Black Crown FINAL Kobo Page 15

  “Do that again.”

  Smiling with him, I create three more tiny tornadoes and make them dance around us. I focus on earth and move the sand so that it writes our names. In an instant, the sand settles and they are gone. Cas pulls me into his arms, and I forget all about the tornadoes, and all about our journey tomorrow.

  *

  We embark on the last stage to Asher, and even Adil slows down to a stroll. Despite his uncomfortable shape, I’ve actually come to appreciate my camel. He’s a loyal old thing, does everything he’s told, and has cut down on the amount of noise he makes. Perhaps camels aren’t so bad after all.

  When Mushtan stops with a raised hand, something about it causes the hairs on my arms to stand on end. Mushtan only ever stops when it’s time to eat, and I know from the lack of gnawing hunger at my stomach that it isn’t time yet.

  And then I feel it.

  A deep tremble rippling through the sand.

  Cas moves his camel nearer to me. “What is that?”

  Sasha approaches from the right. “Do you feel that?”

  I nod. Adil becomes agitated, hawing loudly as the tremble develops into a rumble.

  “There’s something underneath us. Everyone, move, now!” I shout.

  As a group, we kick our camels forward. The rumble spreads under our feet from behind our pack. It seems to move straight through the middle of us, which splits our group in half, scattering both left and right. I’m divided from Sasha, but manage to stay close to Cas. Adil is spooked, and attempts to run away from the shaking floor, but his hooves sink in the loosened sand, his knees buckling beneath him. I’m forced to dismount so I can drop and roll before I’m shaken off. But as I fall to the ground, I’m almost trampled by Cas’s camel, who he’s unable to control.

  I roll away from its hooves just in time, scrambling to my feet. Cas drops from his runaway camel and comes to my side.

  “Are you hurt?” he asks.

  I shake my head—hardly listening—transfixed by the view in front of me. Cas follows my gaze. I’m vaguely aware of his back stiffening. His hand wraps around my arm as he yanks me back. There’s a great explosion of sand. The ground fractures and we stagger back, falling together away from the widening crevice. A runaway camel dashes past us, missing us by a hair’s breadth. My hand finds Cas and I pull him to me.

  Since I killed the Nix, I haven’t experienced terror—not true terror—the kind that makes your blood freeze and your stomach seemingly drop out from your body. In this moment, I know fear again. And as I freeze under the spell of that fear, I think in all certainty that I am about to die, because how in all of Aegunlund could I ever survive an attack from something so monstrous?

  It is as tall as the Red Palace, and as thick as a house. Its pincers are as long as a horse. I watch in utter horror as it picks up one of our men, slicing him clean in half.

  “Mallahu! Mallahu!” scream Mushtan’s men.

  “Mae, your powers!” Cas shouts.

  He pulls me to my feet, and lets go of my hand. In one, swift motion, he has his sword ready and is in a fighting stance. Seeing him composed helps to calm me.

  The disgusting worm lurches forward to attack another of our men, but I am quick to react. I launch a fireball at the worm, hitting it on the side of what must be its head, but appears to be more like rows of jagged teeth. There’s a loud screeching sound. The worm turns towards me.

  “Go!” I yell to Cas.

  We dash forward, running in a zig-zag over the loosened sand away from the worm. There’s a crash, and the ground moves, throwing us forward. I glance back to see that the worm has thrown itself towards us, almost squashing one of the camels.

  “Get up,” Cas commands, pulling me to my feet.

  Again we flee from the Mallahu, sprinting away with the rest of our group. The whipped up sand pelts against my face, seeping into my mouth and eyes. I try to ignore the stinging feeling against my skin as I focus on wind. It’s my strongest element, and I need it to heed me now.

  Turning back to our foe, I create my biggest tornado yet, pushing it towards the worm. The sand awakens into a swirling, stinging weapon that I send at the worm. There’s a deafening scream as the tornado hits the Mallahu, forcing it away from us. But the monster fights back, pushing against the whirling column of sand.

  But such a weapon turns into danger for us. The tornado is almost out of control, pulling Treowe towards it. I have to retrain the speed of my weapon, downsizing it into something less dangerous to us. The worm is unimpressed, knocking my tornado away with its huge body. When it lurches towards another of Mushtan’s men, I am forced to fling another fireball its way, all too aware of how my power can drain with overuse.

  “Use the sand,” Cas says, shouting over the howl of the wind. “Trap it under a landslide.”

  I switch my focus onto the sand around the worm. Its hideous head lunges at more of our group. I can just make out Sasha’s red hair as she dashes away from it. The worm’s scorpion tail lashes out, and knocks three Borgans to the ground.

  “Everyone get away from it!” I shout as loud as I can.

  The men stop trying to fight the worm and hurry away, but it is on the move and I have to act fast. With all my concentration, I work on moving the earth so that the worm is trapped by sand. Beads of sweat begin to form on my forehead, but it begins to work. The ground is shifting. If I can do this, I might be able to save us all.

  Chapter Eighteen – The Desert Town

  The first thing I need to do is trap the Mallahu’s tail. The disgusting scorpion tail thrashes around itself and knocks a stray camel to the ground.

  “Get back!” I shout, as I pull more from the sand around the worm.

  The ground shifts beneath us, sucking us towards our enemy. Cas pulls me back as a landslide almost sends me tumbling down the side of a sand dune. I right myself and gather my powers as the long neck of the sand worm writhes.

  The sand builds and builds, like a wall forming around the beast. It grows and grows as I imagine the tiny specks of each grain of sand building on top of the next, compacting down to create a barrier. I imagine the ground becoming a sink hole, sucking the creature back down into the ground. It lets out an awful cry of pain. A desperate howl. But I feel no remorse. Two of our men lay dead because of it.

  Further into the ground it sinks, and I move the wall of sand so that it traps over half of its body, including its vicious scorpion tail. I take a deep breath, feeling my powers weakening. But when I straighten up, there’s a blur of movement by my side.

  My head whips around to see Cas running down the steep sand dune with his sword unsheathed.

  “Cas!” I cry, following him into danger.

  It’s then that I realise the beast has caught Sasha in its jaws. It hasn’t managed to get a good hold of her, instead she dangles by her left foot, upside down and screams at the top of her lungs. I race down the side of the dune towards her, with a fireball forming in my hand. Treowe shoots an arrow at the beast, but it rears back, trying to toss her into its mouth. I throw the fireball, hitting it on the side of its head. Treowe’s arrow lands in its neck. Sasha somehow twists herself in the air, and manages to hit the creature on top of its head, but then she’s tumbling down. Treowe rushes forward and scoops her up.

  Then Cas is by the beast and my heart misses a beat. Without a single moment of hesitation, he climbs up its neck, gripping on with his legs as it squirms and wriggles underneath him. There’s a rumble as I sense the sand shifting again, loosening as it moves its trapped tail. I’m screaming Cas’s name, unable to do anything to the worm in case I hurt him too. Throwing a fireball is too risky. Moving the sand might end up with him sucked into the desert along with the creature. A tornado could rip him apart.

  I find myself stood utterly transfixed as he climbs higher and higher. He moves fast. Agile. I close my eyes, seeing the boy I met in Halts-Walden. The blood thuds in my ears, and my one hand squeezes in
to a fist. I’m stood in the middle of a desert, and I’m cold all over. I can’t lose him. I can’t.

  But Cas still keeps hold of the beast, and he is riding its head as though the thing is merely a horse. He draws his sword up high, gripping onto the writhing monster with his legs. In one, swift motion, he drives the sword down through the head of the creature, which lets out a high-pitched cry not unlike the Nix’s own scream as it died. The worm falls forward, landing on the sand with an almighty slapping sound. Cas dismounts as though hopping down from his camel, and I can finally breathe.

  *

  When we recommence our shaky journey to Asher, it is done so in hushed quiet, and it takes a while for my hand to stop trembling. We’re two down from our original party, we lost almost a quarter of our camels, and Sasha has suffered deep wounds on her ankle that she refuses to let me heal. Ellen helps to bandage her and the two of them share a camel. I’m glad Ellen and Sasha have made such good friends. Part of me wonders if there is something more, but I’m not sure if either of them have realised it yet, and I suspect it is something they will need to discover alone.

  I am happy to travel with Cas on Adil, who proved to be loyal enough not to run away from the sandworm. Being near Cas—able to touch him—when I felt so certain I would lose him… I will find it difficult to be apart from him ever again. Regretfully, we could not gather our dead. Musthan told me how the desert destroys human flesh with its heat in hours. We are forced to bury them, but we sang songs over their graves. I sang my song, the same we sang for Father, and I let myself weep for their sacrifice.

  As we ride our camels, Mushtan glances over to me from time to time. His expression is grave, but his eyes are curious. I know what he is thinking. He is wondering what else is true. How many other stories are real? Now he believes we will find the Ember Stone, and that worries me more than his doubts. Mushtan is a good man, but even good men long for power. I must stay alert. There are too many ways I could be betrayed.

  We lost half our remaining water supply when some of the camels ran from the beast. Even when only a day from Asher we feel the thirst at the back of our throats, as though the desert sands have scraped them raw. And with the thirst comes the sapping of our energy. I find myself leaning back against Cas, sinking into his chest. He rests his head on top of mine, and my eyelids fall.

  “Mae,” he whispers whenever I begin to drift. “Stay awake or you’ll fall right off Adil.”

  “Be quiet and let me sleep,” I grumble each time.

  Killing the beast weakened us all, but me in particular. I’m sucked dry of magic until I’ve rested.

  The sun beats down on my skin, hot and tingling like an itch I cannot scratch. It keeps me from truly resting. After days out in the Anadi Sands, I have grown weary of the climate, and I yearn for the rain in Halts-Walden and the grey clouds that shift overhead.

  “Mae,” Cas says again, poking me in the side. His voice is croaky. “We’re here. I can see the village. There are children, Mae. Look! There are houses. Not just tents, but proper houses and some plants, too.”

  I prise open my eyes, and lean forward on Adil. Cas is right. The small village of Asher sits between two large, steep sand dunes, in the shade of the tall, red mountains dividing the north and the south. There is more moisture here, and more vegetation. Some of the plants are tall and spiky; others are dry, and grow in clumps across the hardened desert floor. They get some shade from the dunes, and from the shadow of the mountains towards the north. As we climb down the dunes and onto the harder desert floor, I feel a cooler breeze hit my skin. It’s good. It’s a promising, energising feeling.

  Mushtan rides ahead with his hand raised to signal peace. The townsfolk have been in between desert tribe wars in the past. They have a right to be suspicious when strangers come to their town. I notice many women take the hand of their children and pull them indoors away from us. But more than that, my eyes are drawn greedily to the large well in the centre of the village. I hope they are friendly enough to feed and water us.

  Adil lowers himself onto his knees as we get into the heart of the village, and I slip down from his back. Cas follows. Mushtan removes a scroll from his robe, and holds it up towards the hard faces of the townsfolk. He talks in Jakani, but I can make out a few words after the time spent with him and his men. He tells them that we have the sultan’s men with us, and that the scroll tells them they must feed and water us.

  As the conversation goes on, I turn around and take in the sights. This is a small town, a little smaller than Halts-Walden, with houses that are little more than shacks like the one I grew up in. There are no obvious leaders that I can see; no one like Norton, the Peacekeeper in our village. The children are thin, and their clothes are dusty with the sand. They regard us with a wide-eyed gaze. The thought of taking food from these people leaves me feeling uneasy.

  A thick-framed woman with weather beaten skin approaches Mushtan. She talks fast, her arms moving even faster. Although I struggle to pick out the words, I can tell she has a confident way of speaking clearly, and she holds herself like a leader. She wears a simple white robe, and her hair is tied back in a braid. The lines on her face lead me to believe she is perhaps forty years old, or a little older. The other people collect around her, so I take her to be the leader of the village. During her conversation with Mushtan, I notice her eyes flick towards me and back again. And then, when Mushtan says the word Hada-Ya, there’s a collective gasp from the townsfolk. The woman views me with curious, narrowed eyes.

  “I think they know who I am,” I say.

  Cas wraps a protective arm around me. I hadn’t thought I would be in danger from these people, but perhaps he is right to be cautious.

  The leader turns back to Mushtan and speaks. I notice the venom in her voice when she mentions the sultan, and wonder whether their people are treated well. Studying the town, it isn’t hard to imagine that they have been forgotten about.

  “You,” she says, pointing at me. “What do you want from us, Hada-Ya? Why have you come to us, who have nothing?”

  I step forward, forcing Cas to let go of me. “I’m here because we need you. The Haedalands need you. There is a murderer on the throne in Cyne, and he is using your sultan to finance his quest for everlasting power. The man is about to start a war with you so he can scour your mines for a long lost stone. But I am the craft-born and I am going to stop this from happening. I am going to find that stone and destroy it before he can get it, and then we will fight him for the throne.

  “Prince Casimir is the rightful King of Aegunlund and he will work with your sultan to rule this country fairly. If you help us, your sons and daughters will not be conscripted into a war for a despot king. They will be saved.

  “Right now, my group require sustenance. We lost two members and much of our water supply after an attack by the Mallahu.” There are some mutterings throughout the village at the mention of the mythical creature. Only the leader nods.

  “I knew it. I knew they lived. Then, Hada-Ya, your mission is important. For dark magic to attack—”

  “Dark magic?” I ask.

  “For all of your power there must be an opposite,” she says. “There will be dark magic as long as your power exists.”

  I glance at Sasha, who is propped up between Ellen and Treowe. “She’s right,” Sasha says. “That’s why there are so many vile creatures in the Waerg Woods. It’s tinged with dark magic.”

  “And the Sihrans, are they dark magic, too?”

  That is when the leader’s face seems to pale. “The Sihrans? Child, your mission is harder than ever you know. There is much we need to tell you. Come, let us get you water.”

  Chapter Nineteen – The Reflected Girl

  “My name is Esther. I am the village healer, leader, and general decision maker. If anyone has a problem, they come to me. Do you understand, girl?”

  “Very much so,” I say, holding my gaze steady with Esther’s dark eyes. We
sit across from each other in the one communal building—some sort of holy house. I can tell by the dais and the carved symbol resting on top of it. There is a long plinth with a circle split in half. Leaves have been delicately carved around it, looping on top of each other. Esther has cleared some space so that our group can sit on cushions and animal skins. She has arranged for dates and water to be passed around. I have to stop myself from gulping down my first drink, instead taking it steadily.

  “Then you must listen to me. Now, we appear to be isolated here, yes? There is little around us, only the sands that stretch up to the mountains. But that is not the case. We’re surrounded by the desert tribes, with whom we’ve developed a somewhat difficult relationship. There has been bloodshed, but when the rest of the world is at war, we know we need to stick together. And we have one common enemy—the sultan.

  “He takes our boys and throws them in his mines. Men like Mushtan profit from the work our boys do, and very little is sent back to the families.” She fixes Mushtan with her harsh glare.

  “That isn’t true, Esther. The boys choose to join up. They aren’t forced. There are no slaves in Jakani.”

  “What choice do they have?” she spits.

  Mushtan’s mouth tightens into a thin line.

  Esther turns her attention back to me. “My point is, those tribes move around. They move because the Anadi Sands are as unpredictable as the sea. They even spend some time north of the mountains, and that is where they hear things. I know what they have heard. They have heard that the northern king has sent his soldiers south. They march to Jakani.”

  I turn to Cas whose face has turned white as milk at the mention of his father.

  “We knew this day would come,” Cas says. “But I thought the General would keep him north for longer.”