Tag: monsters

45. Cassandra

On By MaryIn 2023, WritingLeave a comment

I had a strange dream, like I was sleeping peacefully until I was swallowed into a void, and then I had fallen into the ocean… The first thing I became aware of was voices, very near to me, quietly talking. Voices I recognized. I realized that Peyton and Asterollan were with me, and the thought was somehow instantly calming. The next thing I immediately became aware of was my headache – it throbbed just behind my brow in the middle of my forehead, sharp, like a pickaxe poking into my brain. I sighed as I stirred and sat up. I felt a strong hand grip my shoulder and elbow, helping steady me. “Are you okay?” Asterollan asked. His voice sounded harsh, but when I opened my eyes, I saw the worry spoken plainly on his face – as well as the dark circle on his forehead.

I nodded, hardly able to take my eyes off the mark. “I… I just feel like someone took a pickaxe to my head, but I’m fine.” The memories of watching people get crushed by rocks, of losing Lyre behind me in the cave-in swirled through my mind, making me feel nauseous. And Greyjon… A bad headache was the least I deserved. I placed my hands over my face, rubbing slightly, wishing I was sleeping again.

We were in some kind of strange stone building with a dim ring of lights set into the ceiling. It looked almost like it had been formed out of the rock itself. The floor dipped down, completing the dome in a kind of lopsided oval. It was like being inside a stone egg that was set with flat platforms along the walls at spaced intervals, like beds. I was laying on one of those platforms. Maybe they were beds after all.

Peyton and Kaphryn sat on another platform nearby, watching me as I sat up. Captain Kaphryn watched me intently, warily, and Peyton sat, her arms crossed and her head tilted as she stared. I could see the same dark circle on Peyton’s forehead, and reached up to my own pounding head where I assumed I had a similar mark. It struck me as immediately strange for a moment – every time I had seen a tether on an elven slave, the marks had been different, unique, usually encompassing one entire half of their face and trailing down their necks. For some reason, I understood intuitively that this was not the same. Rubbing my forehead again, I asked, “What did they do to us?” As I asked, I reached for my magic. I could still feel it, sense the power around me, but it was just out of reach and I couldn’t grasp it.

Asterollan frowned. “I thought it was tethering at first, but…”

“It’s not. It’s suppression.” Peyton frowned, uncrossing her arms and gripping the edge of the platform she sat on. “They’ve had enough dealings with the elves that they’ve developed a method of suppressing magic. Apparently, the process is quite similar to tethering, but there’s no Focus, because they don’t want us to cast. Instead, there’s a key.” I looked up at the dim circle of lights above us, blinking as I stared into them. It looked suspiciously like electricity. Before I could even voice the thought, Peyton said, “Yes. It’s electricity.” I raised an eyebrow at her nervously.

“They… they have electricity,” I mumbled the statement in shock. “Where are we?”

“It’s a city of some kind. I don’t know the name of it. The Underlings minds are… hard to understand. I don’t even know if they built the city themselves, or just found it… They seem to understand and speak Blest, but they also have their own language…” As Peyton spoke, I tried to imagine words coming out of the toothy maw of that strange, eyeless face I had stared into before and shuddered.

“That scholar had mentioned before that there were records of a transport that could run the Graces straight to the seal, deep underground. It supposedly ran on some kind of mysterious energy, maybe this electricity you both mentioned,” Kaphryn spoke up, a frown on her face. “We were just discussing the possibility that the Underlings have tapped into its source.”

“That scholar?” I repeated her words, raising an eyebrow.

Her frown deepened and a flush rose up her face. “That… Jon Umberling.” I stared at her a moment, amused at her reaction, but decided not to comment on it and only nodded. “We saw the transport briefly, when we descended into this cavern. We should make it our goal to get to it.”

“It ran along a glowing track, kind of like a futuristic train,” Peyton described for me. I sighed and rubbed at my forehead again. “The gems they used to suppress us are the keys to that,” she said, changing the subject as she read the thought that flitted across my mind. “But when we tried to attack them and take them by force… well, it ended poorly.”

I frowned, wondering how strong the Underlings were if they easily overpowered people like Asterollan and Peyton. I also imagined that as a Captain, Kaphryn wasn’t a pushover either. “Somehow, they used the keys against us,” Peyton said a bit defensively, reading the concern in my thoughts.

“You need to quit doing that,” I said.

Peyton smiled apologetically. “I’m sorry. I’ve been… opening it up a little more lately. Trying to get us out of this mess.” I nodded, understanding. “What I have learned is that they can’t take the suppression keys far from us for some reason. Whether that’s for a good reason or a bad reason, I can’t say, but the guards outside have got ours.”

“What would be a bad reason?” I asked, feeling a little confused.

“Maybe we die if they get too far from us,” Peyton suggested, a little too cheerily.

I stared at her, my jaw dropping open at the thought. “Or,” Asterollan said, finally speaking, “they become less effective at containing us with distance.” His hand was still on my shoulder, and I felt him give a reassuring squeeze. When I glanced up at him, I saw that his eyes were unfocused as he frowned, deep in thought.

Peyton raised an eyebrow, her eyes lingering on Asterollan’s hand on my shoulder for a moment before she said, “I’m simply trying to posit the possibility that it wouldn’t be wise to just go running out of the range of the gems. At least not until I can get a read on what the result might be.”

Asterollan’s hands pulled away from me as he shifted to sit on his own stone platform. “Now that Cassandra is up, we should run or try to fight them again. How many guards are outside now?”

“Just a few. But they’re waiting for something,” Peyton looked thoughtful, her eyes unfocused. I realized she was trying to push into the minds of the Underlings.

“Can you tell why they’ve captured us in the first place?” I asked.

Peyton flushed, looking mildly annoyed. “They work for him. For Shadawn. He created them.”

I gaped at her. “What?”

“I don’t know when or how or why, but they all seem to think they owe their existence to him. And from what I can tell, he still wants me.” She paused for a moment, then seemed to rethink the phrasing of her last sentence, and blushing furiously added, “As his Chosen. Shadawn wants me as his Chosen.”

I nodded, not really questioning. Even if Shadawn wanted Peyton as something more… was that hard to believe? She was a movie star. Beautiful, and ridiculously talented, and skilled at everything she tried… no wonder she caught the attention of would be evil godlings. “Okay. Stop that,” she said, reading my thoughts and still blushing furiously. “I’m not perfect.”

I snorted. “So, what’s the plan?”

Kaphryn sighed. “The door is sealed from the outside. I suppose we just wait, and prepare ourselves for the second they do unseal it.”

“And then?” I glanced around and saw that all three of them had set and determined expressions. I hesitated a moment, then nodded. “We fight,” I said nervously.

We moved closer to the entrance, taking up platforms that would allow us to move quickly against whoever stepped in first. Since I had already had plenty of sleep owing to passing out earlier, I sat up with Peyton to keep watch. Kaphryn and Asterollan each chose their own platforms to snooze on for a bit, taking the moment to rest. Peyton stared at where they insisted the door was, her eyes unfocused as she attempted to read more out of the thoughts of the guards outside the building.

I glanced around the small room nervously, though there wasn’t much to see. Eventually, my eyes rested on Asterollan. I stared at the features of his face absently, especially the notch in the bridge of his nose where the scar sliced across his face, a long white stripe across his otherwise flawless and tanned skin. It occurred to me again that if it wasn’t for that scar, he would be devastatingly beautiful. In sleep, his expression was less severe, instead veering toward melancholy. I wondered for a moment if he was having a sad dream…

“He’d do anything for you, you know,” Peyton said suddenly. I shifted, startled by her words, and looked up at her. She was staring at me, her head tilted curiously, her blue eyes seeming to stare right through me.

My heart raced for a moment, and I inwardly chastised myself for it. “I have Lyre…” I said, a bit harshly, and avoided looking in her eyes. I wondered if Lyre was even alive.

Peyton nodded. “Lyre would do anything for you too. But what if he’s dead?”

I glared at her. “He’s not dead,” I said firmly. She smiled knowingly, and I was instantly annoyed. Then, half curious if it would get a rise out of her, I asked, “Do you think Lucas is still alive?”

She looked a bit surprised for a moment, then something in her expression hardened. “If he’s not, it’s your fault.” The comment hurt so much I nearly gasped out loud, but Peyton’s head suddenly swiveled toward the door and she reached out to shake Kaphryn awake. “They’re coming,” she said quietly. I reached out to wake Asterollan, but saw that his eyes were already open. He sat up, pulling himself into a crouch on the platform. I heard the shifting of the stone as it pulled slightly out and shifted to the side smoothly, automatically.

Before we could move, I felt a sharp pain overwhelm my senses. My vision strained, sending strange halos of light flickering through my sight that warped everything so drastically that I shut my eyes tight. The sharp pain I had felt in my head before intensified, brutally. I realized I was screaming, a sharp piercing noise, and I could hear Peyton grunting in pain and Asterollan’s angry shouting. I managed to force my eyes back open in time to blearily make out Captain Kaphryn yelling and throwing herself bodily at the first figure that appeared at the door. She was easily swiped out of the air by one unnaturally long limb and thrown harshly, her back slamming into one of the platforms on the other end of the room. She gasped, moaning in pain as she crumpled to the curved floor, curling into a ball.

Peyton, gasping in pain, shifted forward, striking quickly into the neck of the figure. Her blow caused it to wheeze painfully, and it let loose a short, sharp bark of pain as it fell to one knee, but the one behind it held up a small black gemstone. The gem glowed brightly and Peyton screamed shrilly, clutching her head.

After a few moments, the pain subsided, but the strange halos of light still seemed to flicker across my vision, making me feel nauseous. The creatures stood for a moment in the doorway, holding the gems up, a threatening reminder they could use them on us again. One of them made a strange series of clicking noises from deep inside its throat, and then spoke in Blest. “Follow,” it said, and clicked and gurgled again. They stepped back from the door.

We hesitated for a moment, then Peyton stood and stalked out, standing just outside the door. I slipped off the platform I was on and followed, my chin lowered as I stared at the tall creatures that surrounded us. There were several of them, forming a loose semi-circle around the entrance of the building we were in. Asterollan jumped down from his perch, walking over to check on Kaphryn, and helped her to her feet. As they both stepped out behind Peyton and me, the Underling that had spoken before gestured with its hands at Kaphryn. “You. Stay.”

We paused for a moment, then Kaphryn sighed and stepped back into the building. The door slid closed, smoothly transitioning back into place. I stared back at the door. “What’s going to happen to her?” I asked, as the creatures began to move us forward.

Peyton’s expression paled before it even spoke. It gave a harsh series of clicks, much like laughing, and then said, “Food.” The nausea became overwhelming. I looked out across the dimly lit cavern, seeing a massive city on the other end, and the lights from similar domed buildings as the one we had stayed in splayed across the ceiling. Far below, I could see the glowing line of the transport that Peyton and Kaphryn had mentioned.

We seemed to be heading toward it. “Where are you taking us?” I asked. I had hoped to sound a little demanding, and winced when my tone came out desperate and frightened.

“To Master.” We walked quietly with the group for a moment. I wondered briefly if maybe this was for the best. They were taking us directly to Shadawn. We wanted to go to Shadawn. Granted, with the suppression in place, this confrontation wasn’t going to happen how we wanted it to. But maybe we could figure something out once we were there. My mind raced, wondering what action I could take, or whether Asterollan or Peyton had a plan…

I thought about Kaphryn being cannibalized by the creatures and froze in my tracks.

We couldn’t leave her. She was in this mess because of my stupidity. I couldn’t leave her. One of the Underlings shoved me hard between my shoulder blades, causing me to stumble forward a few steps, but something in my mind had set – I wasn’t going to take another step. Not where they wanted me to go.

It happened quickly. I stumbled forward onto my knee, felt my resolve harden before I even hit the ground, and heard Peyton groan as she read my mind. Distracted by my hard tumble, the Underling that had shoved me reached down to grip my arm and roughly pull me up, and Peyton swiveled into a sudden round house kick, her movements as graceful as a dancer. I didn’t even know what she was kicking at until I heard the crystalline sound of the gem hitting the ground.

Without even trying to stand all the way, I pulled from the Underling’s grip on my arm and dove toward the sound, hoping to find the gem in the dim light. I heard Asterollan tackle the creature as it grasped at me, rolling onto it, and then heard him scream in pain as his key was used against him, but I didn’t look back. I continued grasping along the ground desperately, but then felt the halos flair in my vision and screamed in pain, convulsing bodily and curling up into a protective ball.

I could hear Peyton struggling, fighting desperately. It must have been her gem that she had knocked free. I felt rough, clawed hands grip me, lifting me bodily, and I screamed and kicked, windmilling my legs in desperation. I felt dread well up in me as more clawed hands gripped me, tearing at my skin. This was hopeless, I realized. I began to cry as I screamed, feeling angry and frustrated, and looked up in time to see Peyton’s face.

She was fighting, lashing out with swift strikes and weaving out of the grip of the Underlings that were trying to catch her, her expression set in a grimace reflecting my hopelessness. But suddenly, her expression contorted. Her eyes widened in shock, and a smile spread across her face. “Yes!” she shouted, pumping her hands into the air as she literally jumped for joy.

I stared in confusion.

And then the vines shot violently from the rocks, eviscerating the Underling that had started to reach for her, and realization dawned on me.

17. Cassandra

On By MaryIn 2023, WritingLeave a comment

Through the next days of travel, we avoided the cactus forests and we watched the skies for giant birds – they seemed more active at night. I realized why the first time I saw one in the light of a setting sun. We ducked low when we saw the shadow, watching as it swooped over the sands very near us. It was an owl – a massive one, about the size of a plane, with dun-colored feathers speckled in blacks and browns and whites. Large saucer-like eyes studied the dunes. I could see a glow pop up around Lyre as he narrowed his eyes at it, ready to defend us if it came near, but it lifted into the sky and trailed off into the distance toward a dark splotch on the horizon that we could now recognize as another cactus forest. We watched it go in silence and I wondered if it had a nest somewhere there – another reason to avoid such places.

We moved forward, not wanting to be in its range when night fell, and camped later in the evening in the remains of a set of massive sun-bleached ribs. Although most of the flesh was gone and the other bones were already buried in the sands, a pair of vultures (thankfully normal sized) lingered. They perched on the ribs and watched us settle for the night. Since the ribs offered some meager protection, Lyre risked a fire this evening to keep us warm.

When it was my turn at the watch, I moved over to the edge of the firelight, placing my hand on one of the sand-smoothed ribs. I wondered what kind of creature it had been. From my understanding, the monsters of the desert were only vaguely described in old books written by bold adventurers in days past. If it didn’t linger near the edges of the desert to attack settlements, it was as mysterious as a deep sea creature. I stared up at the looming rib – it was easily twice my height. I hoped that we wouldn’t run into a living, breathing relative, but at the same time found the idea compelling.

I started to move back toward the warmth of the fire when some shifting of shadows caught the periphery of my vision. I turned my head to stare out across the dunes, squinting to try to figure out what I had seen. Something near the ground shifted. I froze, trying to figure out if it was just my imagination when the firelight glinted on the reflective cat-like eyes of a predator. Gasping, I began to shout a warning, when two things cut me off.

First, the eyes of the spiny cat shifted up, and it let loose a vicious screaming cry that gave me instant goosebumps – it rose, spines bristling as it made itself appear larger. Just as I realized this was a defense posture, the second thing happened. I felt the sweeping breeze of air moved by massive wings, could feel rather than see the darkness of the shadow that blotted out the moonlight just before massive talons closed on me, one almost carelessly piercing my leg as I was grabbed. I gave a short shocked yell as I felt myself bodily lifted into the sky. I hadn’t heard the owl’s approach at all.

I could hear my friends waking from all the noise, could see the glow of magic springing up and outlining them in the dark, the figures growing smaller as I was lifted higher up. I also reached for my own magic to be more visible to them. I could hear Lyre shouting my name as Larina and Silden chased off the spiny cat, could see a massive blast of fire hurtled in the direction of the giant owl that had grabbed me, but it missed, and then we were quickly out of range.

My leg burned where it was still punctured, and I panicked with indecision – I could attack the owl, but how far from the ground was I? Would I survive the fall into the sands below? But then I started to think about becoming owl food, my hair and bones undigested in an owl pellet, and without even realizing I was casting. I could feel the air crackle with energy around me and heard the owl’s surprised squeal as it was electrocuted. It dropped me instantly, and I felt a moment of weightlessness until gravity pulled me down.

I had one hope. I closed my eyes and fervently pleaded, oh please oh pleaseohpleaseohplease!

You get yourself into the most interesting predicaments, the voice said, almost like it was whispering right into my ear, and chuckled. But since you asked so nicely…

I knew instantly what I could do, and fervently shouted, “Thank you!” out loud. And then I cast my new spell. I turned to face the ground, which even by the pale light of the moons I could see approaching quickly. And then – I slowed. I didn’t stop completely – I continued down, drifting light as a feather. I even felt a slight breeze shift my landing. I held on to my magic the entire way, twisting my head around everywhere to see if there was any danger nearby. I had the feeling if I cast another spell, it would interrupt the slowing and I would fall at a normal speed again, but I didn’t want to be helpless either. Luckily, there was no sign of the owl. It must have decided I was too much trouble to eat after all.

When I finally drifted to the ground, I collapsed under my own weight as the pain shot up my injured leg. I lay for a moment in the sand, staring up at the sky, and then forced my breathing to slow until I took three long, controlled breaths. As I let the last one out, I reveled in one amazing thought: I was alive.

And then I was hit with the next, slightly more alarming, thought: I was alone.

I sat up immediately and tenderly touched the wound on my leg. Even knowing it wouldn’t work, I tried to cast my healing spell on myself, but the gaping wound remained. It wasn’t so deep that I was concerned for my life, but there was still a lot of bleeding that needed to be stopped and it was painful. I took off the black tank top I still wore under the loose, billowy shirts that I had managed to find, and tied it around the wound as best as I could. Then I stood up. I gingerly tested the leg – I could just barely put a little of my weight on it, maybe enough to hop along briefly. It would be easier if I had some sort of improvised crutch, but I doubted I’d just find something like that laying out in the desert.

Besides, I wasn’t sure which way I needed to travel to find my companions. The entire ordeal of being carried off and then falling had messed up my sense of direction. It might be better to wait for them to come to me… if they had seen which way the owl was even flying. I hopped up to the top of the highest sand dune I could see, finding it difficult to move with the sand shifting underneath me. I sat down at the top to take a breather, looking around to see if I could make out the massive ribs we had camped within.

I rubbed at the muscles around the wound, feeling the pain radiating, and debated the risk of visibility. I could make myself easier to find, but that would make me easy to find for anyone – and anything – nearby. “I don’t suppose you’ve got some handy way to get me out of this?” I asked out loud.

I paused to see if the voice would answer, but heard nothing. In the distance, I could hear the yipping cry of some sort of nocturnal animal, and felt like it was laughing at me. Frowning, I decided to take the risk – I reached for my magic, summoning water in my hands to splash on my face and clean up a bit, and untied the tank top to wash the wound out a bit. Then I summoned water into the tank top and twisted it to wash it out, and dismissed the summoned water to keep from freezing. I retied the tank top.

Maybe someone had seen the glow of magic. Maybe they hadn’t. But the next display would be impossible to miss. I pulled the same electricity that I had used to shock the owl, focusing it around me, and blasted it up into the sky directly above me, arcing streaks of crackling blue-purple light traveling straight up nearly fifty feet into the air. Even as the spell faded, I held my magic ready so that I glowed. If something came to attack me, I would need to be able to defend myself.

But I hoped my friends had seen.

I wasn’t sure what length of time had passed, but I could swear I heard someone shouting my name. At first I wondered if I was dreaming – I was exhausted from the events of the night and kept catching myself drifting off every time my head tilted forward on its own. I could feel clotting blood shift on my skin where it had dripped down my leg and dried. I allowed my grasp on my magic to drop, and scratched at the dried blood on my leg, idly watching it flake off into the sand.

Larina dropped down by me first, immediately reaching out to inspect my wound. The pain of her touch caused me to whimper, and she paused for a moment, then carefully continued pulling the tank top off. Lyre had knelt beside me, placing a hand on my shoulder. Larina tsk’ed as she looked at the large claw puncture, summoned some water to wash the wound and clean out the tank top like I had earlier. I watched absently as she twisted the liquid out of it, saw how much red the water carried with it, and passed out.

When I woke, it was daylight and I was staring up at the arches of the massive ribs we had camped under previously. One of the vultures was still present, staring down at me, a quiet patient specter of death. I glared back at it, annoyed. My mouth felt dry.

I sat up and summoned water, grateful for the ability as I washed my hands and then gulped mouthful after mouthful down. The wound on my leg felt strangely tight. As I started to pull off the tank top, Lyre said, “We had to burn it to get it to close properly. It’ll leave a scar.”

It looked awful. I laughed to myself at Lyre’s words, because it reminded me how the doctors had been so apologetic for the scars I had left over after my car crash. I examined the skin around the wound, and was satisfied that it didn’t look like there was any remaining bleeding pooling underneath. I moved my foot and each of my toes. I was still in pain, and would need to be careful with the wound until it was fully healed, but for now there didn’t seem to be any complications. I looked up at Lyre and Larina, who were perched nearby looking worried, and could see Silden keeping a careful watch on the horizon. “I’m not worried about scars. Thank you for finding me,” I said, smiling at them reassuringly.

We rested there the remainder of the day. Lyre and Silden were reluctant to leave the next day, wanting me to rest as much as possible. Scavenging through the sand, Silden had found a bone fragment that was a close enough shape to a crutch. He cut it down to my height and I practiced with it some. It was awkward on the sand, but did help keep some of the weight off my wounded leg. Larina took stock of our supplies on the second night, and Lyre and Silden examined the map, trying to guess by the size of the desert how many days we had remaining before we reached the ravine. “Maybe about 3 more days, barring any other events,” Silden said.

“We’ve got about 5 more days of supplies, if we’re careful. We should be fine once we reach the ravine. There’s a river, so it should be easier to scavenge for food,” Larina said, repacking our supplies. I noticed that she had repacked things to give me the lightest load, and felt a bit guilty at being a burden. They refused to let me take a turn at watch as well.

The next morning, we set out early at Silden’s insistence. “This desert is unpredictable and we only have enough supplies for one more major setback. Let’s push through to safety,” he said. The second vulture had returned in the night – the two birds watched us as we departed, and I flipped them the bird, glad to be rid of their eerie presence.

As we walked, Silden, who had taken the last watch, quietly discussed something with Lyre. I watched Lyre tense up and glance around, but then went back to walking forward as though nothing were wrong. Then Silden dropped back to talk to Larina, who also stiffened as he spoke, but then simply nodded and kept trudging on. I wondered what he was telling them, but was apparently going to get my turn as Silden dropped back to walk beside me. He spoke so quietly that I could barely hear him. Still, the words nearly caused me to come to a complete halt. I had to force myself to keep hobbling along on my crutch. “We’re being followed. I believe it’s the Hunter from the ship.”

“When did you see him?” I asked after a long pause, wondering why the hell the man was still after us after all this time. How had he survived the desert without magic?

“Last night. He was spying on our camp, and I pretended not to notice him. I don’t want to force a confrontation yet, if it can be helped. Maybe we can get into the Empire without another fight.”

“He killed Junel,” I muttered angrily, surprised to find how eager I was to confront him.

Silden nodded. “And he could yet kill one of us. I’ve come too close to tasting freedom to risk it on revenge.” I grimaced as I considered that, not sure that I felt entirely the same. “Besides, if we lead him into the Empire, we may not have to face him alone.”

I didn’t respond at all, only stared at the path ahead of me grimly. After a moment, Silden slipped back to take the rear, trailing behind me. As the afternoon wore one, he called for the others to slow a bit. I realized he was making sure they kept their pace close to mine, and felt bad again that my injury was holding us back, especially if we were being stalked by a madman.

16. Cassandra

On By MaryIn 2023, WritingLeave a comment

Once I finally met up with the others, I was out of breath and sweaty from hauling the supplies in as much of a jog as I could manage. Larina could tell something was wrong before I even spoke, and quickly took the supplies from me and divided them up so that they would be easier to carry. I gasped out what had happened to me in the town between heaving breaths. Silden and Lyre glanced at each other, frowning. “If it’s caused a panic at the base here, maybe the patrols will be called back. We should move into the desert now,” Silden said.

“It has to be now anyway,” Larina said, sounding exasperated. “Do you think they’re not looking for her this very moment? We’ve just poked an ant’s nest!”

“Yes, we need to go,” Lyre said, pulling on the moccasins I had bought for them. I pulled my own on, a little tight over the foot coverings I already wore, but the extra cushioning was nice for once. I took the pack that Larina offered me. I was still out of breath, but we needed to keep moving. We looped away from town, as far as we could manage before pushing into the desert. Maybe it wasn’t far enough, but we were desperate to get to where no one would want to follow us.

The hard packed dirt and scrubby brush was just giving way to softer sand dunes when I heard a shout behind me and the soft whoosh of an arrow narrowly missing my head, burying into the dirt in front of me. I gasped as I turned to see more arrows loosed at us, could hear Larina cry out and shout and wave a hand through the air, a sudden gust rising and knocking them off target. Lyre and Silden both turned, inexpertly pulling the rapiers from their belts, a glow surrounding them as they began readying their own spells, and I raised both of my hands, preparing to summon the lightning that came most naturally to me.

The soldiers were almost on us – a small patrol group, five men dressed in the blue and grey tabards, riding on horses. Just as the glow sprung up around each of us, something burst from the sand of the nearest dune, rearing up as an ominous shadow before snapping down on the hind legs of the nearest horse, lifting it bodily into the air and sending its rider sprawling as the poor creature screamed in pain and terror.

“Dunslyth!” I heard one of the soldiers yell, as they turned their bows toward the giant snake-like creature that had pulled back again, hissing loudly.

It looked almost like a cobra with spikes along the edge of its frill, only larger – much larger. When it pulled back it loomed at least 15 feet above the ground, a menacing hissing shadow. It screamed as the soldiers’ arrows pierced its skin. It moved to strike, almost lightning quick, but something about its movement must have telegraphed where because the soldiers moved expertly out of the way despite its speed.

That was a Dunslyth? “You could make so many shoes from that thing!” I said out loud, my brain hardly able to process my shock at its size. Lyre and Silden glanced at each other, then both turned, Lyre grabbing my arm to pull me along as we all began to run into the desert. One of the soldiers cried out and a stray arrow whooshed harmlessly past us, but then they were too preoccupied with the giant snake to follow.

Even though it was fall, the sun overhead was brutal. Larina summoned water as a constant drizzling mist over each of our heads, keeping us damp and hydrated. I glanced up when she had started the spell, almost expecting a cartoonish cloud to be hovering over my head, but there was no cloud – just droplets of water forming out of the sky in a hovering spritz.  It occurred to me that we should have also invested in better covering – I’m dark enough to tan nicely before I burn, but by the end of the day my skin felt like it was radiating its own heat and was splotchy and red.

It was also the first time that we traveled through the entire day, so we were all very tired when we settled down for the night. It was still early evening and quite warm, but I suspected that it would be nearly freezing once the sun set. “Could you dry us off?” I asked Larina. She seemed a bit confused until I explained why, but then quickly set about expelling the water. I set about performing the healing spell for the others – even if I couldn’t benefit from it, there was no reason for them to suffer from sunburns.

Although I had remembered the basic fact about deserts, I had never actually been in a desert at night. Knowing a fact is one thing, and experiencing the reality of the freezing cold is something else completely. Lyre decided to chance summoning a fire for us to huddle near, and we bundled together under the blanket I had brought, very similarly to how we had slept after that first night of running.

I had trouble sleeping at first, wondering about the Hunter that had followed us to the border. It didn’t sound like the soldiers were devoted to chasing us down, and I hadn’t killed anyone in my escape, so I didn’t think they would help him further. But would he continue to follow us into the desert alone? I thought about his mismatched eyes and the scar, about leaving Junel behind to fight him. At some point I must’ve fallen asleep, because I felt Larina grip my shoulder and shake me awake very gently. “It’s your turn for watch,” she said.

Nodding, I shifted a little apart from the group to let her slide into place between me and Silden. The fire had been put out at some point. I didn’t move far, not wanting to lose the warmth of the blanket, and stared out at the landscape around us. I heard something that sounded like a normal pack of coyotes, something I had heard a million times at home, and it was almost comforting until one of their calls was cut short in a series of frightened, pained yips. The night filled with growls and thrashing sounds, and I tensed, trying to gauge how close it was.

I stood carefully and moved toward the top of a nearby dune, keeping low to avoid being seen, and strained my eyes against the darkness. The light from the moons was enough to illuminate some of the desert in soft light, and I could see the shadows of the remaining coyote pack running off to the south. Something large shifted on the ground, and I ducked low, listening to the sound of ripping, a wet visceral sound of tearing flesh. I watched the shadowy silhouette of giant wings raise into the air after a moment, could hear the feathers fluttering against the ground, and watched the figure rise into the air.

Whatever kind of bird it was, it was larger than a coyote. I watched it easily lifting the remains of its kill in one large, taloned claw. I pressed myself close to the sand, feeling my heart thump wildly in my chest, wondering if it was loud enough to be heard. But it either didn’t notice me or was already satisfied with its catch – once in the air, it silently drifted away.

I lay very still and realized I wasn’t breathing. I forced myself to take a breath, shivering in the freezing night as I strained my eyes at the sky, searching for any other shadows. As my panic lessened, I realized that out here, the stars were quite beautiful, vivid and clear and unfamiliar. I hadn’t wanted to wander the ship abovedeck at night, not feeling particularly safe with the crew. And during our travel to the desert, I had been so focused on reaching our destination that I hadn’t spent much time looking up.

But now, here, terrified that something might swoop down on me from above, I was really studying the sky. I hadn’t thought I’d be able to tell one night sky from the other – the only two constellations I knew back home were Orion’s Belt and the Big Dipper, and it always took me some minutes of searching to find them. Despite that, I somehow knew that this wasn’t the sky I had been raised under.

I had noticed the three moons before. Two were smaller, misshapen lumps, floating close together, with a small ring drifting around the two of them, like a loose infinity symbol in the sky. The third was larger, rounder, and almost like our moon, though the craters and plains of it were different, the coloration just a little more coppery gold than silvery blue. Beyond the moons, I could even make out the dusty, sprawling loop of the galaxy we were in, realized that some of the stars were the far side of that loop – and there, small but still particularly bright, was what I realized was the center of the galaxy, a bright star set in a strange darkness separated from the ring of stars that surrounded it. It was hard to see, because the stars on the opposite side of it still filled the night sky, but on this clear night in the desert, the shape of it was just barely visible.

I gaped in wonder at the alienness of it and was finally struck by how completely separated from home I was. I studied the sky some more, but when the cold became too much to bear, I slid back down the dune and settled under the blanket again. For the rest of my watch, I kept a watchful eye on the sky above for any ominous shadows.

I warned Silden about the giant bird when I woke him for his turn at watch, and we let the others know about the danger when they woke in the morning.

As Silden began casting the water spell to keep us cool and hydrated, I shaded my eyes to look up at the sky, already bright and promising another blistering day. “We should have bought some head coverings to keep the sun off of us,” I mused out loud, knowing it was too late to really do anything about it. My face still felt warm to the touch from the sunburn I was just beginning to feel. Lyre frowned for a moment, looking at my reddened skin, and then pulled off his billowy yellow shirt, pulling it over my head and using the sleeves to tie it in place. I laughed, and tried pulling it off, shaking my head in protest. “You’re paler than me, you’re going to burn faster,” I said.

He grabbed my hands to stop me from yanking the shirt off. “You’re the one that can heal these burns. The rest of us won’t have to worry about what the elements do to us thanks to you, but you can’t heal yourself, so you should take any extra precaution you can think of.” I stared into his very blue eyes for a moment, and couldn’t think of an argument. He smiled, pulling my hands down away from the tied shirt sleeves, and then let go.

I rubbed my hands together briefly, frowning, then readjusted the shirt to offer better face covering and gathered my own supplies.

There was no sign that anyone was following us amid the shifting sands and dunes. We kept a wary eye out for anything unusual, and could see large shapes out far on the horizon, but for most of the day nothing approached us. Our pace to the desert had been set by our need to escape, to reach a place that we wouldn’t be caught and enslaved. We were still wary of the dangers of the desert and kept a good pace, wanting to pass through as quickly as possible. Still, the stress and tension seemed to have released – my companions talked very openly now, laughing and telling jokes and stories, and talking about what we might find in the Empire. From my understanding, the human kingdoms had very little contact with them.

Late in the afternoon, we were approaching a stationary dark blot on the horizon. We debated looping around, but since it was similar to the other shapes we had seen in the distance before, we decided to investigate. “At least we’ll have a better idea of whether we should avoid these places or not,” Silden noted. As we got closer, we could see that it was a forest of cacti – larger than any I had seen before, clumped together and on top of each other, a strange misshapen mass of fleshy green bulbs and spines. Closer now, we also realized there was movement, and dropped low to the ground to avoid being spotted. A large beast of some kind walked amongst the succulents, looking almost like a brontosaurus, except the legs were planted too far apart and it had feathers or fur covering it. It had a flat head and extended brow ridge that looked dense and bony. It stretched its long neck up and bit off the top corner of one cacti, chewing despite the spines.

“What is it?” I asked. Larina glanced at Silden and Lyre for the answer, but Lyre only shook his head and Silden shrugged. I watched it eat some more of the cactus. “Maybe it’s not carnivorous? Could be a safe spot to take shelter on occasion.”

Larina pointed suddenly off into the distance. We all turned to see what had caught her attention – a strange shadow was rushing in toward the giant animal. It was also large, though not as large as the creature we were watching. It had the lithe form of a lion, with little to no fur – in fact, it appeared to be covered in spines. It pounced forward, letting loose a growling scream that instantly gave me goosebumps.

For a moment I felt sorry for the large fuzzy lizard, until it turned to meet the spiny cat head first, letting loose a rumbling roar. It swung its armored head around and slammed the cat into the sand, then began using its large hind legs to thump down repeatedly, rapidly, faster than I had expected for a creature of its size, apparently not bothered at all by the spines. The stomping and thrashing raised the sand around it in a cloud. When the sand settled down, we could see that the spiny cat was a dark misshapen lump, could just make out the creeping shadow of its blood soaked into the sand.

Then the lizard bent its neck low to the ground, lapping at the carcass with a long green tongue. We watched in silence for a moment. “Maybe we should loop around…” Larina said in a loud whisper, gesturing for us to stay low behind the dunes. When we were well past the cactus forest, she spoke in a more normal tone to say, “We should avoid those areas, if they attract more creatures like that.”

“Plants could mean water,” I said, automatically voicing a survival concern that had always been ingrained in me back home. She gestured to the drizzling mist above her head and I grinned sheepishly. “Point taken,” I conceded, and we decided to avoid the cactus forests.

No Place to Hide

On By MaryIn Prompts, Writing3 Comments

I’ve decided I’m going to try to update on Tuesdays with writing shorts, either using the writing prompt questions that WordPress has available or using the Storymatic cards to prompt a short story. I’m not entirely following the official Storymatic rules – because let’s face it, it’s fun to break the rules. I’m pulling only a couple of cards because I don’t intend to get carried away – all of these stories or posts will be no longer than the average flash fiction. As such, I am pulling one character card and one story card each and running with those.

Today’s prompt includes the following cards: a world record holder, and no place to hide.

              Alice loved the water. She had taken to it like a fish since infancy, had specifically sought out a high school with a good swim team, but eventually found her own niche passion within competitive apnea. She had spent years training herself in freediving, both in pools and in the ocean, with one idea lodged firmly in her head: to break the Guiness World Record for holding one’s breath. As a woman, she had to pass the female record of 18 minutes and 32.59 seconds, but she desperately wanted to prove herself even against the men’s record.

              When she finally made the attempt, she fell short of the men’s record, but did still manage 21 minutes and 22.1 seconds under the water. She remembered the euphoric feeling of knowing that she would now be the goal – that anyone and everyone within her field of competition and interest would know her name, would know that she was the one to surpass. This was a triumph.

              That had been a year and a half ago. She still trained, though not with the same single-minded determination that had driven her before she had achieved her dream. Mostly she trained in case someone managed to break her record, and she relished in the idea of the challenge, but none had managed it so far. Like any other day, she decided to swim in the ocean, and had taken her boat out far from the shore.

              As she prepared for her dive, she scanned the horizon. The sea was calm, and it was a beautiful day, the sort of conditions that always made her feel at peace and in touch with her world. But today seemed somehow different. A strange unsettling began somewhere in the pit of her stomach and raised goosebumps across her flesh. But she had already come out this far and was certain that being in the water would make everything seem right again. Ignoring the feeling, she carefully placed her goggles over her eyes and slipped under the waves.

              She swam down, intending to go as deep as she was able, but the feeling persisted. Something was wrong here. She turned in the water, looking through the depths – the way the distance disappeared in greenish blue usually calmed her, but today it looked somehow darker, murkier. Foreign? Perhaps this was a bad idea after all. She decided to float upward to return to her boat.

              Strangely, her slow descent never seemed to bring her closer to the surface. She frowned, staring at what she felt was up, but it was hard to make out where the water might meet the sky. She quelled her panic and continued, but several moments later, much longer than the time she had taken swimming down, she still hadn’t broken the surface of the water.

              Movement caught her eye. She turned to look, could see a dark shape lurking just beyond comprehension. More movement, from the other side. Four glowing dots seemed to grow out of the gloom, approaching until she realized they were the eyes of some strange massive fish. The ocean was full of mysterious and terrifying things, but she had never seen anything quite like it before. More alarming, it seemed to be stalking her, waiting just out of reach for something to happen.

              She kept her eyes on it as she continued upward. There was nowhere to reasonably hide, and she didn’t want to thrash or panic like a prey animal – instead, she forced herself to keep her movements steady. Besides, despite her world record, or maybe entirely because of it, she knew she did not have much more time before she couldn’t hold her breath anymore. She nearly boggled at the sight of the second creature as it rose from the depths, this one with a white skeletal looking face full of sharp exposed teeth, a dull blue glow emitting from the depths of the eye sockets. What were these things? Where were they coming from?

              They followed her on her slow and completely exposed journey up.

              Her lungs ached and white flashes of light painfully pulsed behind her eyes, almost obscuring the sight of the third creature from the depths – a long flowing inky shadow of tendrils and arms lined with glowing lights of a color that she couldn’t place or even begin to understand, a color she could only describe as oceanic death. It was larger than the other two, both of which pulled back at its approach.

              Panic welling and building to a crescendo, she struggled hard, pulling her arms against the water and kicking, feeling her body rise quickly, but despite that, the surface still never came. She realized she was reaching her limit – had maybe even surpassed her own record. She was out of breath, and out of strength, and out of consciousness. The world darkened as the inky black of the creature surrounded her, and the last cohesive thought that crossed her mind was that she could just barely make out the glistening of pearly teeth…