Lords of the Sands: An Epic Dark Fantasy Novel

by Paul Yoder

  “Feel not pressed to recount the tale. Oft times the details are biased and foggy. I doubt we’d get the true story from you anyways. It’d be jumbled with too many ill sentiments to be credible or useful to get a good judgement of the situation. You’ve got it in your head that he’s slighted you and with that being your only driving factor all these years, doesn’t matter how bad he crossed you at this point, you’re just seeking closure, through his death, his admittance, or both—probably preferably both—no?”

  Fin seemed a bit more concerned as to the accusations than Matt had, listening to the conversation with a slight scowl as Yozo proceeded to slander his friend.

  “I’m not saying Nomad didn’t do some regrettable things in the past, each man has his demons—that I appreciate—but Nomad is one of the more honest men I’ve known. His sense of duty is pure. I don’t know of Hiro’s past, but I know Nomad’s present, and from what I’ve seen, he’s hardly the person needing judgment in this region currently.

  “The arisen lord is, effectively, at it again. He’s created trouble in the area before, and by all accounts, he looks to overthrow the Southern Sands region, and not just by replacing himself as its ruler, but by wiping out all citizens, raising them in a state of lifeless servitude.

  “That, in fact, is the very cause Nomad is sworn to oppose. Surely your sense of justice would better be put to use by joining our cause rather than opposing those who fight for life and freedom.”

  Yozo side-eyed Fin as the man proceeded to attempt to dissuade him from a course he had been pursuing for years on end. Regardless of how convincing the man’s argument was, for him to turn away from his goal now would undermine his whole existence from the day he set foot out of his country.

  “So, you’re asking him to take a break from trying to kill one man to kill another man, this lord of the arisen or whomever?”

  “Well if I asked him to settle down to a peaceful life and tend a garden, I highly doubt he’d take me seriously. Yozo’s obviously trained years in combat and survival strategies. It’s gotten him from one side of the world to the other. A man with his skills, and in his prime still, would best be used and fulfilled by doing what he does best.

  “You should know that better than anyone, Matt. It was you who trained me with a similar skill set. Your intent was not for me to enjoy a restful life, beginning anew with family somewhere in a sleepy hamlet. You trained me to be more lethal than my foes. That’s the line of work Yozo is in, for better, or worse. My argument is that it would be for the better if he chose to join our cause.

  “You don’t know what he did to me all those years ago! You don’t know how he forsook those he said he loved more than life itself—” Yozo’s anger was outdone by Fin’s frustration, Fin cutting him off tersely.

  “I don’t care how awful he was early in life! He could have been the worst of lowlifes for all I care! The past is dead. What happened years ago will never be rewritten. What I care about is what’s happening here and now, and what I know of Nomad’s present is that he’s fighting harder than any of us, save maybe Reza, to put a halt to that tyrant, the arisen lord. He’s putting his life on the line to save a whole nation’s worth of lives. His current path speaks for itself; he’s trying his damnedest to be a positive force in this world, making meaningful sacrifices for complete strangers.

  “Meanwhile what are you doing with your present? Chasing around, like a dog, a man that’s engaged in a worthy cause. Look at you—you’re enslaved by the past. No matter the evidence presented before you to convince you of Nomad’s present, you would ignore it and hold to whatever dusty memories you have of him. You’re trapped in time, thinking all the while that if you can but end him, you’d end your imprisonment, and you’d finally be free of this torturous loop of suffering and sorrow of what happened all those years ago.

  “Let me tell you, as someone who’s gone through the same hell, killing that man—that ain’t going to free you from those wretched memories. The only one that’s going to do that is you. You, and you alone, have the power to relinquish the shackles of the past that hold you down.”

  “Aye,” Matt concurred, stuffing Yozo’s pipe with some of his own loose leaf, lighting it and handing it to the silenced man.

  Yozo accepted the pipe, absorbing all that was said, taking a draw as he reflected. The other two were silent, allowing him time with his thoughts.

  “Sage?” Yozo questioned.

  Matt answered, “Arnica.”

  The smoke smelled sweet and crisp. It lingered in the air as the three sat in silence as the day slipped by.

  39

  A Simple Extraction

  Loose dirt and rocks slid down and over the cliff ledge the three scrambled along. Malagar looked back just in time to throw a hand over Hamui before the little praven, who had lost his balance, plummeted down to the canyon floor fifty feet below.

  “Damn it, Hamui!” Malagar whispered out, cutting himself short on his reprimands as he realized now was not the time to berate his less acrobatically gifted friend.

  “What, I’m fine. Let’s get moving,” Hamui said, shrugging off Malagar’s frustrated concern for his safety.

  Dubix followed the two in silence as they exited the tight squeeze of the ledge they had maneuvered past.

  Motioning the two over behind a sizable boulder, Malagar waited for them to get close to talk softly to them, eyeing the encampment of arisen further up the canyon, some activity beginning to come into view of the sprawling camp.

  “Looks like Denloth brought Wyld to the arisen’s camp. That’s not good.”

  “Oh, really?” Hamui sarcastically prodded, his annoyance with what he perceived as Malagar’s over cautious nature now on surface level.

  Completely used to Hamui’s lip at that point, Malagar shrugged the comment off, busy formulating their approach.

  “Dubix. That sprawl of arisen is too massive for us to hope on finding Denloth or Wyld within it without being noticed by some sentry. Is there any way you might be able to locate Wyld? You sensed her life essence while we were in the jail. Can you sense it here now?”

  Dubix remained still for a while longer, considering the request, attempting to feel through the masses of undead, locating the living within his range of perception…there weren’t many.

  “I do sense the living amongst the dead. Only a few. There could be more further within the camp. There,” Dubix pointed with his skeletal hand, indicating a grove of wild cypress trees along the other side of the canyon terraces. “There’s only one mortal alone in that grove, the rest I sense are cloistered together.”

  Malagar looked to the wide ledge far across the canyon, looking for a route for him to take to get there. The way looked rough and exposed—not an easy distance to travel, even for him.

  “That’s it then, our best chance at extracting Wyld from this wretched place,” Malagar let out a sigh, preparing himself for some pushback. “I think it would be best if I went it alone from here. Traversing over to that ledge is going to be arduous to say the least.”

  “You think you can get over there without getting spotted? There’s no place to hide crossing that canyon, not unless you backtrack and cross the canyon way back there, out of sight,” Hamui scoffed, exposing the ridiculousness of his friend’s foolhardy plan.

  “That would take a good deal of time, and who knows how long Wyld—if it is Wyld—will be kept in that location? We’ve got to try it at least. I’ll do my best to keep out of sight.”

  Dubix remained silent, but a shifting of his bones seemed to denote his discomfort at the proposed plan.

  Hamui rolled his eyes at his companion’s stubborn commitment to his path, looking to the thirty-foot gap that lay between them and the other side of the canyon, then down the fifty feet to the canyon floor.

  “You think you could jump that gap if I gave you a little push? You’d only be visible to anyone looking this way for a split second instead of minut
es with your plan.”

  “Jump that gap?” Malagar gruffed. “Even if the conditions were perfect for a long jump, that’s a good thirty feet from ledge to ledge. Not a jump anyone I know could make.”

  “I know. That’s why I said I’d give you a push. If I conjure a blast of air behind you, you’ll go flying. I can get you airborne over that distance, no problem.”

  “You want to send me flying?” Malagar incredulously laughed.

  “It’s our best chance at getting you to that ledge fast and undetected, and you know it. So why don’t you stop arguing and get ready for a jump. I’m ready. We’re wasting time going back and forth on this.”

  Malagar eyed the gap seriously, knowing that if Hamui was not good on his promise, there’d be no way for him to clear that gap, and he’d be left alone to face a fifty-foot freefall to the canyon floor. That distance would surely mess him up, if not outright end him.

  Looking to the cypress grove and then to the army’s encampment once more, he realized that there were too many arisen close by for his original plan to make any sense. The leap may very well be their best option.

  “Goddamnit,” he cursed under his breath, looking at the jump, mentally preparing himself for the tenuous journey.

  “You ready then?” he asked, checking with Hamui as he lined up his launch platform and landing destination.

  Hamui began quietly chanting, holding his contorted gloved fingers and slightly glowing staff towards the ledge, a gust beginning to form along the cliff face they were close to, looking to Malagar and nodding his approval.

  Malagar’s eyes fixed on the long ledge on the other side of the canyon. He imagined completing the jump in his mind, working through all the steps, watching himself as he touched down on the stone platform across the way.

  Looking down at his feet, ensuring his footing was sound, he looked forward and bounded straight on, sprinting hard towards the edge.

  He launched himself a foot short of the cliff, hurling himself over the canyon gap as a strong rush of wind lifted him a bit higher than he would have been unaided.

  His flight was prolonged, the updraft floating him along, aiding his trajectory towards the other cliff’s edge as he quickly closed the gap, touching down cleanly on the other side of the canyon, tucking and rolling to help dissipate his momentum before he crashed into some bushes on the other side.

  Malagar came up from the roll to look back on the gap he had cleared, only considering then how he’d be getting back once he’d found Wyld.

  He looked up just in time to see Hamui flip him a rude gesture, presumably for not having initial faith in his abilities from the jump. The praven then went to take a seat with his back to the boulder they had been hiding behind, Dubix crouching down as well to keep out of sight of the camp.

  “That’s it then. I’m on my own from here,” he whispered to himself, making his way along the cliff path towards the cypress grove.

  His footsteps were nearly silent as he padded his way along the loamy sand. Though technically he was still in training, Matt had alluded to both him and Hamui that they were close to being ready for recommendation to the court, or private entities and the like. They had almost learned everything the old veteran had to teach, and Malagar made sure to keep his stealth game tight as he eased up to the line of wild cypress trees that blocked his view from the inner grove.

  Wyld stood there, a streak of glimmering silver slashed across her side from the Seam, utterly still, looking off in the distance over the mountain range, unconcerned with the four arisen skeletons that stood beside her.

  Each skull turned their empty socketed eyes towards Malagar as he hid behind the tree line peeking in.

  He raised his weapons, the surprise given away—though what he had done to give himself away, he was not sure. It didn’t matter at that point anyways, and he cracked his knuckles, slapping his armor-plated leather gloves together as he leapt into the clearing to engage the skeletons who were forming a perimeter around the intruder between them and their captive.

  As Malagar landed before the armed warrior, a sword chopped down at him. He effortlessly dodged it, slamming the protected ribcage of the arisen soundly, getting the foe out of the way, bumping it into the other arisen behind it.

  As the two struggled to regain their balance, he was busy at work slamming the other two skeletons, knocking them in the skull multiple times, upper cutting one so hard that its head detached from its spine, rendering it lifeless immediately.

  Gripping the other skull with both hands, he pried it from its torso, popping it apart just as the other two skeletons came in at him.

  A lazy sword thrust made its way towards him, but it was barely a threat. He deftly switched stances to grab its wrist, wrenching the sword from the skeleton’s grip, breaking its fingers along with it.

  He looped around behind the disarmed skeleton, the other smashing its comrade’s ribs apart to get at Malagar. He thrust the disabled machination to the ground, throwing a high kick up and through the last standing skeleton’s jaw, shattering it, launching its body into the sagebrush beyond.

  A light breeze blew through the trees, the gentle rustle being the only sound in the grove now. He waited a moment longer in a battle-ready stance to make sure the skeletons were not going to rise again.

  The scuffle had been relatively quiet and quick, Malagar hoped quick enough that no one would have heard much, but if they had, he knew he needed to act now, and with all haste.

  “Wyld,” Malagar called out to an old friend that didn’t seem interested, or even coherent, in the recent scuff.

  Malagar walked up to his companion, inspecting the phasing, iridescent scars that had marked her body all up and down her right side. The patterns and otherworldly colors seemed somehow familiar.

  What devilish magicks had done this to her, and what it had done to her consciousness, he knew not, but he knew now was not the time to investigate the matter in any detail.

  Gently grabbing her left hand, he squeezed, and she reassuringly squeezed back.

  “Good,” Malagar breathed under his breath. “Wyld, I need to get you back to our camp. Can you follow me?”

  She did not answer, or move at first, but as Malagar tugged on her hand to prompt her forward, she did follow, somewhat sluggishly at first, but as he managed to guide her out of the tree line and back up the cliffside, she became less and less resistant to his beckoning hold.

  Eyes, black as night, peered across the span of the canyon from the encampment along the western wall, narrowing as he watched the haltia male tug his hypnotized kaith along the canyon ridge until he crossed over it, out of sight.

  Whispering dark speech to the wind, Denloth smiled, turning to consider his present company. Two blood-red bones, clad in sleek armor, covering most of their frame, helmet dovetailed down with golden wings flaring off to the sides, stood beside him at the ready.

  “Follow. Bring me their bodies for repurposing. Fulfill your oaths,” the robed man cruelly said, turning back to camp as his red warriors slowly began to march forth down the lonely canyon trail towards the falling sun.

  40

  Old Friends and New Adventures

  “Here,” Cavok whispered, handing Terra a few copper strips. “Grab yourself a sweet roll and coffee. I’ll meet up with you in a bit.”

  Terra hesitantly took the coin, looking up to the quaint shop sign that read Cream n’ Brew Delicacies, looking back to where Cavok had been to only see Jhans, the guard that had been following them the last few minutes running frantically off down a side street presumably after Cavok.

  She had a bad feeling about what Cavok planned to do, and she stood there on the street corner debating on whether to follow his orders and wait around for his return, or to follow the two and try to make sure Cavok did not do anything too regrettable. She knew they needed to lose the man, but there was a feeling in her gut that hinted at Cavok ending the man that was just perform
ing his duty.

  “I can’t let him do that,” she whispered to herself, taking off in the direction the guard had gone.

  Cavok threw a strong arm out from around a corner, catching the pursuing guard by the neck, throwing him back into the alleyway, away from any witnesses.

  Jhans coughed, trying to breathe, trying to call for help, but Cavok was on top of him in an instant, covering his mouth. Cavok took off his helm, smacking the man across the face with it, knocking the man clean out.

  Hooking his hand in at the opening in the guard’s breastplate, Cavok started dragging the man further back in the alley, when he noticed Terra standing there, looking at him, worry clear in her countenance.

  Cavok huffed and threw the man to the ground, harshly whispering, “I told you to wait for me back there.”

  Terra wanted to answer, but the large man scared her then, and all she could do was cover her mouth to hide her trembling lips.

  He sighed again, looking off to the side, drawing his sleeve up to expose a network of tattoos along his arm which began to glow. Placing his hand on Jhans’ face, he whispered a foreign string of words before picking the man up and sitting him upright against the side of the alley wall.

  “He’ll be out for hours, long enough for us to be about our business without too much trouble. But we’ll need to be quick about finding the wizard and the little one,” he gruffed, approaching the young girl who still looked warily at him.

  “Come on,” he said, a tinge of annoyance in his voice as he grabbed her hand, leading her out of the alley and off down the street to hunt down the wizard’s school.

  It had taken them only an hour to find the wizard’s college to the northeast of the city borders. There had been little talk between the two the whole time.