Page 25 of Crown of the Dunes (The Ballan Desert #2)

I cocked my head in curiosity. He looked at me and began to shrink away as I didn’t answer. It reminded me of how disconcerted most people were by the blank stare of the mask—part of the reason I was so surprised by the way he had spoken to me in the first place.

Most of Clan Katal’s riders had avoided me studiously in my years serving Lord Alasdar.

But some of the newer riders from other clans spoke to me more easily, almost like I was a comrade, when I had rounded encampment passing out kindling and helping drive back bone spiders. I never knew how to respond.

“What is your name, rider?” I asked quickly, before the man could make the retreat I could see him considering.

“Nabu of Clan Tibel,” he offered.

“Well, Nabu, the legends say that gravehawks are drawn to sites of battle. The death and the blood fuels them, just like they fuel the desert—likely why they were drawn to the burning flesh of the bone spider.” My ears pricked as I paused, a faint sound like distant thunder drifting on the air.

I lifted my face to the sky as I spoke. “The desert gives and it takes. The desert is going to give me the gravehawk I need so I can take back what’s hers—and what’s mine. ”

As I said the last word, a shadow fell over us.

The sharp whinnies of panicked horses rippled through the assembled riders, but I paid them no mind, drawing both my dirk and my knife from my boot; my saber would remain on my back until I was in the city, not wanting to chance losing my best weapon in my attempt to wrangle a terror of the desert.

The snap of wings cracked through the sky right above me, and the horses screamed as the skeletal bird pulled in its wings, diving directly toward the smoldering fire.

Without another word to Nabu, I set off at a run. Its claws extended toward the smoldering corpse, like deadly knives, and I extended my own as I sprinted.

Magic rose within me like a growing torrent of flame.

I was twenty meters from the gravehawk, and the chattering in my head grew to a shout. Then I was ten meters away.

Just before the skeletal bird touched down, I leaped. I squeezed my fists and pulled , letting the strings of my power launch me high into the air, over the flare of the gravehawk’s wings as I jumped at it from behind.

My vision zeroed in at the bony joints at the base of its neck. With a roar, I plunged my blades down, right into the points I remembered.

The moment I landed on its back, a screeching like tearing metal split the air. It bucked wildly, but this time I was ready.

I squeezed my thighs around its bony spine, gritting my teeth as I yanked upward on the blades embedded in its skeletal shoulders. The snap of wings echoed in my ears as it threw them wide once again, pumping them forcefully to take to the sky once more.

The gray stone of the mountains swirled with the rising black smoke of the fire as my mount wheeled around, trying to throw me off. The muscles of my left shoulder burned and began to shake as I pulled hard on the knife on that side, trying to direct the creature toward the city walls.

Still, it thrashed and fought me. My stomach lurched into my throat as a violent jerk nearly knocked me free. Out of instinct, I opened my mind, as if this were a freshly caught horse, and the tendril of the desert’s magic in it would help it calm at my mental touch.

Lightning shot through me as I found the place where the gravehawk’s mind should be. There was magic there. But this was not the comforting freedom of Alza’s consciousness—this was the madness of uncontrollable lightning in a cloudless sky and the taste of blood on my teeth.

A roar ripped its way out of my mouth, drowned out by the screech of the gravehawk below me. It banked sideways, but somehow I was ready for the sudden movement, leaning with it as it turned toward Kelvadan.

The column of clan riders wound like a dark snake through the baked earth toward the city as we flew over them, soaring toward the high walls.

I squinted against the wind in my face at the approaching city, finding that its stillness had been broken.

Archers now lined the top of the wall. I spotted them just in time to jerk to the side, an arrow whizzing an inch past my face.

The gravehawk was not alarmed by the attack, barreling toward the walls at top speed. It flew straight over the top of the arched gate. The strings of power in my mind pulled taut as I leaped just as it crested the edge, yanking my blades free.

I grabbed at the cords just before I hit the ground, letting them soften the blow of impact.

The two riders guarding the gate didn’t even have time to raise their swords. I swung my blades out wide to either side as I landed in a crouch, cutting their legs out from under them. They crumpled, and I paid them no mind as I turned to the barred gate.

Already the clatter of hooves on stone behind me signaled that the riders were mobilized, charging down from the palace to thwart me. But I had brought an army of my own. They would not stop me from getting to Keera. Or the Heart.

The tangle of power unspooling in my mind, somehow unwound even farther than usual by the touch of the deserts madness that was the gravehawk’s mind, made it hard to think. But it promised me that.

I grabbed the bar across the gate and threw it up before ramming my shoulder into the wood. It creaked open, solidly made, but still giving way. It would have been difficult to break down from the outside.

No sooner had it opened wide enough for two horses to ride abreast, than the thunder of hooves barreled toward me from the far side of the wall .

I jumped out of the way of the incoming clans.

Seeing Alza charging alongside Izumi at the front of the column, I broke into a run.

She did not even break her stride as she galloped by.

I flung my arm around her neck and hurled myself into the air alongside her, letting my legs fly up and across her back until I found my seat.

Her hooves clattered on the stone of the courtyard in time with the pounding of my heart.

Now, the magic of the desert truly tore loose from its leash, as I traded my knife for my saber.

The strip of fabric stained with Keera’s blood fluttered on the wind as we charged up the main road through the city, and the voices in my head shouted and tumbled over one another at the reminder that we still couldn’t feel her.

Those voices brayed for blood like hunting dogs going in for a kill. I couldn’t understand their words, but I comprehended their violent meaning.

Charge. Fight. Kill. Get to her. Get our heart.

Before we had cleared the first level of the city, the oncoming riders met us, but I did not slow. Neither did Izumi beside me or the clansmen at my back.

This was the moment we had waited for—to take back our home and restore the desert. To heal the sins of the past by tearing this city to the ground.

I crashed through the first line of opposing riders effortlessly, Alza barreling through them like a sandstorm. As I raised my saber, hacking and slashing at those who would stop me, red began to seep into the corner of my vision.

My own blood and the blood of those who stood around me sang in my ears, but still, I did not stop, urging Alza forward. I could barely remember my own name, so intense was the cacophony in my skull, but I knew that I had lost something.

I had lost something, and they had taken it from me. I had to get it back, and I would if I just kept advancing.

I had to keep fighting. And so, with a roar, I charged on.