Page 7 of Monsters in the Museum

There appeared to be very little corrosion on the leaf-shaped blade, probably due to its construction from bronze instead of iron. Still, even for a sword made of an enduring material, its preservation was remarkable. Nora peered at it, snatching up her magnifier to get a closer look at the inscription. While she could make out the elegant shapes of the etchings, she could not decipher them at all. Even the alphabet used was one Nora didn’t recognize.

Nora straightened from her inspection to find Mandy with one hip propped on the workbench, still watching her work.

“Any idea on this inscription?” Nora asked, “I don’t have a clue what language this might be.”

Mandy shook her head, a few loose pieces of sleek hair falling across her face. “If you can’t figure it out, then nobody in this office is going to have a clue. The report from the field said that nobody on the dig recognized it either.”

Nora hummed in response and glanced back at the blade, itching to uncover its secrets and already mentally running through professionals in her contact list who might be familiar with the ancient language.

A drawl behind her snapped her from her reverie.

“I wonder what the board will think when you have to admit you can’t translate that inscription.”

Nora turned on her heel to find Leo looking down his nose at her with the same expression she pictured pinned to the dart board when she was persuaded to play a few rounds at pool night. Mandy rolled her eyes over his shoulder, and Nora folded her arms.

“I’m too busy wondering if I’ll get an office all to myself when I do translate it,” Nora retorted.

Leo’s face purpled, and Nora resisted the urge to punctuate her statement with a rude hand gesture, remembering they were in a shared workspace. Still, all the workers around her kept their heads dutifully down, nobody willing to insert themselves into the workplace’s most notorious rivalry.

“People whose dissertations were published in the last decade don’t get private offices,” Leo sneered.

“We’ll see. Why don’t you just run along and play with your arrowheads and leave the translating to me?”

Leo scowled but turned and headed back to his own workbench.

“Ugh,” Nora groaned to Mandy once he was gone. “Why does he have to be such an insufferable fungus waffle, even in my moment of victory?”

Mandy waved her hand dismissively.

“He’s just jealous, and he can’t accept that you were clever enough to beat him out for the promotion when he thought he was sure to get it on pure seniority. Don’t let him distract you.”

Nora tried to take her advice. She and Mandy spent the rest of the morning trying to copy down the engraving as best they could while searching for a linguist who might be able to translate it for them. They didn’t make much progress. Nora found herself ready to bang her head on her bench in frustration at the apparent dead end by lunch.

“Let’s take a look at the other artifact.” Nora jerked her chin at the bundle still buried in the shipping crate. “Maybe it will give us more ideas.”

Nora went through a similar process as with the sword, unpackaging it from the box. However, when she and Mandy went to move the long, slim bundle to the table, they almost dropped the weapon in surprise. It was heavy—far heavier than a spear this size should be.

“What the heck?” Mandy said once they had hefted the bundle onto the workbench. “Have I been skipping too many Pilates classes, or is that thing mammoth?”

“It’s definitely not just you.”

Nora hurried to put on her gloves and mask, wondering what could be making this spear so substantial. The heaviest weapons of these dimensions were usually only four pounds, but this had to be at least three times that weight.

As she pulled back the protective wrappings, it became apparent why they had been surprised by the weight. Traditional spears from this age, called a dory, were composed of a long ash handle, with an iron blade at one end and a counterbalancing spike at the other. All six feet of the weapon, from its leaf-shaped blade to the sauroter on the butt, reflected the buzzing florescent lights of the office with the soft glow of burnished bronze. Nora’s heart pounded in her chest as she leaned in to examine the lethal-looking blade the size of her hand.

Mandy’s voice came from over her shoulder. “Why would somebody make a spear completely out of bronze? Maybe it was for ceremonial purposes?”

Nora scrunched up her face. “You know I hate saying things were used for ceremonial purposes. It’s like admitting we don’t really know what they were for.”

“What about that artifact that was brought over a few months ago? You said it was used for ceremonial purposes in an ancient fertility ritual.”

Nora snorted. “That was just because I couldn’t say the words ancient dildo to my boss with a straight face.”

“Can’t fault you there,” Mandy commented drily as Nora snatched up her magnifier to take a closer look.

“I don’t think this was ceremonial anyway. There are distinctive scratch marks up here by the blade. This thing has seen combat.”

Mandy swore under her breath. “What kind of animal would have fought with a weapon like that? Can you imagine carrying that behemoth into battle? A dory is supposed to be a one-handed weapon, but that thing would be too heavy to use alongside a shield.”