Page 24 of Crown of the Dunes (The Ballan Desert #2)
Chapter eight
Erix
O ne moment I was striding toward the enclosure for a late-night visit with Alza, and the next I was on all fours in the sand.
I didn’t know which was louder, the sudden storm of magic tearing through the fibers in my mind or the deafening silence immediately after.
The oppressive quiet was accompanied by a sensation of emptiness, as if part of my brain had been ripped out of my skull, leaving me suddenly unbalanced.
Keera.
She was gone .
Footsteps hurried toward me, and I looked up into the face of Lord Nathaira, who must have been walking past. She opened her mouth as if to ask what had happened, but I didn’t give her the chance.
“Ready the warriors. We ride for Kelvadan.”
I pushed to my feet, not caring that she had found me doubled over on the ground. At any other time, I might have worried at another lord seeing any sign of weakness, especially the grasping Lord of Clan Padra. But they were all about to see how strong my fury could be.
“When, my Lord Viper?” he asked, scurrying alongside me as I took long strides toward the enclosure.
“Now. ”
“But, Lord, it’s the middle of the—”
Her voice cut out in a strangled grunt as I whirled around, catching her by the throat with my magic.
“It wasn’t up for debate.” My voice was low, much calmer than the roiling storm under my skin. “You complained that I delayed our attack on Kelvadan before. I’m delaying it no longer. We ride for the Great City tonight .”
I held her for one moment longer, the hard defiance in her eyes not completely fading, but enough fear joining it that I knew she wouldn’t argue. Nobody wanted to cross the Viper when he showed his fangs.
The moment I relaxed my grip on her windpipe, she took a gasping breath and staggered away, already beginning to call for her warlord. The growing commotion drew clansmen from their tents and where they still lingered around their dwindling fires.
I raised my fist in the air, commanding their attention. “Break down the encampment. We ride for Kelvadan immediately.”
Murmurs ran through the small group, spreading in waves through the camp as more people emerged from their tents. Under the audible confusion and even some displeasure, ran an undercurrent of a contagious sort of anticipation.
The clans had been trapped and impotent for so many weeks, facing down the threat of slow starvation or being picked off one by one by the desert’s monsters. The clans of the desert were bred for war, and now the blood the desert demanded was so close they could taste it.
If the people of Kelvadan had hurt Keera, the sand would run with rivers of blood.
I tried not to dwell on the aching emptiness at the base of my skull as I strode off in search of Izumi.
Just this last week, Keera had pulled on the bond, stronger than I had felt in weeks, reassuring me that she was alive and wild as ever.
I had grasped it back with all my might, trying to tell her I was coming, if she could just hold on.
Lightning started to crackle at my fingertips, and I smashed my fist into my thigh as I walked, letting the dull ache keep my consciousness in the encampment. A time would come for unbridled power, but when I arrived to find Keera, I intended to have an army at my back.
A familiar figure strode toward me, having been pulled away from her fire by the growing chaos on the camp as tents were pulled down and weapons strapped on.
“Izumi. We’ll ride through the night,” I ordered without further greeting.
She didn’t argue but cocked her head at me with narrowed eyes. “What’s changed?”
A shadow appeared over her shoulder. I recognized Badha’s face, eyes wide with curiosity.
I bit the inside of my cheek so hard I tasted blood as I searched for the right answer. When it finally spilled out of me, it was halfway between a hiss and a growl. “Now, I don’t think there is any force in the desert that could stop me from ripping Kelvadan from the mountainside.”
It was true. If Keera was lost to me, there might be nobody left that could bring me back from the brink of insanity.
Instead of apprehension or fear, Izumi’s eyes lit with fervor.
It was the same fanaticism that filled the eyes of the clansmen when Lord Alasdar told them that destroying Kelvadan was the way to get back all they had lost and restore our home.
For a fleeting moment, I wondered if Izumi felt the loss of her twin like I did the absence of Keera—like some essential part of my being was missing with her.
Even if she didn’t know the full truth of why the desert fought us, she was ready to exact the price for all she thought Kelvadan had taken from her.
With a sharp nod, she turned on her heel and marched away. As she brushed past Badha, she laid a hand on her new warlord’s arm, something passing between them that I didn’t have time to consider.
Instead, I marched through the swirling chaos of the clansmen preparing to ride, toward the chasm that had formed our prison.
Now that all had escaped the plateau, it only bordered one side of the large circle of tents.
A few fires served to keep the bone spiders at bay, although a few had managed to creep around the side of the camp in the dead of night .
The riders stationed at the ravine for the overnight guard now hurried to stamp out the fires, even more anxious than the rest to ride away from this place. I caught their attention with a flick of my fingers.
“What happened to the bone spider we killed the night before last?” I asked.
The closest rider jerked his chin toward a misshapen lump on the ground a few meters away, barely visible in the moonlight.
“I didn’t see any sense in chopping it up and burning it now that we could gather proper fuel.
We considered shoving it back down the ravine, but we were afraid to anger the rest.”
“Good. Pack it up and take it with us,” I ordered.
“Take it—take it with us?”
I bared my teeth under my mask. “It may be of some use to us yet.”
The sun rose at my back as the outline of Kelvadan came into view.
The sharp angle of the light made the angles harsher and the shadows deeper, the Great City cutting an unnatural gash in the familiar landscape of the desert.
At the base of the wall surrounding the stacked buildings cut into the mountainside, a brown patch caught my attention.
Never before had Kelvadan had a gate. Only an open archway indicating that the city was welcome to all who rode the Ballan Desert.
Now, a large wooden door had been erected to block the entrance.
I bared my teeth. The Prince of Kelvadan had come home, only to find the door bolted shut when it opened wide for all others.
The thought struck with surprising malice given that my identity had only become public less than a fortnight ago.
The throbbing knot of power at the top of my spine pulsed with my heart as my gaze scanned up the walls to the spire at the top.
My eyes caught there, an odd sense of dread and apprehension settling in my chest. There rested the Heart of the Desert—the objective of all my missions for so many years.
Now, the thought of it had almost slipped my mind, so focused was I on getting to Keera.
Of course, I would need her help to get the Heart too.
Hoofbeats next to me drew my attention as Izumi pulled up next to me where I rode at the front of the column of riders.
By now, we were only fifty or so yards from the gate.
I half expected to be greeted by archers on the city walls, an army of Kelvadan ready to face off against the full force of the clans.
Instead, the city was silent in the dawn hour—almost eerily so. Something about it unsettled me. Sweat pooled inside my gloves.
“Should I have the clans fan out and surround the city? This could be a prolonged siege, given that Kelvadan has had so long to prepare since the last battle,” Izumi asked. Her eyes were appraising as she took in the high walls as if calculating how exactly they could be breached.
I shook my head, breaking free of my sense of foreboding. “No, we’ll be entering through the gates.”
Izumi’s gaze snapped away from the city to me. “The gate may be a recent addition, but I doubt it will be easy to break down.”
“Good thing I don’t plan on breaking it down. It should open relatively easily from the inside.”
Before she could ask any more questions, I signaled to the rider a few horses behind me who had helped me wrap the bone spider in canvas and load it onto Daiti’s back.
While the warhorse snorted in warning as I did so, I murmured to him that it would let him see his rider again, and he had seemed to understand.
“Start a fire,” I ordered. “Get the smoke to reach as high as you can and then throw the bone spider on the flames.”
Izumi’s eyes widened in understanding. “You intend to ride the gravehawk again.”
“I will use the desert’s fury to destroy those who defy her will,” I growled. I swung down off Alza’s back, checking that all my weapons were in place: my saber across my back, my dirk in my belt, and a spare knife tucked into my boot .
Alza nudged me in annoyance, as if to ask why I would choose to ride a mount other than her into battle. I shushed her gently with a pat on the nose.
“I’m sure you would do your best to jump the gate into the city, but it might be a little high even for you,” I whispered quietly enough that nobody could hear, before adding more loudly, “Once I open the gate, be prepared to charge inside and meet me there with my mount.”
The riders began to form columns, lining up in the plain before the city.
“What if a gravehawk doesn’t come?” the man who had loaded the bone spider asked. “Forgive me, Lord Viper, but I almost find myself wishing it won’t. I had hoped to never see one again.” He squinted up at the quickly lightening sky.