Free Called to Duty (Adventures Through Time) by Capri Montgomery Page A

from?”
     
    “You mean where?”
     
    “You are not from here I know, but what time? What year?”
     
    “Two thousand twelve,” he balked.
     
    She gasped. “Goddess! I can’t believe she searched so far ahead. You must be very skilled warriors.” She shook her head trying to clear the emotions and thoughts racing wildly within her. “What garb is that you wear?”
     
    “Our uniforms,” he took a step back from her. “Is this some kind of joke? Are you crazy or just a ploy to get us to divulge military secrets? I can give you name rank and serial number, but you won’t get anything else from me.”
     
    She chuckled. “I do not need anything else other than to know that we have the same enemy. If you are entrusted to the Pharaoh then I will kill you, just as I will kill him for what he has done to my father. But first I will make Hex pay for his betrayal. That is the oath I swear to the goddess. My father’s death will not go unpunished.”
     
    With the jingling of keys she went back to her spot on the floor, and lowered her head as if she were a wounded child. The man who came in, she knew him to be just an ordinary guard. He was alone, she knew he was because they would underestimate her. She was the youngest, but she was the most skilled and that was a secret her father had taken to the grave with him.
     
    “Inaka shookis,” he laughed. “You will be a concubine for the Pharaoh…or a wife, but for now you will be a good girl and let me take you up to bath.” He reached for her and she, being the skilled warrior she was, pulled the knife from the laces of his sandal, from right against his calf muscles and she slashed his throat first, then she ran the dagger across his chest before violently thrusting it in and cutting out his heart. This was the fate their Pharaoh would suffer as soon as she had the chance. But right now it was imperative to reach her people.
     
    “Stay or go,” she looked at them. “The choice is yours.” And with those words she was out the gate headed towards some of the soldiers’ resting horses. The men from two thousand twelve were behind her. “Do you ride?”
     
    “What?”
     
    “Do you ride when you come from?”
     
    “Uh…yeah…”
     
    “Then ride,” she took hold of a horse, riding bareback and they took the saddled horses. The call went out just as they cleared the gates and she knew they would have soldiers following them. She would be prepared for she knew where the Nubian warriors were hidden.
     
    She rode hard and fast. The sound of horses beating against the hot sand filled her ears with their music. They would ride all night if need be. They would ride forever. They had not been taken all the way to Egypt so she was still close to Nubian territory. She would reach their first encampment before dusk. She was sure of that.
     
    “They’re coming up fast and there are a lot of them!” Alexander yelled loud.
     
    “Mihi’ki, Don’na Ka’lor, Nefertari!” She kept riding hard as she called her warning to the warriors she knew were lurking.
     
    “Who the hell are you talking to?”
     
    “Them,” she kept riding as the warriors uncovered themselves from beneath the sand and she rode through. She had given them warning that she was coming and the four behind her were friend—for the moment. They were permitted to pass and as they did she could hear the war getting ready to wage behind her. She wanted to fight, but she had to get this warning back to her brother. There was a traitor among them and if there were one then there would be more. She cleared the gates of the encampment as did her four future men before the gates were closed once more. She jumped down from her horse and immediately rushed into her brother’s tent. She knew which one it was for he was a general of their army and so his tent was bigger and better protected. The four men passed with her.
     
    “Nefertari,” he threw his arms around her.
     
    “Inka,” she pushed