose stared at the creature. It was the biggest animal he’d ever seen. It towered above him. It had large hoofed feet, skinny legs and matted brown hair. On the end of a long, curved neck was the ugliest face imaginable. A big-lipped mouth full of large, yellow teeth moved from side to side as it chewed on some dried grass. Strangest of all, on the creature’s back was a large hump.
    “What is that?” asked Ramose, unable to tear his eyes away from the ugly creature.
    “It is called a camel,” said Karoya knowledgeably, holding a gourd of milk to Ramose’s lips.
    “Why does the milk taste so strange?” he asked.
    “It’s camel’s milk.”
    As Ramose sipped the milk, he looked around and took in his new surroundings. He didn’t have to ask where they were—he could see. They were deep in the desert. Whichever way he looked he could see nothing but sand.
    It was not the desert along the edges of the fertile land that he and his friends had been travelling in. There were no rocky outcrops, no occasional tufts of grass. There was no sound of insects, no birds flying overhead. In every direction all he could see was sand—hard flat sand and its surface rippled like a wind-blown pond. A group of grubby children was standing staring at Ramose.
    Ramose whispered to Karoya. “Are you sure we aren’t captives?”
    Karoya laughed. “No, we are guests. Honoured guests. These people are nomads. Zeyd is their chief. They travel from oasis to oasis to graze their goats. And you don’t have to whisper, Ramose. They have their own language and they don’t understand a word of Egyptian.”
    “How do you know so much about them? Can you speak their language?”
    “I don’t have to speak to them,” said Karoya, laughing again. “This is the way my family lived before the Egyptians came.” It had been a long time since Ramose had heard her laugh so much.
    The nomads were strange-looking people. There were three dark men, all like the one who had leaned over him, all wearing long-sleeved, hairy coats that came down to their ankles. They had pieces of dark cloth wrapped around their heads.
    There were also five women and some children. The women had patterns tattooed in dark blue on their faces. They wore heavy beaded necklaces and bracelets. They had rings, not on their fingers, but pierced through their ears and noses. The children were tending a herd of about twenty goats, giving them dry grass from a sack.
    It was the strangest sight Ramose had ever seen, but strangest of all was the camel creature. It carried leather saddlebags and rolls of cloth. Large terracotta jars and metal cooking pots hung on either side of the animal’s strange humped back.
    Ramose realised it was the animal’s strong smell that he had smelt as he was pulled behind it. The strange sounds he’d heard were the jars and pots knocking against each other.
    Ramose watched as the people made their camp in the desert. They stuck sticks into the sand and draped heavy cloth over them, holding down the edges with stones. In less than an hour there was a comfortable little village: four cloth houses and a cooking fire.
    “Don’t they want to know who we are, what we’re doing?” asked Ramose.
    “No. Desert people welcome all travellers.” Karoya’s eyes shone. “Anyone who comes to their camp is made welcome and given food.”
    Ramose thought that the children would have been more interested in their strange guests, but they were all huddled around something, laughing and squealing. One of them stood up with the object of their fascination in his arms. It was Mery.
    “They have never seen a cat before,” Karoya said. “They had never even heard of such a creature.”
    One little girl, who was no more than four, reached out slowly to the cat. She touched the fur and Mery miaowed. The little girl jumped back in