Page 23 of Blood of the Sands

With the adrenaline coursing through my veins, the leash on my magic was already lose, and the barest hint of my power was all it took to draw the torch the last inches into my hand. It was as if the threads connecting everything in the desert pulled taught to bring the world into alignment.

I swung at it blindly, and the weight on my back lifted. Not wasting a moment, I rolled onto my back, waving the lit torch before me. The creature reared back from the flames, and I got my first good look at it.

A shapeless mass of tattered flesh served as the centroid for a nauseating amalgamation of limbs. Arms and legs from every type of human and beast imaginable sprouted from the central body at disjointed angles. While some were fleshy, most were skeletal, or only had the barest hints of skin hanging from ravaged bone.

Whatever the creature was, it seemed to fear fire. It lifted many of its limbs as if to shield itself from the light, although I saw no eyes. Before I could take advantage of its retreat and scuttle the rest of the way out from under it, the creature seemed to recover from the shock of the light. It fell on me once more.

Without a blade in hand, I did the only thing I could think of. I shoved the lit torch as hard as I could through the mass of writhing limbs into the creature’s center. A horrible screeching split the air, although I did not know from where, since the creature didn’t appear to have a mouth. It tried to writhe away from me, but I followed it, pressing the torch into it until the stench of rotting flesh filled the air.

After an eternity of twitching, the creature finally fell limp, nearly pinning me beneath it. I just managed to pull back in time to avoid the brunt of its weight. By now, my torch was mostly extinguished, smothered by the creature’s flesh and leaving me in the dark. Only the glimmer from the camps braziers a way off and the silvery moon lit my actions as I pushed to my feet. Carefully, I felt around for my saber, finding it a few paces away; I was steadied by its weight in my hand. I kept it unsheathed, not knowing if there may be more of the creatures.

Turning back to my felled enemy, I considered the lifeless lump for a long moment before bending to sling it over my shoulders. It was an awkward affair, as misshapen as it was, but I managed to load it onto my back.

With the monstrosity in tow and my blade in hand, I trekked back to the encampment.

By the time I arrived, the group I left had doubled in size. They had to have heard the creatures screeching in its death throes. At the front of the crowd stood the lords of the five clans.

I dumped the creature at their feet with a clatter of bones.

Gasps greeted the sight of misshapen limbs, all attached at the center as if by a deranged doll maker. The lords hid their shock well, but the lord from clan Padra didn’t completely suppress her wince. It was not lost on me that none of them had come to aid me in the fight, although the noise of battle would have easily carried through the night to the encampment. Perhaps they thought I would be killed, and our bargain would be void.

“A bone spider,” the lord of Clan Tibel observed dispassionately, although he could not fully hide the edge of concern in his voice.

Now that he said it, the term knocked a memory loose, a tale from an old scroll in a stone library. All sorts of monsters roamed the desert before the first man crossed it, claiming the magic and the right to live here for the clans. Old texts described lava wyrms and flying terrors, but the bone spiders had been hard to picture. Now I could see why: they defied explanation.

The old scroll I had come across while searching for explanation of the power that flowed through me said they were born as faceless, directionless masses of flesh. They roamed aimlessly, stealing the limbs off corpses and out of graves, attaching them to its form without rhyme or reason. As it collected limbs, it grew bolder, attacking living beings to take their limbs too, adding to the overwhelming mass of bones and rotting flesh.

Somebody at the back of the crowd retched.

“The day before yesterday I confronted a Sichat, and now a bone spider attacks your clans. Legends are waking, and the desert is angry.” I stabbed my saber at the fallen creature in emphasis.

“All the more reason we must protect our own people and not waste our riders on useless wars,” the lord of Clan Padra said, folding her arms across her chest.

“Perhaps the terrors will cease when a true Champion of the Desert rises.” The lord of Clan Otush fixed me with hard eyes. “After all, she has been without for too long.”

“The desert will have her Champion.”

The ride back to Clan Katal was thankfully less eventful than the journey to Clan Tibel. Alza whickered happily, ears pricking forward at the sounds of clashing steel as riders trained drifted toward us.

While I knew Lord Alasdar would be waiting for news, especially after our trip had been longer than expected, I rode to the enclosure where the horses were kept first and tended to Alza. I wasn’t willing to leave her to the horse master of the clan after her injury, preferring to tend her myself. While the man may be competent enough, my father had taught me to take care of my mounts better than most. For a moment, I could picture my father bending over a new foal in the Kelvadan stables with a fond smile on his face.

I forcefully shook the errant thought from my head and focused on examining Alza’s hooves for any cracks, satisfied when I found none. As I finished unloading my packs of gear from her back, the falcon that had perched on the bundles fluttered away to hunt. I didn’t pay him much mind, sure he would be back. He had flown away several times on the long ride, only to reappear later and perch on my shoulder, once with the tail of a lizard dangling from his beak.

I brushed through Alza’s mane once more, and she head butted me in the chest, as if telling me to stop worrying over her and let her eat her arrowgrass in peace.

She snorted in response to my giving her nose one last pat before trudging off to Lord Alasdar’s tent. As expected, he was already sitting at his table, perusing a parchment when I arrived.

“I take it Clan Tibel will be arriving in a few days?” he asked, glancing up from his table.

I swallowed. I did not take failing Lord Alasdar lightly.

“Clan Tibel was not alone when I arrived,” I started, kneeling on a rug across the low table from him. His gaze snapped up to mine. He met my eyes through the slit in the mask, something very few people did, making me feel exposed. The woman, Keera, had been the same. I blinked at the sudden thought of her.

“What other clan was present?” he asked sharply.

“All of them that are not yet here. They had heard of our endeavors and joined together so they would not be intimidated by Clan Katal.”

The candles and lanterns in the enclosed space all flared brighter as Lord Alasdar slammed an open hand on the table. His own magic tugged on its tether in his ire, and I could feel it thicken in the air around me. Still, he succeeded in controlling his more tightly than I did, free of the incessant whispering clouding his mind. He had taught me how to control my magic better, but I could never rid myself of the constant noise of the desert.