by H. D. Gordon
19
I held the sword aloft, not allowing myself to second guess. Instead, I yielded to the predator within me, something that I’d only ever truly done when I’d been forced to step into The Ring.
With the Wolf in me at the helm of my mortal body, I could see the situation more clearly, tunneling in on the all-important task of survival, preparing myself to do whatever it took to ensure my own.
Two sets of enormous pinchers flashed toward me. I moved, my supernatural speed just enough to avoid being snatched up into the air. The severed end of the stinger that was still attached whipped around wildly, flailing and spraying more of that wretched green blood onto the sand.
I was not particularly apt with a sword, but I was strong, and my body moved in a way that revealed controlled coordination. I slashed at the scorpions surrounding us. Vega had found his feet and was doing the same, bringing his back toward mine so that we could guard each other’s rear.
I caught a glimpse of the Valac warrior’s at last revealed face, and did a dumbass double-take that cost me.
With big blue eyes and golden hair, Vega was a handsome devil.
This thought was barely even processed in my mind when the other scorpion struck out with its still-intact stinger, making me jump to the side at the last minute. I lost my balance and stumbled, moving the sword I was wielding out of the way just in time to keep from cutting myself.
The sand of the desert rose up to meet me, and I tucked as I fell, rolling to my feet with the kind of swiftness only a female Wolf can manage.
Snapping and slashing, the scorpions were relentless, and I knew that I would not be able to keep up this dance for long. Not with the way the sun was glaring down and the constant state of exhaustion my body seemed to be in since we started this trip.
To my amazement, I watched as Vega leapt into the air, higher than a male of his size should have been able to manage. He drove his sword through the back of one of the three scorpions, impaling it with his blade while its legs twitched uselessly.
A responding hiss rang out across the desert, loud and horrific.
Instead of deterring the other two scorpions, as I had hoped, this only seemed to enrage them more, and I had a strange moment of clarity in the chaos.
Perhaps these three scorpions were just hungry travelers in their own right, trying to secure a meal that was proving to be more trouble than it was worth. Maybe they were friends, or maybe their kind traveled in packs, and they were family.
Needless to say, this was not the most useful of insights at the moment.
Because another thing was abundantly clear as well; it was us or them, and if I got a say in it, my companions and I would be the ones to walk away.
I lost my footing again, because doing so was inevitable with the density of the sand and the speed of the situation. This time, I was not able to roll back onto my feet so quickly.
“Stay down!” shouted a familiar voice, and without thinking, I did as I was commanded.
Asha jumped in front of me just before one of those deadly pinchers could snatch me up, blue sparks popping between her fingertips. I scrambled backward in the sand as the Demon put herself between the scorpion and me, concentrated her power into a ball of blue sparks so bright that it burned my eyes to look at it, and launched it at the scorpion that had been almost on top of me.
It struck the creature center of mass, and sent it flying backward onto its back. It thrashed this way and that, its eight legs scraping up at the air, twitching and flexing.
I was already moving. I ran with every bit of strength my legs had to offer, leapt up high into the air, barely missing a slash by the stinger that was whipping wildly to and fro, and plunged my sword into the exposed underbelly of the scorpion.
Its hiss was like the sizzle of raw meat on a hot pan.
It twitched and twitched, then went as still as the one that had fallen before it.
The third and final scorpion had been going at it with Vega, but it saw now that its companions were dead, and let out one last hiss before backpedaling and scrambling away. It disappeared over the dunes and was out of sight before my heart even steadied in my chest.
“Take that, mother fucker!” Asha yelled, her dark eyes dancing with the exhilaration that accompanies barely escaping with one’s life.
The three of us stood staring after the scorpion, standing beside the enormous carcasses of the two we’d slain, the sun beating down overhead and the sands stretching on in every direction all around us.
After the heat of battle abated, I spun in a slow circle, taking in the landscape, seeing only more and more of the same.
And not a single black barrel in sight.
A slow-dawning sort of panic began to set in, and I snapped my mouth shut for fear that it might come pouring out of me if I did not.
“Shit,” Asha said, no doubt speaking the word that was echoing in all three of our heads.
The realization that we did not know where we were, or from which direction we’d come, or how far away one of the black barrels might be, ruined the revelation of Vega without his mask.
I turned to the Valac warrior now anyway, marveling at how handsome he was.
“So that’s what you look like,” I said, taking in the big blue eyes and golden hair, the fine lines of his face and light dusting of facial hair across his chin.
Asha spun around with a look on her face that said she was about to say something shitty to me for mentioning his looks at a time like this, but then, she caught sight of the warrior as well, and whatever she’d been about to say dried up in her throat. Vega gathered his helmeted mask from where it had fallen and slid it back on again.
Asha composed herself quickly and then stomped around us. “Why would you wear a mask when you look like that?” she grumbled, but it was more to herself than to us. She spun in a slow circle.
“This way,” she said.
I made no move to follow. “How the hell are you sure?” I asked. The sun was directly overhead, and every part of the desert looked exactly the same.
“I’m not,” the Demon admitted.
“Then that way could be the wrong direction entirely,” I replied.
Asha spun to face me, and I glimpsed a bit of the fear she was hiding beneath her constant anger. “Do you have a better idea, Rukiya dearest?” she asked.
The tone of her voice sent me over an edge I hadn’t known I was teetering on. My lips twisted into a sneer as I got right in her face and spoke through clenched teeth.
“Fuck you, Demon,” I spat. “I’m sick of you and your Gods damned attitude. I’m sick of this whole fucking wild goose chase you sent us on. You’ve got a problem with me? Fine. Let’s settle it, then. Right here.”
A grin spread slowly over Asha’s lips, and I knew in an instant that this was the invitation she’d been waiting on.
She raised her hand to strike me…
And was halted by Vega gripping her wrist.
The Valac warrior had removed his mask again, and he looked at both of us in a manner that might a frustrated parent when dealing with two unruly children.
“Fighting won’t help anything,” he said.
Before he was even able to get the words fully out, Asha rearranged his grip on her, twisting her arm and body so that she flipped the enormous warrior into the air, and he landed on the ground with a thud that sent sand scattering.
She leaned over him a bit to growl down at him. “I don’t care how pretty that face of yours is,” she said. “If you ever touch me again without my permission, I’ll remove the offending body part from your possession.”
Then, she turned back to me. “Okay, Rook the Rabid,” she said. “You’re feeling froggy? Then, leap.”
She did not have to tell me twice.
I sent a punch right at that lovely face of hers, but she sidestepped and countered.
We danced.
Each of us got in a couple of good blows, my teeth rattling with an uppercut that sen
t me sprawling back into the sand, the irony taste of blood filling my mouth.
Asha smirked triumphantly, her hair a wild cloud of dark curls atop her head. She stalked over to kick me in the ribs, but I caught her boot and flipped her stupid ass into the air, spitting out a wad of blood as I climbed to my feet.
Vega was wrong, I thought, as I went to punch the Demon again; fighting did help. In fact, hitting Asha right in her mouth hole felt pretty damn good.
On the other hand, getting hit back did not feel so good.
I’m not sure how long the fistfight went on, but we both exhausted our anger upon one another. One of us would get knocked down, and then we’d get back up and repay the favor. It was a bloody and brutal tradeoff, but while in the middle of it, that mattered to me not the least bit.
Now Asha was the one spitting blood. “I’ll never understand what he sees in you,” she said between blows. “And you’re welcome for saving your life back there.”
I sent the sole of my shoe into her midsection, and she bent double, the air knocked out of her along with her nasty words.
“And I’ve never met a more insufferable bitch in my entire life,” I replied. “So miserable that you just have to spread your poison wherever you go.”
A handful of exchanged blows followed, blood and sweat spraying in various directions.
“You may not be wearing a collar anymore,” Asha snarled, “but you’ll always be a fucking Dog.”
Though some part of my rational mind knew that she was just saying the thing that would cut me the deepest, and that it didn’t matter two shits what she thought of me, the more primal part of me boiled with instant rage.
“You take that shit back,” I said, and my voice was low and smooth, like the calm before a storm.
Asha spat another wad of blood toward me. “Make me,” she said.
I launched myself at her again, shifting into my Wolf form in midair, my bones and muscles and systems rearranging themselves in a heartbeat.
My jaws yawned wide, aiming for her throat, as was my instinct. Asha’s eyes widened as she saw my lethal intent, and she fell backwards onto her bottom, scrambling like a crab to get out of the way. She raised her right hand and flung a bolt of blue lightning at me, and I felt it zing through my body like an electric shock, knocking me off target.
Still, the full weight of me slammed into her, and we both went sprawling into the sands.
This time, neither one of us got up again. I was panting hard, and my fur coat was stifling under the sun, so I used the dregs of my energy to shift back into my mortal form.
Then I laid there under the heavy heat of the day, the taste of blood in my mouth and sweat dripping down my head and neck.
A glance over at Asha told me she was in much the same condition.
Vega approached from where he’d been watching on the sidelines, and with what I was sure was a satisfied smirk on his overly handsome face, he said, “Are you done, then?”
20
We were going to die here. This was the end of the line.
There was no doubt of this in my mind. I had lost the will to continue on any further quite a while ago. The only thing that kept me moving one foot in front of the other was the knowledge that when I stopped, I would stop for good. I would curl up under the dreadful, burning eye of the sun, and it would slowly suck away the last of my moisture and turn me into dust that would blow among the golden sands.
Of all the ways I’d thought I would die, this had never been one of them. This was worse. This was a golden, glaring nightmare that was speeding toward an ending.
My companions knew it, too.
Asha and Vega trudged along ahead of me, not saying a word, and I could actually see it as the hope left their bodies. It was curious to watch as I underwent the same torturous process.
The sun was finally sinking in the sky when Vega slid sideways off his horse in front of me. My eyes had been closed, my body limp atop my mare, and the sound of the Valac warrior hitting the sands is what pulled me out of my stupor.
Asha and I brought our horses to a stop, but for a long moment, we only stared down at the male, too weak in our own rights to even jump down and pull him to his feet.
There was no point, anyway. We hadn’t seen a barrel for hours, had not found a single thing that might tell us where we were supposed to be going. We’d tried to follow the descent of the sun, knowing that it would set in the west, but the desert seemed to be playing tricks on us. The sun seemed unstable in its position, as if in refusal to help us along the way. We’d even seen some large rocks in the distance at one point, and decided to head toward them in hopes of climbing one and getting a better vantage point, but halfway there, the Gods damned rocks had simply disappeared.
We were going to die here in this horrid place. It was as simple as that.
So Asha and I only slumped atop our mounts and stared down at the Valac warrior, whom was now struggling to find his feet, nearly yanking his own horse down with him in the process.
I was starting to think being eaten by those giant scorpions might have been a more merciful way to go. At least that would have been quick.
“Help him up,” Asha said, as we both watched Vega barely make it to his knees.
“You help him up,” I shot back, the words hardly a whisper for the dryness of my mouth and lips.
Vega mumbled something in a language I didn’t know, but could guess the implications of just by the tone.
When I looked overhead and saw three vultures, I almost laughed at the absurdity of it all.
Then I swung my leg over my horse with enormous effort, and fell to the ground rather than standing up, as I’d intended.
Asha sputtered a lifeless laugh from atop her horse.
I was too tired to move. Even the moisture in my eyeballs seemed to have dried up.
I thought of a curse to throw at Asha, but couldn’t be sure it even left my mouth before the darkness that had been swirling around the edges of my vision came together at the seams, trapping me within.
When I awoke some time later, I could not at all be sure that I wasn’t dead.
My eyes peeled apart slowly, and I had to blink them several times to clear my sight.
When I did, I was looking up not at the hot desert sky, but at a clean white fabric with emerald light that was dancing and shifting across it.
Turning my head made my temples throb, but I saw that the emerald light was from a small fire pit in the center of whatever room I’d found myself in.
I pulled myself to a seated position, groaning with the effort, but too concerned with where the hell I was to bow to the agony. I looked around me, seeing that I was in some kind of large white tent, sitting on a cot.
In the two cots beside me, I saw both Asha and Vega. They were asleep, I realized with some relief, when I listened closely and picked up the sounds of their respective heartbeats.
Next to my cot was a stool, and on top of that stool was a pail of water and a glass. I skipped the glass and tipped the cool liquid to my lips straight from the pail, not caring that it could be poisoned or contaminated. I couldn’t ever remember being so damn thirsty in all my life.
“You’re awake,” said a soft female voice from behind me.
I whipped my head around, spilling the water on myself in the process, to see a lovely female with dark eyes and golden brown skin. Long black hair flowed over her shoulders in waves, one side of it braided close to her head and beaded with golden rings. She wore a white dress that folded neatly over her curves, and golden shimmer was painted over her eyelids, glittering in the light of the emerald flame.
“Where am I?” I asked. “And who are you?”
“I am Nandi,” the female said. “And you are in the Danoki Desert.”
I studied the female, and though I sensed no threat from her, I didn’t lower my guard. “How did I get here?”
“I had the males carry you,” Nandi said. “The three of you were laid out like food fo
r the vultures. Half dead, as it were.”
I sniffed discretely at the air. “You’re a Sorceress,” I said.
“And you’re a Wolf,” Nandi replied.
“We got lost.”
“Yes, that much was deducible.”
Before we could dive deeper into the who’s and what’s of the situation, Asha woke up and grabbed right for her sword. She looked like a crazy person as she held the weapon toward Nandi, demanding to know what was going on in much more unpleasant terms.
This had barely occurred before the flaps of the tent flew open, and three beautiful dark-haired and dark-skinned men entered the tent. Their muscular chests were bare, and they shot emerald magic from their fingertips.
I watched in stunned silence as the streams of emerald magic became chains and wrapped around Asha in a way that made her drop her sword. The emerald chains constricted, forcing her hands to her sides and laying her immobile on the cot atop which she’d awoken.
I burst out into laughter as the males stood looking down at Asha, who was shocked into silence for once.
The three males turned their dark gazes on me, and I held my hands up as they assessed the threat I posed.
Nandi held a hand up, too, and the males were brought instantly to attention. Their hands folded neatly behind their muscular backs in a way that I recognized as the waiting position adopted by guards or soldiers.
“You may leave us,” Nandi told them, and though the males looked reluctant to do so, they filed out of the tent.
“Who are you?” I asked again.
“I am Nandi,” she said. “Future ruler of the Sand Sorcerers, Princess of the Forgotten, and Heiress of the Emerald Magics.” She paused, her head tilting, those long waves of dark hair shifting on her delicate shoulder. “And, who are you, moonchild?” she asked.
“My name is Rukiya,” I said. I nodded toward Asha, smirking when I saw that she was still restrained, the green magic holding her in place having wound around her mouth as well, keeping back whatever vitriol I was positive she was dying to spew. “That’s Asha,” I added. “She’s a total bitch, but we have a common mission. And that guy over there is Vega, he’s a Valac warrior who was tasked with following us.”
