SandRider

by Angie Sage

  The sleds were going beautifully. They ran smooth and fast, and although they were now beginning to climb up into the dunes, the soft shish-shish-shish of sand beneath the sleds’ runners felt so right that Tod found it strange to think that the Wiz also ran on snow.

  As they climbed higher the cold night air began to bite, and they took turns to lead so that one was always sheltered. On the back of Oskar’s sled, Ferdie found her eyes closing with weariness, but on the back of the Wiz, Kaznim was wide-awake and very nervous. Once she thought she heard a distant roar. Tod heard it too. She slowed down and said to Oskar, “Did you hear that?”

  “No,” said Oskar. He was lying. He knew how scared Ferdie was of strange creatures and he saw no reason to panic her. And so they traveled on beneath the canopy of stars, steadily up into the wide expanse of the Dunes of Kuniun.

  After many miles the track had petered out and the sleds were now traveling through unmarked dunes, guided entirely by Kaznim’s directions. The waning full moon was dropping down toward the horizon, its light silvering the sand that rose and fell before them like waves, the sleds flowing up and down the slopes like boats riding the surf. As they crested yet another rise, Tod drew to a halt and surveyed the scene. She had expected by now to be able to see tents in the distance, but she could see nothing but empty, rolling dunes. A niggle of worry that had been growing ever since the track had petered out became impossible to ignore—Where were they?

  She turned around to Kaznim. “I thought you said when the road ended you could see your tent.”

  Kaznim was flustered. “No, I didn’t,” she said. “It goes to the dunes. And then you see the tent.”

  “That’s not what you said.” Oskar leaned across to the Wiz. “And anyway, we are in the dunes now and I can’t see any tents at all.”

  “Neither can I,” Ferdie added for good measure.

  “So where is your tent?” Tod asked.

  “It will very soon be under the Palm of Dora. Like I said,” Kaznim replied. She pointed to a constellation straight ahead of them. “Over there.”

  “That’s not the Palm of Dora,” Oskar said.

  “Yes it is,” Kaznim insisted.

  “No, it’s not,” Oskar shot back. “I know where it is, and it’s not there.”

  Kaznim was trapped. There was nothing she could do but lie, and keep on lying. “Yes, it is,” she repeated.

  Tod was getting a bad feeling about this. “Oskie,” she said, “do you know which constellation the Palm of Dora is?”

  “Yep,” said Oskar. “It’s over there.” He pointed to the west. “It’s the one with five stars in a vertical row with a semicircle of stars above.”

  “Oh, you mean the Anchor!”

  “Yep,” Oskar said. “That is exactly what I mean.”

  “Well, there is no way we are heading for that, is there?” Tod turned to Kaznim. “We should have taken the right-hand fork,” she said. And then, as Kaznim refused to meet her eyes, Tod suddenly understood what had happened. “But you knew that, didn’t you?”

  “No, I didn’t,” Kaznim countered. She had told so many lies now that another did not seem to matter.

  “Are you saying that Kaznim has deliberately taken us the wrong way?” Ferdie asked anxiously.

  “That’s what it looks like to me,” Tod said stonily.

  Everyone fell quiet—that was what it looked like to Oskar and Ferdie too. And then, the silence of the night was broken by a sound that no one wanted to hear: a long, low growl.

  Sand lions, Oskar mouthed rather unnecessarily.

  Then came another growl—this from a different direction.

  Oskar had a talent for reading the land and all creatures within it. Like a sand snake, he slipped from his sled and put his ear to the ground. He listened to the sound of the sand and the pad of paws, and he knew it was bad. Very slowly he moved back onto the sled. “We’re surrounded,” he whispered. “But if we stay totally still I don’t think they’ll go for us. They need movement to judge their attack.”

  Kaznim stared at Oskar in horror. This was her fault—and she knew they knew it. Kaznim felt more alone than she ever had in her life, even more than when she had been waiting outside the Sick Bay. At least then she was only being ignored by strangers. Now she was surrounded by a pride of sand lions in the company of three people who had just realized that she had tricked them. A horrible thought came into Kaznim’s mind. There was an easy way for the others to escape; all they had to do was to push her off the sled and leave her behind. The sand lions would find her and they wouldn’t bother to go hunting anything else that night. Kaznim’s fingers closed around her opal pebble Charm—she still had her UnSeen. But even as she tried to comfort herself with that, she knew it would be useless. Sand lions hunted by scent, not vision. It was then, in the darkness of Kaznim’s pocket, that the penultimate grain of silver in the top of the Egg Timer wandered through to join its friends, leaving behind a lonely singleton to ponder what it had done to offend all the other grains. There were a mere three hours left until the Orm Egg hatched.

  “Oskie,” Tod was whispering. “We have to make a break for it. Which way?”

  Oskar knew there was only one way out. “Along the ridge. Toward the moon,” he whispered. “We go fast—really fast. There are lions on either side, but I think they are too far down to get us at first pounce.”

  “What about second pounce?” Ferdie whispered.

  “We don’t let that happen. Okay?”

  “We’ll go on the count of three,” Tod said. She turned to Kaznim. “Hold on really tight,” she told her. “This is going to be fast. If you fall off I won’t be able to come back to pick you up, do you understand?”

  “Yes, Tod,” Kaznim meekly replied. “I understand.”

  Tod began the countdown: “One . . . two . . . three!”

  The standing-start practices for the sled race stood them in good stead. The Wiz and the Beetle shot along the ridge in a shower of sand that flew into the air and landed on the lions lying in wait on either side. The animals were so shocked that they did not get a chance for a first pounce—let alone, as Ferdie had feared, a second. She risked a glance back and saw not the lions themselves—who were perfectly camouflaged—but their moon shadows, long and dark, loping effortlessly after them. “They’re coming after us!” Ferdie shouted in dismay.

  Oskar had hoped that the shock of their escape would confuse the pride and they would not bother to follow. But he did not know that the pride had not eaten for days and the heady smell of human cut through all confusion. One thing Oskar did know was that, unlike their cousins, the great lions of the plains, sand lions had tremendous stamina. They were small, lithe creatures, built for traveling long distances to find prey in the emptiness of the desert. There was no hope of them tiring fast and giving up the chase. Oskar knew they must outrun them. “We have to go faster!” he yelled. “Much faster!”

  Tod could feel the reserves of power within the Wiz; she knew the sled could easily go faster, but she was not sure that the Beetle could. And there was no way she was going to leave Oskar and Ferdie behind. “You go first, Oskie!” she called back. “Go as fast as you can. We’ll follow!”

  The Beetle drew ahead and once more the two riders were in a race—but this time it was for something a little more important than the Apprentices’ Cup.

  TRANSPORT

  Oraton-Marr stood on the rooftop of the Hospitable Gard looking at his Egg Timer. With a sense of excitement he saw that now there was only one remaining grain of silver. His Orm Egg would hatch in three hours’ time. He put his Enlarging Glass to his eye and scanned the sky. He was searching for the Palm of Dora.

  In the courtyard below, a camel from the Red Queen’s stables, accompanied by the Red Queen’s spy authentically swathed in smelly camel-driver robes, waited impatiently. Oraton-Marr was not quite as stupid as Marissa had assumed. He had no intention whatsoever of taking the camel to the Orm Egg. The Red Queen’s heavy hints at
the banquet that she knew of his “buried treasure” in the desert had put him on guard. He had had no choice but to accept her offer of a camel and guide, but he had no intention of using them.

  While the spy irritably scratched her camel-flea bites and the camel dribbled down her neck, Oraton-Marr located the Palm of Dora. He moved the Glass down the vertical line of stars and beneath he saw the tiny but unmistakable shape of the star-strewn tent. He fixed the position in his mind and put the Enlarging Glass away.

  Right now, he thought, his sister would be making the long trek from their ship to the Egg tent. With her would be the Mitza woman and the hostage toddler brat. Oraton-Marr smiled to himself. He liked to think he was a man of his word, and he would prove it by returning the child as promised—but only if all went as he wished it and he got his Orm. If the Orm did not hatch successfully or the creature did not Imprint him, he would at least have the pleasure of drowning the child in the pool beside her mother’s tent. The child was his guarantee that one way or another, there would be something he would enjoy about the coming day.

  With these happy thoughts, Oraton-Marr began his Magyk. He narrowed his dark green eyes and fixed his gaze on the exact point on the horizon just below the Palm of Dora and prepared himself. While it was not strictly necessary to see the place to which he was planning to Transport, on such an important occasion the sorcerer was taking no chances. He focused his mind on the flat rock beside the pool. Thirty seconds later all that remained of the sorcerer on the rooftop was a lingering purple haze and an unsettling aura of smugness.

  SPEED

  The average speed of a sand lion in for the long chase is thirty-five miles an hour, although it is perfectly possible for it to top fifty miles an hour in a quick spurt. The lions now settled into their hunting rhythm, each leader dropping back after some minutes to allow a fresher lion to take its place and keep the pride’s pace steady.

  The lions easily followed the sleds as they ran along the top of the ridge, and every time she glanced around, Tod could see that little by little the pride was gaining on them. But there was nothing she could do. There was no way she was going to take the Wiz up to full speed and leave Oskar and Ferdie behind.

  Oskar did not glance back; he could feel the padding of the lions steadily growing stronger and he had no wish to see them as well. Ferdie, however, could hardly take her eyes from the scene behind. The dark shapes of the lions and the glassy glint from their eyes terrified her; she held on tightly to Oskar and wished she could do something—anything—to make the Beetle go faster. And then it occurred to Ferdie that she could. If Oskar could will the Beetle faster, then surely she could too.

  Ferdie remembered what Oskar had excitedly told her when he had first been picked to ride in the Apprentice Race. “You have to imagine that you actually are the sled,” he had said. Ferdie knew that Oskar had expected her to laugh at him. But she had simply asked him how he did it, because she wanted to know. There was so much Ferdie wanted to know. Her brother, like Tod, was learning so many new things and Ferdie sometimes felt a little bit left behind—but there was no way that she was going to let that happen now.

  And so, saying nothing to Oskar, Ferdie focused on the small wooden sled beneath her as it traveled steadily along the sandy ridge, closely tailed by the Wiz. In her mind, Ferdie became the Beetle. She felt the slip of the sand beneath her, the resistance of the cold night air before her; she became fast and sleek, full of energy, power and speed.

  To Oskar’s shock and delight, with a tremendous kick, the Beetle suddenly shot off, spraying sand over a surprised Tod. Ferdie and Oskar felt as though they were flying. Far below, the desert lay before them like the ocean; above, the immense indigo sky seemed to sing a high, thin tune as the stars whistled by. Only the greatest willpower stopped Ferdie from shrieking with exhilaration as the Beetle reached the end of the ridge and went barreling down the slope, heading for the wide plains lying before them.

  At the foot of the dune, Oskar slowed the sled to allow the Wiz to catch up. His eyes were shining with excitement. With Kaznim clinging on to the back, covered in sand, Tod brought the Wiz alongside.

  “Oskie . . . that was brilliant!” she said, breathless. “I never knew the Beetle could go so fast!”

  Oskar grinned. “Neither did I!” he laughed.

  Ferdie just smiled. “Look at the lions,” she said, pointing to the top of the dune.

  Lined up along the ridge, silhouetted against the sky, was the pride of sand lions looking mournfully at the two sleds. They were exhausted. Even the tasty scent of four small humans was not enough to risk good energy on a chase they were never going to win.

  Twenty-one pairs of mirrored eyes watched the Beetle and the Wiz set off at a steady speed across the desert plain, their course set for the Palm of Dora.

  PART XII

  ONE HOUR TO HATCHING

  THE DRAGON ON THE DUNE

  Oraton-Marr arrived exactly where he had planned. He stood for some minutes to allow the effects of his Transport to fade and as the last wisps of purple evaporated into the night air, he walked over to the encampment. He opened the door flap of the Egg tent and stepped inside.

  The Egg Boy jumped to his feet and stood at attention. He had been dreading this moment and had not slept all night. “All in order, sir,” he said.

  “I’ll be the judge of that,” Oraton-Marr snapped—secretly gratified that not only was the Egg Boy still afraid of him but that he did appear to have done a good job.

  In the shadows of the tent, the Apprentice Mysor watched warily. No one wanted the Egg hatched successfully more than he, so that the sorcerer would go away and leave them alone. Even so Mysor disliked seeing the sorcerer getting what he wanted. He watched Oraton-Marr kneel down, lift the furs from the Egg and place two proprietorial hands on it and run them across the Egg’s smooth, leathery surface. When they reached around to the back the long, questing fingers found what they were looking for.

  “The Egg Tooth bulge,” Oraton-Marr whispered excitedly. He looked at the Egg Boy and gave a thin smile. “You have done well.” The Egg Boy almost fainted with relief.

  Oraton-Marr knew that the most prudent course of action was to keep the Orm Egg within the tent, so that when the little Orm emerged it could not escape. But Oraton-Marr had not put in years of planning, violence and intimidation to have no one witness his moment of triumph. He would never admit it, but he wanted his sister to see how clever her big brother really was.

  And so, as dawn began to break over the desert, Oraton-Marr watched Mysor and the Egg Boy stagger out of the tent with the Orm Egg and lay it gently on the sand. Then, under instructions, they lit a fire on the flat rock beside the pool and brewed coffee. Oraton-Marr settled down to gaze at the Egg and enjoy the moment. Soon the key to an endless supply of lapis lazuli would be in his grasp.

  The smell of coffee woke the Apothecary, who had only just fallen into a fitful sleep. She emerged from the star-strewn tent, haggard with exhaustion and fear for her two daughters. She saw the sorcerer sitting beside the fire, drinking his—or to be accurate, her—coffee. In the sand beside him was the hateful Egg, still unhatched, but clearly not for much longer. Even from a distance, Karamander could see the lump of the Egg Tooth bulging in the smooth ovoid.

  On his last visit to the star-strewn tent, Oraton-Marr had gleefully informed Karamander that he now had custody of Kaznim too. At first Karamander had been ecstatic to hear that Kaznim was actually alive, but her joy had soon been replaced with fear for her daughter’s safety in the clutches of such a wicked man. Karamander Draa stood still and took three deep, slow breaths of cold morning air. She must calm down, she told herself. She must not run screaming at the sorcerer, punch him in his smug face and demand the return of her children—she must not. She had only to wait a little longer and all would be well. The Egg would hatch, Oraton-Marr would get his stupid Orm and then he would give her back her daughters. Wouldn’t he?

  From the top of the lo
ng dune, Spit Fyre watched the proceedings below. He had not eaten for twelve weeks, and even though a dragon is a beast built for endurance and he still had reserves left, Spit Fyre was not feeling his best. He didn’t look too good, either. He was no longer the shining green dragon that had once glittered in the skies above the Castle. Sand had settled over him, sticking to his scales, which had been dried and roughened by the sun, so that his brilliant color and sheen had long gone and he now looked as though he were carved from sandstone. The only glimpse of color was in his eyes, a deep emerald ringed with red.

  Some weeks previously a rumor had spread around the encampment that the dragon had turned to stone. Spit Fyre had heard the mutterings and decided to encourage the idea by moving only at night and making sure he resumed the same position at daybreak. One of Oraton-Marr’s guards had eventually ventured up for a closer look. Spit Fyre had remained immobile and had not reacted even when the guard had given him a vicious jab in the belly with the end of his charred FireStick. The guard had returned with the news that the dragon had indeed turned to stone. And on his next visit Oraton-Marr had taken the glory of the awesome feat of turning a dragon into stone.

  From his vantage point Spit Fyre now saw all. Below to his right, he saw the Orm Egg lying on the sand, surrounded by people whose hopes and fears rested on its hatching. To his left on the plain that stretched all the way to the Port of the Singing Sands, Spit Fyre saw a small group of people making their way toward him, a long trail of foot- and hoofprints stretching out behind. A large woman swathed in blue rode a small, grumpy camel. Behind her came a dumpy woman on a donkey carrying a small, sleeping child upon her back and in front walked a man with a long stave, leading the way.