Sands (Sharani Series Book 1) (28 page)

“What are you doing here?” Lhaurel asked him as Gavin cautiously approached.

Cobb glanced over at her without turning his head and then turned back to the body on the ground.

“Last I checked,” he said, voice filled with pain, “you were dead.”

Gavin made a small noise, halfway between a snort and a laugh, but Lhaurel silenced him with a look.

“I’m alive, but we won’t be if we don’t get out of here soon. Something terrible is happening in the Oasis!”

Cobb grunted and leaned back against the wall. He looked at Gavin. “You there, retrieve my sword. I’ll need it. Lhaurel, take this tunnel down until it turns to the left. Take the passage there to the left, and it will take you down to an opening on the Oasis floor. The two missing clans are running around in here like ants over honey. Best not to be seen.”

“Aren’t you coming with us?” Gavin asked.

“Not with this leg, boy. I’ve done what I can. Now bring me my sword and get out of here.”

Gavin didn’t move until Cobb shot him a withering glare. When he finally did yield, it was grudgingly. “Here,” Gavin said, handing Cobb the sword. “May you always find water and shade when the shadows come to take you.”

Cobb grunted.

“Let’s go,” Lhaurel said. A sense of urgency gripped her and drove her onward. She took the sword from him and held it in one hand.

*              *              *

Makin Qays shouted a defiant challenge as the monstrous beast rose up out of the sands before the Oasis walls. Fangs larger than a man was tall jutted up from the karundin’s lower jaw. With blunted nose, ebony eyes, and deep, dark, greyish-green skin, the creature surged upward, its head a hundred spans across and just as long. From atop his aevian, Makin Qays felt no fear, though his mind was numb from the sheer size of the beast.

It continued to rise up out of the sand, spiked head bending downward as it rose. Its long, armored, serpentine body continued surging upward, coiling around and around at the foot of the Oasis walls. A small fin rose along its back as it bent its head downward, back toward the sand as if to enter the Oasis itself.

Makin Qays was sure if it had wanted to, it could have leapt the Oasis walls before part of it had collapsed. Makin Qays raised his axe in one hand and his sword in the other and screamed in death’s face. He supposed he looked like a small insect buzzing at a man about to squash it to those below him.

Something glinted in the air above the creature. Makin Qays glanced up, expecting to see reinforcements. Instead, Kaiden dropped through the air, sword held in one hand. Skree-lar shrieked and flew away. Kaiden landed on the karundin’s back, digging his sword into the creature to steady his landing. The karundin shrieked, a massive, bellowing sound that nearly deafened Makin Qays. Kaiden looked up at him, his expression an open challenge.

*              *              *

Saralhn wiped blood from her brow and spat to the side. The spittle was red. Stumbling, she ran forward, spear held out before her in raw fingers. Screams and the smell of death filled the air around her. The salty tang of blood mixed with the bitter scent of urine. She tried to ignore the bodies, but her numbed mind saw everything. She had to find Khari and provide a warning. She had to—

A sailfin burst from the sand in front of her, teeth bared. Without conscious thought her spear came up and sliced the creature from jaw to jaw.

Where was the woman? She burst into a jog, and then something slammed into her. Pain lanced up her foot as it was seized in iron jaws and she was dragged into the sand. She screamed, but it was a single note of fear amidst a symphony of terror. Sand closed in over her head. She struggled to break the surface, to gasp one last breath of fresh air.

The witch, Elyana, is dead, killed by her last great ‘creation.’ Her monsters, the genesauri, proliferate the desert sands, killing with abandon. They have driven the enemy away. How were we so blind, so afraid, that we fought the enemy at the gate and ignored the threat within the keep? We should have known when Briane went missing. We should have known when the first of those cursed beasts reared up out of the sand and massacred our clans. Now there are too many.

We will keep this record as a testament to Briane and Arrelone and place it among our other records in the hidden grottos. They were killed by the witch’s hand to feed our hope for salvation. These records will remind us that desperation and fear are not justification for being in league with devils.

The enemy has left us, but it seems Elyana has done their work for them. We have killed ourselves.

-From the Journals of Elyana, notations added by Eldriean, Warlord of the Rhiofriar

Lhaurel burst out onto the Oasis floor into the midst of chaos and death. She nearly collapsed from the sheer scope of
feeling
that washed over her from the hundreds of fear-stricken people that were around her. A double handful died, and she died with them, nearly blacking out from the sheer pain and terror of the surrogate death. She felt it and was a part of it. Only Gavin, coming up behind her and noticing the sudden weakening of the knees, kept her from toppling over entirely in the face of the emotional barrage.

He caught her around the waist and held her up. “Are you alright?”

Lhaurel didn’t have the strength to answer. It required all her remaining strength to cut off the part of her mind that sensed the presence of others and return just to her own emotions. Yet even then, the momentary experience left her drained and emotionally raw.

“Water,” she said softly.

Gavin searched around, coming up with a half empty skin that had been left nearby.

Strength returned to her. She stood up straight, shrugging out of Gavin’s hold. He took a step back and looked out over the scene of chaos and death unfolding before him.

“Look at them,” he said, his voice taking on a tone of deep sadness underlined with indignation. “Fighting in pockets. Why don’t they gather? Form a defensive line?”

Lhaurel looked out at the people. The few warriors that had managed to retrieve weapons were indeed fighting in small groups, warriors arrayed in tight circular or square formations around the women and children. Dozens of these groups stood in the center of the Oasis, yet none of them were close enough to assist the others. They stood apart, often hidden beneath waves of sailfins or the massive body of a marsaisi. A handful of aevians and their riders dove through the air, picking off the odd sailfin or else harrying a marsaisi until it returned to the sands, but their numbers were few, far fewer than Lhaurel had hoped, despite her surprise at even seeing them.

“Clans,” she said. “They’re fighting in clans. That’s the only way they know how.”

Gavin growled, deep and low in his throat. He raised his greatsword. Wind kicked up a cloud of dust around them and a faint red mist formed around the man. He surged forward in long graceful strides.

Lhaurel watched in open astonishment as he scaled a large mound of boulders, slicing a sailfin in half almost without turning to look at it. At the top, he raised the sword high into the air and shouted out, a loud pure note that rose above the din of the battle.

“Brothers!” he shouted. “Sisters! There is strength in unity! To me warriors of the clans! To me women and children. Let us drive these creatures from our home. Fight with me!” His voice rang out and echoed off the walls.

Two different sailfins surged upward out of the sand, writhing through the air. Gavin’s sword spun in a twisting series of moves that flashed and glittered in the sunlight. Two dead sailfins fell to the rocks below, headless bodies on one side and bodiless heads on the other.

“Fight with me! Don’t give in to fear! As long as there is breath left in this body I will defend you. Look to the fallen. Look at the slain. Brothers. Sisters. Children. Parents. Fight now for them! Fight with me!”

Slowly at first, as if they were afraid to believe, but then more quickly, the small pockets of people gravitated toward Gavin and then suddenly surged forward in a great wave that swarmed over the rocks like ants over a hill. Women and children were pushed to the center, but even the women looked suddenly grim-faced, and many of them bore small knives or the broken hafts of spears. Their faces were not of women lacking in strength. They were the faces of women willing to lay down their lives in defense of their children. These were the faces of women who were willing to die defending freedom. They knew their duty and accepted it with honor and strength.

Lhaurel felt herself swept up along in the tide, only her dagger clutched in one hand. Someone else darted by her, though, pausing only long enough to shove her out of the way.

“Nice speech, outcast,” Taren said, scowling. “It will make my job easier now they’re all together. I appreciate it.” He made a gesture with his sword as if shooing away a fly.

Gavin raised his sword and dropped into a ready stance. A space opened around them, Rahuli fighters defending their lives from all sides.

“Let’s get to it, then,” Gavin said. And they charged.

*              *              *

Lhaurel pulled her dagger free from the sailfin corpse with a wet hiss. Blood dripped from it into the sand. Part of her mind screamed and trembled as it felt people dying around her, participating in their deaths. Blood pounded in her ears, almost deafening her in its intensity. She tried to push it out of her mind, but she couldn’t. With each death the pull of her power grew somehow stronger. She felt the genesauri surging through the sands beneath them, felt the strange power by which they flew surging upward from far beneath them. She knew and understood the people around her intimately. She felt their fear and their pain and was fueled by it.

Yet somehow, she managed to still put some of her focus into the present moment. A woman near her shouted as another sailfin burst out of the sand. Two other women fell upon it with long knives and a spear, cutting it out of the air before it could latch onto someone and drag them into the sand.

Lhaurel took a moment to breathe. Her eyes unconsciously sought the fight on the rocks above them.

Gavin and Taren battled back and forth, their swords a blur of metal. Gavin countered each of Taren’s strokes, but Taren was a veteran of hundreds of duels. Gavin’s unorthodox technique was more fluid, depending upon speed and agility rather than strength, which countered Taren’s more aggressive strength. Still, it was not going well for Gavin. He bled from several small wounds, and Taren’s attacks were relentless. Lhaurel knew that it would not be long before Gavin slipped up and Taren ran him through. Again.

Almost as if in response to Lhaurel’s thought, Gavin tripped on a loose stone and stumbled backward. Taren smiled, and his eyes flashed in triumph.

A cloud of red and white mist erupted around Gavin just as crackling energy surged down Gavin’s arms. The energy leapt from Gavin’s fingers with a sizzling hiss. It hit Taren just as he moved to bring his sword down. The bolt of energy blasted completely through Taren’s chest.

A noise sounded through the Oasis, a powerful, nightmarish bellow that shook the earth.

*              *              *

The creature that arose out of the sand in front of Khari was a thing of nightmare. A hundred times larger than the biggest marsaisi, it seemed to blacken out the sky in front of it. Thick skull plate and spikes adorned its head, and massive, metallic fins jutted out from each segmented section of its long body. It appeared almost like a cross between a millipede and a rashelta, but with each section armored separately and teeth that shone grey and lifeless.

Standing before it, looking up at teeth larger and taller than she was herself, Khari knew the moment of her death. She stared at it and then looked down at the spear in her hand. It shone slick with the blood of scores of genesauri. A smile stretched across her bloodied face. She was death. And death cannot die. She leapt from the rocks.

*              *              *

Makin Qays leapt from his saddle, ignoring the fact that he was falling toward the back of the karundin. He landed on the creature’s armored back and, as he’d seen Kaiden do, slammed the spike of his axe into the creature’s armor to steady himself.

Kaiden smiled. “Hello, Makin. I’m not dead. Sorry to disappoint.”

Makin Qays sucked in a breath. He’d hoped, for a moment, that Kaiden was here to help, had come to do the impossible and help him destroy this hellish monster. But he’d known, deep down inside, as soon as he’d seen Kaiden’s defiant face staring up at him.

Makin Qays raised his sword. “You’re somehow behind all this, aren’t you?”

Kaiden smiled and made a small gesture with his free hand. Makin Qays’s sword flew out of his hand. Beneath them, genesauri erupted from the sand or else dove back into it, filling the air with dust and sand. People screamed distantly.

“This is all because of you, my dear Warlord.” Kaiden took a step forward as he spoke, a bit of metal appearing from a pocket of his robes and spinning in a slow circle around him. “These deaths are on your hands.”

“You’re insane.” Makin Qays pulled his axe free, balancing as best he could as the karundin continued to pull its massive bulk out of the ground.

He took a step forward, readying his axe, but Kaiden made another contemptuous flick of one hand and the axe flew out of Makin Qays’s grip.

“You denied them the protection of your presence among them. You hid yourselves. Your cowardice made it so that dozens died needlessly. The tattoos on your arms name you what you really are: traitors to the vows you uphold. Hypocrites.”

Makin Qays grimaced and balled his fists. “This is your fault, Kaiden. You set this up. People are dying here, defending themselves and others. What possible purpose does this have? You are the hypocrite. We are here, upholding the flame. You are here to snuff it out.”

Kaiden stopped and looked at him, eyes hard, yet seemingly distant. “Why am I here?” He pointed his blade at Makin Qays. “To fulfill a vow.”

The blade shot from his hand like an arrow. Makin Qays barely felt the pain of it entering his chest. He dropped to his knees and then slid to the side. He hung there for a moment, eyes and thoughts clouding over, and then slipped over the edge.

“For my father,” Kaiden said, and he whistled for Skree-lar.

*              *              *

Lhaurel uncovered her ears, eyes straining through the dust and chaos of the Oasis floor, but couldn’t see anything. Desperately, she reached out with her powers, dread clutching at her heart.

Something massive loomed just outside the Oasis, a giant evil with but a single great purpose:  To eat anything living. She sensed Makin Qays fall, his life giving out before he hit the sand. She felt Kaiden leap onto Skree-lar’s back and race toward where she was now.

Lhaurel dropped to her knees, clutching at her temples. Behind her, Gavin shouted out orders, rallying the fighters around him. Kaiden and Skree-lar winged closer. Lhaurel felt Kaiden leap from his saddle, plunging through the air toward her as if he could sense her, too.

Time slowed. Something inside Lhaurel screamed out. Something deep and primal that she had felt only twice before clawed to the surface and unleashed a torrent of seething energy and rage. She reached out, pulling blood from the sands and from the dead around her. A red mist enveloped her and shrouded her with power. And with it surged new strength.

That primal instinct tugged at Kaiden then, pulled at the lifeblood within him just as he neared the ground. Kaiden hit the ground in a cloud of dust. Red and grey mist formed around him like it did when he was using his powers, blood mixed with the metals in the sands, but it flowed away from him instead of toward him, flowed outward and to Lhaurel, joining with the cloud of bloody mist that surrounded her. The power within Lhaurel doubled, and she screamed from the sheer, painful ecstasy of it.

Kaiden also screamed, but his was one of pain and horror. His eyes widened, and his face seemed to age. Skin wrinkled and turned pale. The flesh sagged, and muscles lost their strength. His sword slipped from his fingers.

Pain lanced through her frame, shooting through her like a thousand volts of electricity. It pounded through her body. By reflex, she seized at her powers, pulled at the source of healing and strength with everything that she had.

A woman near her that was an instant from death died a moment early as Lhaurel pulled the blood from her dying body.

An older warrior, grey at his temples and with an old silver scar down one arm, gasped as he felt himself growing weak. He’d been wounded and knew that his time was short, but he hadn’t lost too much blood yet. He sank to his knees. Maybe he’d lost more blood than he’d thought. He blinked once and then died.

Lhaurel screamed again and flopped on the sand as she realized what she was doing. Yet she could not stop the forces running through her. Power raged, churning through her body, changing her, channeling the blood of the dead and dying through her. She felt each person. Felt each genesauri. The powers within her raged like the storming sea. It screamed at her as wind whipped the sands and the sky overhead seemed to darken as clouds rolled in from afar.