The Desert Prince

by Brett, Peter V.

  Rojvah turns her attention back to the demons, taking the song up an octave, and then another, her voice going higher than any voice has a right to. I don’t even have to look at the demons to know the effect she is creating. I feel it in my stones.

  The demons shriek and run for their lives. The four I originally spotted, and three more out on the flats that had been slowly inching our way. Their fear is so all-encompassing, it may be miles before they stop running, and they will be reluctant to return.

  Rojvah turns my way, and I see her smile as she tests my limits, taking the song to new and difficult places, just to see if I can follow. She’s better than me—far better—but I refuse to fall behind, going wherever her voice leads.

  “Ay, enough with the racket,” Selen says after what could have been hours, or mere minutes.

  Rojvah and I both break off, turning to her in surprise. I can smell her irritation, sharp and hot, but I don’t know the cause.

  “Demons are gone,” Selen says. “Ent any point in playing all night. Going to need our rest come morning.”

  “What if they come back?” I ask.

  Selen reaches into her pack, pulling out Olive’s Cloak of Unsight. Unlike the famed multicolored cloak of Rojer Halfgrip, this one is midnight blue—almost black—and its wards look like silver fire.

  She goes to Arick. “This belongs to Olive, but I don’t think she’d mind you using it until we can return it to her.”

  Arick reaches out, and their hands touch for a little too long as he takes the cloak from her. “You honor me, Selen vah Gared. One day I will give you a gift of equal value in return.”

  “You already have,” Selen says, “coming along with us.” They stare at each other a while longer, then she turns away, shivering as she slips into her bedroll, draping her own cloak over her.

  The mood shattered, I drop my pipes, letting them hang from their strap. “Din’t know you could do that,” I tell Rojvah. “You make my pipes sound like a dented bugle.”

  “Nonsense,” Rojvah says, but she smiles again. “My brother resents our father’s legacy, but I do not. Rojer asu Jessum was bound in greater glory than the warriors Arick idolizes. Even Arick’s mother was known more for her song than her work with the spear.”

  “Then why don’t you be the Jongleur, and let Arick wear the black?” I ask quietly. Arick and Selen are both in their bedrolls, but I can hear their hearts and breath. Both are awake and listening.

  “Because Arick is the son.” Rojvah’s hiss is low and venomous. “And I am my mother’s heir, set to one day succeed her as Damaji’ting of the Kaji tribe.”

  “Doesn’t sound so bad,” I say.

  Rojvah surprises me by spitting in the dust. She turns away, looking out over the empty orange flats. “I would have been a great Jongleur. Like my father the royal herald, I could be the voice of the Shar’dama Ka and Damajah in foreign lands. A diva, stylish in my colored gowns, voice known far and wide, with lovers in every court.”

  She looks down at her white robes. “Instead, I am given plain white, and told my body belongs to Everam.”

  43

  SANDSTORM

  The clay flats give way to sand, our tracks slowly swept away by a seemingly endless wind that blows the grit into great mounds that stretch out over the horizon. The silk veil filters out most of the particles, but not their taste. My mouth is pasty with it.

  The wayposts become inconsistent as we enter the dunes, some standing as tall and clear as when they were built, thousands of years ago. Others are half buried in the sand.

  It’s been fifteen years since anyone has made this crossing and told the tale. Fifteen years of wind and sand. I’m scared some might be missing entirely, swallowed by the dunes.

  We find another half-buried post before nightfall. We make camp around its base, still offering some protection, though nothing like the twenty paces full pillars offer.

  We lay portable ward circles around the animals and our bedrolls for added security, but the wind worries me. Sand blows across the wardplates, threatening to weaken the protections. We take turns on watch, sweeping the wards clean regularly until dawn, but the demons are few this far from civilization.

  We continue two more days, but as the third night approaches, we find ourselves without a waypost at all, just a wooden pole in the sand where the pillar lay buried, with an arrow pointing the way.

  To make matters worse, a powerful wind kicks up, blowing sand and grit everywhere. We pace the perimeter of our portable warding circle, but the plates are being covered faster than we can sweep them clean. We try to make music, but Rojvah’s throat is dry, her voice muffled by her veil. I’m forced to lower my veil entirely to play the pipes, inhaling grit every time I take a breath. Sand gets in the strings and bow of Arick’s kamanj. He continues to play, but it fouls what sound isn’t drowned by the howl of the wind.

  Even the protection of our cloaks starts to weaken as blowing sand collects on the threads, making the wards fuzzy and ineffective.

  And amid the howling wind and our shouts to one another, I hear sand demon cries.

  My hand goes instinctively for my bow, but I know it’s pointless. My hands already shake when I’m aiming at something tryin’ to kill me, and I ent a good enough shot to account for wind like this.

  I grip the bone handle of Mam’s knife, instead, as I search the blowing sands. Da wrote that sand demons look so much like the dunes, they’re near impossible to see in normal vision. I can see their auras with my night eyes, but they’ve adapted to use the blowing sand to their advantage. The swirling particles in the air reflect the glow, making the shapes vague and diffuse. It’s impossible to tell how many there are, or how close.

  Suddenly, the wardnet around us flashes to life, revealing dangerously large gaps in the web where sand has marred the wards.

  Selen screams, and I turn to see her stumble back, spear knocked from her grasp by the swipe of a clawed arm as a sand demon attempts to force its way through a hole in the wards in front of her.

  In a flash the bow is off my shoulder. I nock and loose, but as I feared, the wind throws off my aim and the missile flies wide, nearly hitting one of the horses.

  “Selen!” I cry, pulling Mam’s knife and running her way.

  I needn’t have bothered.

  Selen balls a fist and swings, her punch striking the demon like a thunderstick. There’s a flash on impact, and the demon is knocked back. I don’t understand how it’s possible until I see the jewelry on her spear hand—a set of five silver rings, warded and connected by fine silver chains to a jeweled bracelet around her wrist.

  Already the demon is shaking off even this, tamping down for another leap. Before it can strike, Selen sweeps clean the weakened wardplates. When the demon leaps, it flattens against a solid wardnet and is thrown back.

  But more sand’s flying through the air, and the circle is far from secure. Arick stubbornly keeps playing as Selen once again takes up her spear, eyes searching for the next breach.

  When another demon finds a gap in the wards, Selen is there to meet it head-on, driving her warded spear down its throat. The wards glow fiercely, and her aura brightens as feedback magic runs up her arm.

  “To the abyss with it!” Arick drops his kamanj and picks up his spear and shield as another demon starts probing the wards. He doesn’t wait for the coreling to find a gap, stabbing it in the shoulder and collapsing it to the ground. Magic rushes into him, and he gives a primal roar that carries on the wind.

  The next few hours are chaos. Arick and Selen do the fighting, loping about the camp to throw back sand demons seeking gaps in the net. Selen is quiet, focused, but Arick’s laughter seems amplified by the din, as frightening as the cries of the demons.

  I want to help Arick and Selen, but there ent much I can do, save get in their way. A demon pierces the wardnet near
Rojvah, and I race to her instead, interposing myself with Mam’s knife held high, as if I know how to use it in a fight. Still, the coreling must sense the weapon’s power, because it pulls up warily, hissing like a cat as it displays razor-sharp claws and teeth.

  As with the others, Rojvah doesn’t need my help. “Step aside, cousin.” She reaches into her hora pouch, drawing out a demon tooth the size of my middle finger, tiny wards etched into its surface. She points it at the sand demon, sliding a finger to cover some wards and reveal others.

  A bolt of lightning leaps from the tooth, striking the demon in the chest and hurling it back into the swirling sands.

  It’s a tough tea to swallow, but I focus instead on the one thing I can do, moving around the camp’s perimeter at speed, using a small brush to clear off the wardplates. It helps, but the task seems endless as the wind continues to howl and more and more demons are drawn to the storm.

  Sand demons don’t come much bigger than hounds, but I’d rather fight a pack of rabid dogs than a single one of the fast, vicious creatures. With every blow he strikes, Arick’s aura grows brighter, and his aggression grows. Ent long before he looks a bit rabid, himself. He stabs a sand demon, and when it does not rise, he turns to see Selen in a fighting stance, spear and shield at the ready to meet the charge of another of the small, muscular beasts.

  Arick leaps into the demon’s path, shoving Selen aside. Where she waited patiently with her shield up, he abandons defense in favor of a devastating thrust of his spear that punches through the demon’s armor and into its chest.

  “Ay, what was that?!” Selen cries. Arick ignores her, shouting something incoherent as he stabs the creature again and again, the wards on his spear hot with magic.

  All of us stay out of Arick’s way after that. He rushes around the circle, whirling his spear through the air to stab demon after demon. The look in his eyes reminds me of Ella Cutter when the Children locked her in the Bunker.

  The wind dies down after a time and the attacks taper off, but Arick continues to pace the perimeter of the circle like an animal, growling incoherent words to himself.

  “He’s rattlin” my nerves.” Selen’s aura is hot with stolen magic, too, and I can smell her anger. “Can’t stop thinking about how he shoved me.” The word comes out in a growl as she tightens her grip on her spear, and I see where this is going.

  “I’ll go talk to him,” I say, before things can escalate.

  “It should be me,” Rojvah says. “I can get through to him.”

  “Ay, maybe,” I say. “But he’s magic-drunk. Seen it before. Get far enough gone, you can’t tell friend from foe.”

  “My brother would never hurt me,” Rojvah says, but there is doubt in her scent.

  “Just let me feel him out,” I say. “Ent much good in a fight, but I’m great at slippin’ punches.”

  But I don’t go slippery as I approach Arick. Instinctively I suck in, making my flesh tougher, my bones harder. The effect shrinks me a bit. Might make Arick feel less threatened, or it might make him feel like a cat spotting a barn mouse.

  “You were right, Arick,” I say at his back. As he turns, I hold my empty hands palms up. “No one can deny you the black, now.”

  Arick stares like he doesn’t know me, breathing great gulps of cold night air through his veil.

  “All friends here, ay?” I continue to approach, hands out wide. His breathing steadies and I start to relax, but then I take one step too many and enter into his striking zone.

  Arick gives a shout, slashing with the wide blade at the end of his spear. He’s fast, but I’m ready, turning slippery as I quickstep out of reach. Arick spins the spear this way and that to stab and club at me, growling all the while. Powered by feedback magic and adrenaline, he’s got speed to rival mine, and I reckon he’s strong enough to arm-wrestle Olive Paper. A single one of his blows could take off my head.

  But I’m not looking to fight back. So long as I stay slippery and focus only on defense, Arick can’t do more than strike a glancing blow that slides right off me. He swings again and again, but I give him no magic to feed off, and slowly his frantic pace begins to drain away some of the excess energy.

  It’s wearing on me, too. It’s been a long night, and I’m not sure which of us will tire first. “This ent you, Arick,” I huff, barely rolling around a thrust of his spear in time. “It’s the magic talking.”

  “Embrace the feeling, brother,” Rojvah calls, “and let it pass over you.”

  “Or have the stones to pick on someone your own size.” Selen steps forward, spear and shield at the ready.

  “Ent helpin’, Sel,” I say.

  Arick responds to this new threat with a growl, turning to face Selen. There’s a hint of smile on her face as she sets her feet to meet him. Has everyone gone crazy?

  Before Arick can move Selen’s way, Rojvah steps in front of him, slapping him hard across the face.

  It’s a terrible insult to slap a Krasian man. More oft than not a precursor to a duel that will claim at least one life before satisfaction. Shocked, Arick stumbles back, shaking his head.

  Selen steps in front of me, spear up. “Stay behind me, Dar.” I drop a hand to Mam’s knife, and even Rojvah has a demonbone in her hand.

  Arick squeezes his eyes shut for a long moment, then opens them, something of his sanity restored as he sees the three of us staring at him.

  “Fight’s over, Arick,” I say. “We won.”

  He stares at me a moment, then throws back his head and laughs, thrusting his spear in the air.

  * * *

  —

  No one sleeps. Arick and Selen keep watch, as much over each other as the sands. Both remain awash in power, and jittery. Arick still hasn’t spoken. Selen seems to have a better lid on it, but I wouldn’t want to get in an argument with her now.

  Rojvah looks exhausted, her white robes crusted with dust. With Arick out of sorts, I can tell she doesn’t know who to trust. I want to help her, but with dawn approaching, I’ve got problems of my own.

  With no obelisk shadow to shelter in, I set up Dusk Runner’s canopy and strap myself into the saddle, carefully covering every inch of myself and putting my cloak’s hood up for good measure. I look at my friends sadly. They have no idea what’s about to happen, but maybe that’s for the best.

  Shaded and layered, sunrise is bright and hot, the light making my skin itch, but I’ve gotten used to the feeling.

  Arick and Selen are not so fortunate. Selen yelps first, as the demon ichor staining her spear and shield and armor smokes and then sparks into flame. She drops her arms and beats at the flame, even as Arick bellows and begins a similar dance.

  Then the sunlight hits them more fully, burning away the excess magic radiating from their auras, and they scream.

  It doesn’t last long. The worst of it never does, especially when you’re caught in the light. Just a hot flash of pain that leaves you breathless and shaking in its wake. Selen and Arick quiet after a bit, and then it’s like all our strings are cut.

  I half doze, listening as the others follow my example. They cover their skin and stiffly feed and water their mounts from our lightening supply. While the horses eat, they saddle them and raise the canopies.

  I hear sighs of relief as they climb into the saddles, but no one makes any effort to move. I allow myself to drift off completely.

  * * *

  —

  “Ay, Darin.” Selen shakes me awake.

  The light is blinding as I open my eyes, and I hiss, holding up a hand to block the worst of it.

  “It was a lot worse at sunrise,” Selen says. “Is that what it’s like for you every morning?”

  I shrug. “Get used to it.”

  “I don’t think I could ever get used to being on fire,” Selen says.

  “Ay,” I agree, “but you ma
ke a fuss and folk start whispering you’ve got demon blood.”

  “Folk are always whispering,” Selen says. “It’s up to you whether to listen.”

  As if it’s so easy to shut out whispers when you can hear a butterfly flapping its wings. I glance at the noon sun overhead. “Lost the mornin’, I guess.”

  “Lost more than that,” Selen says. “Can’t spot the next waypost.”

  That sits me up straight. I look back to the signpost, but it’s bent over in the sand, arrow knocked askew. Can’t tell which way it was pointing. The entire landscape looks different after last night’s storm.

  Panic knots my muscles, but I try not to show it. The desert road doesn’t run a straight line. If we stray too far off course, we could lose it forever. Without the wayposts to guide us, we could miss Fort Krasia by a hundred miles and never know it.

  I cover up as best I can and climb the tallest dune, using my compass and the sun to aid me as I search the sands for the desert road. I can see for miles, but there is no sign of the next post.

  One look at my face as I come back down tells the others all they need to know. “Anyone remember which way the sign was pointing?”

  “That way,” Selen points. “Near where we dug the firepit.”

  I squint away the sunlight as I peer in that direction. “Sure about that?”

  Selen blows out a breath. “Mostly. I think.”

  “Are we to trust our lives to ‘mostly’?” Rojvah asks.

  “You could throw your dice, if you had any,” Selen grunts. Rojvah glares at her, but Selen is not easily intimidated. “Don’t see you offering better.”

  I wish I had something to add, but between the weather and the demons, we’re all turned around. Arick produces his map, though it doesn’t tell us much without the posts to mark the land. Most of it’s blank, with vague markings where ancient ruins are supposedly buried.