Page 113 of Blood of the Sands

Moving quickly, I bent to retrieve my saber. I contemplated for just a moment before laying it next to Keera’s outstretched hand. I would feel better leaving her with a weapon, and my sword felt like the next best thing if I could not be there to protect her myself. Instead, I grabbed the sword from Lord Alasdar’s belt, testing it in my grip. It was shorter than I was used to and the blade broader, but it would do.

Before I could charge from the tent, Izumi reached out, offering me something.

My mask.

I only hesitated for a moment. Then I grabbed it and shoved it back on my face, even as my skin crawled. The riders of the clans knew me as the Viper, the Champion of the Ballan Desert, and now was not the time to change that. If I could be a symbol that saved instead of only destroying, then I could stomach the contraption again.

I chanced one more look at Keera, vulnerable but alive, nestled in a bloodstained nest of rugs and cushions.

“I’ll be back,” I promised, and then shoved out into the chaos of the encampment.

Alza’s muscular body between my thighs dispelled the quivering that had overtaken my limbs since I had woken chained in Lord Alasdar’s tent. I charged through the camp, sword held aloft and rallying riders to me. Fighters who had run to-and-fro without direction, dousing burning tents and trying to protect their own clans without a clear chain of command, grabbed their mounts and fell in behind me.

Forces that had been scattered, nine fractured factions fending for themselves coalesced into a solid band. With a cry, I struck out at a Kelvadan rider who had managed to make it deep into the encampment.

With the element of surprise on their side, the riders of Kelvadan had penetrated far beyond our defenses in a matter of minutes. I directed the riders with me to push them back toward the west where they had attacked from.

Swinging my saber in vicious arcs and urging Alza to kick out with her deadly hooves, I positioned myself in the thick of things. As clansman saw the masked rider on the black horse, they shouted and rallied to me, although I did not miss the way some of their gazes flicked to the freshly burned handprint on my still-bare chest.

Meanwhile, riders of Kelvadan began retreating the moment they spotted my mask. The Viper ruled the battlefield, even if I knew he lay dead on the ground next to the corpse of Lord Alasdar. I wore his face, and that was all that mattered.

I savagely attacked any fighters I spotted advancing toward the center of the camp. I had left Keera in the tent there, and I didn’t intend to let anybody get near her. At I thought of Keera, I pulled on the magic between us, drawing power.

Soon, the mind-numbing hum of battle washed over me. My sword blocked blows before I even noticed them coming, and Alza followed commands before I could give them, as if she and I were of the same mind.

By the time we had pushed the riders of Kelvadan to the borders of the encampment, the full force of all nine clans were at my back and blood splattered my bare chest. Still, battle raged on outside the line of tents. Horses screamed and the harsh screeching of blade meeting blade filled the air. The metallic tang of blood filtered in through my mask, and the threads of my magic began to tremble, tying itself into knots.

I itched to advance, the bloodlust bred into me by Lord Alasdar rearing its head and urging me to push on until all who opposed us had fallen. Still, a tether in the back of my skull to an unconscious woman behind me held a shred of my sanity intact. We needed to be safe. Lord Alasdar was dead, and we needed a chance to regroup. Still, power danced at my fingertips and the sands began to swirl around me. The desert itched to be unleashed upon those who stood against me.

Those in combat closest around me noticed the change, horses edging away from me as white showed around their eyes. Izumi, astride her piebald to my right, eyed me warily.

“Pull back!” I shouted, holding my hands out before me.

Izumi echoed my order, rallying as many riders to her as possible in a hasty retreat. The battle cries of the Kelvadan riders turned to shouts of victory, seeing the clans turning tail as surrender.

I closed my eyes, letting the cacophony roll over me. The voices of both sides turned into an overwhelming rumble as my awareness dissolved, skittering across the landscape. I was every horse and every rider. Every grain of sand moved at my command even as my sense of self dissolved nearly entirely.

A crack split the air the same time I snapped back into my body. Shouts of victory turned into screams of terror. I opened my eyes to find Alza’s hooves on the edge of a gorge, so deep that the bottom was swallowed by darkness. Riders of Kelvadan who had been in the vanguard, chasing the clansman in a hasty rout, plummeted into the chasm, falling to certain doom.

The split in the earth ran as far as I could see in both directions, gently curving around the encampment and effectively splitting it from the attackers. Kelvadan’s forces skittered backward, retreating from the chasm as if afraid it would advance and swallow more of them.

Among the retreating riders, I spotted a familiar shaved head, marked by a vertical line of black ink. Aderyn shouted orders and wheeled her horse around. She appeared to be carrying a burden with her, but my vision began to blur.

A hand on my shoulder braced me before I even realized I had slipped sideways on Alza’s back, tilting dangerously toward the earth. Izumi pulled her mount up next to me, wrapping an arm around my waist in support.

“It’s all right. We’re safe now.”

At her words, the last of my energy drained out of me. I had scarcely slept for two days since fighting the lava wyrm. After bearing Keera across the desert, torture, the upheaval of Lord Alasdar’s death, and a battle that left my mind fizzling with aftershocks of power, I wanted nothing more than to answer the seductive call of unconsciousness. I needed one thing first.

“Keera…”

“We’ll take care of her,” Izumi assured.

Try as I might, I couldn’t stop the darkness from claiming me.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Keera