Page 20 of Heart of the Desert

Elion shouted, and I whirled around just in time to see the dim silhouette of him fall to his knees. I didn’t take more than one step forward before Keera shrieked, and I whipped back around. A skeletal hand reached out of the darkness, bits of flesh quivering where they hung from the bone as it grabbed Keera’s braid and tried to haul her backward.

I lunged, slashing downwards viciously and severing the limb at the elbow. It fell to the ground with a thud, and an inhuman hiss of pain split the silent night only to be drowned out by a shout from Aderyn as she too was attacked.

It was not one bone spider but many, and they had us surrounded in the dark. Where before they had been mindless and uncoordinated, now they seemed to hunt as a synchronized force, seeking to take our limbs from us to grow their own wretched forms.

We all closed in on the horses in the middle of the circle made by the five of us as there came a lull in the attacks, keeping our backs to each other and our weapons up.

The clattering that had first alerted me to their presence now grew louder, coming in from all sides. It was as if the monsters had now abandoned stealth and reveled in our fear.

“Fire,” I said loud enough to be heard over the bone-chilling sound. “Flames are their weakness.”

I grimaced as I spoke, knowing the lack of campfire had made us easy prey. At least Keera, Dhara, and I could summon our own flames. Dread pooled in my belly for the other two.

I had no more time to think about it as the clattering crescendoed to a deafening pitch, and a form hurtled out of the darkness. I threw my hand up, palm first, just in time to catch the hulking mass of the bone spider with a gout of flame.

The sudden flash of light illuminated it in all its horror, twisted limbs all fused together around a central mass, writhing and slashing. Another charged at Keera, and she responded with fire of her own. The smell of charred flesh filled the air, but the bone spider only skittered back momentarily before lunging again.

Behind me, the horses screamed in fear, and the sounds of the others in their own battles raged. I could not spare them any aid, as limbs flew at me from every direction. Fists and feet and hooves and claws all lashed out, and I tried to parry them all, but there were too many. These spiders must be larger—have harvested more limbs—than the ones I had faced before, for they kept attacking even in the face of my blade and my fire, as if they had endless supplies of stolen flesh. Even worse, the chattering that had grown in my head in anticipation of violence had not settled into the focused rage of battle I was accustomed to and instead swelled in a nauseating wave that shredded my focus.

As I shot another gout of flame from my left hand, a paw tipped with wicked claws ducked under the blade in my right hand and slashed at my leg. It buckled and I fell to one knee hard enough to bite my tongue. Copper filled my mouth.

The bone spider launched its full bulk at me before I could struggle back to my feet. The scent of rotting flesh closed in around me as an enormous weight crushed me into the earth. My muscles screamed as I struggled and thrashed, but I was pinned. Grasping hands and bony fingers wrapped around my limbs. They pulled at them, and my mind turned to chattering chaos at the thought that the spider would steal them for itself.

I fought to suck in air, but the focused rage that normally overcame me in battle was nowhere to be found. Just the screaming of unrestrained magic. I opened my mouth to scream alongside it with my last breath.

Instead of sound, fire poured out of my lips, shocking me from the haze of desperation. Heat clawed at my throat and burned my eyes, but the hold on my arms and legs loosened. I let the flames continue to spew from my mouth, and the weight of the monster lifted off me as it twisted and convulsed in agony.

Where before my fire had been scorching the limbs on the periphery of its form, this attack had struck straight at its core as it crushed me beneath it. The spider’s many limbs shivered and contorted in its death throes, and I tore my gaze away from the sickening sight as I scrabbled to my feet, looking for Keera.

Her feral cry drew my attention before a bright flash of light split the night, blinding me. I blinked rapidly to clear the spots from my vision, only to find a bonfire where the bone spider that had been attacking her had been. Even now I felt dizzy with the uncontrolled detonation of her power that had immolated it in a single blow. It echoed through me like a gong, clanging against the inside of my skull and making it feel too small.

Or maybe the uncontrolled surge had started with my own panic to begin with.

A less intense flash of light illuminated Keera as our gazes caught across the smoldering mounds of flesh.

“The others,” she shouted, and turned toward the source of the light. I blinked for just a second, the sound of her words mixing with the other noises inside my head in a way that made them difficult to pick out.

As soon as their meaning hit me, though, I hurried to follow her. The source of the light turned out to be Lord Dhara, wielding a lash of flame like a whip. She whirled it overhead before snapping it forward, helping Elion and Aderyn keep two more bone spiders at bay. They danced out of reach of the flame but did not seem afraid of it enough to fully retreat.

Before Keera and I could reach them to lend our aid, Elion crept around to the side of one creature while Dhara kept it distracted with her flaming whip—or she might have, if the creatures had any visible face or eyes in their tangle of limbs, which all seemed to move without direction.

Elion leapt, flying unnaturally high. He swung his sword as he landed atop the spider, batting away grasping hands and slashing claws before driving his blade deep into its center. The inhuman sound of the creature’s scream, like a sword against stone, signaled that he had hit his mark.

The last spider seemed to sense that it would not last long now that its comrades had fallen. It skirted the edge of the darkness, clattering and waving its limbs in consternation. Aderyn advanced on it with her blades raised, and Keera and I stepped up next to her. Dhara’s whip crackled with flame as she flicked it back around her ankles, as if waiting for the creature to either flee, or launch an attack she could use as an opening.

The spider darted forward with speed that seemed improbable given its unwieldy size. I braced for an onslaught of attacks from its many limbs, but they didn’t come. Instead, a single arm shot out and grabbed Dhara by the ankle. I slashed down with my saber, but it whistled through empty air. The bone spider had already retreated, dragging Dhara into the darkness with it.

“No!” Elion’s ragged voice rent the night. He jumped down off the corpse of the spider he had felled and dashed into the darkness.

“Wait!” Aderyn shouted after him.

A rational part of my brain whispered she was right. We shouldn’t all split up in the darkness where we would be vulnerable—where we might not be able to locate each other and the whims of the desert could separate us forever.

The much louder and more insistent pounding of unreleased power in my brain drove me forward instead, like a physical force pushing me from behind, giving me no choice. It brayed for more battle, more blood, more action. A tingle in my throat grew to a burning that spread down to my chest, and metal filled my mouth, leaving me a slave to sensation as it took control of my body.

I charged into the night after Elion and Dhara, the blackness so thick it was almost tangible around me. A sharp tug at the nape of my neck yanked me back, but I shook my head violently, trying to pull free of the conflicting sensations. Only darkness surrounded me now, leaving me trapped with the burning heat of magic trying to seize my body, filling up all the empty spaces like a physical thing. My muscles twitched and spasmed as I fought against it and tried to comply with its demands in equal measure.

It wanted me to find something, or maybe I was trying to find something: Dhara and Elion… a bone spider. Maybe something else. Golden flowers and silver hair.