Star of Cursrah

3

The Year of the Gauntlet

"Tack! Tack or we'll stick on a sandbar!"

"What does 'tack' mean?"

"Shhh… they'll hear us."

"We're gonna capsize!"

The three friends fumbled to steer the gig by meager moonlight. Reiver admitted he'd sloughed his sailing lessons, so their stolen boat zigged and zagged up the River Memnon. Mostly the incoming tide propelled them, for Reiver hadn't realized that inland the wind dies at dusk. Hakiim leaned over the prow to spot the channel and saw only black water. Trying to capture the fading breeze, Amber grabbed the sheet away from Reiver and tied it to a cleat on the port side. Unexpectedly, the sail snapped taut, and the boom swung to the other side. The boat tilted left and almost pitched over. Hakiim yelped and grabbed hold with his toes, slung partway overboard, and Reiver cursed when the boom nearly brained him.

All Amber could say was, "Sorry, but hush!"

As the gig inched upstream, Amber squinted north. Atop a high ridge overlooking the river sat the squat block of Fort Tufenk, "The Fortress of Fire," once the sole barrier that restrained the ravaging armies of Tethyr. Deep trenches for defense still scarred the moonlit slopes beneath the stone walls. Though Tethyr and Calimshan shared an uneasy peace, relations had been prickly ever since the Eye Tyrant Wars, and both sides still laid claims to the ruins of Shoonach and the old Kingdom of Mir. In this fort alone, two hundred troops trained daily for war. They were the Pasha's Farisan, or standing army, and the elite Mameluks, descendants of slaves who'd won their freedom. Ears ringing, Amber peered and listened, but no torch flared, nor did a whistle or horn raise an alarm as their stolen navy gig crabbed past the keep. Steering under a luffing sail, she saw the fortress finally fall behind.

Amber slipped a loop over the tiller and flexed her cramped arms. "Whew, we're past it."

"We've got plenty of water," said Hakiim. "The monks say the mountains suffered the deepest snows ever seen, so the rivers will flood all through Ches."

"Oh? I heard spring thaws are late, and we'll have drought in Tarsakh," said Reiver. "Who's got something to eat?"

"So much for predicting the weather," sighed Amber. "Hey, don't gobble. We need rations for six days."

Wedged backward in the prow, Hakiim nudged a jute bag with his toe. "I've got figs and prunes, and flat bread and dates, and some dried peas and goat cheese," he said, "and a cake of pounded almonds, and mint leaves for tea if we can build a fire. I would have grabbed more from the kitchen but my Uncle Harun was grousing again."

"Grousing about what?" Having no family, Reiver often asked about his friends'. He munched bread slathered with hummas.

"Oh, the usual. 'When will you get serious about the rug trade?' Never, is my answer, but I don't dare say it."

Amber heard a lamb bleat. Along the dark, sloping riverbank, white jots of sheep and goats grazed by night amidst thorn bushes and evergreen oak. Just over a brow winked a shepherd's campfire. Far to the east was the jagged line of the Marching Mountains.

Nibbling a pigeon pie wrapped in paper, Amber asked, "Why don't your sisters take over the business, Hak? Then you could do what you want."

"Oh," Hakiim yr Hassan al Bajidh sighed as he rummaged in his haversack, "Asfora's going to sea, and Shunnari's getting married. Since my brother got killed in the fire, I'm the only one left to carry on the family name, but I'd rather-I don't know-go adventuring…"

"I live with adventure every day, trying not to get killed or jailed," drawled Reiver. "It's hardly a lark."

"Still," lamented Hakiim, "repairing rugs and rolling rugs and hauling rugs and haggling over rugs-better Ibrandul spirit me to the Underdark."

"Shhh, you'll jinx us," Amber said, putting her fingers to her ears to keep out evil notions. "Especially out here. You want skulks to drag us off while we sleep?"

"Skulks only inhabit ruins." Reiver winkled a cork from a bottle of Zazesspuran wine. "Of course, the Under-dark underlies everywhere. In Calimport the Night Parade thrives on it."

"Cease your ghost stories," Amber said.

She cast about, but saw little except the high ridges that channeled the river to the Shining Sea. Amber lay back and tried to relax, but watching a million stars dance circles around the masthead made her dizzy and queasy. Soldiers called the River Agis-also called the River Memnon-the Troubled River because of the continual border clashes, and Amber couldn't shake the feeling that they were sailing into trouble. She wished the moon would rise so she could offer prayers to Selune.

Trying to distract herself, Amber joined the conversation. "I know how Hakiim feels," she said. "All I ever hear about is money and the family business-as if slavers were brass casters or felt makers. It's funny, though. I grew up watching slaves come and go, lived with it all my life, but it's only lately it seems wrong."

"The gods made them slaves," Reiver said, repeating the conventional wisdom of Memnon. "Slavers just shunt them from master to master."

"No, Amber's right," Hakiim added. "Now that we're pondering our own futures and freedom, we're more aware of other peoples' lives-and plights." He peeled a desert orange, chucked the thick rinds in the river, and continued, "No one's really free. Everyone has a master, or customers to please. The only one who's truly free in Calimshan is Sultan Sujil, though I suppose in some ways he answers to ten thousand citizens."

"Still, slaving makes my family no better than the likes of the Twisted Rune, or the beholders, or illithids. Sorry, Reive." The thief made the fig sign, thumb between middle fingers, to ward off evil names. Amber trailed her fingertips in the river, keeping watch for crocodiles. "I'm not sure my family's got a future in slavery anyway. Since the Reclamation, my cousins can't capture slaves from Tethyr, so now they hunt in Athkatla, which is risky. If I could, I'd let the slaves go free and find another occupation, preferably anything not obsessed with coin. I'd be happy."

"You scorn money because you've never lacked for it," returned Reiver. "I pray to Waukeen and Lliira for any at all. A bag of gold would solve all my problems. Between the Night Arrow and the Syl-Pasha's brother fighting to control the Undercity, and El Amlakkar busting heads, there's no future for a thief except as gallows bait."

"So," Hakiim challenged, "if you could do anything, what would you choose?"

Amber chewed her cheek a while, considering. "To start, I'd read all the Founding Stories in the library."

"That's a lot of stories," said Reiver.

"Reading's a hobby," Hakiim added. "You can't make a living at it."

"I know," Amber said, then slapped at a mosquito with wet fingers, "but I love the old stories the storytellers recite in the bazaar and the grove behind the library. Tales culled from dragons, can you imagine?"

" 'Never trust the story, but always trust the storyteller,' " quipped Reiver. "I can make up dragon tales- ulkl"

Reiver flipped backward against the mast, Amber jounced off her tiny perch in the stern to sprawl in the bilge, and Hakiim lost his kaffiyeh in the water. Struggling upright, Amber asked, "What happened?"

"We ran aground on a sand bar," Reiver said, peering over the gunwale and trying to rock the boat. "I'd say we're stuck till the tide turns."

"When's that?" Amber swiped water from the seat of her breeches.

"Uh, twelve hours? Doesn't the tide turn twice a day? Or does it take longer in the spring?"

Hakiim wrung out his headscarf and said, "Might as well send an elephant to sea. You'd sail into a fog and beach in the Theater of Allfaiths."

"A good place to pick pockets," the thief observed, "and nobody'll spill their morningfeast on you from seasickness."

Amber studied the shoreline thirty feet away, then ran down the sail. "Looks like our holiday begins with wet feet," she said, "unless you two can walk on water."

"Let the sailor go first," joked Hakiim, "to test for crocodiles."

"The stink from his dirty feet will drive them away," laughed Amber.

"You insult the honest dust of your home city," Reiver said.

"Drag the anchor ashore, Hak." Amber buckled her horsehide sandals around her neck, shrugged on her rucksack, grabbed her capture noose, and added, "I don't mind walking now, but I'd rather ride back to Memnon."

Probing ahead with her long wooden handle, the daughter of pirates sloshed through ankle-deep water, following the curving sandbar to the shore. Reiver skimmed along quietly as a fish, but Hakiim hurried, tripped, and splashed down like a harpooned whale. Once ashore, the three wedged the anchor between two boulders and jammed a big rock on top to hold it fast.

Amber dried her feet and donned her sandals, ready to go, and barefoot Reiver was already waiting. Hakiim was busy arranging an old rucksack made of carpet scraps on his back, lashing a jacket and blanket atop it, hanging a haversack of food and a canteen on his shoulder, and slinging a jingling scabbard for his curved scimitar through his belt. When all of that was finished, he was stuck holding his round shield in his left hand.

"What do I do with this?" he asked.

"Skim it across the river," advised Reiver.

"I can't throw it away. I only know how to fight with shield and scimitar combined."

"If we need to fight," Amber teased, "just spin around and charge the enemy with that backpack. It's thicker than any armor I've ever heard of. Oh, here, hold still."

With nimble fingers, she tied his leather-bound shield atop his rucksack. Hakiim waggled his pack and bonked his head on the shield's rim.

"I'll fall over backward."

"After a mile you'll know what to throw away," Reiver assured him. The thief showed only pouches at his belt and a thin canvas bundle over one shoulder, though his patched and saggy clothes could have concealed more.

Reiver scaled the ridge like a squirrel to scout the country beyond, and Amber joined him. Hakiim plodded up the slope, already puffing, and peered into the nearly total darkness.

"Hey," he said, "where are we going?"

Amber squinted. Far off, faint against the night sky, jutted a tiny, upright finger of shadow against the deep indigo of the night sky.

"There," Amber said.

"Not much to see," groused Hakiim.

"This is ancient history," Amber protested, "and it's fascinating."

"It's boring."

"Oh, come now," Amber coaxed, "aren't you curious about who built this tower? Don't you wonder what it overlooked, or guarded, and who's stood here before us?"

"No," said both young men.

"You should have stayed home, you grumps."

"We grumps are going down," announced Reiver. Careful of handholds and footing, he and Hakiim began to spiral down the narrow stairs.

"Go, I don't care."

Alone, Amber circled the tower's top, window by window, squinting as afternoon sun glinted on the brassy desert. North lay the crumbling ridge that lined the river. Patches of sand were still dimpled by their footprints. Eastward peeked a brown smear, the foothills of the Marching Mountains. To the west lay only more wastes, which dropped away at the south. The desert was mostly sand, shelves of shale, and jumbled rocks. Tufts of coarse yellow grass cropped up here and there, as did patches of low thorn bushes. Scattered about were Calim cactuses, tough and flat and half-buried in sand. Amber had already dug out one cactus spine that had pierced her camel hide sandal. After that, she walked more warily.

In a long morning's walk they hadn't seen a soul, yet Amber knew people had once regularly crossed these wastelands. From her high perch in the tower, she could clearly see blocks of black basalt and carefully fit flagstones forming a roadbed. The road had been grand in its day, wide enough for six horses abreast, she reckoned, but now it was obscured by sand.

Was this a spur of the ancient Trade Way that crossed the desert from north to south or a different road altogether? The Trade Way had always been lined with paired minarets, while this tower stood alone. Perhaps the other tower had fallen and been buried, or maybe uncaring men had looted the stones to build huts for goats.

Amber looked east and west and wondered where the road had run. Was it from the mountains to the sea? Had it connected forgotten cities or markets? Holding her breath, Amber imagined this tower when it was brand new, perhaps washed with lime and hung with a brilliant flag. Tall guards in painted armor might have waved as chariots with red wheels and spirited horses dashed by or stood grimly facing east toward barbarian empires, determined to repel a brutish horde of hobgoblins or drow shrieking hideous battle cries. Had there been battles here, and brave deeds with the flagstones drenched in blood? Had princesses and commoners met here for illicit love under the moon? Had kings and spies met secretly in this very room? Was this a guard tower at all, built for war and defense, or a minaret for calling the religious to prayer, or a temple to an unknown god, or a wizard's retreat? Or something else?

Whatever its use, few clues were left in the tower. The high ceiling, corbelled into pointed arches, may have been gilded once, shining in the sun, but it was bare slate now. The only furniture was a stubby column with twisted brass brackets; whatever they'd held had been stolen long ago. No paintings or inscriptions or maps adorned the walls, nor even graffiti, bat droppings, or birds' nests.

"You're not boring at all," she said to the tower.

Only a sandy-colored lizard heard her, watching from a windowsill with beady eyes and a lipping tongue. Amber's sandals squeaked as she descended the stone stairs. It was a lonely sound.

Outside a breeze sighed, for Calim's Breath always haunted the desert, but the mournful tones sounded tired. Amber sniffed. The air smelled of salt and dust, but nothing living. The fellows lounged against the tower's eastern side in the shade. Reiver ate, as usual, while Hakiim dozed. After sailing most of the night, they'd walked seven or eight miles inland to reach Amber's goal. The minaret had proven farther away than it looked, for distances were deceptive in the desert with nothing to compare against. At noon the men had wanted to turn back, but Amber had trudged on, so they followed. The sun hung over their shoulders every step of the way, a cruel tyrant who dominated desert and sky. Even now, as day waned, the sun inflated while dropping toward the horizon.

"Scoot over." Amber plunked in the shade and sipped from her water bottle, refilled from a brackish well dug into the tower's ground floor. She slipped off her sandals, scrubbed sand from between her toes, and checked the cactus thorn's red jot.

"I've got blisters," Hakiim said, examining his own feet. "When do we head back to the boat?"

"Why not sleep on the top floor of the tower?" asked Amber as she peered about at the landscape. "Is that safe?"

"No place is safe," Reiver said, "but the desert's probably safer than sleeping in the boat. Animals come down to the river to drink at night, and predators wait in ambush. The shore is a battle zone after dark."

"I always heard the safest lands are near the rivers, where the jackal cannot reach," Hakiim offered. "What kind of predators?"

"Lions, red wyrms, killer warthogs, man-eating bears, dragon-kin…"

"Stop baiting him, Reiver, and stop fretting, Hak." Amber scratched ankles red from sand flea bites and said, "Nothing!! get you. It's called a desert because it's deserted."

"Mostly deserted," Reiver said, then flipped over a flat stone and exposed a red-backed scorpion. It danced a defiant circle, tail crooked to sting.

"Eyes of Nar'ysr!" Hakiim scrambled backward so fast he thumped over.

Reiver drew a dagger from inside his shirt, caught the scorpion under the belly, and flicked it away. "You have to beware," he said, "but we're probably safer here than on the streets. In Memnon you can bump into villains with knives and no scruples, or burn up from bottlemist plague. The desert's more dead than alive, and spirits can't harm you-much."

"That's true," mused Amber. "The greatest genies of all time move at every hand. Memnonnar's bound into this sand and rock we sit upon, and Calim mingles with the air we breathe."

"They watch always and still possess powerful spells," hedged Hakiim. "Only a fool would offend a genie."

"True." Amber proclaimed loudly, "May the names of Great Calim and Mighty Memnonnar be ever a thousand times blessed!"

Reiver peered at the sky and said, "Both are trapped tight and doomed to stare at each other forever. That's a lot of hatred passing between them. I'm surprised the ground doesn't boil like lead and the sky crackle with heat lightning. Wild Calimshan seems pretty peaceful.''

"Somewhere out here lie the Fields of Teshyllal," said Amber. "That's where the elves of Tethyr, Darthiir Wood, and Shilmista ended the Era of Skyfire. They helped the High Mage Pharos fuse the genies into the Great Red Crystal that still hovers in the air."

"Somewhere else, obviously." Hakiim scratched his ankles till they bled. "There's nothing here but scorpions and sand fleas."

"Even the genies aren't dangerous anymore," continued Reiver, "unless you're swallowed by Memnon's Crackle, where the sand sizzles and pops and swirls like quicksand. More dangerous are the hatori-the sand crocodiles, or the two-legged crocodiles like the Penum-brannar raiders, or the little things you might step on: snakes, werespiders, poisonous plants. There are night spirits like banshees and spectres and ghasts-"

"Stop!" ordered Amber.

Hakiim looked around repeatedly, as if the desert might explode under them. "Maybe we should sleep in the boat," he said, "moored out in the river."

Reiver hid a smirk. "A whale or a kraken could burp and swallow-"

"Enough! There are no whales in the river. Still, I'm disappointed. A holiday should be an adventure." The daughter of pirates stood, dusted her seat and trousers, tugged on her pack, pointed her capture noose, and said, "Let's continue south. It slopes down. Maybe there're caves or something."

She marched across the flagstone road and crunched on shale. The young men followed. Reiver checked their back trail and said, "Keep the tower in sight. It's our only landmark, and we don't have a compass."

"You do so," Hakiim chuckled. "A solid gold one stuffed down your shirt!"

"That's a sailor's compass," Reiver grinned. "It only works at sea."

They walked. Shale squeaked underfoot, and pebbles clicked on rocks, then soft sand made them sink to their ankles. The landscape dropped and grew more jumbled. In the shadows of knee-high boulders grew al-fasfasah grass, thorn bushes, and stunted tamarisk trees. These tiny oases made homes for jerboas, red foxes, and horned lizards. In clusters of sprawling Calim cactus lurked red spiders and sand squirrels. Somewhere out of sight a burrowing owl hooted.

Sun filled the sky at their left, so the travelers tugged down folds of their kaffiyeh to blind that side. A mile or more from the road, the sand hardened and curled into frozen waves. Amber stopped at a lip, careful lest it crumble, and shaded her eyes. Still descending in sandy cataracts, dunes fanned away in jagged humps toward wind-scoured stone, until the horizon dipped into a huge valley or ancient sinkhole.

"No caves," said Reiver.

"No nothing," said Hakiim.

"Still, it's lovely in a desolate way," offered Amber. "See how the land changes colors, as if someone's lowered a lantern? We'd better return to the road, though-what?"

A tremor rippled under their feet, as if a heavy cart was passing by. Reiver suddenly froze, sweating. "I just remembered another danger of the desert."

"What?" barked Hakiim.

The earth trembled, a shiver that buzzed to their knees.

"There's something behind us," Amber squealed. She jumped and spun in place but saw nothing. Only a breeze caressed them. "What is it?"

"Those rocks-"

Reiver never got to finish. Sand rippled as if whipped by the wind. The desert floor bulged upward like a volcano bubbling. The bulges elongated and burst.

Amber, Hakiim, and Reiver spat and blinked as sand sprayed in their faces. They only glimpsed the source: sand-colored bodies stippled with black and brown spots, longer than horses, mouths like barrels rimmed with teeth like jagged glass, each tooth wiggling like a finger, gaping mouths that could swallow them whole.

As one, the three companions turned and jumped down the steep slope. Amber plowed sand with her heels, hopped up to run, almost pitched head over heels, and squatted on her rear. She skittered, bumped, rolled, and slid downward faster than she liked, but she didn't dare slow down.

A sandborer burst out of the slope beside her like an arrow through a bale of hay. Thunderherders were something Amber had heard of around the slave corrals, and those were only rumors, not actual sightings. She could imagine that all of the people who'd actually encountered one failed to survive the experience. The creatures were thought to be perpetually hungry, mindless beasts able to burrow through sand faster than a human could run. How they earned the name "thunderherder" no one knew.

Perhaps only thunder and lightning could kill one, Amber thought wildly, as a living tube ringed with fangs arched toward her, teeth wiggling like a beggar's hands. Flailing her arms while skidding, Amber smacked her capture noose square across the monster's maw. The ebony shaft clacked on teeth, and the impact knocked Amber rolling at an angle. The thunderherder slithered sideways after her. Stabbing her free hand against the slope, Amber whapped again, missed, smacked, and struck in pure panic. Wood thumped on hide like scuffed leather. Either she was stronger than she knew, or she hit something sensitive, because Amber saw the creature suddenly veer, bite the slope, wriggle, drill, and disappear.

Watching everywhere, Amber dug in both feet and tried to stop. The slope lessened near the bottom, and she skittered to a halt perhaps thirty feet from the trough. Temporarily safe, she immediately thought of her friends.

They were in trouble. Higher up the slope, howling, Hakiim rolled out of control. His clumsy pack and leather shield spanked the sand at every revolution. Amber hollered for him to scoop sand to stop himself, but it was the shield that saved him. A thunderherder rocketed out of the slope above Hakiim, dived, and bounced off the shield. The shock flattened Hakiim facedown, and the monster flipped over his head. The sandborer writhed and snapped its pointed tail to gain a grip and slither back up the slope.

Amber screamed as another thunderherder erupted from the earth above Hakiim. The rug merchant's son didn't see it. Scrabbling for handholds and footholds, Amber floundered upward.

"Hak!" she called. "Above you!"

Highest of all, the nimble Reiver regained his feet. Now he charged down the slope to aid Hakiim, sand flying in plumes from his bare feet. One misstep and he'd tumble headfirst, but Reiver ran headlong while yanking his long dagger from its neck sheath, then launched himself forward.

Facedown, Hakiim crabbed a half circle. The beast below slid and tumbled away end over end. A noise made him turn, and Hakiim hollered as another thunderherder sailed at his head with mouth gaping. Before he could scream, a ragged scarecrow flew through the air at the monster.

Reiver's shoulder rammed into the borer's middle. As the sandborer curled and snapped, the thief stabbed the leathery hide. The keen double-edged blade punched deep, and since Reiver was already falling, he threw his weight behind the blow. The knife carved a half circle around the monster's middle. White paste whipped to froth around the wound. Half severed, the mindless monster twisted away from the pain but only tore more of its own flesh and hide away. Flipping and flapping, the creature rolled over Hakiim, the stinger tail just missing his face, then tumbled down the slope after its brother. Reiver went with it, helpless to halt his headlong charge.

Up high and alone, Hakiim scooted to slide down the slope after his friend. Unfortunately, he slid across a yawning hole. A thin lip of sand collapsed, and Hakiim plunged into a hole as big and as deep as a well. Cascading sand smothered his cry for help.

"Hold on, Hak!"

Amber watched Reiver's wild and weird tussle go by, but she was too far away to help him, and Hakiim needed her more. Scurrying up the slope, Amber reached the spot where Hakiim had disappeared. Only a deep dimple of disturbed sand showed. Ramming her hand into the center, she flailed about and felt nothing. Gasping, she shoved her hand deeper down until her cheek pressed the sand. She still felt nothing.

"Ilmater," she called to the martyred god of slaves. "Hak is a good man. Please deliver him!"

There. Something moved. Praying it wasn't a monster, Amber wriggled her fingers like thunderherder teeth, snagged something soft and pulled, slowly and steadily lest her hand slip. Shifting onto her knees, bracing against her staff pressed flat on the earth, she hauled. Sand bubbled and churned, a thousand shades of tan, before Amber saw the black skin of Hakiim's hand.

A sputtering Hakiim burst free, spitting sand and sobbing for air. Amber dug past his head, grabbed his sash, and dragged him into the sunlight.

"J-Jewels of Jergal," Hakiim gagged, "I thought-"

"Never mind!" Certain that he was free, Amber let go and whirled to dash down the slope. "Reiver rolled down… all tangled up with more of those monstrosities," she said.

Jogging, taking long, dangerous skips and praying to avoid holes that might snap an ankle or knee, Amber raced downhill. Setting sun glared in her eyes. Her shadow flew alongside her like an eagle, disorienting and dizzying. Her capture noose whipped and snapped and threatened to unbalance her, yet she saw the wiry thief hop in circles like a kangaroo rat at the bottom of the slope. Why?

Then Amber saw that Reiver hopped because the floor of the trough collapsed wherever he landed. No sooner did his foot touch down than sand puckered and disappeared to reveal a gaping hole ringed with grasping teeth. Five or six holes dotted the trough, and even as Amber watched, Reiver jumped to avoid having his feet nipped off. He hunched like a rat, one hand wide to slow a fall into a hole, the other driving the dagger like a spitting cobra. Reiver's blade and wrist were white with frothy paste, Amber saw, so he must have at least pinked the monsters, but he couldn't hop forever.

Neither could she, Amber realized suddenly, and she'd reach the bottom in a few more long leaps. "Reiver," she called. "Ill snag-whoal-with my noose!"

"Stay up high!" The thief didn't look up but watched and felt the ground as he said, "They strike at vibrations-"

Too late, Amber flopped backward and skittered to a stop, panting. Twirling her capture staff, she loosed the line and enlarged the noose. Like a pike bursting from a pool, a thunderherder exploded from the sandy bottom and lunged for Amber's foot. Quicker than thought, the slave handler whipped the staff, flipped the noose over the monster's round head, and yanked the rope's end with her left hand. The noose snapped shut around the tubular body, bit into the leathery hide, and sank out of sight.

Amber had snagged a thunderherder, but it felt like a whale bucking a fishing line. She chirped aloud, "Now what?"

"Hold-it!" A snuffling, flopping figure stampeded to a stop beside Amber, Hakiim was sandy from head to toe, his clothes and rucksack skewed awry and spilling sand. He'd lost his shield but drawn his scimitar. Hoisting the blade in two hands, the rug merchant's son gasped as he struck with all his might. The curved blade, wider and heavier at the nose, chopped through the writhing body as if slicing a sausage.

"Watch the tail," Reiver yelled. "The stinger's poisonous!"

"Good work, Hak!" Half a dying sandborer writhed in Amber's capture noose, and its thrashing weight threatened to rip the staff away. She slacked off to loose the beast.

"We should get to solid rock as fast as we can," Hakiim said, shaking his frothy scimitar at the horizon. "It's just ahead of us!"

"It's a mile or more," Amber said as she gauged how to reach Reiver, who was still dancing around holes in the trough. "We'd never make it."

"We've run halfway there already," Hakiim returned. An exaggeration, but Amber remembered seeing rocks to the south, stark gray against the gray-yellow sand.

"We surely can't stay here," Amber agreed, then took a chance and vaulted a hole and jumped again to land near Reiver. The thief flounced around the hole, his clothes and pack bobbing and shedding sand like a dog shaking off water.

The earth roiled under their joint vibrations.

"Run!" yelled Amber, and they charged the next dune.

"The sand is too soft," Reiver countered, "and the herders like soft sand."

Kicking and climbing, Amber yelped, "The rocks are ahead. They must run under the sand."

Ahead, Hakiim reached the crest of the dune and hollered, "More rocks! Little ones!"

A good sign, but Amber saved her breath for running. The sand behind her already dimpled. Reiver shouted as a bulge chased him. He veered away from his friends and the bulge surged after.

Amber shouted, "Reive! Stay together!"

The bulge suddenly subsided. Perhaps the monster had hit rock or hard sand. Reiver switched back for the dune's crest, arms and legs pumping, rags, pouches, and bundle flapping.

Cresting the tall dune, Amber dashed down the slope, skimmed across another sandy trough as if it might shatter like glass, plowed up another dune, and trotted on. Hakiim's head bobbed across the dunes, and Amber and Reiver soon caught up, sobbing for air.

Onward the three pounded. Amber's lungs burned as if steeped in hot sand, and a stitch cut her ribs: Treacherous sand sucked at her feet. She imagined borers everywhere, a thousand tunnels honeycombing the desert, burrowing miles after her pounding feet, hungry to bite her legs off and eat the rest of her slowly.

"Do these fiends ever tire?" she gasped. Reiver didn't spare breath to answer. More rocks dappled the sand, which grew harder underfoot.

Running, running, running, up and down dunes, their feet floundered while twilight grew dimmer in Amber's vision. If she blacked out and fell, she'd be herder fodder. She prayed, "Selune, get us safe and I'll fill a basket with coins at your alta-aahl"

Stampeding down a wide shingle slope, they saw rocks and pebbles plink into the air and two, no, four sandborers burst upward like columns in a mosque. Amber dodged wildly, clattering and skittering on shingle, and fell. Up ahead, Hakiim circled back and ran toward Reiver, his scimitar pumping. The thief was hemmed by the four creatures like a sheep run afoul of wolves.

Reiver scooted and aimed his dagger at the closest borer. Stabbing quick and true, he impaled the creature below its wriggling teeth. It proved too weighty to hold, and Reiver's arms sagged, but he cranked the dagger blade up. The great body tore itself free. Steel carved a furrow in the thing's body then ripped through the jaw. Slime splashed in Reiver's eyes. A tooth flipped down his ragged shirt-and mindlessly tried to burrow into his belly. The thief yelped and slapped it away.

Meanwhile, two thunderherders wriggled from their holes and undulated across the scree toward the thief. Amber saw their wicked stingers flick against stones like obsidian daggers. Reiver had said the stingers were poisonous and even as she ran, Amber shuddered to think of being stung and dying slowly as her organs rotted within her body.

Hakiim dodged two holes that looked like abandoned wells and barely escaped as a borer popped out of an existing hole and nipped at his heels. The rug merchant's son angled toward one creature and hacked with his scimitar. The deep cut made the beast curl into a loop and quit moving. Reiver used the opportunity to jump over it, and all three ran on.

"How many have we killed?" Amber panted.

"I don't know," Reiver said. He looked behind them and saw two thunderherders turn to pursue them. "Don't talk… run!"

"That way," Hakiim hollered.

Together, they pelted down the scree and up another dune. Despite panting, sweating, and struggling for air, they outran the two wriggling horrors. Thunderherders must travel faster underground than above, Amber thought. She plunged on, fearing her lungs would split. Gasping, stumbling, she reached another dune crest and tripped over Hakiim, who lay collapsed.

Scuffing her hands and knees on rock, Amber rolled and cried with pain.

"Hak! You clumsy fool…"

"L-look-h-here!" panted Hakiim.

She looked, then laughed for sheer delight. All around lay solid gray-yellow rock, an oasis of stone, a sanctuary. Grateful, Amber breathed steadily and felt her heart slow its pounding. She chuckled giddily. It felt wonderful just to lie still and watch the sky spin above her.

"Unbelievable!" called a voice.

Amber snapped her head up, frightened of another attack when she felt so weak. Rolling to one elbow, she saw Reiver already on his feet. His survival had always depended on outrunning his enemies, after all. From a bowshot away, where bedrock stopped, he called, "The thunderherders churn sand all around us. They're still trying to get us!"

"Let 'em churn," Amber grunted and lay back.

Hakiim nodded and wheezed, "I hope they chew their teeth to nubs."

They didn't lay there long, though, for once their breathing steadied, thirst wracked them. They were parched enough to drink a lake dry and sucked their water bottles dangerously low, licking their sandy lips again and again.

"Hoy!" Reiver called from afar. "I found another hole… a square one."

"Square?"

Amber and Hakiim glanced at one another. Tired but intrigued, the two trudged after the distant scarecrow figure that was the skinny thief, taking care to tread only on rooted stone, like children playing a game of Dare Base. This was a serious game, though, for furrows showed close at hand where thunderherders circled like sharks.

Reaching Reiver, the friends looked where he pointed. A hundred feet distant lay another shelf of bedrock. Notched into its lip was indeed a square hole. Judging from twin furrows passing by, the thunderherders' burrowing had collapsed the sand covering it.

"Looks like a cellar hole," said Hakiim.

"A house? Out here?"

Slowly, Amber turned a circle then grunted in surprise. That last downward slope actually curved around three-quarters of the horizon, dipping at the south.

"This is a valley," she said, "miles across."

"There's nothing but sand and stone," objected Hakiim.

"Nothing that shows," countered Reiver.

Unbidden, all three looked at the square-cut hole. It had obviously been hand-cut, sometime in the past.

"Are the borers gone?" whispered Amber, then suddenly shrieked, "Reiver!"

Impetuous as ever, the young thief dashed across a hundred feet of sand for the next rock. His bare feet flew over sand crisscrossed with creases, but nothing nipped at his heels. On rock again, near the hole, Reiver spread his arms and crowed in triumph.

"He'll get us killed," Hakiim said.

"Now that he's alerted the herders, yes," Amber agreed, "but we need to get over there too."

Gritting her teeth, clutching her capture staff with white knuckles, Amber scampered over the sand with Hakiim bumbling behind. Panting and raspy, but giddy to have survived, the three friends crept toward the square hole notched into the rock shelf. From above, they saw a rectangular ditch in the sand pointed to the notch, which slowly descended into the shelf under their feet. The gap was nine feet wide.

"A tunnel?" asked Reiver.

"Leading where?" rasped Hakiim.

The thief spit sand off his lips, then grinned and said, "Let's find out."