Crowns of Rust (Kingdoms of Sand Book 2)
Page 31
"Maya." Leven sucked in air. He pointed his sword. "Maya, the bones, they're . . ."
The sand began to rumble. Slowly, Maya turned her head.
"Eloh," she whispered.
One of the bony tails was moving, trailing across the sand, its spikes rising. Across the convoy, men cursed and kneed their camels.
"Ride!" Urak shouted.
Maya dug her heels into her camel and the animal burst into a gallop. Leven rode at her side, leaning forward in the saddle.
The massive tail rose from the sand, tall as a temple's column, then slammed down onto a camel, slicing through its rider, cleaving man and beast in two. Blood sprayed the sand, Maya screamed, and the rest of the skeleton rose too.
Bony wings spread out. The spine crackled. The skull rose, swaying on the neck, and the jaw unhinged. All across the desert they rose, scores of skeletons, shedding sand, bones creaking, raining insects and serpents. The stench wafted, and the sand rose in clouds.
"Djin!" the men cried. "Djin!"
Maya knew that word.
"Demons," she whispered.
Her camel galloped. Another tail lashed, slicing through another rider. Maya tugged the reins, and her camel swerved, nearly fell, raced onward. Leven rode at her side, sword held above his head. The skeletal wings beat above. Sand flurried, slamming into Maya, cutting her skin. She narrowed her eyes to slits, nearly blinded. The shrieks rose all around her, and she knew this was not the sound of wind. The dragons were screaming. It was an ancient sound, echoing, deafening, high-pitched like steaming water fleeing a kettle, shattering her ears.
A skull plowed forward through the sand, spine rattling behind it. The jaws opened. Maya swerved an instant before the jaws closed around another camel, crushing the animal, digging through its rider. Across the desert, the Sekadian warriors were firing arrows and swinging sabers, but the weapons harmlessly cascaded off the bones.
A claw slammed down, and Maya swerved again. The skeletal foot slammed into the desert. A tail lashed across the sand like a striking serpent, and Maya tried to dodge it, but the segments whipped through her camel's legs, slicing them clean off.
The camel screamed and fell, spilling Maya from the saddle. She slammed into the sand. She stared up, and the horror pounded through her.
They flew above her now, covering the sky, raining sand. Umber clouds rose above them, and the winds roared. A hundred of them or more. Dragons reborn. Creatures of bone, of rot, of ancient vengeance. Gods of the sand.
The desert still filled them, swirling within their ribcages, flowing around them through the sky, and their wings were made of sand. The camels raced onward, caught in the storm. Above, the skeletons opened their jaws, and the screams rose to howls so loud that Maya's ears rang. The desert shook. The sky seemed to crack. The dragons blasted down their wrath.
Sand blew from the fleshless jaws, shrieking, slamming down, searing hot. A jet drove into a camel and rider, tearing them apart, peeling skin and muscle from bones. Another rider fell from his camel and ran, only for a stream of sand to slam into him, ripping him apart. An arm flew in the wind and fell before Maya, the only remnant of the man.
Maya could no longer see Leven, only catch glimpses of the others. A wagon flew overhead, slammed down, and spilled its contents. A segment of spine whipped ahead, and claws lashed down. Maya jumped aside, fell into the sand. Everywhere the desert roiled, and the winds slammed into her. Every pellet of sand was a dagger, cutting her skin, bloodying her. She closed her eyes. The sand tore at her. The shrieks ripped through her ears. The desert shook, and the sand covered her, and the screams of men died around her. She would die here, she knew. She would join the bones. She—
You are a child of light.
She tried to crawl. Something tore into her leg, digging, seeking her bones, ripping off the flesh.
You are a daughter of Luminosity.
She forced herself to open her eyes, seeing only sand, only death, only bones. A man's skull. She—
She saw the mountains.
She saw a city of light and gold and stone.
The light flared across her, filling her eyes, streaming across her body and expanding, wreathing around her, forming a sphere of luminescence.
Maya rose to her feet, arms spread out. She hovered, her toes only grazing the sand, a figure in a ball of light.
Around her, the desert roiled, slamming against her shield, trying to tear through the light, but she wove her luminescence around her, holding back the storm.
"I am a daughter of Zohar," she whispered. "I am a lioness of the desert. The sand can never hurt me."
She moved through the storm. The claws lashed at her light and fell back. Fangs and spikes cut at her shield and shattered. The sand bathed her, roaring, washing around her, and still Maya advanced, hovering through the storm as the skeletons shrieked. Through the glow of luminescence, she saw them as they had been—scaled beasts, wreathed in flame, eyes like molten bronze in smelters, creatures that had flown across this land eras ago, back when the world had been water and fire and chaos.
Leven.
Through the storm, the visions, the roaring fury, the thought rose.
Leven.
Maya held out her arms, and the light blasted out from her fingers, ten beams of luminescence, thrumming, blinding, washing across the world. The dragons fled from the light. Her beams slammed into bones, piercing them with holes, and the creatures fell back. Maya drew on all the lume inside her—all memories of Zohar, all the waves, the dunes, the warmth of home, the love of family—weaving them all into the luminescence, into her magic. With every shred of power inside her, she cast them back until the dragons fell, the sand rained down, and the desert was still once more.
The light left her.
Maya fell to her knees in the sand.
The last sand in the sky pattered down, and the umber clouds parted, revealing blue sky. The bones lay cracked and broken, once more lifeless relics.
I cast them back, Maya realized. I used my magic, and I defeated dragons.
She rose to her feet.
Leven.
She took slow steps through the desert, and her elation faded. Grief seeped in instead.
Death sprawled before her.
A severed man's foot lay in the sand, the bone sticking out from the flesh. Half a head, ripped open, peered at her with one eye. What remained of a torso, shredded like red cloth, clung to the sand. Maya kept walking, unable to comprehend this horror. She had never seen such slaughter—not just death but bodies in pieces, red strips of flesh and raw bones.
"Leven," she whispered.
She walked around a shattered camel and a wagon wheel, and there she found him.
Leven lay in the sand, his legs ripped off.
Maya gasped and covered her mouth.
Remnants of bones jutted out from the stumps. The blood darkened the sand around him, still spurting. Leven's skin had gone gray, and his eyes were sunken, but he was still alive. He looked at her, tried to speak, could not.
Maya rushed toward him and knelt in the bloody sand.
"I'm going to heal you." She clutched his hand. "Cling on. Cling on, Leven. I'm going to heal you."
He swallowed and nodded, trembling, his eyes shadowed, his skin colorless.
Maya inhaled deeply and tried to think of home.
Her mind was blank.
No memories emerged.
She sucked in air and tried again, but she could not remember the land of Zohar. She knew she had come from that kingdom, but she could not recall its landscapes, its cities, the home she had lived in. She knew there was a city there called Beth Eloh. She knew she had come from a place called Gefen. But she could not remember what they looked like, could not feel the magic that flowed from them.
All my lume is gone, she realized.
She squeezed Leven's hands, screwed her eyes shut, tried again. She knew that lumers in Aelar, tributes to the Empire, returned to visit Zohar every year, to gaze u
pon the holy city, to resupply their reserves of lume. Maya hadn't been away for a year yet, but she had used so much of the magic, spent so much of the light when healing the king, when casting back the dragons.
Nothing.
She could not remember what the sea sounded like, could not remember the light on the stones of Beth Eloh. No memories. No lume.
Her hands could not glow, and she could not heal him.
"Leven," she whispered. "It's all right. It's all right." She pulled off her belt and wrapped it around one of his stumps, trying to stop the blood, to hold in his life. "You'll be fine. You'll get through this."
But his blood kept flowing, and she had nothing to make a tourniquet with for his second stump. He was fading fast. He was convulsing. She held him, trying to calm him, to stop his violent jerking.
"Leven, please." She looked up at the sky. "Please, Eloh. If you can hear me, please don't let him die. He's all I have from home. Please. Save him, Eloh. If not by my grace then by yours. Please."
Yet nothing but the searing sunlight fell from the sky. Leven's trembling eased. His skin was gray now, barely any blood left in him. He reached up a weak hand and poked her with one finger.
"Sting," he whispered.
His hand fell.
His eyes stared at the blue sky, lifeless.
Maya lowered her head, weeping, holding him. She knelt there for a long time, tears flowing, until the cruel sun vanished beyond the horizon, and the moon drenched the desert with silver light.
When she looked south, she saw the figure there again. She had known that she would. The man in the shadows. The master of bones. He stood in the distance, black on black, a wraith in the night. Cloaked. Hooded. Staring. And Maya knew him, knew that he had done this, knew that she would face him again before the end. But not now. Not this night, for he was patient. He was ancient. He would wait.
She looked away.
She buried Leven in starlight and moonlight. She buried him in sand, for he had come from the desert, and to the desert he returned. She sang over his grave, old songs of home—songs of Zohar, of palm trees and olive trees, of frankincense and myrrh, of turtle doves and hinds over hills. Of light and of luminescence. Maya could no longer remember these things, and the words had no meaning to her, but as she sang, she prayed that Leven's spirit would rise to the heavens, where he would forever dwell in a land of milk and honey and grace.
She walked on through the darkness, alone, navigating by the stars.
She walked all night.
The dawn rose cold and pale silver, and in its light, she saw it there in the east.
The sea.
The sunlight rose above the water, painting it all in gold. It nestled on the coast—a humble town. Several minarets and archways. A few domes. A small port and a blinking lighthouse. As Maya gazed upon it, the light of Eloh filled her, and the glow of starlight and sunlight shone inside her and around her fingers, and she wove it, just a hint of luminescence.
Maya walked toward this town by the sea, toward this new spring of lume, toward a hope to learn the ways of Luminosity, of healing, and of wisdom.
The story continues in Thrones of Ash (Kingdoms of Sand Book 3).
Click here to read the next book in the series:
DanielArenson.com/ThronesOfAsh
AFTERWORD
Thank you for reading Crowns of Rust. I hope you enjoyed the novel. Want to know when I release the next Kingdoms of Sand novel?
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Thank you again, dear reader, and I hope we meet again between the pages of another book.
Daniel
NOVELS BY DANIEL ARENSON
KINGDOMS OF SAND
Kings of Ruin
Crowns of Rust
Thrones of Ash
Temples of Dust
Halls of Shadows
Echoes of Light
EARTHRISE
Earth Alone
Earth Lost
Earth Rising
Earth Fire
Earth Shadows
Earth Valor
Earth Reborn
Earth Honor
Earth Eternal
THE MOTH SAGA
Moth
Empires of Moth
Secrets of Moth
Daughter of Moth
Shadows of Moth
Legacy of Moth
REQUIEM
Dawn of Dragons Requiem's Song
Requiem's Hope
Requiem's Prayer
The Complete Trilogy
Song of Dragons Blood of Requiem
Tears of Requiem
Light of Requiem
The Complete Trilogy
Dragonlore A Dawn of Dragonfire
A Day of Dragon Blood
A Night of Dragon Wings
The Complete Trilogy
The Dragon War A Legacy of Light
A Birthright of Blood
A Memory of Fire
The Complete Trilogy
Requiem for Dragons Dragons Lost
Dragons Reborn
Dragons Rising
The Complete Trilogy
Flame of Requiem Forged in Dragonfire
Crown of Dragonfire
Pillars of Dragonfire
The Complete Trilogy
ALIEN HUNTERS
Alien Hunters
Alien Sky
Alien Shadows
OTHER WORLDS
Eye of the Wizard
Wand of the Witch
Firefly Island
The Gods of Dream
Flaming Dove
KEEP IN TOUCH
www.DanielArenson.com
Daniel@DanielArenson.com
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