The Curse of the Pharaoh #1 Read Online Free PDF

the afternoon, they reached their destination.
    The
Duat
had already chugged past great temples and riverside villages, heading for the barren hills to the north. The clusters of palm trees and farmland gave way to rougher terrain. Finally they docked at a rotting wooden pier, covered with wild vegetation.
    Clearly no one had used it for years. The three adventurers (plus camels and cat) quickly disembarked and found themselves on a scrub-covered plain, crisscrossed by muddy streams.
    “I thought Egypt was all sand dunes and desert,” said Dash, a little confused.
    “The desert begins after you pass the mountains,” Agatha told him. “Here, on the banks of the Nile, the land is fertile, especially during the summer flood season.”
    “How do you know that?” Dash demanded. “Wait, don’t tell me. Because you’re the rebooted queen of the underworld.”
    “Cut it out,” she laughed. “All I did was memorize a few maps of this region.”
    “You and your famous memory drawers!” Dash said with a snort. “All right, open one up. Where’s the trail? I can’t get a GPS read on my EyeNet; no signal.”
    Agatha craned her neck, scanning the marshland. “It all looks like mud to me,” she had to admit.
    Chandler, who was twice her height and had better eyesight, pointed at a sloping hill in the distance.
    “Dirt path up that hillside, Miss,” he said quietly.
    “Excellent, Chandler.” Agatha smiled. “That must be where we need to go.”
    “Are you sure, cousin?” Dash asked.
    She didn’t respond: she was already clambering onto her camel with the skill of a born rider. Dash moaned, eyeing his camel. “No spitting this time, okay, dude?” Somehow he and Chandler got onto their camels in one piece. Agatha was already riding ahead, urging her camel forward as fast as it would go. Dash and Chandler struggled to catch up.
    They rode through the back country for a good half hour and then took a dirt path that wound upward between the jagged peaks fringing the Valley of the Kings.
    Agatha had to stop every few minutes to wait for her saddle-sore friends, and each time she took the chance to survey the landscape with a small pair of high-powered binoculars.
    The path was rocky and steep, full of dangerous turns and unmarked intersections.
    “The bad news is we could get lost,” said Agatha, tapping her nose.
    “And the good news?” Dash panted behind her.
    Agatha put the binoculars back in the pocket of her khaki shirt. “No guards to get in our way,” she said, getting back on the path.
    But she was wrong.
    Big-time.
    Just before sunset, they stopped in a narrow gulch to recheck their coordinates. Suddenly they heard echoing noises. Raising their heads from the map, they saw gun barrels poking out from between the rocks.
    “Don’t move!” a man shouted in English.
    At the sound of his bass voice, Dash started to shake. “This is serious business,” he mumbled in terror. “This time we’re really in trouble!”

A dozen men swarmed into the gulch. They were armed, but no one was wearing a police or military uniform.
    Who were they? Smugglers? Or tomb robbers?
    “I have a very bad feeling about this,” Agatha whispered. “Let’s just stay calm and find out what they want.”
    Dash and Chandler nodded in silence.
    In the dim glow of dusk, a flashlight beam cut through the air like a blade. When the light hit Dash, he jerked on his camel’s reins and raised both arms high in the air. “We’re innocent!” he cried. “We surrender!”
    His sudden movement spooked his camel, which kicked and bucked, trying to shake off its saddle and rider.
    The attackers watched as Dash twisted around, frantically trying to free his legs from the saddlebags, and they burst out laughing.
    “Oh, this is just perfect!” groaned Dash. “I get to be mocked while I die!”
    The rippling laughter was interrupted by a French-accented voice: “You there! Give the boy some assistance!”

    The sentence was uttered by a