Eyes wide, Xander nodded. “Yes,” he stammered.
“Them be my friends,” Kragor told him. “Them went in to see if they could help any survivors. Let them go!”
“Let go of me!” Xander snapped, trying to pull Kragor’s hands off of his arms ineffectually. “More likely they sought to pillage the remains!”
“I’m not telling you again,” Kragor hissed, hands pinching mercilessly into the wizard’s soft arms.
Xander grimaced in pain and debated whether or not he should listen to the dwarf. If nothing else, it would make him leave him alone. Besides, if they were the dwarf’s friends and not some of the slavers, they may not deserve the grisly fate he had in store for them. Of course, if they were slavers what difference did it make?
“You sure this is gonna work?” Rosh asked as he made ready to toss the inverted table where Dexter had explained that he wanted it.
“The tables have a marble top on them,” Dexter grunted, straining under the heavy weight as he held up his end of the six foot long table. “Those things can’t come through the marble we be on, I’m thinking they can’t come through this.”
Rosh shrugged, not willing to admit that Dexter’s logic was sound. He counted to three and together they launched the table away from the dais and onto the sand. It hit unevenly but settled down almost immediately, sending a small cloud of dust into the air. The creatures in the sand roiled and writhed beneath the surface, moving towards it and lashing out at it, but being turned away every time. After a few moments they stopped, and instead moved around it as though they knew that Rosh and Dexter would soon be upon it.
“I’ll be damned,” Rosh muttered.
“Already are, I ‘spect,” Dexter replied, moving over to the other table and getting ready to lift it.
Rosh grinned and moved to the opposite end. They flipped it over and lifted it up, then Rosh stepped off the dais and onto the first table which was laying upside down on the sand. The sand burst forth as the creatures within it showed their agitation. They lashed out at it again, some even rising out of the sand far enough to bite into the table legs and tear them away. Rosh bent his knees to keep his balance and moved backwards slowly, letting Dexter catch up.
Dexter’s grip was slipping on the table and he wondered again at the strength of Rosh. He considered himself a strong man, but Rosh seemed to lift it up as though it was effortless. He focused on the man at the other end of the table, ignoring the snapping creatures that they could now see glimpses of.
The sand sharks resembled a cross between a snake and a fish, although they also possessed small legs and feet. Their mouths were what was most threatening, since they were filled with vicious looking teeth. Teeth that, they had discovered, could cut through metal. Those same teeth also tore apart the stout wooden legs of the table with ease.
Rosh reached the end of the first table and signaled Dexter to let go. Hunkering down, he tilted Dexter’s end up in the air slowly, then twisted and shuffled his feet to turn in place. Straining to hold the weight of the entire table by himself, braced against his hips while his arms held onto the sides, he thrust his hips forward and tried to aid in tossing the table with his hands at the same time.
It crashed onto the sand, digging in and sliding only a little. Nearly three feet of distance separated the two tables, an easy jump were it not for the freshly aggravated sand sharks that now moved between the tables and lashed out at the new platform they had established to walk on.
“That’s quite a jump,” Dexter observed, noting the distance between the tables.
Rosh grunted, breathing hard from his effort. “Ain’t that far,” he finally said.
“Aye, it’s not,” Dexter agreed. “But when these things are trying to chew a piece out of your hide, to the moon and back without a ship!”
Rosh shrugged, unable to deny his Captain’s observation. He looked down at the distance and backed up so that he stood directly in front of Dexter. “You want to go first this time?”
“Not really,” Dexter said.
“You’re the Captain, ain’t you supposed to lead?”
Dexter frowned but had to acknowledge the large man’s logic, such as it was. “Fine, but don’t think I’m not telling the others about this!”
Rosh grinned. “Fine by me, Cap.”
Dexter slipped in front of Rosh and the large man edged back towards the dais to give him room to run. Dexter sprang forward, taking two strides and leaping into the air. He pulled his feet as high as he could as soon as they left the ground, and only barely managed to avoid stumbling and falling when he landed on the far table.
Two of the sand sharks had leapt into the air, their jaws clamping shut on air behind the man’s passage. Rosh was moving before they sank back into the sand, sinking into it as though it was water. He leapt between the two, also pulling his feet up, and landed only slightly more gracefully than Dexter had. He also bumped into the man, which caused him to teeter precariously for a moment before he reclaimed his balance.
“You could have waited,” Dexter admonished him.
“Didn’t want them to be ready for me,” Rosh said, watching the roiling sand suspiciously.
“You nearly pushed me off!”
“I’d grab ya,” Rosh offered, smiling.
Dexter opened his mouth to scold him but stopped when something in the room changed. They had not noticed any background noise, but the sudden absence of it struck them both as very odd. They looked at one another and then around them, staring at the sand first. The dust that had risen from the frenzied thrashing of the sand settled and revealed a landscape unmarred by vibration or movement.
“They stopped,” Rosh muttered.
Dexter stared at him for a long minute, his expression one of disbelief.
“What?” Rosh asked, seeing Dexter looking at him.
Dexter just shook his head. He was amazed at the man’s ability to state the obvious and just let it go at that. Instead Dexter knelt down and leaned closer to the sand. “Could be a trap,” he suggested.
Rosh raised an eyebrow, he had not thought of that.
“Why would they just leave us be?” Dexter wondered aloud, letting his hand slowly drift over the open sand beyond the table.
Rosh watched, grimacing silently as he expected one of the creatures to burst upwards and swallow Dexter’s hand. The creature never came, and instead Dexter waved his hand over the sand in a slow gentle arc unmolested.
“Let’s get that other table moved over here,” Dexter said excitedly, rising up from where he had knelt.
Rosh turned to look at it and frowned. “Ain’t gonna be easy, they chewed all the legs off. Nothing to grab on to now.”
Dexter looked at it and frowned as well. “Could pick it up by the edge of the table,” he offered.
“You first,” Rosh said, knowing full well how fast the creatures had been and what he was sure they could do to fingers.
“I could order you,” Dexter said. “I’m still your Captain.”
Rosh chuckled. “Aye, and I could toss you into the sand. I’m still bigger than you.”
Dexter scowled but had to admit that the man was right. “Didn’t say I was going to,” he offered by way of a peace offering.
Rosh grinned and clapped Dexter on the shoulder. “Me neither, Cap.”
“So how we going to get over there? I judge it a fair five feet to the stairs still,” Rosh asked him.
“We run, I guess,” Dexter offered.
“You guess?” Rosh echoed. “I thought you was the Captain? I thought you had these things figured out?”
It was Dexter’s turn to grin. “I figured it out… we run. Now back up you big lug, I want a head start.”
Rosh backed up so that Dexter could have a couple of steps on the table before he leapt into the sand. Rosh glanced behind him, suspicious still of the quiet landscape. When he looked back Dexter started his run.
The Voidhawk’s Captain cleared three feet in the air, and managed to spring the last couple of feet off of the single foot he planted in the sand. Other than the impression his foot left in the sand, there was no sign of his passage nor of the sand sharks.