Chapter 53 - The Desert Drink

  Rworg waves at us. He squints and smiles, the wind whipping his ponytail around. “Feels like home! Come, we’re near the edge!”

  I run with Finna next to me. There are no more Kertharians around us. Their war cry faint, hardly audible over the howling of the wind.

  “How do you know?” Finna asks Rworg. “I can’t even keep my eyes open.”

  “More importantly, we need to get as far away as possible once we’re out!” I shout over the wind. I don’t know if Rworg even heard Finna’s question. My clothes flap and the wind rattles my quiver. I better not lose any of the few arrows I still have. “The moment we’re out, we sprint! As hard and fast as we can.”

  Finna grunts something. Rworg moves to block the wind and sand, making it easier for us. It helps a bit, even if the wind seems to change direction every three steps and comes at us from a different angle.

  Slowly, slowly, the air becomes clearer, the gusts less violent. Dunes shimmer and air ripples from the heat, rising up from the desert. The sky is azure blue, with just wisps of clouds here and there.

  Finna points toward the desert. “Sprint into there?” She sounds like she’d rather turn back into the sand.

  “Yes,” Rworg says before I have a chance to think it over. “Short steps. Land with your whole foot.”

  I run ahead, passing Rworg and showing Finna I’m serious. The wind swallows most of the clamor of the Kertharians, but I can still hear their shouting and yelling. If Rworg thinks heading to the desert is not a bad idea, that’s enough for me. If the sandstorm abates or if the Kertharians find their way out of it before we’re out of sight, we’re not going to survive it. The group Mandollel pulled away has to be well on their way back and they can’t have missed what is going on here.

  I glance back to take in the sight, a swirling pillar of sand stretching up, tapering toward the sky. The auroras sparkle inside, green and purple and red shimmering in flashes through the brown. Further from the pillar, the air glitters, tiny specks of sand slowly floating down, sprinkled and shot up into the sky. Sun reflects off the specks. We’re running through fairy dust from the stories Gran tells to little kids. When I get home, I’ll tell her how it feels to breathe it in, the air itself gritty and tasting like clay and metal.

  Rworg overtakes me, hopping ahead with small dainty steps, feet landing flat on the sand on every step. It looks funny, but he moves easily and with good speed. Finna stumbles and curses, feet sinking into the sand. “It feels wrong to stomp,” she says, as she corrects her balance.

  Running on sand is not too different from running in the forest. It’s all a matter of adjusting to the terrain. There are no roots to jump over or paths to follow, but the same principle still applies. I press myself to catch up to Rworg to talk. “Won’t they just follow the tracks?” Our footprints couldn’t be clearer on the soft sand, heading out in a straight line from the storm.

  “There is an empty river bed. We follow it,” Rworg says, not breaking his stride. He is carrying two backpacks and his huge sword and sweating hard, but doesn’t show signs of going to slow down.

  “I remember it from the map,” Finna says. She has got the hang of running on sand it seems, feet bouncing lightly, like her legs are springs pushing her forward. “Why does it help, though?”

  “Less sand.”

  Less sand would be nice after everything we went through. “Does it run in the right direction, though?” I ask.

  Rworg keeps running. “No idea.”

  A sloping dune covers us behind it, cutting off a sightline to the dust storm. We slide down it, not worried about the sand we’re kicking up. Speed and some cover are all we need for now. The dune helps at least in that I can stop glancing behind every ten steps to see if the Kertharians are already running after us. In a moment, I start glancing back to see if I can spot them on top of the dune. I try to focus on running, as it’s surprisingly difficult after all. The sand is piled in grooves and slopes and there are stones that jut out of it. Occasionally, a petrified tree trunk sticks out from the sand. A remnant of Kerthar’s past before the land was blasted dry like this, maybe?

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  Lictor didn’t say anything about there being this much sand on the mission. I never want to see the stuff in my life ever again after this.

  The heat boils us, vaporizing the sweat and the tears that run from my eyes from all the squinting against the blazing sun and shining sand. Trails of salt make my face creak and prickle. The breeze has died down, the air becoming still and suffocating. Behind us, the auroras flow sluggishly, inching toward the stars. We’re painting the sky over Kerthar in colors. There’s a new hue to the blue around the places where the auroras have blazed, tendrils reaching over the sky to touch each other.

  I’m dizzy and stumbling by the time we reach the river. It cuts through the desert, a dark gash across the white. Rworg slides down a steep slope and lands on the smooth stone, brushed clean by the wind. Fine silt sticks to the crags, clumped and white against the stone.

  I follow him in. My feet thump on the stone and my legs wobble as they find their balance on something that doesn’t shift or slide under them. Even if I’m exhausted, I still take a couple of steps just to enjoy the feeling of walking on something solid after what feels like hours. All of us are panting, red and dry after sweating our way through the desert.

  Rworg drops the sword from his hand. He stumbles as he grapples with the backpacks to drop them as well. I didn’t even consider he ran the whole way carrying both Finna’s and Mandollel’s bags and his own sword, moving it from one hand to the other and cradling it in his arms like a massive baby. I force my legs to move, my eyes to clear and go grab on to Rworg as he leans to the side toward me. I wrap my arms around his torso and nudge my head under his arm, pressing the top of my head into his armpit to use my whole body as a crutch. If he manages to start to fall, it would be like trying to hold up a falling tree.

  Finna runs at us and grabs Rworg’s other arm. “Thank you,” she says, quietly. “You stupid ass,” she adds, more loudly.

  She ran with no gear weighing her down and has more strength left than either of us. Rworg leans on her and chuckles. “We did good,” he says. “Any water left?”

  I drop his arm and duck out from under it. My waterskin is about half full. Enough for a drink for all of us, but not much more than that. I pass it to Rworg without a word. He can drink as much as he needs, for all I care.

  The fighting and the running and the panic is catching up to me. My hands shake and it feels like someone is pushing an iron spike through both of my lungs. Yet, we still would need to keep going. The dark stone is hot even through the soles of my boots. The path forward is covered behind a heat haze so strong it makes looking up the river bed feel like vertigo. I’m already dizzy from the heat, and the effect makes my head spin.

  Finna carefully lets go of Rworg, making sure he stays upright. “We can’t, I just can’t. It’s too damn hot.” She digs the hood from under her collar and lifts it over her head, squatting to rest on her haunches. She dangles her arms down, but yanks them up, as her fingers brush the burning hot stone.

  Rworg is sipping from the waterskin. I can almost feel him holding back from quaffing it all down. He offers the skin back to me, and I take a small sip as well. It feels entirely too little. Muscles in my legs and arms are tense clumps and my stomach starts to rumble. After all the excitement, hunger is kicking in.

  Finna is right. We really can’t. We’re too exhausted, bodies driven almost beyond their breaking point. Continuing along the blazing hot rived bed is going to be torture.

  Rworg picks up his sword with a grunt and waves me over. He holds it over his back, waiting for me to strap it on. “At least lifting my arm doesn’t hurt anymore,” he says, rubbing the place where one of the darts went through his upper chest.

  I tighten the straps and close the fasteners, mind racing. Could it work? Could exhaustion be healed?

  Rworg wiggles his shoulders, testing the sword. He wipes his forehead and brushes off some loose strands of hair that have escaped his ponytail and stuck to his face. “What are you thinking? You have a look.”

  I tap my lower lip with my fingers, still considering. If anyone gets injured, we would need the healing then. On the other hand, we just fought fifty Kertharians, and no one has even a scratch and if we don’t survive the trip out of the desert, any unused… monster juice won’t do us any good. It shouldn’t matter, but the whole idea disgusts me so much that I wouldn’t want to suggest it.

  I make my decision and take a large breath in. “I have one waterskin of the healing stuff left. I think we could drink it. It might work better than water.”

  “Absolutely not,” Finna says. “Why are all your ideas so damn disgusting?”

  “What?” Rworg asks and points at his stomach. “It worked well.”

  I pull the waterskin out from my bag and unscrew the cork. I lift it near my face for a smell, but decide against it, after all. Instead, I lean my ear close and listen. If anything chitters, I’m throwing the waterskin as far into the desert as I can.

  Finna lifts both hands to cover her eyes and rubs them around, groaning all the while.

  I take a deep breath, hold it, and take a drink.