D & D - Red Sands (12 page)

"What do you make of this?" said Tamakh, tossing the headdress back to Jadira.

"Bershak," she said. "There were several at Julli."

"I'm going to remove the arrow," said the priest.

"She'll kill you if you hurt her!" Nabul exclaimed.

Tamakh stroked the cat's dense black fur. "I think she trusts me," he said. "Bring me wine. I want it—"

"This is no time for drinking," chided Marix.

"—to dress her wound," Tamakh finished.

"I don't think we have any wine," said Jadira.

"Yes, we do. Ask Nabul."

Nabul tried to look innocent but failed. He went to his donkey and came back with a bulging kidskin bag. "How did you know, holy man? More magic?"

"I knew you wouldn't leave Julli without the comfort of spirits," Tamakh said. He quietly backed away from the panther to his friends to get the wine. Tearing a wide strip from the bottom of his clerical toga, he edged back toward the panther.

"Dear friend," he said calmly, "be at peace and it will soon be over." Uramettu laid her head on the sand and closed her eyes. Her loud panting quieted.

Tamakh examined the wound. "It missed the bone," he announced. "It should heal cleanly enough." He soaked the bandage in dark red wine and dabbed at the drying blood. Uramettu never flinched until he took hold of the arrow and, with one quick jerk, removed it. Then she raised her head and howled, a heart-chilling cry. Tamakh swiftly wrapped the injury and splashed more wine on the bandage.

Uramettu began to quiver. Her arms and legs elongated. The thick, powerful body flattened into a slim torso. A keening screech erupted from Uramettu's throat as the bones of her skull spread apart. The heavy black coat of fur metamorphosed into ebon skin. Tamakh drew a blanket around Uramettu's canted, feminine shoulders.

"My sister," she said weakly. Jadira came to her. "My sister, a band of men on horseback is trailing us."

"Bershak. The headdress tells all," said Jadira.

"I seized one to identify, but his comrade put an arrow in me. I bit off the shaft and ran, away from our camp."

you're very brave," said Marix.

"Why would these nomads be tracking us?" asked Tamakh. He fixed on Nabul. "Did you rob any of them?"

"How would I know?" said the thief, shrugging. "They all look alike to me."

"Bershak were present at the Well of Hearts. They must have heard Marix's story about our escape and the seal of Prince Lydon," Jadira said.

"So?" questioned Tamakh.

"So, the Bershak see an opportunity to make an easy

fortune. They capture us, sell us to the Faziris, and go off rich men."

"Base cowards," Marix said. "We will deal with them!" Out came his scimitar.

"Hold your blade," said Jadira. "The Bershak are many, and they are armed with bows."

"How many did you see?" Tamakh asked Uramettu.

The Fedushite licked her lips and said, "Two less than a score, short the one I felled."

"Too many to fight. How far off were they?"

"Less than a quarter-league."

Jadira said, "I see their plot. They seek to shadow us until we lead them to the hidden seal, then they will sweep over us like locusts. Now, unless they know Uramettu is a shape-shifter, they won't relate the attack of a wild panther to us."

"Which means?" said Nabul.

"Which means we're safe enough for a time."

"I don't like it," Marix said darkly. "Brigands dogging our heels."

Uramettu raised herself gingerly to her feet. "I say we steal up on them as they sleep and slay them."

"They'll have watchmen," Jadira reminded her. "The Bershak are masters of man-hunting, sharp-eyed and keen-eared."

"I say we take them," Marix insisted.

"It is they who will take us!" Nabul replied.

"Be still, will you? The brigands will hear your declarations in their own camp," said Tamakh. "Consider this: if we feign ignorance, the Bershak may not close with us till we reach the Kaipur plain."

His wise counsel won out, and it was agreed that they would go on as before. Marix and Jadira supported Uramettu back to the donkeys. They put her on the back of

the steadiest beast. It rolled its eyes and pawed the ground, but gradually settled down as Uramettu stroked its neck and spoke gentle words in its ear.

The dry wind, steady as breath, uncovered all sorts of strange rock formations. Three days and two nights out ofjulli, the companions camped at the base of a sculpted pile of red sandstone. The low, angular table formation swept up to a high, sharp point. Nabul and Tamakh pegged the donkeys to the rocks and joined the others on the lee side of the rock.

"That filthy wind cuts like a knife," said Marix.

"I could do with a fire," complained Nabul.

"I have a flint, but no kindling," said Jadira. Uramettu shivered beside her. She was feverish from her wound.

Tamakh rose without a word and went to the donkeys. He unstrapped a nearly empty pannier from the pack animal and dumped the remaining victuals into the next basket.

"This should burn nicely," he said. The dry wicker hamper would indeed blaze well.

Jadira felt in her sash for her flint. It wasn't there. She ran desperate fingers around her back, trying to find the precious firestone.

"My flint is lost!"

"Ob, filth!" exclaimed Marix.

"Worry not," said Tamakh. "Fire is the sacrament of my god." He set the pannier upside down against a flat section of rock wall. He held his hands, palms up, a hair's breadth from the wicker. Eyes clenched tightly shut, Tamakh moved his lips in silent concentration. After what seemed like a long time, wisps of smoke rose from the hamper. The priest slowly closed his trembling hands into fists. . . .

Crack!
A flash of heat struck their faces when the pannier burst into flames. Tamakh snatched his hands away and toppled over, breathing hard. When his friends hauled him to his feet, they noticed that his robe was soaked with sweat.

"An exhausting task," he said with a sigh.

The fire crackled in the lively air. Nabul whittled strips off a haunch of dried mutton and seared these in the flames. Fat sizzled out of the meat and made the fire blaze higher.

Marix wrinkled his nose. "What is that smell?" he said.

"It's the mutton," said the thief.

Jadira made a face. "No, I smell it, too.
Ai!
It's awful!"

"I don't smell—"

The rock behind the fire cracked, sending a shower of gritty fragments over them. Everyone scrambled away, dropping whatever they were holding.

"It's getting worse!" said Marix, pinching his nose. The odor was truly sickening—an overwhelming stench of carrion.

The rock wall collapsed, burying the fire and many of their possessions. By the glow of the last scattered embers, they saw that a hole had opened in the stone wall. And within the hole, a circlet of red jewels glowed. A loud rasping issued from the hole.

"By the unholy—! Find a weapon! Find one now!" said Marix.

A claw the size of a lute pushed out of the dark aperture. It opened and closed with a metallic click. A second claw appeared, translucent red like the first. With a flurry of many legs, an articulated body covered in glistening red armor scuttled into sight.

"Scorpion! A giant scorpion!" cried Jadira.

The monster sallied out, aroused by the fire built on its nest. Its deadly tail flexed upward, a stinger as long as a man's arm oozed black poison from the tip.

The tail lashed out at the nearest target, Marix. He slashed at it with his sword, but the armored hide of the monster was too tough. Jadira, though dazed with horror, leaped in and cut at the thing's right claw. The tail plunged at her. Marix shoved her aside, and the stinger met only air.

The last bits of flame winked out, and the battle went on in darkness. Uramettu jabbed from a kneeling position with her spear; Tamakh's cudgel thumped one of the monster's red stalk-eyes. Faced with such determined resistance, the scorpion sidled around and backed away.

"It's going for the donkeys! Stop it! Kill it!"

Marix duelled with the stinger every step back to the tethered donkeys. While engaged with the monster's tail, he failed to keep track of its claws. One clamped hard on his leg. Marix screamed and fell. The tail thrust down—

—and was knocked aside by Jadira's scimitar. Tamakh pounded on the hinge of the claw, but it refused to open. Uramettu, strongest of them all, hobbled forward and thrust the spear point into the thing's palps. A gust of rancid air gushed from the monster. The claw opened, and the scorpion swung around, the spear still buried in its face.

"Nabul! Don't let it get away!" Jadira cried.

"Get away? Get away?" the thief yelled back as the battered monster scuttled toward him. He gauged the distance and let fly his dagger. The point skipped off the armored thorax and the dagger fell harmlessly aside. That was enough for Nabul. He ran. "Get away!"

The others followed behind the scorpion, hounding it with screams and blows. The stinger seemed to have a mind of its own, and it twice swished past Marix, missing by the closest of margins.

The donkeys were in paroxysms of fear. Though blinkered, they were driven mad by the sound and smell of the scorpion. The pegs came loose under their frantic prancing, and all five ran off into the night, traces jingling. Most of the group's supplies were still lashed to the back of the pack donkey. Nabul went scrambling after them.

Its easy prey gone, the scorpion rotated quickly on its jointed legs to face its foes. A fast exchange of claw-snaps and sword-cuts followed.

"How do we kill it?" Marix gasped.

Jadira parried the notched claw and ducked an overhead sweep of the tail. "I don't know!" she said desperately. "It has no throat to cut, no head to strike off!"

Clack! The monster's right claw caught Jadira's blade. She twisted the hilt to free the sword, and the blade snapped in two halfway along its length. As she stared in shock at the sword stump, the stinger bore in like a battering ram. It struck Jadira full in the chest and smashed her to the ground.

"No! No!" Marix dropped his scimitar and threw his arms around the tail. He wrestled against it, trying to withdraw it from Jadira by force. In that moment, Uramettu stepped over the engaged claw and grasped the shaft of her embedded spear. She put all her weight and strength into it. The leaf-shaped head crushed through the monster's mouth. As it gave, Uramettu twisted the shaft right and left, tearing the scorpion's soft guts to pulp. When she finished, the spear was half-buried in the stinking carcass.

Suddenly all was quiet. The monster's tail slowly relaxed and uncoiled. Marix let go and it rolled aside. Uramettu stood on her good leg, coated from neck to knees with reeking brown blood.

Tamakh took Jadira's head in his lap. Her eyes were open, but she could not speak. Uramettu asked calmly, "Is she dead?"

Tamakh put a hand to her throat. "No, but she is paralyzed."

"There must be something we can do!" Marix said.

"If the wound is deep ..." Tamakh did not finish the statement. He didn't have to.

Uramettu knelt and began untying Jadira's sash. "Find the spot," she said. "Find it, and suck out the poison."

Jadira had worn a blanket roll across one shoulder. The stinger had gone through the thick layers of wool, but the blanket had probably saved her from instant death. By the time Uramettu uncovered Jadira's skin, she was still alive, so, obviously, the stinger had only pricked the nomad woman. Yet because of the poison within it, the wound could still prove fatal.

By the indistinct light of the stars, Uramettu found the wound, just above Jadira's navel. "A knife," she said. "Get a knife. Get a stone, a shard,
any thing
sharp. Now!"

Marix found his broken scimitar. Uramettu used the snapped edge to make two deep cuts over the site of the sting. Blood oozed slowly from the cuts. Uramettu bent over, but Tamakh stopped her.

"You are wounded yourself," he said. "The poison could kill you."

"I'll do it," said Marix. He quickly ducked in front of Uramettu and pressed his lips to the wound. He sucked, drawing in his cheeks.

"Pah!" He spat on the sand and sucked again. "Gah!" And again.

Jadira's eyes closed. Her breath caught, then settled into a shallow rhythm.

"Enough," said Uramettu, after Marix's fourth try. He coughed and turned away. Poison burned in his mouth. He crawled off a short way and was sick.

"If I were in a civilized country like Fedush, I would put a poltice of
gopi
paste on the wound," Uramettu said. "Here we will have to trust the gods to heal her."

The tinkle of brass announced the return of Nabul. He was leading three of the donkeys.

"I caught some of the scurvy beasts," he said. He halted when he saw the panorama of the dead scorpion, bloody Uramettu, and prostrate Jadira. "Hy the Thirty Gods! Is she all right?"