Chapter 4

Chapter Four

Keera

I was riding a horse. I could hardly believe it. Perhaps riding was a strong word for being unceremoniously tied across its hind quarters, but the feeling still froze me in place. A silky tail tickled my face, and muscles shifted under me as a powerful body propelled us across the sands. Tears pricked my eyes, but I did not let them fall, as I couldn’t spare the moisture.

I had dreamed of riding a horse so often for so many years, it seemed the cruelest of ironies that I would finally touch one again as it carried me to my death, instead of to the Great City as I always dreamed. Although maybe it was a gift. I had fought to stay alive for so long, although for what, I did not know. Perhaps it was so I could ride a horse and hear the voice of another human one more time before my blood was taken by the desert.

The man paid me no more mind than if I were another supply pack, quickening the mount’s pace. With incredibly long legs, the horse easily lengthened its stride. The constant bouncing drove the horse’s back into my abdomen, and I would have retched if there had been anything in my stomach. We rode until the sun dappled the horse’s side. It was all I could see at this angle, my neck too stiff to raise my head and see where we were going .

We had to be far from my camp by now, farther into the unforgiving desert than I had ever made it on foot. I couldn’t tell which direction we were going, and I was sure the desert would not guide me back to the safety of my oasis. I had only found it by chance before and hadn’t left sight of it for years, knowing I would never find my way to it again.

The relative safety of my prison was lost forever, but I felt strangely calm. Perhaps I was no longer afraid to die after so many years toeing the line of survival. The newly found flame of life in me protested at that line of thinking, but I did my best to smother it. It seemed that the sands would claim my blood soon, no matter if I wanted to live or not.

I tried not to dwell on it, instead thinking only about the magnificent animal beneath me. As the heat of the desert sun began to burn the back of my neck, the horse pulled to a stop, the change in momentum driving my side against my captor’s back. He paid me no mind, dismounting and walking out of my eyeline. I couldn’t see him at this angle, but I could just make out soft murmuring, surely meant for the horse, because he had barely spoken to me.

Gloved hands pulled at the ropes holding me in place. As they loosened, I tried to control my slither to the ground, but ended up falling gracelessly in a heap. Laying on my back, the hood fell from my face to pool around my shoulders, and I stared up at the cloudless sky, a washed-out shade of blue from the unforgiving intensity of the sun. I couldn’t retie my hood with my hands bound, but what did a little more sunburn matter if I was to be sacrificed when we reached our destination? I had been living on borrowed time anyway.

I twitched in surprise as my captor hauled me to sitting, half expecting him to leave me as a forgotten bundle on the sand while his horse rested. I had used the last of my strength to fight him during the night and had fully intended to lay completely still. Even the disconcerting energy I felt when he touched me faded, leaving me a dried-out husk. My lips cracked, and my limbs trembled constantly. Now, I wavered as I sat, staring at the dark shape of my captor. He stood stark against the dunes in the distance. Sweat dripped down the back of my neck, and I hadn’t had water since the afternoon before. With gloved hands, he pulled up my hood, securing it around my head without touching me. I stared at him in shock, opening and closing my mouth a few times.

My captor tilted his head as he looked at me, the meaning of the gesture unclear without the context of an expression. The mask that covered his face was an odd thing, made of a solid sheet of silvery metal, absent of features or adornments. The only deviations from the solid surface were several small holes where I imagined his mouth would be and slitted openings for his eyes, the shadows too deep for me to make out the gaze I had met the night before. It looked like armor, although the rest of his garb was dark cloth with no other protective gear. The only other piece of clothing designed for combat where the leather tabards over his shoulders.

“What’s your name?” he asked, drawing me from my contemplation.

I croaked, but my voice stuck from dryness and disuse. I licked my lips and tried again.

“Keera,” I rasped out.

“Keera,” he repeated thoughtfully, the voice of a young man at odds with the fearsome, masked creature before me. My name on his lips, hidden as they were, made me shiver. I couldn’t remember the last time anybody had spoken my name. I couldn’t even be sure there was anybody alive besides myself who remembered it. Hearing him say it, even if he was the one bringing me to my death, felt like a gift.

“What’s your name?” I asked, voice rougher than the sand I sat on.

He didn’t answer, instead reaching for his belt. Before I could react to his reach for a weapon, he pulled out a water skin. He lifted it toward me, and I didn’t care about his name anymore, instead pitching forward to fasten my lips around the opening. I gulped greedily as he tilted it back, a few drops escaping to run down my jaw to my neck.

After a few swallows he pulled the skin away, standing abruptly and turning around. Then he stalked away, leaving me to stare after him in confusion.

The second part of the journey passed as uncomfortably as the first, although this time I occupied myself with trying to puzzle out the man in the metal mask. I hadn’t seen someone wearing one like it before, but it had been many years since I had been among a clan, and things changed.

Just as the sun reached its zenith, if the burning on the back of my neck was any indication, the wind carried voices to us. They grew louder as we rode, and my heart hammered. Never had I approached a clan in the light of day, and the growing sounds of life being lived nearly overwhelmed me. The man in the mask rode his horse into the clan, ignorant of my racing pulse. I craned my neck as best I could, only managing to see the bottom edges of tents staked into the sand. We passed dozens of them, my head spinning with the idea of this many people.

“Viper,” greeted several voices as we rode past, but I couldn’t twist enough to see their faces. Their tones were deferential, as if he were the warlord of the clan, although they did not address him as such.

Eventually, the horse came to a stop, and my captor dismounted. His heavy black boots tromped across the sand through my line of vision, but he didn’t move to release me. A whisper ran through the nearby people before a hush fell over the camp. I ceased my squirming at the thought of all the watching eyes.

“I bring a gift, Lord Alasdar,” came the voice of the man in the mask.

“I hope it is news that another clan has joined our cause,” responded a slippery voice that had shivers slithering over my skin like a horned viper, despite the sweat dripping down my back.

“It is, along with fresh blood to spill to thank the desert.”

The oily voice tsked in contemplation. I itched to see the man who would demand my death while simultaneously shying away from that voice.

“Let us see this offering.”

Several sets of hands pulled me down from the horse, but none of them were the gloved hands of my captor. I found myself held between two men, neither of them masked. As my weak knees wobbled, they were forced to hold me upright with bruising grips on my arms.

The dark form of my captor kneeled at the feet of another man, this one taller but slimmer—Lord Alasdar I guessed. This man was not masked, but instead contemplated me with lifeless gray eyes. The flatness of his gaze made my shoulders pull forward, as if I could hide myself from him, but I refused to cower. His clothes were lavish, loose pants and fine vest held closed by a wide sash embroidered with a pattern of snakes. A luxurious robe completed the ensemble, almost hiding the long knife shoved in his belt. As my eyes skittered across his face, reluctant to meet that calculating gaze, I noticed gray hairs peeking out from the edges of his hood and lines around his mouth and eyes.

“She looks half-dead already,” he commented dispassionately.

His dismissiveness leant some fire to my blood, and I pulled my lips back in a snarl. Even if I did not have the strength left to run away, I would not die meekly or without protest. To my dismay, he smiled at that, although it didn’t extend to his eyes.

“Although she has enough spirit left it would seem,” he continued, raising both his voice and his arms. “Tonight, we will celebrate our new alliance with Clan Ratan and thank the desert for her gifts! With our increased strength, we will return the Ballan Desert to the ways of old and give her the battle and blood she desires.”

The crowd around the clearing we stood in, which had accumulated during the brief exchange, cheered. My head swam as I tried to make sense of his words, although a grim part of my mind told me it didn’t matter. I would die at their hands whether I understood their cause or not. Perhaps this was their version of a gift—to save me from years of cruel isolation before I inevitably crumbled to dust. The desert would claim my blood, as she had longed to for many seasons.