On my return from the wadi I bathed and went to my chamber for a change of kilt. I opened my wardrobe and it took perhaps a couple of seconds for me to realise that there, crouched inside the wardrobe seemingly asleep, was a male adult baboon.

Suddenly its massive jaws opened, displaying a set of huge, yellow-stained fangs and with a white bile-like substance dripping from its mouth. Before I could jet for my life, the baboon leapt out of the wardrobe, grabbed me by the waist and threw me bodily across the room. I landed heavily on a bedside chair, which collapsed under my weight and, as it did, I felt a sharp pain judder across my chest. I screamed for help as the fierce creature slowly approached me again. I picked up a chair leg to try and defend myself. As the baboon neared I struck it a blow across the head, but the chair leg simply broke into two pieces and the action sent another jarring pain across my chest.

The baboon’s gaping jaws were now no more than three inches away from my face, its foul breath polluting my nostrils. Its yellow fangs were now about to bite and rip out my throat. Ra of mercy, is this the end of Tutankhamun?

Suddenly, and from behind, a hairy and very muscular arm wrapped itself around the baboon’s neck. The arm twisted violently and a loud crack told me that the baboon’s neck had been broken. It slumped to the floor, dead. And then everything went black.

My first break

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BACKGROUND

• The Hinba Ghosts by Kate Green

• A1 Joe and the Roman Dog by Judith Low

• The Song of Sky and Evening by Charlie Scott

• Gemoc by Elizabeth Lawson

• The Beaten Road by Roberta Nichols

BACKGROUND

• Reavers by Emily Diamand

• Jack Flynn and the Assassins by John M. O’Brien

• Tutankhamun: Diary of a Boy King by Laurence Rowley

• They Do Things Differently There by Ruth Furness

• The Secret Life of Jemma Jones by A. M. Conway

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