Page 6 of Crown of the Dunes (The Ballan Desert #2)

Instead of pain though, a scream cut through the droning voices in the tent. My muscles jumped to action as if I were the string of a bow pulled taut, and the shouts from outside the tent had set me loose.

I was shoving out of the tent before I even realized I was on my feet. I broke into a run as the commotion got louder, following the sounds away from the meeting tent and toward the encircling chasm.

The earthy scent of the desert after rain permeated the metallic air inside my mask, and the hairs at the nape of my neck stood up.

Magic.

The clattering of bones met my ears just as I skidded around the line of tents at the edge of the encampment, warning me of what attacked. I unsheathed my saber from across my back with a shout. My heart leapt into my throat at the sight before me.

I recognized not one bone spider but several. The twisted conglomerations of limbs scuttled across the sand, away from the chasm and toward the encampment. Already, two had reached a tent and ripped it down, canvas and poles giving way under their misshapen weight.

I charged toward them, a question rising in my mind, bringing with it a nauseating sort of hope.

If the bone spiders had gotten onto the plateau, there must be a way out.

Before I could reach the monsters, who had thoroughly destroyed one tent and were now scuttling toward a horse enclosure, my hopes were dashed.

Scrabbling fingers and claws and hooves from mismatched horses crested over the edge of the chasm. They dug into the baked earth before hauling up the mangled bulk of another spider, two more hot on its heels. They were climbing up from the depths of the chasm .

Horror threatened to grab my heart, but the blood rushing in my ears at the promise of impending battle drowned it out. With a savage cry, I leapt at the closest creature.

From somewhere in the core of flesh that served as its centroid, it lashed out with a hoof in a fierce kick.

I reared back, the hoof just barely missing the metal of my mask.

Before it could withdraw, I crossed my dirk and saber in front of me and wrenched them apart, severing the limb in a scissoring motion.

It fell to the ground with a thump as the creature skittered backward.

It hissed in pain, although I could see no mouth.

I pressed forward, urged by the simmering in my blood that was quickly growing to a boil. After weeks of frustration and stagnation, there was finally blood to spill. The voices in my mind rejoiced, urging me wordlessly to drive the monsters back into the shadowy depths from which they had come.

With a snarl, I relieved the creature of two more limbs: A skeletal human arm and the thick scaley rope of a snake’s tale.

I lunged, stabbing forward viciously, only to jump backward a moment later as grasping limbs swatted at me.

My vision blurred in anger. I couldn’t get close enough to drive my saber into the core of flesh that bound these stolen limbs together—to stab it again and again until its blood soaked the sand beneath my boots.

“Lord Viper!”

A shout ripped me from my fugue, and my head snapped up to find that others had joined the fray, no doubt brought by the shouts and carnage. Izumi engaged another one of the creatures, but it steadily drove her back toward the edge of the horse enclosure.

Within, the animals screamed in fear, stamping and huddling on the far side. The sight snapped me out of my battle haze just enough to think. I had felled a bone spider before using—

“Fire!” I shouted. “They fear flames.”

I didn’t have time to say anything else as the monster before me took advantage of my momentary distraction.

The oversized tail of a scorpion—nearly as long and thick as my leg—unfurled toward me with unfathomable speed.

I lunged sideways. In my haste, my foot slipped out from under me, and I crashed down to my knees .

The bone spider scuttled forward with speed disproportionate to its unwieldiness. It loomed over me, blocking out the fading light of the setting sun. I bared my teeth as power bubbled within me, and the knot of magic at the base of my skull shivered.

My dirk clattered to the ground at my side as I dropped it, lifting my open palm toward the creature above me. Grabbing one of the fibers that held the desert together, I yanked until something in the fabric of the air ripped.

A torrent of flame poured out of my palm as I roared, catching the beast that had been just inches away from me squarely in its center. It scrabbled backward, a horrible, voiceless screeching rending the air, but I did not relent.

I staggered to my feet, fire continuing to pour from me as I drove the monster backward toward the chasm.

Before it reached the cliff, it slumped to the ground in a twitching and smoldering heap.

The limbs of dozens of nameless creatures convulsed sickeningly in the spider’s death throes, but I did not stay to watch.

I whirled around, finding half a dozen more spiders held at bay by riders from various clans.

Several warriors had acquired torches and brandished them threateningly.

At the sight of the flickering flames, the remaining spiders danced around them, lifting hands and paws as if to shield invisible eyes from the light.

Still, they did not retreat. My stomach sank at the realization that their numbers made them bold, as a lone bone spider had been much more easily frightened.

Lord Dhara charged into the fray, flicking a small ball of fire from her fingertips as she did.

It hit one of the spiders squarely, causing it to hiss and scuttle back.

Surprise lurched in my stomach. I knew other lords were touched by the desert, but most kept their abilities to themselves—secret weapons to use against those who looked to usurp them.

A strangled scream split the air, cut off by a nauseating crunch. I turned in time to see a screaming rider disappear beneath the hulking mass of one of the monsters.

With a snarl, I jumped into the fray, another gout of flame pouring out of my left hand as I lashed out with the saber in my right.

The air shimmered with the heat of my fire, finally forcing the remaining spiders back toward the abyss.

Still, the one who had felled the rider hesitated, as if reluctant to give up its prize.

Before I could advance, a shadowy shape darted past. With a savage scream, Izumi leaped through the air and landed on the last spider, digging the torch in her hand deep into the tangle of appendages.

The acrid smell of burnt meat and horrible screeching filled the air, and I returned my attention to the remainder of the beasts.

I continued to shoot thick gouts of flame as they hissed and scuttled back toward the chasm, disappearing over the edge into the blackness. I didn’t relent, charging forward until my toes brushed the edge of the cliff.

Smoke still seeped from my gloved palms. The fire of battle in my blood nudged me to jump down after them—to keep letting fire spill from my hands and my mouth until every creature that threatened the clans was reduced to ash.

The voices in my head grew to one indistinguishable shout.

My toes teetered on the edge for an extended moment.

Then the tiniest tug of a thread in my mind snapped me back to myself where I stood, staring into an endless pit of blackness. The pull came from a tether that had been lifeless and hazy for weeks. A tiny fiber anchored at the base of my skull.

Keera.

In an instant, I was back in my body. Sweat pooled at the small of my back from the heat of my flames and breath scraped the inside of my throat as I panted. A small avalanche of sand fell into the chasm at my feet, and I stumbled back a few steps.

I tugged at the bond tying me to Keera, but now there was no response, Maybe I had imagined the shiver of life, but it had still managed to shock me out of the fugue of battle.

The screaming for blood in my mind dulled to quiet but manageable whispers, and my awareness of the desert pulled back into the confines of my own skull.

I turned to face the camp, taking in the damage wrought by the creatures pulled straight from myths and nightmares.

Two riders joined Izumi by the corpse of the creature she had felled, using their shoulders against its charred flesh to roll it sideways.

By the time I reached them, they had succeeded in pushing it a few feet, off the corpse of the felled rider.

I gritted my teeth at the sight of his corpse, missing its arms and legs, the bone spider having already harvested them to add to its own bulk of stolen flesh.

Blood dripped sluggishly from roughly severed stumps, staining the sand crimson.

Often, feeding the desert the life force of another calmed my mind, but this was not one of those times.

This was only a mark of my own failures.

My mask itched and my gloves fit too tight.

I spun on my heel and stomped over to where the first creature I had burned lay.

I screwed up my face against the horrid, metallic smell of its roasting flesh as I searched the sands for my dropped dirk.

I found it fallen next to the limb I had severed—the horse’s leg that was nearly skeletal apart from the tattered bits of skin hanging from the bones, covered in patchy black fur. The same color as Alza’s.

With a repressed growl, I wiped the blood from my blade on my pants before sheathing it with a definitive click .

Voices began cutting through the stillness after a battle narrowly won.

“—came from the pit.”

“There might be more of them.”

I turned toward the voices, finding the Lords that had followed me from the tent gathered nearby. All eight wore hard expressions.

“What fresh Hell have you brought upon us, Viper?” Lord Cahir demanded, shoving his hands into the brown sash at his waist.