Sandstorm Box Set

by T. W. Piperbrook

  He would be a hero, hailed by everyone.

  He followed the cave until the ceiling recessed, the path grew narrower, and he had to bend down to walk. He could barely hear the wind outside. He had entered the formation through one of the caves at the bottom, away from the cliffs on top, where The Watchers looked out over the colony, scanning for danger, or ensuring colonists like him didn’t enter. Most of the other colonists were probably hunkered down, protecting their families from the raging storm. Akron had told his parents he’d been staying with a friend. He had covered his whereabouts.

  Akron stuck his torch and knife ahead of him, fitting his limber frame between a few rocks that might have been too wide for a bigger man. His scrawny body—a source of self-consciousness on the outside—was a boon in here.

  He kept going as the tunnel wound in a new direction, keeping an eye out for snakes. Occasionally, he heard the flutter of another bat, or the scurry of some cave lizard, moving quicker than the eye could focus. Every so often, he encountered the small bones of a desert rat, or a dust beetle that was several times the size of his head. The tick of those creatures’ legs always gave him a fright as they clacked through the tunnels.

  Eventually, the rusted red walls curved wider, and his footsteps echoed over crushed stone. On the wall, Akron found a familiar triangular marking he’d made on some earlier trip, faded with time. He’d never seen anyone venture down here to see those markings. Even if they did, they couldn’t prove who left them. He shined his torch on the floor, looking for a loose rock with which to retrace the symbol. Most of the stones were too small. Eventually, he located a larger rock that appeared loose in the wall. He pried it free.

  A couple more fist-sized stones fell underneath the first rock.

  Then a few more.

  Akron frowned as a hole appeared in the wall that he’d never noticed. He held up his torch. The exposed hole was dark, about the size of his head, and ran farther than he could see. It looked like the stones had been piled there. Another cave?

  Akron pulled away more fist and head-sized rocks from the pile, taking care for critters that might be hiding. Soon, he’d removed all the rocks and piled them up next to the nearby wall, revealing a space big enough to crawl through.

  Getting on his hands and knees, Akron scooted through the small passage, balancing his knife and his torch. If he had been claustrophobic, he might’ve turned around, but Akron kept going. The walls pressed against his shirt until he bent down and was sliding on his stomach. He had almost enough time to question whether what he was doing was a good idea when he came out on the other side of the passage, standing in another cave.

  The new cave was twice as big as the one in which he’d been traveling.

  A feeling of elation washed over Akron as he realized he’d discovered a new passage.

  The cave was humid, littered with rocks, and smelled of rodent scat. How long had it been since anyone traveled it? Akron felt as if he was on the verge of a greater discovery. Excitedly, he looked left and right before choosing a path to the left. He scanned for evidence of other’s travels, but saw nothing except the occasional rodent skeleton and some animal tracks.

  The tunnel took a steep, downward slope, and the air got warmer. A strange smell hit his nose. He knew that animals often sought shelter in the caves after they’d been wounded. He looked for a corpse, but didn’t find one. The tunnel felt immeasurably deep, as if he was headed far underneath the bowels of Ravar, far from his people, far from anything he’d ever known.

  He clutched his knife as perspiration dotted his face.

  Bugs skittered away on the walls. Rats fled the torchlight. Unease washed over Akron as he studied some of the deep, dark crevices on either side of him, which were deeper than any in the cave in which he’d traveled. Anything could hide in there. Rounding a curve in the tunnel, he found himself in a new, drier passage.

  Akron held up his torch.

  He had entered an enormous, cavern-sized chamber. The space before him felt wider than a whole row of the mud brick houses in the colony. The dark ceiling was well beyond his torch light. As he took a few more steps, he realized the middle of the floor was level with where he traveled, but on each side of the room, the ground sloped up to ledges he couldn’t see.

  Akron swallowed and scanned the ground in front of him.

  His heart hammered.

  Piles of a dusted, waste-like substance were everywhere. Parts of it were black, or brown, but other parts were gray.

  But that wasn’t the most alarming thing.

  Protruding from some of the ashen, waste-like piles were human bones.

  Choking on his vomit, Akron turned and ran.

  Fear propelled his footsteps as he retreated from the cavern and into the smaller passage that had led him here. His hands shook on his torch and knife. The shadows around him shrank and grew. Hot sweat poured down his face, blurring his vision as something scraped behind him.

  He spun.

  Something was following him.

  Something he couldn’t see.

  Akron ran faster.

  He had only gone a few more steps when one of the shadows came alive and at him. Akron cried out. Too late, he raised his blade. A blinding flash of pain coursed through his skull. His torch flew from his hands.

  His last thought was that he’d never tell anyone what he had found.

  Akron died before he fell.

  Chapter 1: Neena

  Hold still… hold still…

  Neena gritted her teeth as she slowly cocked back her spear, watching the Rydeer. The lean, four-legged animal stood sideways at the crest of the dune, the sun shining off its ratty coat. It cocked its antler-less head as it appraised something in the distance. A faint wind blew from behind. Were it not for the breeze, disguising Neena’s smell, and the dusted dunes that hid her approach, the animal might be a klick away by now.

  It was a lucky find, as long as she killed it.

  She clutched the spear tight and slowly moved it backward, gathering her strength for a powerful throw. The beast was close enough that she should be able to land the spear in its shoulder, puncturing its heart or lungs. But if she moved noticeably, she’d spook the creature and miss. Each pang of hunger would remind her that she’d failed not only herself, but also her brothers.

  A flash of movement caught her eye.

  Neena halted as a smaller creature bounded to the top of the hill, bleating and nuzzling the larger beast. It perked its ears and stamped its spindly legs. A fawn.

  Neena gripped her spear, but she didn’t throw it.

  The fawn wouldn’t survive more than a day, if she killed its mother.

  Watching the small, rambunctious beast, she couldn’t imagine causing its death, or bringing it back after she killed what might be its only relative. Survival was one thing.

  Cruelty was another.

  Hating her predicament, she relaxed her grip on her spear, but she didn’t lower it. As scrawny as the mother was, it would feed her, Raj, and Samel for a long time. It would be hard work dressing it, bagging it, and carrying it back, but she’d do what she could. Neena steadied herself as she decided on a throw to which she couldn’t commit.

  A gust of wind distracted her.

  Neena spun.

  A cloud of debris swirled in the distance, picking up speed.

  Not just a small wind.

  A sandstorm.

  Her heart hammered as she watched the spiraling mass of dust and sand that already encompassed most of the horizon. Often, she received an earlier prediction: the slow pickup of the wind, debris swirling close to the ground, or sand rats skittering into hiding. Not today.

  Turning, she saw the frightened Rydeer and its fawn bound off. The fawn’s frantic bleats echoed down the other side of the dune, and then they were gone.

  Dammit.

  Neena frantically searched the area, finding nothing but dusty dunes. She was in a section of desert with no nearby caves, or large rocks behin
d which to hide. Several days ago, she’d left her colony, Red Rock, searching between the crevices of a few larger clusters of rocks, and the red, adobe formations that poked up from the desert. She’d found only a scant few plants to uproot and bring back. Finally, desperation had forced her into an area thick with dunes. She’d traveled for a while without finding anything.

  That’s when the brown, matted Rydeer crested the hill.

  And now it was gone, and she was in danger.

  Loosening the shawl around her neck, she wrapped it tightly around her face, leaving an opening for her eyes, and lowered her goggles.

  The building winds lifted the sand from the north. In moments, it would be upon her.

  A warning from her dead father came back to her.

  Traveling on the leeward side of a dune will get you buried. If you can’t find shelter, get to high ground.

  She looked up at the dune next to her, noting her precarious position. Plunging her spear into the sand, she started up the incline, using her weapon for balance. The sand grabbed her boots with each step, but the screeching wind drove her onward. When she reached the top of the dune, she hunkered down, spun, and faced the storm. A wall of sand loomed a hundred yards away. Some of the sandstorms on her home planet only lasted a few minutes, but others lasted hours, or days. The severest storms spanned a wide enough area that they might reach her colony, three days away.

  She hoped this wasn’t one of the latter storms.

  Scanning the sky to catch her bearings, she found the two moons, visible over Ravar at this time of day. The only thing worse than getting stuck in a storm was getting lost in one.

  And then the storm was upon her.

  The wind screamed.

  Debris pelted her skin.

  Neena pressed her shawl tight against her mouth as the sand pummeled her goggles, rifled her hair, and tore at her clothes. The sand felt like a thousand tiny insects conspiring to bowl her over. Hot sweat plastered her clothes to her body; she struggled to breathe. She’d heard of people suffocating, or peeled alive by the unbidden force of the wind. Some in her colony thought a higher power had created the storms as a display of force, meant to keep her people humble.

  At the moment, Neena couldn’t disagree.

  She felt a surge of anger as she envisioned some of the young men her age in the colony, most of whom would rather drink wastewater than hunt alongside her. They’d purposely waited until she’d left to head out. They were probably safe in some cave, chatting about the game they’d kill and bring back.

  Neena was alone, as she usually was.

  Worse, she had traveled farther than she intended. All she had were the two flasks of water on her belt and some dried sand rat in the bag on her back.

  If her younger brother Raj were older, he would accompany her. But right now, she needed ten-year-old Raj to look after their youngest sibling, Samel, who was six. Their parents were dead, forcing Neena to fulfill a hunter’s role.

  If something happens to me, at least Raj will keep Samel safe, she thought.

  A furious gust of wind ripped away that thought. She slammed her spear into the ground and clutched it tightly, coughing out some sand that found its way past her shawl.

  Thunder split the air.

  A new, stabbing fear overtook her.

  If lightning struck, she would have to change her strategy. More of her father’s sage advice came back to her.

  Lightning can prove fatal if you are up too high.

  Neena shuddered. Watching for streaks of light across the sky, she couldn’t bury the fear that she might die before she made it home.

  Chapter 2: Raj

  Raj wiped the sweat from his brow as he filled his bucket in the river. Looking left, he stared down the long, winding bank of the river that ran south of Red Rock colony, running from west to east, where men, women, and children huddled, dipping buckets in the water, chatting. A few young kids splashed each other. Others played with sticks. Across the river, five hundred men and women tended the long, expansive rows of green vegetation hearty enough to grow there. A few of the women sang while they worked, their soft, lilting songs carrying over the water as they maintained the crops. More men stood on the edges of the rows, counting the crops they put in their carts.

  The wooden bridge that led from one side to the other was filled with people, skirting around each other, or talking. A young couple looked down into the calm water, probably staring at their reflection, as Raj often did when he didn’t have chores to do.

  Raj changed his focus to the towering, red cliffs that hung high above the eastern side of the colony. A similar formation sat on the colony’s western border, providing a two-sided, protective barrier around the large colony, with the river to the south, and the hunting deserts to the north.

  Movement drew his attention to one of the formations.

  On one of the highest ledges, the silhouette of one man walked toward another, waving his hands in a gesture Raj couldn’t make out. Raj frowned as the two men turned in the same direction, pointing.

  Raj tightened his grip on his bucket.

  Together, the two men walked along a narrow ledge and joined some others, all of whom gestured similarly.

  It didn’t take a genius to guess what was going on.

  The Watchers had seen a storm.

  If Raj were privileged enough to be on top of the cliffs, he would’ve heard what they were saying. But those cliffs, with their multitude of caves and steep ledges, were off limits to most of the colonists—a misplaced step could lead to death, or at best, a broken limb. In the days past, his ancestors used to mine the tunnels, but now The Heads of Colony only let The Watchers up there. Raj squinted through a growing glare as the guarding men walked around a curved mountain ledge and out of sight.

  The men were probably gauging the distance and severity of the storm. From up on the ledges, Raj had heard, a person could see almost eighty klicks away. The question was: would The Watchers blow the horn once or twice? A single, urgent note meant the storm was coming quickly. Two rapid notes meant he had time to prepare.

  Raj had seen plenty of storms in his ten years. The worst storms leveled the weakest of the mud brick homes, causing damage and death. Others were little more than a nuisance. Judging by the men’s reactions, he had a bad feeling about this one.

  Raj looked behind him, opening his mouth to call out for his brother.

  Samel was gone.

  Panic struck Raj as he looked up and down the riverbank. He’d only turned his back for a few moments. Or had it been longer? Pulling his half-full bucket from the water, Raj stood. He scanned behind him, up the long, straight path cut by the boots of the many colonists, which branched off into smaller paths leading between the clusters of mud brick homes.

  No Samel.

  He glanced west, past a bunch of people he didn’t recognize, and then back to the towering red cliffs on the other side of the colony, even though Samel knew better than to venture up onto either of those gigantic formations.

  “Samel?” he called.

  Raj walked down the riverbank to the east, weaving around several groups of chatting people as he searched for his brother. He’d lost count of the number of times he’d told him to stay near. Where was he?

  He passed a group of laughing women, holding buckets or cradling babies. A few glanced casually in his direction before tending their children. Raj kept on, weaving around several more groups of people—a few hunters carrying the usable remains of a Rydeer, a man sharpening a spear, and a woman washing some garments. The screams of happy children reached his ears. No one knew what was coming.

  But Raj did.

  He walked faster as his nervousness grew.

  Raj crashed into something. Water sloshed from his bucket, spilling onto a bearded man’s clothes.

  “Watch yourself, runt!”

  Raj righted the bucket, but not before he’d spilled most of what he had. Startled, he looked from the bucket to the large man int
o whom he’d crashed. The man gave him an angry look that displayed what he might’ve done if Raj was older. He barged off.

  Raj kept going, finding his way among crowds of people that were too thick to see around. He passed a group of children rolling rocks into a larger pile, laughing as the stones clinked together. A few more played games in the sand. Midday was always crowded by the riverbanks. If Raj hadn’t agreed to do chores for Helgid in the morning, he would’ve come earlier, but in exchange for his help, Helgid had agreed to cook him and Samel lunch. It was a good barter.

  Samel had begged to come.

  And now he’d run off.

  Raj felt a sting of anger. He wouldn’t be so quick to bring his little brother next time. He had just skirted around a huddle of older women when he heard commotion farther down the winding banks. Away from some of the older people, a group of children circled around something. Raj frowned as he lugged his heavy bucket toward them, the remaining water sloshing from side to side.

  “Go ahead, do it!” a dirt-faced boy cried to someone in the middle of the circle.

  “Come on!” cried another.

  Raj recognized a few boys his age, or a little older. A bad feeling grew worse as he heard a familiar voice. Samel’s. Raj dropped the bucket, running toward the fringes of the group in time to watch the boys burst into laughter, covering their mouths and pointing.

  “What’s going on?” he asked, pushing some of the boys aside.

  Samel stood in the center of the circle, an uncertain look on his face as he stared at the ground. A sleek, black scorpion ran near his boots, pincer poised.

  “Pick it up, Samel!” one of the older boys cried. “It won’t hurt you!”

  In mock demonstration, one of the boys darted in, making a swooping motion.

  The scorpion spun to face the newcomer, arcing its pincer. The boy leapt backward. Spinning, the scorpion refocused on Samel, who watched it with hesitation and more than a little fear.