Page 53 of Blood of the Sands

My eyes snagged on a cloud of dust to the left, and the rare quiet in my mind that accompanied the chase shattered. We had competition for the banner.

I nudged Alza toward it, moving to intercept. Keera sat up straighter for a moment, looking around until she appeared to catch sight of our competitors too and followed my course.

As the distance closed between us and the other group, I counted five of them, a flash of green marking each of their arms. Keera and I appeared to be faster, but they were already closer to the target. Pulling the blunted saber from across my back, I prepared to engage them, hoping I could keep all of them busy enough to keep one from getting away and snatching the flag.

Seeing me approach, they reached for their weapons, but it was too late. I held out my saber to the side, swerving Alza at the last moment to duck behind a green rider’s horse and strike him flat across the chest. I heard his collarbone snap as the momentum threw him from his horse, but I did not pause.

I wheeled around, engaging up close with the next rider as they had all been riding in a tight group. I swung my sword in a large arc, distracting him with the motion. While he got his own weapon up in time to block my blow, I took advantage of the moment to hook my foot around his. With a heave, and help from Alza as she recognized the maneuver, I dumped him unceremoniously from his horses back.

I turned to find my next opponent, and my eyes caught on two green riders still galloping toward the flag at breakneck pace. Before I could pursue, the fifth rider moved to cut me off.

Keera, however, leapt into action. She and her golden stallion had veered off when I attacked, following the two charging toward the flag. Her saber remained sheathed, but she didn’t seem to intent on using it anyway as she took a flying leap from her mount’s back. Landing on her opponent’s horse, she wrenched her arm across his shoulders, tearing him from his seat to tumble to the ground in a heap.

I looked away from her for a moment to take on my own opponent. To his credit, he parried several of my blows, only for a punch from my unarmed hand to catch him across the jaw. He slumped forward, unconscious over his horse’s neck, before listing sideways, and slipping slowly to the sand.

I looked up again only to scream internally. The fifth green rider continued charging toward the banner unhindered. Meanwhile, Keera remained on her opponent’s horse, running horizontally.

Sands, what was she doing?

Then, I saw it: a sixth rider with a red arm band. Axlan had followed Keera and me, but she was heading as if to cut him off.

It hit me with the force of a stampede of addax. If our team lost the challenge, I would lose my chance to be crowned Champion, and Keera knew it.

With a wordless shout, I urged Alza to join the chase to where all four of us were converging on the flag. The prize that would mean winning the challenge stood on the top of a dune, and as we drew closer, I saw protections had been erected to increase the challenge. Stones formed a ring, piled high enough that only a skilled rider would be able to jump it. The terrain was littered with sharpened spikes, driven into the earth, and pit traps that could easily be overlooked if distracted by a competitor. All of us were forced to slow as we approached the obstacles, dodging around them.

I trusted Alza to pick a safe path as I kept my eyes on Keera. She was nearly to Axlan, although he and the green rider were both several hundred meters from the flag—much closer than me. Alza was fast, but I wasn’t sure if we could make up distance that quickly.

Axlan was my best chance of the red team reaching the flag first, as long as Keera didn’t get in his way. I had to stop her.

Alza was nearly level with her mount’s nose when I saw it—a patch of differently colored ground that marked sinking sands to those who knew how to spot them. All rational thought flew from my brain aside from Keera and how I needed to stop her.

I threw myself from Alza’s back, the full force of my body weight crashing into Keera. My arms tangled around her torso as my momentum carried us both over the far side of her horse and into the sinking pit.

She let out a raw screech as we tumbled, thrashing in my hold, and managing to flip us over, but I held fast. I hit the sands first, her weight driving me down as she was pulled partially in with me.

Immediately, I let go of her, leaning back and spreading my arms as I kicked my legs back and forth to avoid sinking further. I had already been submerged up to my shoulders. Trapped in the sand together, Keera’s back pressed flush up against my front. Despite the threat of panic at the edge of my consciousness, something in my brain went oddly blank. Like there was space in my mind there hadn’t been before.

I struggled to form coherent thoughts as magic swirled within me, although it didn’t seem to offer up a way to get me out of the sand, just warming and twisting in my skull.

Keera’s shouting cut through the sudden swell, threatening to pull me under as thoroughly as the sucking sands. “Daiti!”

Keera shifted before me, her arms not yet trapped like mine, her fall having been broken by me. Then her torso pulled away. I craned my neck forward, just able to make out the golden silhouette of her stallion, leaning over the edge of the sand and helping Keera haul herself free of the pit.

Hopefully I had slowed her enough that she wouldn’t be able to interfere with Axlan capturing the flag. I opened my mouth to yell for Alza’s help, unsure of how I would pull myself free without my arms, but it was too late.

The last thing I saw before the sands engulfed me fully was Keera’s scowl as she crouched at her horse’s hooves.

Chapter Sixteen

Keera

If I did nothing, in a matter of seconds, the Viper’s threat to Kelvadan would be over. Even if Lord Alasdar and Clan Katal remained set on seeing the Great City fall, the heaviness at the base of my neck from knowing facing down the Viper was inevitable would be gone.

As the tips of his black gloved fingers dipped below the quicksand, I glanced toward the banner. The green rider and Axlan were engaged in a skirmish to see who would emerge with the flag and advance their team in the Trials. I grabbed Daiti’s neck, ready to haul myself on to his back and run for the flag. If the Viper was gone, there was no reason I couldn’t hope for the red team to emerge victorious and continue in the Trials.

Before I could stand, the Viper’s mare caught my attention, prancing at the edge of the pit of sinking sands. The screams of distress at the disappearance of her master tugged at my gut, a wave of nausea rolling over me.

I froze, glancing back and forth between the fight on the horizon and the earth where the Viper had disappeared moments earlier. It looked like Axlan was gaining the upper hand in the fight. In a split-second decision, I began unwrapping the long fabric of my hood from around my head and shoulders.