“Go to them, keep them safe,” I asked the dragon, who gave a growl of assent in the back of his reptilian throat.
“There is something else—I smell people. Farther out—” In the dragon’s mind I felt the picture of warm and the rising dawn, and together, somehow, I knew with certainty that it translated to the ‘southeast.’ “The storm obscures my sight, I cannot see who they are, but they travel light and fast…”
Bandits? Raiders? Another Daza tribe? The possibilities flashed through my mind. It could be anyone, really—and not all of the people of the Daza were friendly about having their traditional hunting territories invaded by western caravans.
But no matter. I shook my head. There were far more important matters to turn to. I looked up at Abioye. “Sound the alarm. A sandstorm is coming, and if we don’t get our people safe, they won’t survive the morning,” I said, knowing from experience how deadly the tempests of flying rock and choking dust could be.
Abioye nodded, and we both ran to the tent’s entrance.
Chapter 2
Screams over the Storm
“Pack that tent!” Abioye shouted as the camp struggled into wakefulness. The sun was just above the horizon, but already the sky to the north of us was murky with red and brown.
Sandstorms hit fast, I knew, as I belayed Abioye’s order. “No—my lord,” I added hurriedly to see Abioye spin on his booted heels to regard me in confusion.
“There’s no time to pack. You need to get everyone inside what cover we have—and the horses and mules too!” I said, pointing to where our beasts were tied on long lines to the edges of the wagons and already nervously champing. They had probably sensed the storm even before they could see it, and I saw the lead stallion—Abioye’s own horse—rear up and kick at the air in fright.
“Will the tents hold against that?” Abioye said as I broke from him to run towards the animals.
“They’ll have to!” I shouted back, picking up my feet. I didn’t have time to explain the fact that if we scattered or ran, then we would be dead. You needed to stay together and under cover when one of these monsters struck, as it was easy to get totally disoriented in a dust storm, and your best chance at surviving was to help dig each other out after it had passed.
More of the camp guards appeared from their tents or from their watch fires, hastily buckling on greaves and pot-helmets. Not that any amount of armor was going to make a pinch of difference. I scowled. Abioye was already shouting at them in a surprisingly stern voice to get everything into the tents as quickly as possible, and to move the wagons to the tents’ sides, to act as any kind of barrier.
“Oi!” There was a shout just before someone grabbed the back of my cloak, almost choking me as I skidded to a tumble.
It was Homsgud, panting as he loomed over me. “Where do you think you’re going? Think you can run away while we’re not looking—is that it?” His face was a snarl of heavy features, and they were all radiating hatred down at me.
I had been in this position before; the memories slammed into my mind of when I had been thrown to the floor and an entirely different man had been looming over me—Dagan Mar. No.
“Get up. Get in that tent, now!” Homsgud still held on to the edge of my cloak, so much so that its collar was making a constricting circle around my neck.
“I’m seeing to the horses!” I coughed, pulling at the collar to get some more air. “They’ll die out here!”
“Very likely,” the man scoffed, yanking harder on the cloak to make me fall towards his feet. “If you don’t do as I say right now, you’ll be getting a beating!” The guard reached to his side, where a stout cudgel was ready at his hip, and one that I had seen him use several times already this expedition on my fellow Daza slaves and workers.
“And if I do as you say, we’ll lose those horses and we’ll have to abandon the wagons!” I coughed and gasped.
Homsgud shrugged. “Then we’ll just get you lot to pull them, won’t we?” And I knew just who he meant by ‘you lot’. His derision and ignorant hatred for anyone who didn’t look and act like him was clear. I was about to try pleading a third time—not for the sake of the expedition, but for the sake of those beast’s lives—when the words died in my throat. I was looking at the ground, which was moving.
Oh no. Fear clutched at my belly. Thin rivulets of sand were racing across the ground and trodden-down grasses of our camp, followed by the slightly lighter pebbles and rock chips. This was how they started, I knew. A false eddy of seeming calm, before the gusts of outlying sand were blown ahead. The storm was here.
I grabbed the pin at my collar and pulled it, releasing me from the cloak as both Homsgud and I fell backwards. In that same moment, the full teeth of the storm hit. One second there was a rising, strong—but not substantial breeze—and the next there were raging rivers of air, stealing my hair from its braid and, if I had been on my feet, probably would have taken me off them.
The horses! I heard their screams and knew I had to get to them as I rolled over and felt the first sting of the sand hit my face. I had only ever been in one sandstorm before in my life, but I had heard many of the stories from the other Souda tribe members who had been in more. The winds weren’t constant, but would come in gusts and attack you from every angle, and they would be pregnant with sand that could blind, scratch, cut, or even choke you.
My cloak! I turned back to see that, of course, it had already gone—snatched away and taken up into the writhing brown and red clouds that were all around us now. No chance of using that as a face cover. There were also far too many figures still running about the camp, I saw in that same instant. Why wasn’t everyone inside by now?
There was a near thump—so loud I heard it over the gales—which had to be the horses pulling on the wagon, and I knew that there was only way to save them now. A team of horses could pull over the wagon in their panic, and probably break limbs or necks as they tripped over themselves and it. I pulled on the sleeve of my tunic and held that to my face as I scrabbled, keeping as low as I could in the direction I thought was where the wagons were—
The storm howled around me, and in moments my forehead and cheeks felt scrubbed raw by the fine daggers of sand. The sound of shouting and screaming—and at least one thumping crash—met my ears, coming from different directions as the gales made a mockery of my hearing.
But then a shadow loomed out of the brown murk. It was the slowly wobbling round of a wagon wheel, and the shadow of the wagon bed beyond it. I was here! I could hear the distressed horses screaming now and could feel the impact of their hooves on the ground.
Something moved in the dark air, and I saw a moment’s shadow before the stallion was there, pulling at his rope and stamping, his eyes rolling white—
“Ach!” I threw myself into a roll under the wagon bed as the stallion leapt and kicked out at me in his panic. I knew that the beast hadn’t been intending to hurt me—he was half-mad with terror, and probably any sudden movements would have surprised him.