In Thy Name

Part I: Out of the Desert | Chapter 1 - Fire and wind

He focused on the dunes themselves, scanning methodically. Whatever it was, it wasn't good. He should just call Djusra and get going. It was past time to get out from under the Sky Master's eye, and Teshem would be waiting (well, let him wait, this time).

There. A flicker of movement against the sand.

"Teshem!" Sareb's heart beat harder a moment.

He murmured a spell to give him hawk's sight, a spell he'd invented himself to see more clearly at a distance; felt the spark inside him respond, and his vision sharpened.

It took a few moments of searching to find the spot again, the flames flickering on the crest of a dune, almost invisible against the red-gold sand.

Fire on the sand. Fire sweeping over the world— He felt sick a moment before he pushed it away. It was just a stupid dream.

As he stared, the flames seemed to creep along the dunetop. He examined the base of the fire. The flames weren't on top of the dune; they were behind it.

A fire large enough to be seen over a dune—and it was moving. Shabad-haer, the rolling fire. He'd never seen one before, even though he'd grown up in the desert.

Sareb nullified the hawk-sight spell, temporarily, so he'd be able to activate it again with a word, and whistled for Djusra.

Like any dracoraque, Djusra dropped out of the sun, so he couldn't see her until she was almost on top of him, enormous wings blocking the sky, beak and talons flashing. Although he'd raised her from a chick, Sareb's heart always skipped a beat when she dropped like this. He felt again the talons screaming into his flesh, the weight driving him to the sand, the burst of panic, the flash of darkness and fire—

And that was how Teshem had found him again, bleeding in the sand.

But now, Djusra's rake-like talons scraped against the rock instead of digging into his chest, and when she brought her head down, it was not to gouge him with the beak as long as his arm, but to butt him with the top of her head.

He stumbled backward and caught his balance just short of tumbling down the back side of the cliff, then stepped in to scratch Djusra's neck and rest his cheek against her sun-warmed feathers. "Hey, old girl."

She and Teshem were the only true things left in the world.

Djusra ruffled her feathers and shrugged her wings, as though a chill had gone down her spine. Perhaps she smelled the smoke, too.

"I know," Sareb said. "Let's go."

He climbed onto her back, and they soared into the sky.

In the air, he quickly found the fire again, a twisting pillar taller than the dunes that flanked it. It seemed to be reaching for something—something smaller, darker, Caran rust red and the glint of metal.

His heart leapt into his throat before he realized it wasn't Teshem. Long black hair swinging in a braid, not Teshem's shoulder-length wine-colored hair. He turned the hawk-sight back on, zoomed in on the figure.

A figure sheathed in glittering chainmail, now fallen back on the duneside, red cape caught under her. One of the haguq-aqhir, the soulless ones, the Gladiari. His stomach tightened again.

She's far away, you're on Djusra, and she hasn't seen you yet.

He focused on her face, trying to figure out if he had seen her at Castle Caran. Her bronzed complexion was close to that of Sareb's own people, golden like the sand; her hair and eyes the smooth, hard black of obsidian. Her expression made him shiver.