by Travis Smith
The small room they’d been afforded had little in the way of decorations. Of course, that which The Stranger and his royal family had been used to would unsurprisingly surpass anything that ever could have existed in this part of the world, but he still couldn’t shake how bland everything appeared. The bed, while it seemed clean and tidy, looked stale, as though no one had touched it in a generation or two. A small, plain bedside table stood in the opposite corner. It was covered with a fine layer of dust and the sole lamp his father had lit. No other objects or possessions seemed to exist in the room at all.
The Stranger extinguished the small flame that lit the room and approached the bed to begin undressing while his wife did the same. William squirmed impatiently in the firm bed, waiting for the comfort of his mother’s warmth next to him before he could fall asleep. The Stranger took the large, ancient sword and its scabbard from his waist and placed them on the floor beside the bed. Once he’d removed the rest of his heavy smocks, he crawled into his bed with Laura and William.
The wind and rain grew steadier as the evening grew darker, and The Stranger lay in the unfamiliar bed watching the distant lightning. Falling asleep without the soothing waves beneath a ship proved difficult after so many nights on the run at sea, but once sleep came for him, The Stranger could not escape its grasp. Even without the waves, and even with the uneasy knot that had settled in his gut like a stone in a swamp, he did not stir through the night. He slept heavily until the dawn had nearly reached the Desert of Dask, and it was only little William who took notice of the intruder as he entered their room on his hands and knees like some grotesque animal.
It was not until after the intruder, with his enlarged pupils, had taken the old King’s Sword in one hand and his mother’s ankle in the other that William began to stir and whine in discomfort.
10
The Stranger first heard his son’s whines through the thick veil of sleep. When Laura shrieked in surprise, however, The Stranger’s grogginess evaporated, and he again became mindful of the strange city in which they had stopped for the night. He opened his eyes and sat bolt upright until he felt the weight of a blade against his chest. He knew of only one blade that offered that kind of weight.
“Stay back!” a gruff voice hissed in his face.
The Stranger could vaguely make out a thin, hunched shadow at the foot of their bed. The figure had seized his wife by the ankle and was dragging her off the bed with one arm.
“Stop it! Get off me!” she screamed.
William whined louder as his mother let go of him and began thrashing against her assailant.
The Stranger moved to push the blade away from his chest, but the intruder only doubled his pressure. The point of the blade forced The Stranger back onto his back and began to draw blood through his thin nightgown.
The attacker dropped Laura’s foot and scrambled onto the bed to hunch directly over The Stranger. “Stay back, I said!” His voice was a commanding whisper, a combination of an animalistic growl and a hiss. “I don’ want any quarrel with ye! Leave me be ’n’ ye may keep yer life!”
As the man hunched over his father threateningly, William began to squeal properly.
“You’ll not get away with this,” The Stranger rasped.
“Please,” Laura begged, “don’t do this.”
The man snorted and leapt off the bed, seizing Laura’s ankle as he passed and dragging her into the floor. She continued screaming and pleading incoherently.
“Hey!” The Stranger roared after the hunched figure had turned the sword from his chest. He leapt upright and bumbled through the darkness toward the man leaving through the door.
The dark figure spun back impossibly fast and leveled the heavy blade at The Stranger’s throat. How such thin arms possessed such strength, The Stranger would never know. “I warned ye to stay back! I leave ye with yer life ’n’ yer simperin’ shit of a son, ’n’ that’s more ’n I’m inclined to do, so fuggoff!”
The Stranger raised his hands and began to plead more with the deranged man. Even with his life in jeopardy and his wife writhing and shrieking in the floor with her ankle in the man’s grasp, he would attempt to seek reason, but at that moment a dim light appeared behind him in the hallway.
Before anyone could say anything, Robert Vaga turned the corner, seized the man by his mangy hair, and pulled his head back to expose his long, thin neck, against which he placed his small fishing knife.
The man immediately dropped both the White Sword and Laura’s ankle. She scrambled back onto the bed, and The Stranger helped her, still panting and whimpering, back to their crying son.
Diana came around the corner behind her husband carrying a lit lamp. The Stranger approached and took the lamp from her. “Stand back, mother.” He turned back into the bedroom to light the second lamp and help everyone to better see. As he passed the intruder, he paused to inspect the panicked expression on his face. “Miles?” he asked, shocked.
The assailant’s voice was nothing like the tittering, stuttering falsetto of the man who had greeted them the previous evening. Had The Stranger sat and thought on it for ten moon cycles, he would never have linked the two sounds.
“N—n—now let’s not b—be rash!” he squeaked, his abundant stutter returning and a shameful grin appearing on his face as though he had been caught stealing sweets before dinner.
The Stranger snatched up the White Sword from Miles’ feet and placed it under his chin. “Just what do you think you’re doing here?” he demanded loudly. William squalled louder than ever, and Robert shot his son a concerned glance. “Step back, father,” he continued, rage mounting.
Robert did as he was bid. “Be easy,” he said cautiously.
The Stranger reached forward and seized Miles by the back of the neck. The man had his arms raised by his face, and he visibly struggled to keep his hands apart. He clenched and squeezed his thumbs in each hand compulsively. His tongue flicked restlessly across his dry lips, and it paused every so often at the corner of his mouth, seeming to sample the exudate that resided upon the sores there.
“What laws do you people live by?” The Stranger called as he took the man’s neck. “What values do you possess?”
Miles shrieked and cowered from The Stranger’s touch. He fell to his knees and began shaking convulsively, finally bringing his raised hands back together and kneading them rapidly. “P—please d—d—don’t kill m—me!” he begged. “I’s b—but a lonely man out ’ere ’n the desert!”
The Stranger glanced at his father, who stared back somberly and shrugged. He looked to his wife, who had her face buried in their son and was attempting to calm them both down. He lowered his voice. “You have threatened my family. Shamed my wife.” His temper continued to rise although his voice remained calm. He lashed out and kicked the cowering man in the ribs. “Tell me, lowly sir, what should we do with you?”
“Seek the forgiveness I know r—r—resides in yer hearts.” The Stranger couldn’t tell if Miles was giggling or weeping as he shook violently with his face in the floor. “L—let my poor soul live to f—f—find s—sal—”
“Why should I let you breathe?” he demanded, his voice rising. He kicked the cowering Miles again. “Why should I let your kind corrupt this tainted earth further?”
“P—please, good s—sir!” Miles squealed. “I c—can … I can get you back across yonder b—bridge. I can k—keep the sand people a—a—away.”
The Stranger glanced at his parents. He hadn’t mentioned the creatures he’d seen beneath the bridge the previous day. In truth, he’d completely forgotten about them until this moment. Laura had looked up from her son, who was still screaming into her bosom. “Sand people?” she asked, directing the question more to her husband than to Miles.
“Yes!” Miles shrieked. He lifted his face from the floor and began to crawl his way onto the bed in an attempt to gain salvation from Laura.
The Stranger prepared himself to kick the simpering man yet again,
but a thundering crash not far away broke the attention of everyone in the house. All heads turned toward the sound, and Miles, who had pulled himself halfway atop the bed, let his body go limp and fell back to the floor, wide eyes peering in the direction of the disturbance. The ground beneath them began to quake minutely. The Stranger, Robert, and Diana all reached out for the wall to maintain their balance.
“What was that?” The Stranger asked no one in particular.
The ground shook harder, and a louder crash resounded somewhere closer by. Shattering glass and crumbling stone echoed across the quiet desert outside.
“Kryp,” Miles croaked, a wild grin spreading across his gaunt face.
“Kryp?” The Stranger repeated, a faint memory of ancient tales from his childhood resurfacing.
“Punisher of the deserts …”
11
The earth beneath them shook more violently than ever, and the glass windows throughout the abode rattled in their clay frames. Miles Cutler rose to his hands and feet and scuttled sideways out the door and out of sight before anyone could register his movement.
The Stranger turned to his wife and son upon the bed. “Come, now!” he called over the rattling of the building. “Before this crashes down upon us!”
Laura scooped up the still screaming William and hustled out the door as The Stranger grabbed what little belongings they had deposited on the floor. Robert and Diana led the way to the door, which was still standing open after Skuttler’s hasty escape. The family made their way outside and wasted no time heading back toward the crumbling rope bridge that led back to their craft.
“This way!” The Stranger called as he took the lead. “I’ve no intention of finding out what’s causing this ruckus!”
As they approached the stretch of desert nearing the bridge, however, the sun began peeking over the distant horizon. The path that was illuminated before them was peppered with hunkered figures crawling like crabs through the sand. The Stranger stopped in his tracks and watched as scores of the creatures crawled over the wall of the distant chasm and joined the encroaching packs.
“What is that?” Laura called.
The Stranger ignored her question and turned to Robert. “Father, be prepared for anything! I’d wager these things aren’t here to help us back across.”
Robert stepped in front of Laura and Diana and put an arm out. “Stay back,” he urged. “Stay safe.”
As The Stranger looked behind him, an entire building crumbled to the ground, which appeared to rise up in a growing mound beneath it. As the building collapsed, the mound shrank back into the sand, leaving a gaping crater where the home once stood.
He turned back to the hordes of sand people crab-walking toward them. Those who had just climbed out of the chasm moved slowly, while those closest had begun to gallop on their hands and feet.
“Step aside!” The Stranger called. “We are noblemen from Reprise, and you shall let us pass unharmed!” This last-ditch attempt to cling to the customs they’d held for generations registered not with the entrenching sand people. It likely would not have registered even before The Baron Bernard had slain the king.
He could hear the panting and wheezing of the creatures closest by, even over the clamor and chaos that was unfolding behind him in the town.
“I command you, by the power of The White!” The Stranger tried one last time, his voice rising to a fierce roar.
But the reserve that voice conveyed did naught to deter the grotesque beings that were galloping toward them. So The Stranger, a cast-out king-to-be, a man raised by a fisherman in a castle by the sea, a man who’d ever known only love and kindness and forgiveness, lifted the sword that weighed roughly one quarter of his body weight. His identity had cracked on the day The Baron had slain the king. It would continue to crumble until he’d wash up on the shore of a nearly deserted island, shattered, lost, alone.
Some white magic must still have existed, for The Stranger felt a hum deep within his bones as he lifted the heavy sword. He felt its weight diminish until it felt as though his entire arm were floating, weightless, scarcely under the control of his own mind. Despite the deep purple glow of the dawning day, the blade glinted a blinding white light that pulsed, almost electric. The earth rose beneath The Stranger’s feet, and the creature before him all but impaled itself on the enormous blade, body splitting in half and collapsing in a hoarse, gurgling howl of agony.
The nearest creatures took no heed as they too bumbled into the blade as The Stranger swung it effortlessly side to side. He felt nothing as he took his first life, then his second, then his third. The creatures were clearly sub-human. Perhaps in another life, under far different circumstances, he would have felt compassion and pity, but for now he felt only determination, bred from fear and a desperation to keep his family safe. Five, perhaps six, others trundled to their instant deaths upon the White Sword before the rest of the horde came to a hobbling halt and began to retreat. The Stranger had been so consumed by his savagery that he’d hardly noticed the ground beneath him rise and fall as the gargantuan Kryp passed below him in the sand. The beast rose from within the earth with a deafening roar and collapsed atop at least four of the assailing sand people. It was this disruption—rather than The Stranger and his sword—that seemed to give the others pause and lead them to withdraw.
The giant punisher beast had a fat, elongated body like a mutated earthworm. Its body was covered in a thin, mucous pelt of fine hairs. The creature opened its mouth, a vertical slit lined with dripping, clicking teeth, and released another whirring roar. The sand people scurried faster than ever, still hunkered over on their hands and feet, their vertebra protruding hideously from their thin backs. Kryp slithered forward impossibly fast before diving back into the sand like a whale into water. Moments later it rose straight into the sky, taking into its clicking jowls one of the cave dwellers and sending another spiraling through the air. The beast spun in the air and landed headfirst like a dolphin before disappearing beneath the sand. The sand people hissed and screeched as they scattered and scrambled back toward their caves at the bottom of the cliff.
The Stranger turned to his shocked family and took them in his arms. “It’s all right,” he called over the chaos around them, “the beast will protect us from darkness.”
“That’s a punisher we’ve heard about in fables?” his stunned father asked with wide eyes.
“The reality is often not as glamorous as the tales, father,” The Stranger replied. “Come. Let’s get far from this destruction.”
As the path to the bridge was blocked by a savage massacre, The Stranger led his family back toward the town that now lay in ruin. If punisher beasts served to protect the world from darkness, why would the White Magic that compelled them allow them to be so heedless and destructive?
The family hadn’t even made it back to the building where they had slept before every last sand creature was eaten, crushed, impaled, torn to shreds, or tossed back down into the caverns below. They stopped, and The Stranger turned to look back at the mayhem behind them. Ground that was flat the day before now lay in small, disrupted hills and dunes. Blood, guts, and dismembered limbs littered the desert floor. An eerie silence settled around them as the hisses and croaks of the sand people died off in the distant caves.
The silence lasted only moments before a mound rose in the distance and began racing toward the travellers.
“What’s happening?” Diana whispered.
“Relax,” The Stranger assured her, “the punishers will do you no harm unless you harbor darkness.”
The mound continued closing in on the family.
“That thing’s not stopping,” Robert chimed in.
The Stranger had to admit his father was right. Despite the legends with which he’d grown up, the beast was encroaching at a deadly pace.
“We mean no harm. Please let us pass,” The Stranger muttered as he looked on helplessly.
“Get down!” Robert screamed as the hideous mo
nster rose from the sand before their eyes. He pushed his wife and Laura aside and out of the way of danger. Laura landed on her side, and William was well protected in her arms, but the baby screamed louder than ever. The Stranger fell in on top of his wife and pinned her beneath his body, as though that alone would stop the creature thirty times his size.
“Let’s go!” he yelled, standing back up as Kryp hurtled past them and dove back into the sand. He ushered his family quickly around the back of the nearest building, but the façade did nothing to protect them from the beast that patrolled beneath the sands. Kryp was back upon them in a flash. The building collapsed in an instant as the creature tunneled below. It leapt from the sands and flew through the air yet again as the family all lunged forward and landed in the hard sand.
“Stop that thing!” Robert yelled over the roaring and gnashing of the beast’s mouth. “Use the sword!”
The Stranger stood and faced Kryp as it buried itself once more in the sand. He watched as the mound moved away before turning back to race toward his family once more. He felt the vibration within the heavy weapon grow as the punisher neared. His arms slowly drifted upward, seemingly of their own accord. The blade grew impossibly bright in the dim glow of the distant rising sun. As Kryp erupted forth from the sand, a white-hot beam gleamed forth from the tip of the White Sword. The monster released an ear-piercing shriek before veering off to the left and burrowing underground again.
“Did you see that?” Robert called. “Its skin was burned!”
Sure enough, the beast’s pelt had sizzled and sent a puff of smoke into the air. It burrowed underneath what remained of one of the homes at the edge of the city and turned around to race back toward The Stranger. He held out his weapon with increased confidence. The tip of the blade seemed to follow the swerving giant even without The Stranger’s control. As Kryp leapt from the earth again, another vague beam of white light shone from the sword’s tip. It struck the punisher and sent it reeling away in the other direction with another whirring, guttural howl of pain.
Yet the beast did not seem deterred. As it scrambled beneath the sand and circled back to return toward the travellers, The Stranger decided he was tired of relying on some feeble ancient magic to protect his family. He stepped forward and readied himself. When Kryp launched from the earth one last time, The Stranger drove the heavy sword upward into the thing’s belly. The thrust lifted the beast effortlessly over his head. As it came down behind him with a blood-curdling roar of agony, a brilliant light shone from the blade within. The abundant meat within the monster sizzled and crackled against the heat.
