by A. C. Cobble
“If the sand sea is so deadly,” questioned Ben, “why is this town of Frisay so close to it?”
Thyr dropped back to walk beside Ben.
Amelie plodded on in front of them. They were headed due south. For that, they didn’t need the Dirhadji’s guidance.
“It wasn’t built there originally,” explained Thyr. “Decades ago, when it was first settled, the sand sea was further north. It was here, in fact.”
Ben frowned. “It moved?”
Thyr nodded. “I keep telling you, but you do not listen. The sand moves constantly. Thirty years ago, the sea was here. In ten or twenty more years, maybe it covers the town of Frisay.”
Ben scratched at his neck, wincing at the feel of sand stuck to his skin. His sweat was like glue for the infuriating red grains.
“Will they move?” asked Ben.
“I don’t know,” admitted Thyr. “The Dirhadji tend to avoid the people of Frisay. We speak to them as little as possible, only what is necessary to conduct commerce. It wouldn’t be wise for them to stay put. You could also argue it’s not wise to be there in the first place, yet, there they are. With my own kind, I would not stop at Frisay,” continued Thyr, lowering his voice and nodding toward Amelie. “With you, I knew we would need a break. Your women are soft.”
“I heard that,” called Corinne from behind them.
The Dirhadji turned and eyed her, his face a blank mask.
Ben suspected the man was still adjusting to the armed women in the group. Corinne had her axes, Amelie her rapier, and O’ecca her naginata. Only Lady Towaal was unarmed, though, even the Dirhadji was sensitive enough to understand there was more to the mage than he understood.
Suddenly, startling Ben, an arms-length lizard shot across their path, passing between him and Amelie.
Without breaking his stride, Thyr unsheathed his knife and flung it at the lizard. Twenty paces away, the slender blade skewered the animal. After one violent convulsion, it lay still.
“Dinner,” claimed the Dirhadji with a grin.
Three bells later, Ben eyed the man queasily as he sunk his teeth into the tough, pale flesh of the lizard. It was neatly flayed, the tough brown skin lying on a rock beside Thyr. That was the only concession the man made toward civilized dining. There was no fuel in the desert, so no fire to cook his meal. The raw meat pulled and stretched before Thyr was able to gnaw off a chunk.
Ben swallowed the bile in his throat and looked away.
“What does one eat in the sand sea?” asked Corinne.
Even though Thyr was rude to her, Ben could tell she was warming to the Dirhadji. Kindred spirits maybe. Before she’d linked up with them, she’d spent her days hunting demons in the unforgiving Wilds. If you ignored the temperature change, it wasn’t so different from the desert.
“Whatever you carry with you,” mumbled Thyr around a mouthful of lizard. “There is nothing to sustain life there. We’ll see some rocks that stick out above the dunes, and there are hollows that the sand has not filled, but nothing can survive long, plant or animal. There is little rain, and the constant wind and blowing grains of sands would shred anything that stood against them for too long. Even the rocks are worn to nubs after a number of years.”
“What about us?” asked Corinne. “Aren’t we hiking through this thing? Is it safe?”
“No, it is not safe,” answered the warrior curtly. “We must cover our skin, or over the course of a few days, it will be scraped raw and bloody. Fortunately, with proper attire, your clothing will take the brunt of the abuse. At night, we’ll find an outcropping for shelter or keep walking until we do. There is no other way to sleep comfortably.”
“We’d better stock up on lizards,” remarked Ben dryly.
The Dirhadji showed his teeth but didn’t respond. Ben was realizing the man had a dark, ruthless sense of humor.
The next day, they found the edge of the sand sea.
Their party stood on a rock shelf that overlooked the vast expanse of red grit. Ben hated to admit it, but it looked like everything the Dirhadji said about the place was true. As far as Ben could see, red sand, a few fingers of rock that broke through the surface, and nothing else, extended to the horizon. It was completely empty.
A gust of wind blew around them. Ben watched the red sand swirl away in tiny, knee-high dervishes. Several hundred paces away, the visibility was cut to nothing as the wind picked up the miniscule grains and blew them into the air.
“This isn’t going to be pleasant,” muttered Ben.
“It’s only two days,” offered Thyr. “Then, we’ll be back in the normal desert. Two days after that, we’ll be in Frisay. That’s just four days. You can relax in Frisay. There are people like you. Northerners. Maybe there you will find what you are looking for and let me go.”
The Dirhadji watched Ben, but Ben ignored him, pretending to look out into the sands.
Sighing, the Dirhadji turned and began helping the party adjust their turbans and clothing. He tugged at it until no skin showed except their eyes and hands.
“Blink often and cover your hands if the wind picks up,” advised the man. “When the grit gets in your eyes, the tears will rinse it out. Don’t use the back of your hand to wipe your eyes in any circumstance. You will just make it worse. After a couple of hundred paces, you’ll have sand stuck all over you and anything you touch. Breathe through a cloth, or from time to time, you’ll accidentally inhale a lungful of the stuff.”
“What about our eyes?” asked Corinne. “Surely blinking isn’t your only suggestion.”
Thyr shrugged. “Hold onto the pack of the person in front of you and close your eyes if the wind picks up too much. It’s all you can do. Luckily, there’s nothing to bump into out here, and if you fall, you’ll land softly. I’ll lead the way. All you need to do is keep up.”
With that, the man made one final adjustment to his turban and stepped off the rock shelf, his foot sinking into the sand.
Ben leaned close to Amelie and whispered, “Do you think he’s planning to lose us somewhere?”
She watched the Dirhadji’s back. “He’s been trustworthy so far.”
“It could have been a ruse to get us somewhere he knew we’d get lost and never return,” responded Ben.
Rhys strode by them and stepped into the sand. As he passed, he mentioned, “Worst case, we all die out there.”
The rogue marched after Thyr into the empty sand wastes.
“Was that supposed to be encouraging?” wondered Ben.
Amelie chuckled and shook her head. “Who knows. He has a point, though. A little bit of sand can’t be worse than the demons in Alcott, the Wilds, Lord Jason, or Eldred.”
She stepped into the sand sea after the others.
Ben took a deep breath then followed her.
Two bells later, he felt like his mouth was as dry and sandy as the ground he was walking across. He tried to spit the grit out, but he couldn’t get enough moisture to do it. The water in the skins hanging off his pack was far too precious to waste on rinsing out his mouth.
Thyr promised them they were unlikely to find a source of potable water until they made it to the other side of the sand sea. The constant wind and shifting grains would bury any of the rare springs that might have existed before the sand crept over the area.
Ben plodded along.
The party was strung out in a ragged line behind Thyr. The Dirhadji walked tirelessly across the shifting sand. It was a learned skill, Ben decided. His feet shifted underneath him with every step. He was glad they weren’t likely to have to fight someone in the desolate wasteland. He doubted even demons could survive in the sand sea. There was no life there to sustain them.
At the front of their column, Thyr held up a hand. They all paused and slung water skins off their belts. Three mouthfuls, no more, no less. Then they rehung the skins and kept walking.
In the dry heat, they would quickly exhaust themselves without water. Thyr instructed them to immediately let him kn
ow if they suffered headaches, dizziness, or cramps. Soon after that, he said, they’d be vomiting up precious liquid they couldn’t afford to lose. If they drank too much, though, they wouldn’t have sufficient supplies to make the next source of fresh water. It was a thin line they walked.
Ben drank his ration and stoppered his water skin. The Dirhadji was already moving again.
“He’s being awfully helpful for someone who is essentially our prisoner,” muttered Ben.
“He’s curious,” suggested Milo.
Ben raised his eyebrow at the former apprentice.
“He knows there is more to our story than we are telling him,” explained Milo. “He’s not stupid. We aren’t following him into the desert simply to settle the score for attacking O’ecca. No, he knows we are after something out here. He wants to find out what. He’ll keep us alive until he knows. Then we’ll see what his honor is worth.”
“You think he’ll betray us?” asked Ben.
“I don’t know the man any better than you,” answered Milo, “but I know we aren’t his friends.”
Ben sat chewing dolefully on a hard biscuit. It was bone dry and tasted like the sand that he couldn’t get out of his mouth, but it was better than the jerked strip of goat meat Amelie was gnawing on. Across from them, Corinne was poking dubiously at a piece of what could be either dried fruit or vegetable. It had an odd pebbling. Briefly, Ben wondered if it was actually a fungus. Milo had already spit his out. The former librarian’s apprentice claimed they could survive for days without food. It was water they really needed, he said.
Ben wasn’t sure about that, but he decided he would hold out for more opinions before he tried the dried fruit, or vegetable, or whatever it was.
Behind them, they’d strung three tarps to low stakes. They only came mid-thigh to Ben when he was standing, but they were high enough to sleep under. The tarps were positioned against the wind and would keep most of the blowing sand off of them in the night. Thyr advised they also sleep on their sides, facing away from the direction of the wind.
For three bells prior, they’d looked for a suitable rock to shelter behind, but there was nothing. The wind was light that evening, so Thyr declared it would be safe to sleep under the tarps. They had no fuel for fire, and the temperature would drop quickly in the dry air. The sun was hovering over the horizon, seeming to pause for breath before plunging the sand sea into darkness. When it did, it would get suddenly cold. The one saving grace was that the clothing used to keep sun off during the day would help retain heat at night.
Ben stretched his legs and massaged his calves. In the morning, he was certain they’d be sore from the effort of walking on the sand.
“Try the Ohms,” suggested Thyr.
Ben looked at the muscular Dirhadji.
“The stretches are good for you,” continued the man. “It increases blood flow through your muscles. You’ll feel more rested in the morning. Long term, you’ll have fewer aches and pains, and you’ll find walking on the sand is easier.”
“Is that why the Dirhadji do the Ohms,” queried Ben. “It helps you walk on sand?”
Thyr guffawed loudly, shattering the silence of the desert and shocking Ben.
“The Dirhadji do the Ohms,” explained the warrior, “because it helps in battle. Speed, strength, stamina, flexibility, and control. Any one of those attributes can help you win a fight. If you do not excel in any of them, it is certain you will lose. That is what is important to a Dirhadji. Battle. I mentioned the walking to you because you are a northerner and soft.”
Ben muttered under his breath, but he took the Dirhadji’s advice and began working through the first sequences of the Ohms. Before he finished the fifth, the sun had set, and night fell across the desert.
“Control,” barked the Dirhadji as Ben transitioned through the poses. “You must maintain absolute control of yourself and your movements. Be aware of your surroundings, but only in the back of your mind. The front of your mind should be focused on what you are doing.”
Ben frowned. The control the Dirhadji mentioned sounded suspiciously like the meditation Towaal taught. One involved movement, and the other did not, but the mental focus was identical. Towaal taught the meditation to improve their ability to harden their will.
Lost in thought, Ben stumbled, earning a disgusted snort from Thyr. Sighing, Ben straightened and joined the rest of the group making the last preparations for the night.
They set a watch schedule, and Milo had the first one. The former apprentice was circling their campsite, kicking sand as he walked. It was all he could do. There was nothing else in sight, nowhere to sit. Not even a lone rock had broken the surface of the sand since before midday, and that one had come only waist high.
If the wind hadn’t been so low, Thyr claimed he would have forced them to continue marching. Without shelter, lying down, they’d be pounded by the tiny grains of sand all night long. Ben understood the man’s concern, but he was so exhausted he didn’t think he would have been able to continue for long, shelter or no shelter.
Ben crawled under the tarp beside Amelie and settled himself in the sand. It’d be several baths, he suspected, before he washed all the grit off. He had to admit the sand made for a more comfortable bed than the rocks they had been sleeping on. It definitely made a better bed than the snow and ice in the Wilds.
“I’ll be happy when we’re rid of that man,” mumbled Amelie.
“He’s starting to grow on me,” remarked Ben. “Once you get past the bluster, he’s kind of friendly.”
“That’s only because you’re a man,” complained Amelie. “I don’t like the way he looks at me or any of the other ladies.”
Ben frowned and thought about the Dirhadji’s looks as he drifted to sleep. In the morning, he would say something to the man, but there were only going to be more like him. If they were lucky, they’d soon be in the middle of an entire tribe’s worth of Dirhadji.
A deep rumble drew Ben from his sleep. Around him, the sand was shifting, and as he blinked sleep and grit from his eyes, he realized the entire ground was shaking. It sounded as if a thousand horses were pounding across the sand sea.
A flash of light lit the tarp, followed heartbeats later by a thunderous boom.
“I thought there wasn’t any rain in the desert,” complained Corinne, tugging a corner of her bedroll over her head.
“Up, now!” yelled Thyr.
The Dirhadji scrambled out from under the tarp and began frantically stuffing supplies into his bag.
“Hurry, you fools,” he shouted.
Ben stood and looked around, confused. He couldn’t figure out where the noise was coming from or why the ground would be shaking.
Another flash of light lit the sky, and Ben stared, open mouthed. Several leagues away, the lightning illuminated massive, billowing clouds. They stretched from the floor of the desert far into the sky, soaring out of view.
“What is that?” wondered Ben.
“Sand storm,” growled the Dirhadji to the party. “I’ll give you two dozen heartbeats to pack your things and then I’m leaving. We have to find shelter, or we die.”
They all leapt into action, feverishly stuffing their packs full.
Ben stumbled through the soft sand and started yanking out the stakes they’d used to string up the tarps. Rhys caught his arm.
“We don’t have time,” declared the rogue. “Leave them.”
Ben glanced around and saw Thyr was already striding away into the night. He threw down the tarp and joined his friend, chasing after their guide. Every dozen steps, Ben couldn’t help but glance behind and watch the growing storm. One by one, the stars were swallowed. The time between the flashes of lightning and crashes of thunder grew shorter and shorter.
Under her breath, Corinne was counting.
“Three leagues,” she estimated loudly.
Thyr grunted and picked up his pace.
Ben gripped Amelie’s hand as they struggled to keep up with the
panicked desert dweller.
“I’ve heard these desert storms move fast,” declared O’ecca. “We will not make it to cover.”
Thyr ignored her.
“Damnit, man,” she shouted. “Do not ignore me.”
Without turning, he yelled back, “I know we do not have time, woman. These storms move faster than the quickest northlander horse. As I told your friend, just because I am not afraid of death does not mean I welcome it. While there is breath in my body, I will continue.”
“Maybe we can go back and hide under the tarps,” suggested Ben.
“The storm is too powerful,” growled Thyr. “The tarp will be ripped away in heartbeats. If we try to hide in the sand, we could be blown away too, or worse, buried.”
“What do we do?” demanded Lady Towaal.
“Keep the wind at our backs and keep moving. If we are lucky, we will stumble across something we can use as shelter. Even then…” the warrior trailed off.
He didn’t need to tell them the rest. Even with shelter, the storm carried thousands of wagon-loads of sand, tens of thousands, all blowing faster than the quickest horse could run. Any exposed skin would be shredded. Even behind a sturdy rock, the sand could drop, burying them.
“We’ll make it,” assured Amelie.
Ben forced a grin in her direction. He wasn’t sure she could see it. All of them were shadowy silhouettes in the moonlight, sporadically lit by the flashes of lightning from the storm.
After two hundred paces, they could hear the wail of the wind and the crash of sand growing behind them. It was a brutal pounding noise, millions of fine grains smashing against each other, over and over again.
Stumbling and sliding in the sand, they followed Thyr. With each pace, Ben’s heart sank. The lightning flashes were coming faster. All they illuminated in front of them was the empty horizon. He could feel the storm starting to tug at his clothing. Below his knees, sand began to pelt his legs and boots. He could feel thousands of the tiny grains whipping against him. The sound of the storm was building into a crescendo of deafening chaos. The wind was like a thousand waves breaking on a rocky shoreline all at once.