The Falcon’s Son

A fantasy prologue based in ancient Egypt

Photo by Brandon on Unsplash

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley. As he wiped the sweat from his brow, Tekem’s eyes lit up. His grandfather was about to tell him the story of the serpent dragons, which was his favorite.

There was a time when the Pharaohs were weak. The Hyksos had enslaved the proud people of Egypt. Breaking the shackles of slavery, a new dynasty arose restoring the dignity of the realm. The Pharaohs of the New Kingdom expelled the Hyksos from Egypt and drove them back to the Levant.

The Pharaohs wanted to ensure that their country would never again be humiliated. Egypt would no longer be a welcoming paradise to be taken advantage of, and they would fight back against those who disgraced them. To safeguard their nation, the rulers of Egypt waged a war against the kings of the Levant.

Years of bloody conflict with the Levantine rulers yielded little.

When Pharaoh Thutmose III ascended the throne, everything changed. Thutmose rejected his ancestors’ ways of fighting. Egypt’s foes were forced to witness hell on Earth. The kingdoms of the Levant had to be punished. But his success depended on a divine intervention by the Sun-god, Ra. Thutmose approached Ra’s head sorceress, Senet, for help.

Senet summoned the forces of darkness. She invoked Apep, the king of demons who was a serpent dragon. Apep was the chief nemesis of Ra.

Tekem’s grandfather’s throat was parched. “Bring me the beer,” he bellowed. Tekem rushed to the house to get a pitcher and a glass for his grandfather.

“Apep and Senet struck a deal. The sons of Ra, the Pharaohs, wouldn’t hurt the demons in the future for Apep giving two of his dragons to the Pharaoh,” the old man remarked while chugging the beer.

The deal was a dark secret that was not supposed to leave the royal palace’s closed doors. But when you have two serpentine dragons blitzing through the sand faster than the wind, it is hard to hide the secret.

Pharaoh Thutmose led an enormous army to face off with the kings of the Levant at Megiddo. Megiddo, in the Valley of Jezreel, controlled the trade routes between Egypt and Mesopotamia. After centuries of foreign rule, Egypt wanted to…