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PROLOGUE
The monsters attacked at night while everyone slept. The first we knew of it, the sand blocks of our home trembled. The walls shivered, stone grinding against stone, noisy enough we woke.
Papa was the first to start yelling. “Everyone get up and move outside.”
Snug in my bed, my bundle of blankets a warm nest on a shelf across from the loft holding some of my siblings, I stirred but didn’t quite move. Why did Papa yell? It was the middle of the night, and the tremors that woke us had already ceased.
Before my eyes could drift shut, the tremors resumed, stronger than before.
My entire family began exclaiming.“Earthquake.” “It’s an attack.” “Where’s my robe?” “Stop kicking me. I’m up.”
My younger sister, Juni, who got to sleep in a crate on the floor, cried, and I winced. Usually, as the next youngest daughter, I’d be expected to soothe her, but I was too tired from digging for yamyams, a tough root vegetable that took a full day of cooking to become edible.
The noise actually lulled me, as did the slight tremor. I pressed my face into my blanket. It wasn’t as if I could go anywhere until the ladder moved from the loft across from me, and that wouldn’t happen until the older siblings were done. I’d been tucked on a highly placed shelf right after Korl and Guuin were put to bed. The shelf was too high for me to jump without injury.
A lantern lit, quickly followed by another, giving chaotic sight to the sound.
“Asharee! Get up.” Mama was the one in the tumult who noticed I remained abed.
“I can’t get down,” I reminded as I swung my skinny legs over the edge of my shelf. Food had been tight the last few moons, the once plentiful sands of Ulkruuba not providing like they used to. Papa and those who passed through all claimed it unnatural, but they’d not found a cause.
“Dyn, get your sister off the shelf. Those on the floor, grab something and head for the rocks.” Mama belted out orders.
As the last of sleep finally cleared my mind, I stared at the floor and saw a section of it ripple before dimpling as it sunk. “Is the house on a sink hole or something?”
It turned out to be worse than that.
As Mama barked instructions, she also counted her children fleeing from the house, nine of us, ten if we counted the one in mama’s belly.
My oldest sister, Lurela, held a sobbing Juni to her chest and had a basket over her arm as she ran out the door. My stocky brother, Saar, grabbed an urn under one arm and a crate under another.
Dyn held out his arms to me, and I hesitated. A sense of danger held me fast.
The floor under my brother’s feet, just hard-packed sand and dirt packed down by our feet, exploded in chunks, and a clawed leathery arm poked through.
I gaped.
Others yelled. Then yelled some more as a second clawed paw emerged, followed by a snout. No eyes. Despite its size, it reminded me of the tiny salamanders we used to see when digging for yamyams. They’d disappeared like everything else.
Dyn whirled, and I admired his courage when he yelled in the monster’s face. “Get back!”
The creature didn’t flinch but rather bit my brother in two.
My jaw dropped, and while I screamed inside, I held my breath. I didn’t move or breathe. It probably saved my life.
The monster came with friends. Two more beasts with leathery skin tunneled into the already crowded house. Their elongated heads swung side to side, eerily similar to the salamanders, down to the same spirals on their craniums. Ears of a different sort than I had were still very effective at detecting sound.
When Papa yelled, “You’ll feed my family for weeks, you overgrown lizard,” the one closest swung in Papa’s direction and snapped almost in the same motion. Papa dove just in time and swung the hammer he’d grabbed against the lizard’s skull. To no effect. Not even a dent.
The monster shook its head, not slowed in the slightest. A worried Papa did his best to defend. He got eaten for his attempt.
My oldest and bravest brothers who remained did their utmost to distract the monster while the rest of my family fled. Mama and my sisters, even Korl who’d managed to leap from his shelf without twisting an ankle. Not me or the just-as-short Guuin though. We’d gotten stuck. Probably the safest place if we kept quiet.
My older brothers weren’t quiet as they swung their shovels and picks. They screamed as well when they got bitten and chewed. I closed my eyes for that part.
Once the massacre finished in the house, the monsters slunk outside. The rocks my family fled to for shelter weren’t far. Not that they offered any protection. I heard their screams. Strident. Filled with pain. Terrified too. They abruptly cut off, except for one shrill scream. I think it was Lurela, the one who usually brushed my hair and, when our brothers made me cry, whispered that boys smelled. They sure did. My big sister was the one who cared for me, and I could do nothing to stop her pain but hold my hands to my ears, trying to muffle it.
Eventually, quiet returned to the night, but life had left forever. My family was gone. I wanted to cry, but then, I might die too.
