City Under the Sand: A Dark Sun Novel (Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Sun)

by Jeff Mariotte

  Rare, and wonderful.

  He was about to say something else when a distant rumbling sound caught his attention. “What’s that?”

  “Sounds like a storm,” Sellis said.

  “A rainstorm?”

  Sellis and Amoni were on their feet, peering into the darkness. “That’s what it sounds like.”

  Aric sprang up and gripped Myrana’s hand, helping her stand. Real rainstorms, like true friends, were so uncommon that he remembered every one he had experienced.

  “Do you think it’ll reach us?”

  “It seems to be headed this way.”

  Aric still had Myrana’s hand clutched in his. She squeezed. “Ready to get wet, Aric?”

  “I can’t wait.”

  He didn’t have to wait long. The storm still sounded as if it was some distance away, but without warning, drenching water flooded down from above. The campfire guttered and went out. Aric and the others were instantly soaked, head to foot. For a few moments, the water was refreshing. Aric tilted his head toward the sky and opened his mouth, letting it run down his throat. But soon, with the sun having long since set and the night’s chill settled in, the combination of the fire’s absence and wet skin and clothing left him freezing.

  At the same time, his body seemed to be rebelling from within, as if all the moisture inside him was trying to push out through his flesh. Already dimpled from the cold and wet, he saw his veins swell his skin, pores opening, liquid starting to seep out.

  “It’s not a storm!” Sellis cried. “It’s a beast!”

  “What manner of beast?” Aric yelled. He had to scream to be heard over the pounding downpour.

  “A rain paraelemental beast!” Myrana shouted back.

  The rain, or what had seemed at first like rain, passed on, but that only meant that the beast itself had reached them. It rose in the moonlight to a height of almost twenty feet, looking like a mobile, sentient waterfall, spray curling where it touched the ground.

  But an ordinary waterfall didn’t have a sinister purpose, or roam about the desert. A rain paraelemental sucked up whatever moisture it could find. It had to have been summoned by a worshipper, then escaped his control, been released, or destroyed its summoner. The beast skirted around them and went to the oasis, giving the traveler’s a moment’s respite. Aric was shivering uncontrollably. They all were, he saw. At least his skin was no longer oozing, for the moment.

  “It’ll be back,” Sellis said. “As soon as it drains the oasis.”

  “How do we fight it?”

  “I don’t know that we can.”

  Ruhm grabbed up his club without waiting for the thing to come back. They had camped far enough from the oasis to allow other creatures who might want its water to approach it without having to go through them, but near enough to make use of its pool in the morning before they moved on. Ruhm ran toward it, and when he reached the traveling waterfall, he swung his huge weapon at it.

  Aric, Amoni, Sellis and Myrana followed Ruhm, and Aric had almost reached him when the club struck the water. The water buckled under the blow, but then straightened again. A jet shot out, hitting Ruhm with enough force to knock him back a dozen feet and flatten him against the ground. Most men, Aric knew, would have been crushed. Only the goliath’s great strength allowed him to survive it.

  He didn’t know that a half-elf would. But he had a big metal broadsword, and the beast had hurt his friend. He swung the sword in a wide, flat arc. It sliced through the water, and he thought he heard a change in the pitch of its liquid voice, as if he had caused it pain.

  The creature turned a jet of water against him, as it had Ruhm. He reeled under its force, shoved back, collided with Myrana. As the pair fell, he managed to turn so that he landed on her face down, arms and legs spread out around her, shielding her from the worst of the water’s impact and taking it on his back instead of his chest and face.

  The beast might kill him, but if he could, he would keep it from killing Myrana too.

  5

  Aric heard his companions shouting and fighting, and then he heard another sound, one he didn’t know. It sounded vaguely like a giant sheet of fabric being torn, or perhaps hundreds tearing at once. He couldn’t even guess at what it was.

  When it ended, the force of the water smashing against his back was gone. He raised his head from where it nestled next to Myrana’s. “Are you hurt?”

  She blinked, droplets clinging to her eyelashes, and offered him a tentative smile. “I won’t be, if you get off me.”

  “Sorry,” he said. He went to hands and knees, careful not to put any of them on her, and moved away, then rose unsteadily to his feet. He was bruised, felt as if he had been dragged behind runaway kanks for several leagues, but he didn’t think anything was broken.

  When he turned, the beast was gone. The oasis pool was almost dry, with only puddles remaining, and even the trees looked as if a fire had passed by, evaporating any moisture from them. Bits of green remained at the ends of their leaves, but in the soft moonlight that was barely visible.

  “What happened to it?”

  “I don’t know,” Amoni said. She was just now sitting up. “It knocked me down, same as it did you. With the water rushing into my face I couldn’t see a thing.”

  “I guess you all weakened it enough,” Sellis said. “When I struck, it dissipated almost at once.”

  “Lucky,” Ruhm said. “All lucky to be alive.”

  “You’re right, Ruhm,” Aric said. “And thank you, Sellis. However you defeated it, we all owe you.”

  “No, Ruhm’s correct, I got lucky too.”

  “We should s-s-see if we can g-get a fire lit again,” Aric stammered. With the adrenalin and violent motion of the fight behind them, they were left wet and cold. In minutes, the water would freeze, and the beast would have killed them anyway.

  “The fuel’s s-soaked,” Myrana pointed out. Her teeth, like Aric’s, were starting to click together.

  “Perhaps,” Sellis said. “But if the b-beast sucked enough moisture from them, then p-perhaps …”

  He hurried to the far side of the oasis, away from where the beast had turned to fight them. In what seemed just moments, Aric saw the glow of embers, then flame lick the darkness. “C-come,” he managed, grabbing Myrana’s hand once more. The water had very nearly frozen. Less than a minute to go, he believed, and they would die where they stood, not falling until the next day’s sun melted them.

  But they worked their way into the fire’s circle of heat. Sellis had it roaring in no time. No other creatures would dare approach the oasis tonight, not with a fire like that going, and even if they did they wouldn’t find any water in the pool. Sitting as close as they dared, they let the fire dry them out and warm them, until finally, as morning approached, they slumbered.

  6

  They got a late start the next day. They hadn’t had much sleep, and they had to wait until the sun dried out the rest of their belongings, left behind at their campsite when they had stormed the oasis to kill the rain paraelemental beast. Aric still didn’t understand how Sellis had defeated it, he was only glad the warrior had done so.

  Once their things were dry and they were hiking along once more, the sun had heated the air to the point that Aric almost missed his near-frozen state of the night before. When he said as much, Myrana chided him. “You’re never satisfied, are you?”

  “I just wish there weren’t such extremes,” he said. “Baking hot during the day, icicles at night. Why can’t the world just be temperate for a change. Inside that cavern, when I saw a vision of Athas as it once was, there were vast forests and lush meadows full of grass and flowers. That world couldn’t have been as forbidding as ours.”

  “That world is long gone,” Amoni said. “If your vision was even true.”

  “It was true in other respects,” Aric argued. He was thinking of the battle that had left all those bones under Akrankhot, and the sword he had found. And Tallik, of course. Tallik was real eno
ugh.

  “Perhaps it can be restored to that state,” Sellis said. “If we can turn our backs on magic long enough to stop destroying it.”

  “Not all magic is destructive,” Myrana reminded him.

  “That’s what some say, it’s true,” Sellis admitted. “But I believe magic is magic—whether it’s preserving or defiling, when people rely it there’s always the temptation to take it too far. Better to stay away from all of it. Just take our chances with no magic, and see what happens.”

  Aric’s hand went to his medallion, without his conscious participation. “What about the Way?”

  “I don’t think it’s inherently destructive,” Myrana said. They were marching up one of the low, rocky hills crossing their path, trying to carve a straight line toward Nibenay. “I don’t have a problem with those who use the Way. As you said, Aric, I have seen a lot of the world. For the most part it’s a harsh, wasted place, ravaged by forces none of us can comprehend. But there are glimpses of beauty to be had. Enough that I can’t help believing that if it were left alone for some time, it could yet recover and become someplace livable. Like you saw in that vision.”

  “You might be right,” Aric said. “It’s sad that none of us will live to see that day.”

  “You don’t know that!”

  “I do. For the world to change so much, it would take centuries. We’ll not live that long.”

  “I suppose not.”

  Ahead of them, having already reached the top of the rise, Ruhm held out a single huge hand. “Shh!’ he said. He crouched down and waited for the others to join him. “Raiders,” he said, pointing into the valley on the other side. A group of thirty-five to forty cut people across the valley, some on foot but most mounted on kanks or erdlus. This was no trading caravan—they had only three wagons—and they looked like they could move fast when they needed to. Even from here Aric could see that they were comprised of a variety of races: humans, elves, muls and others.

  “Have they seen us?” Sellis asked.

  “Don’t think so,” Ruhm said.

  “We’ll stay low a while,” Sellis suggested. “Until they’ve moved on.”

  Aric couldn’t argue with that. He sat. The others sat around him, Myrana close to his left side. There was no shade, and the sun pounded them with ruthless ferocity, and they were making no progress. Aric, frustrated, hurled pebbles down the hillside into a scraggly brush.

  “Is something bothering you, Aric?” Myrana asked.

  “I just hate sitting here doing nothing when we should be moving fast. By now Kadya has doubtless got the argosies filled and the caravan on the march toward Nibenay.”

  She stroked the back of his arm. “I’m slowing us down. I’m sorry. If you want to go on ahead … or you, Ruhm and Amoni, then Sellis and I can follow at my speed.”

  He was tempted to accept her offer. At the same time, however, he wanted nothing to do with it. He couldn’t say why, not out loud. How could he tell her what it was like to grow up a half-elf, abandoned by a father he had never known and left too young by a mother who died? Unloved and seldom trusted, making his way in the world with few close friends. Since the moment she had put a hand on his cheek, he had felt that she accepted him. They had a bond, he thought, that had been at once as strong as any others he’d known.

  He didn’t want to leave her behind. Even alone, he didn’t know if he could reach Nibenay in time—or, if he did, whether it would help stop Tallik from doing whatever it was he had in mind. Given that uncertainty, he had no interest in leaving Myrana behind, possibly never to see her again.

  “No,” he said finally. “No, we stay together, the five of us. We’ll have a better chance of survival that way.”

  “Thank you, Aric.” She gave his arm a squeeze, then released it. “I was hoping you felt that way. But I had to offer.”

  “Raiders gone,” Ruhm said. Aric looked. The raiders were nearly out of sight behind the hills. The companions rose and started picking their way down the slope.

  They were out in the middle of the sandy valley floor, where there was no cover larger than the occasional sparse cactus or scrubby tuft of grass when the raiders came back, heading straight for them.

  XIV

  AMBUSH

  1

  They’re coming!” Amoni shouted. She took a battle stance, cahulaks at the ready. Sellis drew both of his swords. Aric’s broadsword filled his hand, and Ruhm prepared to use his club. Myrana had only a dagger, Aric noted, but she looked ready to use it.

  Still, they were only five, against nearly forty. Aric would not have said that it couldn’t be done. Sellis in particular cut a heroic figure, and he might have actually enjoyed the odds. Aric, although strong, was not yet an accomplished warrior, and it didn’t look as if Myrana was either. Sellis, Amoni, and Ruhm would have to do the bulk of the fighting.

  The raiders came on fast. Their insectlike kanks and flightless erdlus tore across the plain, sending up a plume of yellow dust. Aric raised his sword and prepared for battle.

  Then Myrana surprised them all by sheathing her dagger. “Weapons down!” she said.

  “They’ll kill us!” Sellis cried.

  “They’ll kill us if we fight,” Myrana said. “If we don’t, at least we have a chance.”

  “Myrana, there’s always a chance,” Sellis argued.

  “This is our best one,” Myrana said. “Trust me.”

  The raiders came closer, so close Aric could see the honed edges of carrikals and spears, swords and gythkas, and the faces of those wielding them, set in masks of fury. He and his friends had never done anything to those raiders, but people seemed to need to embrace anger against those they would strike down. Anger burned in him, as well—somewhat more justifiably, he believed, since these raiders seemed intent on killing people whose only offense was walking across open desert.

  He slowly lowered his sword, then pushed it back into the makeshift scabbard he had crafted. Myrana had a point—the raiders were too many to fight. Even if they won, they would certainly suffer some losses, and they hardly had enough to spare.

  Amoni let her cahulaks dangle from her hand. Ruhm didn’t release his club, but rested the end on the ground. Finally, when the raiders had almost reached them, Sellis scabbarded his pair of swords.

  Puzzled looks replaced rage on the raiders’ faces. “Are you cowards, to face us without weapons?” one asked. He was a full elf, lean, tall and broad-shouldered, his hair long and wild, and he arched an eyebrow at them in wonder. He and three other elves among the raiders were the only ones on foot, but in spite of the hard sprint he did not seem winded in the least. “Or wizards, perhaps, meaning to destroy us through magic rather than fair combat.”

  Myrana stepped to the group’s front. Reasonable, Aric thought, as this approach had been her idea. “You speak of fair combat? Attacking five with forty or more?”

  The elf chuckled. “Perhaps only five of us at a time would have engaged you. Under those terms, would you fight? Or do you surrender your lives and possessions now?” Other raiders joined in laughter at that, a few of them hurling curses and epithets at the five companions.

  “We would surrender our possessions gladly, to spare our lives,” Myrana told him. Not exactly answering the question the elf had asked, Aric noted. “But we have precious little to take. A handful of weapons, I suppose. The skins we use to keep ourselves warm at night. A little water, though not much, and less meat. We are but poor journeyers, a long way from anywhere. And as you can see, without mounts or wagons. What is it you would take from us?”

  “I suppose we’ll settle for your lives and what little you carry,” the elf said. “Better than naught.”

  “Is it?”

  “You have something better to offer, girl?” Some of the other raiders dismounted, walking around their prey, eyeing their few belongings. “And are the rest of you mute? Or too stupid to speak?”

  “I speak,” Ruhm said. “I’d fight you in a second.”

&nbs
p; “I might have something to offer,” Myrana said quickly, lest Ruhm embroil them all in an unwinnable battle. “We are but five lonely travelers, but I am a daughter of House Ligurto. Surely you’ve heard of it—once of the richest trading houses in the Tablelands.”

  “Oh, I’ve heard of House Ligurto,” the elf said, his interest piqued.

  “I’m away from them for now, but I’ve been on the road with them my whole life. I know their route and schedule as well as I know my own name.”

  “How does that help us?”

  “I said I’m a daughter of the house, I didn’t say that I was a contented one. You spare us, and I’ll direct you to a place where you can wait for the caravan. The riches you could acquire there would be far more than you can take from us.”

  The elf rubbed his chin. Black tattoos snaked up from under his faded red shift, climbing his neck and etching a false black beard on his smooth skin. “An ambush, eh?” He huddled with some of the other raiders.

  “Myrana, this is a dangerous game you play,” Sellis whispered.

  “It’s no game, it’s our lives. I know what I’m doing.”

  “We can still take them,” Sellis insisted. “Myrana, I—”

  Myrana cut him off. “Do not forget that I’m a trader, from a long line of them. I’m doing what we do. I’m bargaining. Now hush.”

  Aric hoped she was right. Ever since that moment he had known Kadya meant to kill him, life seemed composed of one narrow escape after another. As if the burning sun and sands and the infinite cold of night weren’t bad enough, they’d had to stave off one attack after another. He was starting to despair of ever seeing Nibenay again, much less saving it from the demon-possessed templar.