Bosses

The gods' champions, with special attacks you'll have to read and dodge.

• Gengen Wer, the Great CacklerThe fields of Medum · level 39The goose whose honk broke the silence before the first dawn and who laid the egg the sun hatched from. Freshly painted, and very much alive.
• Hemaka the UnfedThe mastabas of Saqqara · level 40Chancellor of King Den: a thousand years dead and one season hungry. His shade fills the gap between the mastabas like a held breath.
• Red Bull of SetThe pastures of Ta-Ihu · level 42A bull daubed in red ochre and fed something that smoked. Its eyes glow like a kiln's mouth, and it is much bigger than a bull should be.
• The False ApisThe Serapeum · level 48The oldest of the Apis bulls, dead before the pyramids, walking again. Something burns between its ribs.
• The UnfinishedFaiyum Clay Pits · level 61Khnum's first try at a man, before he got the hang of it: three arms, one eye, and a great deal of clay. It is busy trying to finish itself.
• Sobek's HeirThe Faiyum Shore · level 62Raised in the reed-pens to be the next Petsuchos, with gold already in his ears. The Coil has been feeding him chaos, and he has grown into something no temple would keep.
• Aani, Howler of the False DawnFields of Khmun · level 69A white baboon the size of a granary, who screams the sun up every hour of the night. It is screaming at the sky, not at you. Yet.
• Hefau, the Horizon-SwallowerThe Heretic's Altar · level 73A serpent long enough to put a coil round the city. It slept under the Aten's altar for a hundred years, eating the dawn a crumb at a time.
• Panehesy, Last Priest of the AtenRuins of Akhetaten · level 79First Servant of the Aten, who would not leave the god's house. He still hasn't. He prays to the disc with his back to you, and it would be rude to interrupt.
• Mother of VulturesNekheb · level 82The oldest vulture of Nekheb, and the goddess's favourite, or so she behaves. She has stolen a crown and thinks it's an egg.
• Iuf-ankh the EmbalmerThe Tomb of Tausret · level 86The vizier's embalmer, in the jackal mask of Anubis. He doesn't eat. He doesn't sleep. He wraps.
• The Sand-CoilThe Star-Fallen Crater · level 97A serpent of the Coil, grown fat in the crater where a star fell. It swims through sand as a crocodile swims through the river.
• The AkhekhThe Sanctuary of Abu Simbel · level 111A desert griffin: falcon's head, lion's body, wings that crack like sails. The Coil bound it with words and a chain, and it hates them almost as much as it hates you.
• Paneb, Foreman of the Place of TruthColossi of Memnon · level 116Foreman of the tomb-builders, who cut the kings' tombs and then, it turns out, re-opened them.
• Kharabai, Warlord of the BlemmyesThe Eastern Desert · level 117Warlord of the Blemmyes, the desert raiders east of Meroe. He took the kandake's eye, and she means to take everything else.
• Serpent of the Red SeaThe Bay of Port Mersa · level 121A serpent of the Coil the length of a ship, coiled under Tutu's hull. The sailors call it the Mooring Fee.
• The Stallion of Piyeel-Kurru · level 121King Piye's favourite warhorse, pale as moonlight, risen from his grave at el-Kurru. Piye swore no horse of his would ever go hungry. This one is very hungry.
• Kapur, Great Chief of the MaThe Red Heart of Deshret · level 123Great Chief of the Meshwesh, lord of a hundred tents. The Oracle told him no. He took it personally.
• Lion of ApedemakThe Hills of Apedemak · level 125The war-god's own lion, maned in gold. It does not hunt those who do not ask. You asked.
• The Red HippopotamusEdfu · level 128Set, wearing a hippopotamus. Or a hippopotamus with Set's temper. Either way, it's sinking boats.
• The Sha, Beast of SetTjeny · level 130Something like a jackal, something like an aardvark, something like nothing at all. Its tail is forked. Its temper is worse.
• Copper Serpent of TimnaTimna Copper Mines · level 131An idol of the Coil, cast from Timna copper and set in Hathor's own niche, and then fed until it woke. It glows like a furnace and it smells of hot metal and old blood.
• The Raging EyeThe hills of Serabit · level 132A lioness wreathed in fire, with the goddess's own eyes: Hathor's wrath, wandering far from home.
• The UnnamedBuhen · level 132A name chiselled away so long ago that nobody remembers it, risen anyway. It has no face. It doesn't need one.
• The Iron HandMeroe Iron Mines · level 132The Coil's smith, a giant in a leather apron with a gauntlet of black iron where his right hand used to be. He hammers nails for the Serpent with his fist.
• The Griffin of IdaMount Ida · level 137The old griffin of the mountain, as big as a chariot and as patient as a cliff. Its scream wakes things in the cave that should be left asleep.
• Ptahhotep, Mouth of the CoilThe Mouth of the Cleft · level 139The Vizier of the Two Lands, the real one, with a was-sceptre in his hand and the dark of the Duat breathing at his back. He looks patient. He looks pleased to see you.
• Chariot-Lord of HattiThe Field of Kadesh · level 139The captain of the Hittite chariot host at Kadesh, still at the reins of his car, still shouting orders to men who died forty years ago. They still obey.
• The Unfinished KingWadi Hammamat · level 140A greywacke colossus abandoned in the quarry generations ago: a king with no face and no name, who would like yours.
• Thunder-in-the-GrassThe Butana · level 143The great bull of the Musawwarat herd, father of half the war-elephants in Kush, with a poisoned thorn in his foot and murder in his eye.
• The Swarm MotherScorpion King's Vault · level 145A scarab the size of a chariot, her shell crawling with her children.
• Khasekhem the EmbalmerScorpion King's Vault · level 149He wrapped the Scorpion King for eternity, and never stopped working.
• The Sand-Drowned GeneralThe Sand Sea · level 149He led fifty thousand men into the desert to burn the Oracle. The desert kept them. He still has his orders.
• The ShipbreakerThe Red Sea shore · level 149A serpent of the deep, barnacled and bronze-bright, that hates the smell of hulls and loves the smell of incense.
• Humbaba, Keeper of the CedarsThe Cedar Forest · level 150The guardian the gods set over the Cedar Forest: lion's claws, a face of coiled entrails, and a roar like the flood. The Coil cut his sacred cedar. He is not in a forgiving mood.
• The Coiled OneThe First Cataract · level 151A child of Apep, coiled in the rapids of the First Cataract, drinking the flood. Its scales are the colour of the river at midnight.
• Mother of the Winged SerpentsThe Frankincense Groves · level 151The great serpent of the frankincense groves, as long as a palm tree is tall, with wings like a ship's sails. All the little winged serpents are hers, and she can count.
• The Keeper of the HeartThe Heart of the Labyrinth · level 152Set in the Heart by the first Minos to keep what sleeps below asleep, bronze-masked and bull-horned. Someone has woken it instead. It strikes only those who strike it.
• Djedkare the Mummy KingValley of the Kings · level 156A pharaoh who refused to stay buried.
• Lotan, the Twisting SerpentThe Coast of Ugarit · level 157The serpent of the sea with seven heads, whom Baal struck down and Anat muzzled, and whom the Coil has been singing awake. Apep's northern brood. All seven heads are looking at you.
• Talos, the Bronze WatcherThe Cape of Zakros · level 157A giant of bronze made in the first days to walk round Keftiu three times a day and stone every ship that came near. Nobody told it to stop.
• The Star That FellThe Island of the Ka · level 160The star that fell on the Island of the Ka and burned the serpent's kin: a figure of cracked black iron and white fire, that cannot remember the sky.
• Sobek's ChampionSobek's Shallows · level 163A crocodile the size of a barge, scarred by a thousand years of Nile floods.
• Nau, Who Swims the SandThe Sands of Rosetau · level 170A horned serpent as long as a temple, swimming under the dry riverbed of Rosetau like a crocodile under water. It's been pulling Ipuy's haulers down one at a time.
• The Great ShaThe Crater of Set · level 172A beast of Set the size of a war-chariot, fattened on the god's iron bones. Its ears are square. Its temper is not.
• The Old TuskerThe Giraffe Plains · level 172The oldest elephant in Punt, with tusks that drag furrows in the earth and a temper that has outlived three chiefs. He does not want your company.
• Iuput, Knot-Priest of the CoilApep's Sandbank · level 176The vizier's own priest, who died on the road to Abydos and came west to wait for his master. He ties the serpent-cord. He tied the barque to the sandbank with it, knot by knot, and he's very proud of the knots.
• Akaru of the Fallen KouretesThe Labyrinth Below · level 203The first of the shield-dancers who went down to drown the Bull's bellow. He is still dancing, a thousand years on, and he has forgotten why.
• The Genius of the EwerThe Labyrinth Below · level 203The goddess's own attendant, lion-maned and hippo-bellied, pouring an endless libation into the dark to keep the Bull asleep. Interrupting it was a mistake.
• Niau, the Frog of the VoidThe Waters of Nun · level 204A frog older than the world, from the dark water that was there before anything was. The Coil woke it and set it in the river where the barque must pass. Its mouth is a hole in the night.
• Serqet-Ka, the Scorpion KingScorpion King's Vault · level 211Half a king, half a scorpion, and all of him angry.
• Overseer of the ThousandThe Drowned Tomb · level 215The foreman of Taharqa's thousand shabtis, a blue faience giant with a flail. He has been waiting a very long time to be told to work.
• Shezmu, Lord of the WinepressThe Lake of Fire · level 221The butcher of the gods, who presses the heads of the wicked like grapes and makes wine of them, and oil, and perfume. He used to be careful whose heads. The vizier gave him something to drink.
• Tamwa, Hand of the CoilThe Drowned Tomb · level 225The Coil's Hand in Kush: a tall woman in sodden red, with a hand of black Meroitic iron. She came to open a door into the Duat, to follow her master.
• Serket, Queen of ScorpionsSerket's Nest · level 229The goddess's own champion. Her venom can stop a heart.
• Ptahhotep, Voice of ApepApep's Coils · level 235The vizier, at the end of the night. He's thinner than he was, and taller, and the serpent's coils rise behind him like the walls of a temple. He's been saying Apep's names, one by one, for three nights. He's nearly finished.
• The Furnace BullThe Labyrinth Below · level 237A bull of bronze with a fire in its belly, built by the first smiths of Keftiu to fool the Bull Beneath. It fooled nobody, and it's still angry about it.
• Nehebkau, Serpent of the GateThe Night Barque · level 302The two-headed serpent who guards the gates of the night. Only the true of voice may pass.
• Taharqa, the Drowned KingThe Drowned Tomb · level 306Taharqa, greatest of the kings of Kush, who ruled Egypt from Napata to the sea until the Assyrians came. He has been lying in cold water for a very long time. He thinks you are an Assyrian.
• Lord of the Lake of FireThe Night Barque · level 320He keeps the lake that burns the wicked and cools the true.
• Asterion, the Bull BeneathThe Labyrinth Below · level 324The Bull under Keftiu. When he stamps, palaces fall; when he breathes, Strongyle smokes. His hide is the dark between the stars, and his eyes are two of them.
• Ammit, Devourer of the DeadThe Night Barque · level 369Crocodile, lion and hippopotamus: the end of every heavy heart.
• Apep, Serpent of ChaosThe Night Barque · level 520Before the first sunrise there was Apep. Every night he tries to swallow the sun, and tonight he is winning.