Page 11 of Heart of the Desert

The wall of dust appeared to our right, bearing down on us with alarming speed. Daiti extended his stride, head bobbing as we ran. Even if he was as fast as the wind, though, there was nowhere for us to escape to.

“Here!” Erix shouted, his voice nearly drowned out by the screaming storm.

He veered off, Alza quickly ascending a peaked dune to our left. The downward slope on the far side would not afford us much shelter, but it would have to do.

Dhara and I followed him, cresting the sandy ridge and just starting to descend on the far side before jumping down from our mounts. Hurriedly, I unwrapped my hood from my head, shushing as I wrapped it around Daiti’s nose and eyes, even though I knew he couldn’t hear me over the sound of the impending storm.

On either side of me, Dhara and Erix did the same with their own mounts. By the time we finished, the din drowned out even my own thoughts, and already grit started to chafe my skin where the wind whipped it into my face, even though the worst of the storm had not hit us yet.

We would be lucky to survive this, exposed as we were.

But I had stood against forces of nature before—even if briefly.

I started running back up toward the top of the dune, struggling and slipping against the loose terrain.

“Keera!”

I heard Erix’s cry more clearly in my mind than in my ears, but there was no time to respond. My awareness was already fracturing outwards, skittering over the desert and into the oncoming wall of wind. The storm was here.

Just as it crested the top of the dune, I threw my hands up. Diving headlong into the tidal wave of magic that overwhelmed me, I tried to grab on to the storm the same way I had the avalanche in the Kelvadan fields. Where the stampeding rocks had been inexorable but solid, stopping the sand and wind was like trying to hold water in my fist.

I screamed as the sand scoured my face, my eyes already screwed shut as I fell to my knees. But I did not relent, pushing back with every fiber of my being—with the desert’s being—as I fell into the web of life and death spreading out around me.

I could not stop this storm, but I could hold firm against it. I trembled with effort, but I shoved, tapping into my own storm to create a wall of wind. The howling did not quiet, but the painful scorch of sand against my bare flesh abated.

I blinked my eyes open, finding that I had created a sort of bubble of safety. The storm met my own magical wind where it crested the dune, forcing it to break over it like water flowing over a rock. We weren’t completely protected, but the worst of the wind and sand skirted around us.

I couldn’t hold it for long, though.

The tether in my belly shivered as Erix scrabbled over to me, his power already pouring into mine. Its wildness made it hard to focus on holding the shape of our ephemeral shelter, but perhaps with our combined magic, we could outlast the storm. It was moving fast and might blow past us quickly.

Before he could reach me, the sounds of the storm shifted, its shrieking almost sounding like shrill yelps and howls. Almost… animal.

A black streak flew out of the storm into our protected bubble, hurtling toward me. I opened my mouth to scream, but I couldn’t drop my hands or I would doom us all to be lost in the storm.

Erix stepped in front of me at the last second. It bowled him to the ground, and they fell in a writhing pile of black fur. Erix managed to wrestle it beneath him, driving his dirk into the white spot in the middle of its chest as I recognized the creature by its glowing purple eyes—a sichat.

But there wasn’t just one. More dark shadows appeared in the storm, circling the shelter I provided as if unbothered by the storm they prowled through. Perhaps they were simply one with the squall, another extension of the desert’s fury.

I couldn’t even draw my blade to fight without risking being swallowed by the storm. The yips intensified as the dark figures tightened their ring around us like a noose. Erix got to his feet, drawing his saber as well, so he held a blade in each hand.

Dhara drew her sword on the far side of me. My arms began to shake in earnest.

The creatures leapt, at least five of them jumping into the fray all at once. I ducked my head, Dhara and Erix swinging their blades above me.

Erix slashed at one, forcing it to jump back, even as another leapt at his offside. It landed on his back, but he swung his sword over his shoulder. A pained yelp cut through the cacophony as his blow made contact, and it thudded to the ground just inches from me. Even in the chaos, the hot earthy scent of magic overwhelmed my senses. My vision blurred, my consciousness leaking out of my mind to spread through the storm I was trying to fight, even as I tried to keep my soul fully inside my body. It was harder than it should be, with Erix’s battle rage tugging on my power.

Light from my right side caught my attention. I screwed up my face as I tried to focus. Dhara held her hand out palm forward, driving one sichat back with a gout of flame and holding a second at bay with her saber.

Scared by the shimmering heat rolling off Dhara, the first one rounded on me. The haze in my mind clouded my vision, but I could sense the moment the glowing purple gaze settled on me.

My mind struggled to be in two places at once: Focused on redirecting the storm around me and watching the creature before me leap—mouth wide open to show dangerous fangs that threatened to rip out my throat in a single bite.

A silver object whipped past my face, and the sichat shrieked as one of Dhara’s throwing blades embedded in its lamp-like eye.

I didn’t have a moment to feel relief before a weight landed between my shoulder blades. My face hit the earth, muffling my scream. Or maybe it was the scream of the storm around me as my grip on the wind was lost in the pain of claws tearing across my shoulder. I snapped fully back into my body all at once, leaving me reeling and disoriented.

I rolled onto my back, thrashing wildly to dislodge it. Pinned down like this, I couldn’t reach a weapon, and my grip on my magic was failing, mental fingers slippery with pain and my focus shattered. Then a wave like a thunderclap washed over me, the burst of power coming from both inside my head and out. Erix.