Fire Upon the Sand

The sun blazed brightly over the desert sand, a burning white hole in the broad azure sky. The day was a cloudless one, and shimmering waves of heat played upon the sand, seeming to make the air dance in odd little ripples. Nuresh Prasaad straightened his back and wiped the sweat from his heavy brow with the back of one broad hand. The cloth folds of his turban helped to shield his dark eyes from the harsh glare of the sun. He took a small sip of water from the skin at his belt, felt the cooling pleasure of it sliding down his throat. Glancing upward, he noticed a dark shape in the sky high above him, turning lazy circles around the sun. A vulture. He watched the bird for a moment before returning to his work. Bending at the waist, he gripped the rough sides of a large clay jug and lifted it. A bead of sweat trickled down the middle of his back as he set the empty earthenware on the flat stone edge of the well. He used a rope and pulley to draw up a bucket of fresh water and tipped it into the clay jug. Once it was full, he lowered the bucket back into the well and carried the jug to his cart, which contained several other jugs now filled with spring water. Then he moved on to the next.

Clearspring was an oasis, the only settlement for many miles. The only source of fresh water, in the heart of the Angalor Desert. Most of the continent of Yuta was desert, save for the shining marble cities along the north and eastern coasts, and the wide savannah to the south. Along the western edge were lush green jungles. There were many towns, villages, and outposts dotted all around the Angalor, and nearly all major trading routes passed through the sands. Oases like Clearspring were invaluable, and it was Nuresh's job to supply the merchant caravans which passed through almost daily with fresh water.

He raised the bucket from the well one last time to fill up the final jug. Setting the jug into the cart with the others, he let out a sigh and wiped his forehead again. He walked around to the front of the cart, where a large gray donkey stood patiently waiting. Nuresh reached up and scratched behind one of the animal's big soft ears. The donkey snorted and flicked its tail.

"Let's go, Samel," said Nuresh.

He turned and began to walk away, and without hesitation or prompt, the donkey followed, pulling along the water cart behind him. Samel was a good animal, and nothing at all like any other donkey Nuresh had known. Oddly loyal and subservient, he behaved much more like a horse, or a big gray dog with hooves, perhaps. Nuresh had won him in a game of dice with a traveling merchant several months ago. He couldn't now recall the name of the man. He had been an odd exuberant fellow, claiming to be a personal friend of Yoram Al'Asim, the emperor of Yuta. Surely this was an exaggeration, though the man had clearly been well-travelled, carrying with him all manner of exotic goods: silks and spices from the east, the pelts of jungle animals from the west, leather goods made by the grassland tribes in the south, and all kinds of trinkets from the northern reaches of the continent, including a jewel-encrusted saber he claimed to have received from Alir Suhleman himself, legendary warrior who helped the emperor unify the country under his rule. Certainly the man's stories were nonsense, though they had been entertaining. Nuresh often enjoyed spending evenings at one of the taverns in town conversing and gambling with travelers, when he was not at home with his wife, Safi, and their daughter, Aliah. The girl was six years old, the spitting image of her mother. Dark skin, thick curly hair, and big brown eyes that shone like amber in the sunlight. Six years old, and growing up fast. She insisted that one day she would become a personal bodyguard of the emperor, though surely her mind would change. Only last month she had proclaimed that she was going to be a tamer of jungle cats in the west. Nuresh smiled to himself, remembering the determination in her expression.

"There he is!" shouted a young voice suddenly. "Samel! Samel!"

Nuresh paused and looked to the right. A group of small children emerged from behind a stack of crates beside one of the market stalls. Aliah was leading the group.

"Come on!" his daughter shouted, racing toward him.

The other children, two boys and a girl, all of them about the same age, followed close behind.

Nuresh smiled. "Aliah," he said. "What are you and your friends up to today?"

"Papa!" She straightened her back, her expression suddenly becoming serious. "I have come to retrieve my noble steed!"

She gestured to Samel, who stared back inquisitively.

"Is that so?" her father said, bemused.

"Yes. My fellow soldiers and I are going adventuring, and we need our horse!"

The other children looked at him expectantly.

Nuresh chuckled. "I'm afraid that Samel and I are working. Perhaps later I will go adventuring with you. Run along for now, my darling."

Aliah let out a sigh. "Okay, Papa." She approached Samel and threw her small arms around the donkey's neck. "Bye, Samel," she said. Then she turned and shouted, "Come on!" to the other children, and ran off into the market.

Nuresh shook his head and chuckled again. Then he and Samel continued to make their way across town to the stables. The stables were large, built of stone with a thatched roof, made to house the many animals belonging to the trade caravans which stopped at the settlement. There were seven long rows of pens, most of them containing camels. There were a few horses, and a handful of donkeys and goats which bleated noisily. The inside of the building smelled of hay and manure. Within each pen was a low trough for water. Nuresh was to fill each one of them. This usually required several trips to the well at the town's center, and would take almost all day. He had already made three trips so far today, and was working on filling the troughs in the last two rows.

One of the stable hands, a younger man in his twenties, came walking down the aisle from the opposite direction. He was guiding a massive black horse by the reins. Immediately Nuresh could see that this was no merchant's horse. The animal was enormous and powerfully built, and there were several thick pale scars along its flank and forelegs. Its breath was deep and rumbling as it exhaled through flared nostrils. Upon its broad back was a finely made saddle, with gilded steel plates hanging from the sides and across the thick chest of the animal. This was a war horse. One which had evidently seen its fair share of battles. Nuresh wondered briefly who it belonged to. Were there soldiers in town? A patrol from one of the outposts? He didn't think so. He hadn't seen any soldiers, or their horses. A lone warrior, then. Sellsword, perhaps.

Nuresh nodded to the young man in greeting and continued with his work filling the troughs. As he came to the end of the final row of pens, in the far corner of the stables, he saw a dark shape move quickly across the aisle. He stopped. It was difficult to see in the darkness, but he could swear that someone was standing there, beside the door of one of the stalls. Someone small. A child.

"Hello?" Nuresh called. "What are you doing back there?"

Silence.

"Hello? Come out of there."

Still he received no response. The figure did not move, and the shadows seemed almost to deepen. He glanced around the stables hesitantly. The stable hand and the war horse had gone. There was no one else around. He turned back toward the figure and took a small step forward. Suddenly the shape emerged from the shadows, seeming to separate itself from them as if by some conjurer's trick. A young boy now stood before him. He appeared to be perhaps only a few years older than Aliah. He was gaunt, his ribs clearly visible beneath his olive skin. He wore only a pair of ragged linen trousers, and his bare feet were filthy, his small toes curled tensely atop the stone floor of the stables. His skinny arms hung loosely at his sides, the insides of his forearms branded. The boy was a slave. No doubt he belonged to one of the caravans headed for Khazarim. This was a large hub for slave trading in the north, at the edge of the Angalor. Nuresh often saw slaves brought into Clearspring, many of them women and children. Perhaps, he thought, this child had escaped his captors, and hidden himself away in the back of the stables. Nuresh started to extend his hand to the boy, and stopped when his eyes found the child's face. He was horribly disfigured, the entire left side of his face scarred from terrible burns. His left eye was ghostly white, blind, wrapped in folds of pink scar tissue. His remaining eye stared straight ahead, empty, his small face expressionless. Like the face of a corpse, Nuresh thought. He got ahold of himself, and tried again to reach for the boy. The child never once looked at him, but suddenly ran forward, squeezing between Nuresh and the water cart.

Nuresh spun quickly as the boy dashed past him. "Hey!" he shouted.

The boy disappeared down the aisle.

"Come back!" Nuresh called as he took a few steps after him.

But the boy was gone. The sound of tiny feet padding against the stone floor quickly vanished. Nuresh shook his head. The boy's appearance had chilled him for a reason he couldn't explain.

"Come, Samel," he called, and headed down the row of stalls in the direction of the exit.

The donkey brayed softly and turned to follow him. As they passed, the animals in their pens suddenly seemed to grow agitated. The camels bellowed noisily, stamping their feet, and the horses whinnied nervously, some of them kicking at the doors of their stalls. Now the place was in sudden uproar. Nuresh felt a sickening anxiety gnawing at the pit of his stomach. Something clearly had the animals spooked. He passed one of the horses, its eyes wild with fear. It kicked at the sides of its pen, the powerful legs splintering the wood. Nuresh began to walk faster until he was outside again. He blinked in the brightness of the sunlight, and noticed a large group of people had gathered near the stables. Most were whispering excitedly to each other as they glanced constantly up at the sky. Nuresh began to walk toward them.

"Look!" one of the women shouted, pointing upward.

"What is that?" said someone else.

Nuresh shielded his eyes with one of his hands as he squinted up at the sky with the rest of them. A dark shape circled the sun. What he had mistaken for a vulture earlier he now clearly saw was no bird. It was far too large, its broad wings shaped like those of a bat, with a triangular head at the end of a long neck, an even longer tail trailing behind it. Slowly, gracefully, it wheeled about in the cloudless sky. And then, slowly, it tipped its wings and began to fall toward them. Frenzied voices clamored all around him. Someone screamed in panic.

"What's happening?" he heard someone cry.

There were shouts of fear and anger as a large man pushed his way through the crowd, knocking one woman to the ground. She collapsed in a flurry of scarlet fabric, the folds of her robes lying like blood upon the sand. The big man hurried up to Nuresh and shoved him aside, hard.

"'The fuck out of my way!" the man shouted in a deep voice.

Nuresh watched him run through the entrance of the stables, then turned back to the crowd. Someone was helping the fallen woman back to her feet. Once she was standing again she looked up at the sky and began screaming hysterically. The others looked up as well, and more people started to scream. Almost immediately their voices were all drowned out by a deafening, otherworldly roar. A heavy shadow fell over them as the winged beast descended, its giant body blocking out the sun. The creature roared again, an utterly terrifying sound, as it swooped down over the crowd. It was the size of a building, and the gusts of air from its powerful wings knocked several people to the ground. They hastened back to their feet as it glided away, the end of its massive tail knocking into the corner of one of the buildings, sending a cascade of rubble falling to the street as the stone crumbled. The creature climbed back into the sky and began to turn itself around. Nuresh found himself unable to move as he watched it fly back toward the crowd. It was like his feet had grown roots through the sand, locking him in place. He could only watch in frozen terror as the giant black head opened its enormous jaws, revealing jagged fangs like spears. He thought it was going to roar again, and despite the fact that he couldn't move, he felt a sudden urge to cover his ears. Then a light appeared within the gaping maw, between the fangs. An orange glow. Dim at first, within an instant it became brighter than the sun. Everything seemed to slow down. There was a sound of hoofbeats from behind. Nuresh turned and saw it was the man who had shoved him. He had mounted a horse from the stables, and was riding straight for the crowd.

"Wait!" Nuresh shouted, finding his voice again. He tried to reach for the saddle, but the horse galloped past.

The man rode into the midst of the crowd just as a blazing column of flames erupted from the monster's throat, spilling past its teeth and billowing into a great plume of burning tendrils. Nuresh had to squeeze his eyes shut and turn his face away as the crowd was engulfed by the fire. He felt the intense heat wash against the front of his body. Then there was a great gust of wind as the beast lifted itself back into the sky. Nuresh opened his eyes. The crowd was gone. Most of the people had been turned to ash. Those who had been at the edges of the group lie facedown in the sand, bodies twisted, their clothing burning into their blackened flesh. The smell of it filled his nostrils and he felt sick. He bent over and wretched onto the sand, unable to stop himself. He felt dizzy with panic. He heard the creature roar from above and behind him, and turned to see it flying over the stables. It spread its jaws and unleashed another gout of flames upon the building as it passed overhead. With a thunderous blast, the stables erupted in an explosion of fire and stone which shot up like a blast from a volcano. Huge pieces of stone from the stable walls rained down to the earth. One of them nearly crushed him, and he was knocked flat onto his back by the impact of it. His head snapped back and he felt the air rush from his lungs. Gasping and dazed, his eyes burning from the acrid smoke, he struggled to sit himself up. The sound of fire crackling and people screaming filled his ears. And then, closer, the distressed braying of a donkey. Nuresh twisted around, and through the hazy smoke he saw Samel lying on his side, legs kicking furiously, still strapped to the water cart which had been turned over. The clay jugs had been shattered, and water poured onto the ground, soaking into the sand.

Nuresh crawled forward on his hands and knees, intent on undoing the leather straps which bound the donkey to the cart. "Hold on, Samel!" he yelled.

He coughed as he crawled, his lungs burning from the smoke. His fingers dug into the sand. He was only a few yards away from Samel now. The terrible roar sounded from the skies once again. He glanced upward, terrified. The great black mass descended. In one instant, Samel was there, sprawled on the ground struggling to stand. In the next, he was gone. Both donkey and cart were snatched up by a giant scaled foot.

"No!" Nuresh screamed as Samel was lifted into the air.

He pushed himself up as the winged monstrosity took off, the poor donkey dangling from its talons. Nuresh ran toward the market. When he reached it, he found it unrecognizable. A wide swathe of destruction had been cut through what had only this morning been a collection of brightly colored market stalls. Now it was a tangle of blackened wood, tattered cloth, crumbled stone, and broken pottery. And bodies. So many bodies. It seemed as though every person in Clearspring had been killed. Nuresh staggered through the destruction, dazed. Fires burned all around him, and everything was covered in a thick layer of pale gray ash. This is a dream, he thought. I am in some kind of nightmare. He hurried across the ruined market, making his way toward his own house.

"Aliah!" he cried as he ran. "Safi!"

The buildings on either side of the street were nearly all demolished. There was no movement that he could see among the wreckage. No one living.

"Aliah! Safi!"

Nuresh climbed over the broken wall of a house which had been knocked out onto the street. Something sharp cut one of his palms. Dark blood dripped onto pale stone. There was a wooden lattice above which had stretched between the roofs of the houses all along the street. Flowering vines had twisted along the beams. Most of them had been burnt away, but some pieces remained, hanging precariously above the street below. Nuresh walked beneath one such beam now. He opened his mouth to call once again for his wife and daughter, when there was a loud crack! from above. He lifted his head just in time to see the wooden beam falling toward him. It struck him square in the face. His body fell backwards as the world went black.