“I guess she was just trying to warn us, but you’re right, Miss. What are we supposed to do if one is sighted?” Caroline looked at me hopelessly.
I felt a familiar burning in my chest. “We fight. If we have to fight for our lives.” I pressed my lips together resolutely. “And if possible, we escape.”
Caroline looked sharply into my eyes and nodded, seeming to gain strength from my words.
The day wore on.
As night approached, we kept going.
“We aren’t stopping to make camp?” I asked Khepri when she drew near.
“No.” She scanned the horizon, which was turning pink and purple. “It is dangerous to stop at night. Best to keep moving. The manticores and other predators are less apt to attack a moving party. Low tents with slumbering people would be sitting ducks. The manticore and panther are known to inhabit this region. Also the basilisk and griffin, but only rarely.”
“The what? The basilisk roams here?” My voice rose in apprehension.
“Relax, basilisks are not as bad as manticores. And these men are seasoned fighters.” She rode forward to join the overseer.
I looked out at the guards who rode in our group. They had spread out, some behind us, some in front of us, some farther out, tracking the area.
“We should be safe, Miss,” Caroline said.
“Why do you think that, Carrie?” I said, not feeling as calm as she appeared.
“Well, there are over a dozen people riding with us, and all of them are basically here to guard our safety. I don’t believe …” Caroline’s voice stopped as a loud scream sounded across the desolate sands.
My head whipped around. A horse whinnied nervously.
The two guards on horseback who were the farthest out fought to keep their horses under control.
The scream sounded again. It sounded maybe half a mile away.
“What was that? Carrie, what was that?” I said, my eyes wide.
Caroline remained silent. Now, she looked more afraid than I felt. I think if we were hadn’t been in a basket ten feet off the ground on the back of a giant camel, she would have fled. Her panic began to infect me.
“Oh, god …,” I murmured, trying to see what was out there. My stomach churned.
“Hey, you two,” Khepri whispered, appearing suddenly alongside us. “Whatever happens, stay low in the basket. Keep your heads down.”
“What was that?” I asked in a low tone.
“Manticore,” she said quietly before trotting away.
The manticore screamed a third time, the cry echoing across the desert, much closer now.
Caroline shuddered. “Oh, Miss, what are we going to do?”
My mind raced. They had made sure we didn’t have anything in our basket that could be used as a weapon, not even a hairpin. I looked at Caroline in mild panic.
Standing up, I called over to Khepri. She rode close to our camel and looked up at us expectantly.
“Can we have something to defend ourselves? We’re vulnerable up here in this basket,” I said.
“No,” Khepri answered. “The guards will protect you. Even now …”
She never got the chance to complete her thought.
Our camel jumped and raced forward even faster as a scream split the air, the movement throwing us to the bottom of the large basket. I was sure the scream had come from one of the outer perimeter guards. It was impossible to see in the darkness. A mist had rolled in, obscuring much of our vision.
“Khepri!” I popped my head just over the top edge of the basket. “You cannot leave us unarmed. You’d be signing our death sentence!” I whispered hurriedly, not wanting to draw the creature’s attention, but Khepri just rode away, ignoring me.
I sat back down in the basket, out of sight.
“We’re just going to have to hide in here,” Caroline said.
“This camel is racing with horses,” I said. “The manticore just got one of the guards on horseback. Probably got the horse, too.” I rose to my feet again, hanging on the basket’s ropes.
I saw the camel had a halter and the lead was being held by a guard up ahead. Squinting, I tried to see which horseman held it, but could not see in the darkness. Several were racing just ahead of us.
“I’m going to try to grab the lead,” I said, turning back toward Caroline, who was crouched at the base of the basket.
“Miss, that’s too dangerous,” she started.
“I don’t give a rat’s behind, Carrie. I refuse to die while being carried in a basket on the back of a camel!”
I pulled off my sling and flexed my arm. It seemed nearly healed. It was slightly sore, but I moved it back and forth a few times, and it was fine.
Turning back to the basket’s edge, I put one leg over, then the other. The basket had reached up to my ribs when I stood upright inside, and with the camel running, it jounced and bumped up and down with the animal’s movement. It also bumped back and forth, forced to copy the camel’s gait. Timing my movement, I flipped my other leg forward and was on the outside saddle blankets, when the camel gave a particularly long leap sideways, and I lost my footing.
I found myself astride the thick neck of the camel, grasping its fluffy mane for dear life. Gathering my wits, I reached forward and grabbed the rope leading from its halter. I now had hold of it, one end attached to the camel’s head, the other leading off into the darkness ahead.
I yanked.
The rope came loose with surprising ease. The guard was busy with other things, I guessed as I pulled the slack up, looping it in my hands. The camel raced on, its panic guiding it.
Everyone was rushing forward in the same direction.
A second scream pierced the darkness from behind us and off to the left.
Well, I thought, I’m going this way, and began pulling at the camel’s lead, trying to veer off to the right.
The camel, in its headlong rush, did not seem to mind, and we were soon curving away from the others.
I heard a few of them calling to one another, words to the effect of, “the slaves are getting away!” But no one veered off to chase us. I could not believe it was this easy.
I heard the manticore roar from our left, and soon, followed by another scream, this time a horse’s cry of rage. I glanced back and saw Khepri. Her horse had reared up high and was repeatedly striking at a huge dark figure. Hard thumps sounded above the rushing of our camel’s hoofbeats on sand.
“Miss, it’s coming!” Caroline screamed.
I wrenched our camel’s halter rope back and forth and kicked my heels, urging the beast on. It responded, racing even faster than before, in a zigzag pattern across the sand and away from the fight.
I let it run then, not caring where it took us, hoping its instincts were sound. It was at home in the desert, and we were not.
After about an hour, the camel slowed to a trot, breathing hard. Looking back, I couldn’t see anything. I pulled on the halter rope, and we came to a stop.
All of a sudden, it was silent except for the camel’s hard exhalations.
I felt amazed the creature had run so hard and for so long without dropping. Patting the beast’s neck, I murmured a thank you.
Caroline and I listened for any sound. Were there no others that came this way?
Suddenly, we heard the hoofbeats of horses.
It was Khepri and two others, they rode up quickly. One of the other guards was injured and fell off his horse as it came to a standstill.
“Grab that camel lead,” Khepri ordered the uninjured guard.
I jumped down and walked to examine the fallen guard. He was dead. I straightened and looked at Khepri.
“Where are the others?” I asked.
“Don’t know how many others survived. We all scattered.” She eyed the fallen guard.
I bent down and took the scimitar from the corpse’s waistband. Straightening, I eyed the terrain.
“Give me that sword,” Khepri ordered, brandishing her own at me. I noticed sh
e was bleeding from her side and leg.
“You’re hurt,” I said, ignoring her demand.
She didn’t say a thing, just advanced a step, her sword pointed at my face.
The other guard let off a rapid string of a desert dialect toward Khepri. It was clear he was scared and upset.
As Khepri took another step, she fell to her knees.
I rushed forward to help her, and she gasped.
Laying her down, I bent and examined her wounds. The large gash on her side was deep, and there was some kind of greenish oil infecting it. The leg wound seemed superficial. “Aw, that’s not too bad,” I lied, looking into her eyes. She shuddered. Caroline clambered down from the camel and came forward then.
“I’ll wash the wound,” she said, reaching for the waterskin on Khepri’s belt.
I rose to my feet. “Can you understand me?” I asked the guard in Arabic.
“Yes,” he answered. He glanced off the way they had come. “The beast may follow. Our horses are exhausted. We may have to make a stand here.”
I looked around for any kind of defensible position, but there was none. My eyes settled on the camel. He wouldn’t be much, but might spare us from the first onslaught.
The horses snorted nervously.
I turned to the guard: “Let’s set up a perimeter.”
He nodded.
We busied ourselves with the supplies on the back bag packed on our camel. There were several torches, a small tent, a bag of food, several waterskins, and treasure: a lamp, that had somehow not gotten broken during the long ride fleeing the manticore!
We soon had the torches lit, the tent up, and Khepri bedded down next to a fire. There was scant wood to be had, but we’d found several dried camel pats half buried in the sand, and they burned bright. Caroline tended the injured woman while the guard and I kept watch and waited for the inevitable to arrive.
“What’s your name?” I asked while we waited. He just stared at me. I shrugged. We stood there, silent, scanning the darkness and listening for any hint of the manticore.
We didn’t have long to wait.
A growl sounded off in the darkness. The guard hefted his sword, and we both prepared to make a stand.
The manticore came into view, padding on the soft sand.
I had only seen drawings of the beasts, never actually beheld one. Shivering at the sight of it, I had no doubt I was looking upon one of Mother Nature’s most ferocious beasts.
The two horses and the camel were nearly mad with fear, and they reared and tried to run, but Caroline hung on to the leads, which had also been staked down firmly by the guard earlier. There was plenty of rope, and that seemed to help.
I had read that the manticore had the body of a lion, the tail of a scorpion, and the face of a man, that they were usually red or dun in color, and that the tail was the most dangerous part. The textbook my tutors had used was dry and clinical. It had not prepared me for the real thing.
Earlier, I had wondered why it had chased our party for so long, grabbing rider after rider, not being satiated enough to stop.
Well, I had my answer now.
The thing stood easily as tall as a large bull elephant, maybe fifteen feet tall. Huge legs resembling tree trunks supported a massive leonine body rippling with muscles. The head was enormous: a great, magnificent mane surrounding the face that stared back at us. It was a man’s face, but the face was distorted. It was a giant’s face, reaching at least 30 inches from crown to chin. Its maw was full of razor-sharp teeth, and its tongue darted in and out like a snake’s. It stared down at us with emotionless eyes, and if a face could look impressively hungry, this one did.
Huge, leathery wings sprung proudly from each shoulder, with talons on each bony joint. They looked like giant bat wings from hell.
The tail of the manticore was massive. Arching up from its haunches and curving over its back, it was easily as long as the body it was attached to, and looked powerful and deadly.
It roared at us as it approached.
I looked at the scimitar I held, and at the sword that other guard brandished, and I knew we didn’t stand a chance.
We were going to die here.
Our blood would soak into the desert sand, we’d be eaten by this beast, and that would be that.
I heard the guard moan in terror, but he held his ground, not running. I felt fleetingly impressed by his bravery.
“Miss!” Caroline called to me. I did not want to take my eyes off the manticore, and I could not have even if I’d wanted to. Its gaze held me, and the horror of our last minutes of life mesmerized me. But I wanted to know what would prompt her to want conversation at such a moment, so …
“What?” I called back, not taking my eyes off the huge beast.
“Try to take out the tail! Remember from your studies: Its courage lies in its tail.”
I tried to remember what I’d been taught about the manticore. Caroline was right. If we could somehow cut its tail off, it would be disabled and a fatal blow might be possible. But how?
I never had the chance to think further.
For something so huge, it moved incredibly fast.
With a leap, it sailed over our heads and landed 20 feet away, on the other side of the tent. Caroline screamed in surprise.
With a roar, the guard ran toward the thing, and it answered with a deafening roar of its own.
As he ran toward the manticore, I followed him. We were almost within striking range, when the monster’s tail whipped forward and the sharp tip buried itself into the guard’s leg so far it emerged a few inches from the other side. He screamed in pain and rage.
The guard waved his sword arm as he cried out. The manticore roared and turned, and the tail, with the guard still hanging from the tip, moved with it. The man yelled something I couldn’t make it out, and swung his sword down, severing the tail.
It was as thick as the guard’s leg, this deadly tail, but the sharp sword, swung by the desperate man, cut through it in a single stroke.
The manticore screamed in rage and pain, and swung its head around to lick the wound.
The guard dropped onto the ground, the stinger still in his leg, which was starting to turn a sickly green.
All this happened in less than a minute.
Seeing the beast distracted by its wound, I raced forward and plunged my scimitar deep into its chest, where I hoped the heart was.
The manticore shuddered once and swung its head back around to face me. It snarled and reared back, preparing to attack.
It never got the chance.
The blow I’d inflicted was fatal: The thing collapsed in a heap, bleeding copiously from both wounds.
Breathing hard, I crouched, waiting for it to move, but it lay still.
There was a cry from behind me and I turned to see the guard clutch at his leg, now swollen to twice its normal size. I could see the poison make its way up to the man’s torso and creep toward his heart, the green color slowly but surely migrating.
I raced to the man’s side.
It took a few minutes, and I was holding his head as he cried out in anguish, but then it was over. The poison bubbled from the leg wound, dripping into the sand with a hiss.
I shook my head. He’d never had a chance.
“Oh, Miss,” Caroline cried out. “He had courage!”
I was still breathing hard with adrenaline from the fight with the manticore. I stood up, backing away from the guard’s body. It had swollen and bloated green with the manticore’s poison, and it appeared to be decaying before our eyes.
I would remember his bravery. I wished I had known his name, and his tribe and family.
Walking back to the fallen beast, I withdrew my scimitar and cleaned it on the sand.
I could not believe what had happened in just a few minutes, but the reality was there before me. Returning to Caroline and Khepri, I bent to examine the healer’s wound again.
‘There is no hint of the manticore’s poison, I se
e,” I said, moving the cloth bandage back into place.
“No. I think she must have sustained the injury from something other than the tail,” Caroline said.
I scanned the horizon. “That is a good thing. There’s been too much death already.”
We worked for an hour to bury the two guards. The sand was warm, and I knew the desert predators might dig the bodies up again, but without a shovel the best we could do was cover them in several feet of desert.
Standing back, I surveyed our work. It would have to do.
I looked over at the boots and swords and things I’d taken from the guards before burying them. No sense in wasting good boots, I thought.
A few minutes later, I’d selected the best fitting pair, cleaned them of blood, and tucked my feet into them.
Looking at Caroline, I motioned for her to try on the other pair. They fit, and I felt much better outfitted for our coming journey.
“Let’s sleep for a few hours.” I looked at the huge dead beast a dozen yards away. “Something tells me the smell of that beast and its poison will keep predators away for now.”
We slept fitfully for the rest of the night, exhausted from our ordeal.
At dawn, Caroline was awake and checking on Khepri. She had passed out from the pain, but her wounds did not look infected, always a concern in the hot desert climate. A festering wound would not be good.
Khepri moaned as I cleaned her laceration with water and rebandaged it, but she did not open her eyes.
Rummaging through the packs, I found bread, cheese and dried dates. We ate.
We stayed another few hours, and, after awakening, Khepri seemed strong enough to travel, so we loaded her up in the basket atop the camel and, with Caroline and I on the two horses, we began to travel.
We had little idea of where we were going, and as I doubted our water would last much longer than a few days, I let the horses lead us.
Chapter Seven
A Shooting Star
“Carrie, what’s that?” I shaded my eyes and squinted against the sunlight glaring off the sand.
We’d been riding for half the day without incident, and I’d been on the lookout for anything that wasn’t miles and miles of sand dunes.
The Pirates of Moonlit Bay Page 4
