Page 107 of Blood of the Sands

An invisible hand shoved me to the side, a brush of Erix’s power helping me leap out of the way just in time for the wyrm to crash down onto all fours. Its head now between Erix and me, it swung back and forth, maw opening wide to show teeth nearly as long as the saber that I unsheathed.

One glowing pupilless orange eye fixed on me, and it swung toward me with a snarl. Its breath gusted over to me in a choking cloak of sulfur and smoke. I took the opportunity to try to sashay to the side, hoping to skirt around it and rejoin with Erix where we could execute our plan.

The wyrm had other ideas, vomiting up a gout of lava as it spun, creating a half circle of fire around it that effectively separated me from Erix. I heard him shout on the far side of the beast, catching its attention. A clang of metal on hardened scales signaled that he had attacked while I distracted it, and the wyrm whipped around, faster than I would have thought possible for a creature ten times the size of Daiti.

I threw myself backward, just in time to avoid the club of its tail, the end of which was decorated with wicked blackened spikes that the young wyrm had lacked. As the appendage whistled by, hot wind whipped my face, as if I had leaned too close to a fire while cooking. Where the young wyrm’s flesh had been uncomfortably hot to touch, I knew the scales of the adult would burn and blister my skin on contact. Still, I had a job to do.

The creature scuttled forward and away from me, apparently advancing on Erix. I unconsciously tugged the tether between him, finding his power knotted tight and strong on the other end as he fought. The feeling reinforced my resolve. If he wasn’t there to throw me atop the wyrm’s back, I would have to launch myself.

My feet churned in the sand as I pushed myself forward into a run, pumping my arms and pushing myself as fast as possible to gain momentum. I reached for the power of the desert flowing around me, through the well in my gut, in Erix, even in the wyrm before me, where the magic tasted rotten and blackened. As I gathered my strength in my thighs to leap into the air, I threw myself into a current of power. I flew through the air, breath catching in my throat as a few threads of Erix’s power tugged me even higher. Then gravity grabbed me once more, and I plummeted toward the wyrm’s broad scaley back, poised to land right between its shrunken wings.

I landed in a crouch, a scream tearing from my throat as the heat of its scales melted through the soles of my boots in a split second. Unconsciously trying to avoid the heat, I lost my balance, pitching sideways toward the ground below.

I flung out the arm holding my saber, hoping to stab into the wyrm’s flesh and stop my fall, but it skidded across flesh as hard as any armor. The blade screeched against scales, throwing sparks into the air as I dropped.

I landed flat on my back, forcing all the air from my lungs and turning my vision white. A shout from Erix warned me just in time for me to roll blindly away, a foot tipped with deadly talons crashing down where my torso had been just a moment before. However, I wasn’t quite fast enough, and the wyrm’s weight came down on my shin instead.

My scream drowned out the crunch of my bone as it gave way under the beast’s massive weight.

“Keera!”

Erix’s shout cut through the haze of pain, the fibers of his magic pulling taught and shuddering with tension as he raged against the wyrm. I blinked against the watering of my eyes, finding myself still halfway under the creature, the flesh on its belly a sickly white color.

It’s underbelly—the only place besides its eyes where it was unprotected by scales.

Clangs and cracks, along with the rage pouring down the bond from Erix, told me he had the creature thoroughly distracted. Rolling onto my front, I used my elbows to drag myself forward, further beneath the wyrm to where I hoped housed its vital organs. My one leg dragged behind me uselessly, twisted at an odd angle, but I grit my teeth against the white-hot sensation.

The body above me heaved as the wyrm prepared to spit lava at Erix. Before it could, I shoved my sword up hard. Boiling blood dripped down my arm as I drove my blade in all the way to the hilt. I screamed but didn’t let go, twisting savagely as the wyrm roared in agony. The form shuddered and convulsed.

When I was sure I had hit my mark, I let go of my sword, trying to crawl out from beneath the dying beast. I was too late. Partially twisted onto my side, I threw up one arm to shield myself from the massive form collapsing atop me.

Erix’s screaming filled my head as searing heat engulfed me.

Chapter Thirty-Five

Erix

My eyes were screwed shut but I could still see the Keera disappearing beneath the hulking form of the lava wyrm as it convulsed in its death throes. My hands clenched into fists, yanking at the fabric of the universe as I howled my rage at the sky. As it so often did, battle had loosened my control, and there was no Keera smiling down at me triumphantly to calm my blood.

Wind whipped around me, tugging at my clothes with unnatural force as the storm of my fury closed in around me. I forced my eyes open, determined to get to Keera, to hack the fallen lava wyrm off her bit by bit if I had to.

I was greeted by the sight of swirling ash, the lava wyrm disintegrated by my rage, its massive body now no more than dust on the wind. I wanted to curse the desert for letting me do such a thing only now, when a few seconds earlier such a show of power would have spared Keera. Instead, the rage rushed out of me as I lurched forward to a huddled form on the ground. I leaped over the river of lava that had separated us with a jolt of my power, still coming easily after a fight.

In a few bounds, I was at Keera’s side. I skidded to my knees, my sword falling forgotten at my side. My throat closed as I took in the sight before me.

One whole side of Keera’s body was burnt, still-smoldering clothing melted into her body where the wyrm’s unnaturally hot flesh had pressed into her. The angry red skin ran extended from her unnaturally bent leg up to the side of her face, where the hair on that side of her head had been burnt away completely.

I cupped her unburnt cheek in my hand and turned her face toward me. The whimper that tore from her at the movement ripped my heart in two even as it restarted its beating. Keera was alive.

“Keera, stay with me,” I urged, patting her cheek.

She groaned and her eyelids fluttered. “Erix.”

“I’m going to help you.”

I couldn’t do it here, on this lava-ridden battlefield, still smoldering and stinking of death. The dust that had once been the lava wyrm still drifted on the air, a gray powder settling into Keera’s hair, sticking to her lips and wounds, and turning her a deathly gray. Leaving her out here would likely lead to infection. I had to move her.

With all the gentleness I possessed, I slid my arms under Keera, trying to touch the burned side of her as little as possible. Still, she let out a high-pitched sound somewhere between a scream and a gasp. She tried thrashing against my grasp, despite my murmured reassurances, but only managed to jostle her broken leg. I clutched her to me, trying not to let her fall, but succeeding in digging my hand into the mangled skin of her shoulder.