In the distance, through the haze of the desert, a shape began to appear.
At first, Isaac thought it was another sandwyrm surfacing through the dunes. He started to panic again. There were many things he had learned about the creatures since the start of his journey, more than any ancient tome had managed to teach. The beasts were colossal, highly territorial, and vicious when disturbed. Their natural armor was impervious to arrows and blades. And, if Isaac could see the wyrm now, then it had already sensed his presence long ago.
He stopped, feeling the heat of the sand through the thin soles of his boots, and wiped sweat from his face. He squinted against the glare of the sun. Out in the distance, the shape only grew larger. Isaac couldn’t spot the vestigial wings or any other identifying anatomy. The lessons and diagrams from his textbooks slipped from his mind like mist. The sun beat down on his face and sweat stung his eyes. All he could see were vague colors swirling on the horizon.
He knew he shouldn’t have been out during the day. Travel by night, his uncle had told him, pressing the scrolls and phylacteries into his pack. Don’t ever go out during the day. His uncle had impressed upon him that this was not only to protect against the worst of the heat, but to avoid the sandwyrms at the peak of their activity.
Isaac had followed that advice initially, making camp inside dry gulches during the day and travelling around the deeper pockets of sand during the night. But, by the fourth day, he’d exhausted his waterskins, and had been forced to scavenge in the morning light for what little vegetation existed in this desolate area of the world, ripping the plants from the scraggly dirt and sucking moisture from their roots. His rations of salt meat and hardtack had only worsened his thirst. Now, at the dawn of the sixth day since he’d entered the desert, he was stumbling half-blind through valleys of dunes, searching for an oasis his map told him was only a half-day’s journey away. He knew that, if he didn’t reach it soon, he would die.
His journey was in grave danger. He couldn’t fail. Not now. Not even at the cost of his life.
Right now, the only thing he could be sure of was that the shape was heading in his direction. Isaac had read many adventurer’s journals in preparation, and more than a few had spoken of mirages—hallucinations brought out by thirst and heat. He couldn’t be sure that this shape was not a trick of the mind. It seemed to float on the edge of the sand like a blade of grass on still water.
He couldn’t take the chance. The shape was still coming closer. If it was a sandwyrm, then he had to act now. Before it was too late.
He wiped more sweat from his eyes and reached down into the quiver at his hip. Instead of arrows, it held scrolls. Catalysts, his uncle would insist. Amplifiers of his body’s natural energies. No magic was free.
He unfurled one of the few remaining papers and held the glowing sigil in the direction of the approaching shape. With his other hand, he performed the necessary mnemonics. A familiar draining sensation sucked through his inner being, channeling into the scroll. His arm grew weak, but Isaac forced himself to keep it aimed and steady.
For all their might and ferocity, the sandwyrms were not mindless creatures. A single warning shot was capable of scaring them away. The spell was exhausting to perform, even with the scrolls, but anything less would not intimidate the beasts. He had to seem like a threat.
Isaac aimed. His breath steadied. In the distance, the shape seemed to become—
A fireball erupted from the scroll. It arced across the dunes like a second sun blazing through the sky. Isaac wobbled on his feet, the sudden transfer of energy nearly making his legs buckle. He watched the fireball complete its downward trajectory towards the shape. It exploded into a nearby dune, searing the sand into glass, edges of the flames raining down close to the sandwyrm. A perfect shot. That would frighten the beast.
But something odd happened. Instead of diving below the sand, as Isaac expected, the shape seemed to turn, and, as it turned, it grew larger. Suddenly, Isaac could make out more details. He saw the angled lines of netting and rope. He saw cannon portholes stitched in rows across a wooden broadside. And, finally, he saw twin masts sporting a single large sail, which glowed with the circular sigil of wind propulsion magic.
The shape had not been a sandwyrm. It was a sandship.
A sharp semicircle of sand kicked up into the air as the ship pulled a hard turn across the face of a dune. Seeing clearly now, Isaac could discern individual sailors rushing along the deck, some of them climbing into the rigging. Their forms seemed large and varied, covered in patches of leather armor and weaponry. The magical sigil on the ship’s sail glowed brighter as the crew threw fire directly onto the fabric, which was absorbed like water and transformed into momentum. The ship was accelerating hard, and still turning in Isaac’s direction.
A black standard unfurled itself along the foremast, depicting a canine skull over crossbones.
These were pirates, and they were not human.
For a moment, Isaac could only stare in awe. He had read about the pirates of this desert, how their ships travelled across sand and gravel as easily as water, the magical technology plundered from neighboring nations. They were zoanthropes near exclusively—predator species that were more adapted to the desert, foxes and hyenas and lions. Most of them stood a head or two taller than humans. Most of them could kill him with a single swipe of their claws.
And Isaac had just shot a fireball at them.
He was knocked out of his shock by their first cannon salvo. Plumes of smoke burst from the broadside of the ship, and the ground erupted before him in a rushing line. Isaac dove away, feeling the wind of an iron ball screaming past the spot where his torso had been a second earlier. Clouds of sand pelted his face. He scrambled to his feet, blinking and spitting. The ship had completed its turn, gaining speed as it sailed down a valley of dunes, and it was now bearing down square in his direction, the black pirate standard fluttering in the desert breeze as the crew poured more fire on the sail.
Isaac ran for his life.
He sprinted to the edge of the dune and jumped, sliding down the slope in a desperate tumble. His worn and dirty clothes were destroyed even further by the rushing sand, flaying the skin on his hands and legs. Once he reached the bottom, he rolled head over heels, barely managing to regain his balance before he was running again.
There was nowhere to go. All around him was sand, sloping off in gentle waves as far as he could see. His feet sank into it with every step, and he quickly lost any bearing or direction he had obtained from his map. There was only panic and fear, an urgent will to flee.
He heard the cannon shots just in time. He dove again, and twin explosions of sand launched themselves up into the air, mere yards away. Crawling along the sand on his hands and knees, Isaac looked back to see the sandship crest over the dune like a normal ship would cross a wave, her bow pitching and yawing over the peak of the sand until the whole vessel was sailing clear down the other side. Smoke trailed from the forward cannons, and the crew were all manning their battle positions, foxes and lions clinging to the rigging and pointing their sabers at him.
Isaac couldn’t run. The ship was much faster than him.
He had to fight.
He dumped his quiver of scrolls onto the sand and grabbed the first one he saw. It just so happened to be the same catalyst he’d used a minute ago. Fireball. Stumbling back to his feet, one arm performing the casting mnemonics as fast as he could, Isaac began to aim the scroll at the ship as it finished descending the dune, bearing down on him faster than any sandwyrm could possibly manage.
Isaac was lucky. The pirate ship fired first, but the yawing of the vessel as it raced across the sand tilted it upwards, just enough for the twin forward cannons to shoot above his head. Even still, if Isaac hadn’t been concentrating on feeding his bodily energy into the scroll, he would’ve flinched. He pushed himself harder, gritting his teeth as his body was drained. The magical catalyst crossed its threshold, leaping to life in his hand, and the fireball that erupted from the scroll flew like a well-aimed comet right into the rear deck of the sandship.
The effect was devasting. Half of the top deck was immediately engulfed in fire. Burning figures of hyenas and foxes flailed into the rigging, spreading the flames further. The lions who had climbed up the masts tried to scramble down, some of them jumping directly into the sand below.
But the ship kept moving. Even if both the wheel and navigator were burning to ash, the ship itself still had momentum.
Before he could fully regain his strength, Isaac grabbed another scroll and ran laterally, hoping to get out of the vessel’s path. Pirates on the bow were close enough to fire crossbows at him, bolts whistling past his head as he kicked his way through the loose sand. He dove clear of the ship as a graveyard of buried shafts grew at his feet. Dozens of bolts flying at him, the desert sun directly in his eyes, Isaac got to his feet and unfurled the only scroll he had left.
Wind. The same sigil that powered their ship. This one was much simpler to cast. Cock your arm back, concentrate as much energy into your palm as possible, then release. His uncle’s lessons came back to him—years of constant practice and painful instruction. He had trained his entire life for this moment.
Isaac pulled everything he had into his hand and flung it at the ship.
The port broadside of the pirate vessel exploded in a shower of splinters, rope and blood. Bodies and flaming planks rained down across the sand. The bilge of the ship immediately sunk below sand level as its hull lost integrity, all its magical momentum arrested in seconds. As the front buried itself deeper, the flaming stern leaped into the air, nearly three tons of wood and sail rising like a bucking horse, and the entire vessel was ripped apart by shear force just as quickly as it could capsize. In seconds, all that remained of the sandship were flaming husks of the multiple decks tumbling across the sand, zoanthrope bodies twisting between nets, broken planks and spilled cargo.
Isaac collapsed into the sand, breathing desperately hard. He’d put too much of his energy into that hurricane. Blackness creeped into the edge of his vision. All he could do was gasp for air and watch the pieces of the ship burn. Somewhere, he was amazed that he was still alive.
Then the pirates began to emerge.
Some of them clawed their way out of the wreckage. Some of them had leaped from the ship to escape the flames, trudging along through the deep sand. Most of them were injured. All of them were armed.
A lioness kicked some burning debris out of her way, snarling at him. Parts of her leather armor had melted into her fur, but her cutlass shone brightly in the hot sun. A male fox used his halberd to steady his balance as he limped across the sand. Two hyenas jumped down from the half-buried deck of the ship, one male and one female, both brandishing maces.
They all made their way towards him, baring their teeth as much as their weapons. Isaac tried to get back to his feet, but his strength was gone. He’d used too much magic. He could barely lift his arms now, let alone defend himself. All he could do was weakly pull himself along the sand, trying to crawl away.
“Gut him!” the lioness shouted. “Cock to throat!”
“Watch the arms!” the male hyena yelled. “Don’t let him cast!”
Isaac continued to crawl, sand leaking between his fingers. He never imagined he’d die this way. All the years of preparation, all the lessons he’d suffered under his uncle, all the study and pain and discipline. He never imagined this would happen. He never imagined he’d die to some common pirates before even reaching the gravesite.
There would be no one to rescue his father now. It was all for nothing. His entire life had been wasted.
They were close. Growling of a lion, hiss of a fox. Isaac stopped crawling, gathered the last of his strength and flipped himself over. At the very least, they weren’t going to stab him in the back.
The male hyena stood above him, blood leaking down his furry fingers and onto the haft of his mace. His leather armor was scorched. Sharp, half-rotted teeth flashed in his snout. He was large enough to block out the late morning sun, providing the first moment of shade Isaac had felt in hours. The mace he wielded was covered in ornamental flanges and knobs, almost glittering in the light—likely some ceremonial symbol robbed from a noble in a faraway land.
Isaac had studied battle injuries. Blunt force trauma. He knew how easy it was to crush a human skull. In the hands of this hyena, that mace could be swung with great force. As the zoanthrope raised the weapon high, growling in fury, Isaac found himself remembering a lesson on medicine taught by his uncle, identifying the various bones of the skull. He saw his mentor’s face reflected in the candlelight.
He knew his death would be quick.
There was a splintering crash behind them. The male hyena stopped, twisting in surprise. In the wreckage, flaming debris began to churn behind sections of the hull.
A hyena smashed through wood and flame. Her clothes were in tatters, a loose collection of fabric and leather that barely concealed her spotted fur. The long mohawk of hair running down her neck was coated in bright shining blood. In her hands was a poleaxe, the steel also stained a dripping red, and on her wrists were broken sets of manacles, the chains dangling down like writhing snakes.
“She escaped!” the lioness shouted. “Kill her!”
The hyena roared and charged, hefting her poleaxe high. Most of the pirates turned to face her. She swung down at the closest opponent with such vicious force that it shattered the haft of his halberd, nearly cleaving the fox in half down through the groin. She kicked a foot into his chest as the zoanthrope’s legs buckled, yanking her axe blade free with a sliding of entrails. Two lions moved in to engage with short swords and cutlasses, and she met their challenge with a screaming sweep of blood and steel.
The male hyena standing above Isaac hesitated. His mace came down slightly. For a moment, he could only stare in horror at the rampaging hyena. And that moment was just enough for Isaac.
He pulled the phylactery from his pack and threw it at the pirate. The glass vial shattered across his chest. Immediately, the armor began to deform and twist, a hissing smoke erupting from the leather, and the hyena’s confusion turned to panic as the acid began to eat into his flesh. The pirate flailed, dropping his mace, desperately trying to unclasp his armor as it melted around him. Isaac dove forward, grabbing the blunt weapon from the sand, pulling himself into the best fighting position he could manage.
He struck the knee first, feeling the leather poleyn give along with the bone. The hyena screamed as he fell into the sand, twisting in agony. Isaac stumbled over to him, barely able to stand, and lifted the mace above his head. The first blow crushed the zoanthrope’s snout, spraying teeth and blood. The second caved in his skull. Even still, the pirate continued to gurgle and twitch. Isaac had to strike a third time before all movement ceased.
A lioness pulled her attention away from the escaped hyena to see Isaac standing over her fallen comrade. She roared loud enough for him to feel it in his chest, rushing at him with a curved sword.
Isaac had no illusions about his chances in combat. He was exhausted to the point of collapse, and the only weapons training he possessed was play fighting with tree branches between rounds of mnemonics practice. Thus, he immediately dropped the mace and casted a spell.
The lioness reached him just as he finished the movements. Bolts of ice flew from his fingertips. Two missed, but three bolts caught her in the chest, piercing through and shattering into shards. She gasped, her feline eyes going wide as the pull of her lungs only stabbed the pieces of ice further into herself. The lioness stumbled, still lurching forward, and, for a moment, Isaac feared she would manage to gut him with her sword. Instead, she tried to lift it, coughed up blood, and collapsed into the sand, groaning and choking.
Isaac fell down beside her. Casting without a scroll was dangerous. The parchments acted as a catalyst, allowing for a higher efficiency of transfer. Without them, the caster was forced to draw up more of his natural energy. It could very quickly lead to death, and Isaac had already pushed himself to his limit.
He hovered on the edge of consciousness. For a while, all he could sense was the sand on his face and the heat of the sun on his back. Slowly, he became aware that the sounds of fighting had stopped.
He lifted his head. The female hyena stood alone amongst a pool of bodies, leaning on her poleaxe as she breathed. Her spotted fur was covered in blood, yellow and brown smothered in red. She stood up to her full height and wiped her face on her arm. Her muscular form was outlined by the various fires of the broken ship behind her.
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She noticed him watching her. She hefted her poleaxe back into her hands and began to walk towards him.
Isaac tried to stand on legs that lacked any energy. The massive hyena never changed her pace as he desperately struggled back to his feet.
“Yield,” she called out, “and I’ll show mercy.”
Isaac grabbed the mace from the sand. It was heavy, far heavier than he had ever imagined from his readings. He could hardly keep it steady in his hands.
The hyena flashed a hint of teeth, not slowing her pace. “Come now. You can barely stand.”
Isaac’s grip was slick with sweat, his vision blurred. As the zoanthrope drew closer, he realized that she had nearly a foot of height on him. Her musculature was lean and taut, suggestive of a lifetime of fighting. He was hopelessly outclassed in reach, strength, and stamina. She could gut him with the tipped spear of her poleaxe before he even thought of lifting his mace.
She stopped just out of his reach, seeming to regard his bloodied weapon with amusement. “You ever held one of those before?”
Isaac could only breathe, trying not to collapse.
The amusement faded from her expression. “Don’t throw your life away, human. Yield.”
“No,” Isaac said. “Never.”
She regarded him for a moment, the fires of her former ship burning behind her. Embers drifted down past her bloodied mohawk, reflecting in her eyes. Then, without a word, she shifted her poleaxe close to her chest.
She stepped forward. Isaac swung the mace. It clashed off the haft of her weapon, sparks flying on the metal. She heaved her poleaxe forward, ending the cross with a burst of strength. As Isaac stumbled back, she rushed in.
The last thing Isaac saw was the haft of her polearm flying towards him.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
He woke in pain, the sun beating down on his face.
His pack lay at his feet, the contents scattered. Phylacteries buried in the sand, their liquids beginning to condense on the glass. Maps and ciphers, what was left of his rations. Empty waterskins. He hadn’t been carrying much, and whoever had gone through his supplies hadn’t seemed interested in what he did possess.
Isaac tried to move his arms but winced as rope cut into his wrists. He became aware that he was lying in a sitting position amongst the smoldering wreckage of the pirate sandship, most of the wood reduced to cinders and ash. A small valley of shifted sand indicated where his body had been dragged. Twisting as much as he could, Isaac saw that his arms had been tied through a cannon hole along the broken edge of the hull. His wrists seemed to be bound together with torn sections of the ship’s rigging.
He pulled again. The rope was rough and gnarled, chafing his skin. His hands and legs were flayed from sliding down multiple dunes. His head throbbed with a latent concussion, and his nose was painfully swollen. Most of all, he was thirsty. He had never been so desperate for water. His throat seemed to bleed every time he swallowed into it.
He kept yanking on his restraints. They didn’t give. Isaac gritted his teeth, almost snarling through the pain as he pulled and pulled.
“Well, well,” a voice called. “My rescuer awakes.”
Above, at the edge of the burnt top deck, the spotted hyena was peering down at him. She tossed two heavy packs down into the sand and jumped after them. Isaac had time to note that one pack was smaller than the other before her approaching form demanded his attention. Sitting down as he was, she seemed impossibly tall. Her hands and feet were tipped with black claws, wrapped in overlapping lines of cloth like a pugilist. Most of the blood had been cleaned off her fur, but a few dashes of red remained.
“So,” she said, towering over him, “how’re we feeling, then?”
Isaac swallowed what little saliva he had left.
The hyena squatted down until she was only a head above eye level. “How’s it feel, smashing the finest pirate ship of the desert? Along with most of her crew, no less.” She gestured out to the burnt pieces of hull sinking into the sand. “Terror of the dunes, the scourge of any caravan foolish enough to cross her path, and you bloody well exploded her with a few flicks of your wrist. Snuffed like some candle on a cake.”
“I—” Isaac coughed, his throat raw. “I didn’t mean to.”
Her ears perked up. “That so? From what I heard, you shot first.”
“I thought your ship was a sandwyrm.”
She straightened a little. “The giant sand dragons? Them that fly from the ground in a flurry of teeth and scales, swallow men whole? You thought one of them was rounding on you, and your first move was to lob a fireball in its direction?”
“Sure. I suppose.”
“That your general strategy for dealing with giant monsters?”
Isaac did his best to shrug. “I started with frost rays.”
The hyena sat back on her digitigrade feet, staring at him. Then she laughed, showing the teeth along her black snout. “You just got that right blend of naïve and foolhardy about you, huh?” She leaned in again. “What’s your name, love?”
“. . . Isaac.”
She placed a hand to her chest. Her outfit was a torn and motley collection of leather armor and brown strips of cloth—her hand ended up resting on an exposed patch of fur above her breasts. “Zaria. Pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
Isaac stared back at her.
“Might be you want to say that back,” Zaria said.
“I’m not a very good liar.”
She snorted. “We going to be enemies, then?”
Isaac yanked on his restraints. “You tied me to a boat. How else should it be?”
“Well,” she said, “I suppose I could be grateful to you for rescuing me from certain torture and death. If you did so by any other means ‘cept flipping the gods-damned ship I was imprisoned in.”
Isaac considered telling her about his mission. His father, trapped for decades in an ancient tomb festering with death and evil. His lifetime of training and all he’d worked to save his only parent.
“Even then,” she continued, eyes roaming over him, “one has to wonder how thankful they should be to someone who didn’t even mean to help them? One has to wonder if, given the opportunity, they’d kill her as easily as everyone else?”
No, he couldn’t tell her. He had to keep his mission a secret. For his safety, and his father’s.
Isaac made sure his voice was steady. “One could have a sense of honor.”
She grinned like he’d told her a dirty joke. “Honor supposed to replace common sense, is it? Suppose I feel so good about letting you go that I don’t even notice you tossin’ another fireball my way?” She shook her head, eyes never leaving his face. “No. What one really has to wonder is—what’s some well-to-do mage like yourself, armed with vials and book-learning, doing all the way out here in the desert?”
Isaac didn’t say anything.
Zaria stood up to her full height. Her thighs were nearly the size of his torso. “Feeling thirsty, Isaac?”
“What?”
The hyena gestured towards his ransacked supplies. “Couldn’t help but notice you’ve got naught but empty skins in your pack. Nothing but salt meat and chemicals for nourishment, neither.”
His maps and ciphers gently fluttered in the desert breeze. If she’d read them. . . .
“Downright foolish, if you ask me,” she said. “The sun out here kills men nearly as fast as the wyrms. I’ve seen people go mad from thirst inside a day. And you’re marching along on foot with barely a few cumshots worth of liquid, merry as you like.”
He thought he recognized her accent. It was urban, the likes of tavern dwellers and ladies of the night. Valrynn was the name of the country, Isaac was sure. He could only guess her dialect based on the phrases she used and the way she stressed certain syllables. He’d never actually heard the accent in person before.
“There’s an oasis,” Isaac said. “My map said it’s only a few miles away. I was trying to get there. . . .”
She chuckled. “Your map’s wrong. That watering hole is dried up. Safe to say that, if we hadn’t stumbled across each other, you’d be dead.”
Isaac tried to swallow. He had no saliva left.
“I’ll ask again. You thirsty, Isaac?”
He looked up at her. “Yes.”
“Want me to give you some water?”
“. . . yes.”
“Now, now,” she said, wagging a clawed finger. “Mind your manners.”
“What?” Isaac thrashed in his restraints. “What is your game, beastwoman? Let me go!”
Her laugh echoed across the ash and sand. “You get that line from a book, Isaac? Read it in one of your adventure tales?” She regarded him with amusement. “Magic-wielder like yourself must come from the nobility. Educated in proper etiquette and such. So why don’t you say please?”
Isaac stared back at her.
“Come now,” she said. “Simple word, isn’t it?”
His throat was raw. His muscles ached. His mind was dizzy. When his last waterskin had emptied, and his urine had been darker than sandstone, Isaac had realized he was in great danger. He had ventured out across the dunes during the day solely to acquire more water. Now, it seemed his only option to save himself from dehydration was the hyena in front of him.
Even still, he hated himself for it. She was toying with him, knowing she had complete control over his life. Isaac had not become a journeyman in magical transmutation just to be bested and mocked by some common pirate. He would never submit that easily.
But, right now, there was nothing for it. So, he gazed up at her and said: “Please.”
A grin emerged along her snout. “Knew you had it in you.”
She sauntered over to the two packs she had tossed down from the deck. In her temporary absence, Isaac ran his rope bindings along the edge of the cannon hole, hoping to find a sharp edge to cut them on. There was none. Nothing in the sand he could use as a weapon, either.
Being tied like this was infuriating. Isaac knew over a dozen spells that could easily reduce the hyena to cinders, chunks, ribbons, and droplets. But, with his wrists bound like this, he couldn’t cast a single one. He required the full use of his arms to perform the mnemonics. Without that, he was helpless. She clearly knew this, too.
As Isaac pulled on his restraints again, he noticed the body of a pirate. It was the lioness he had killed with frost rays. She had died with a look of shock and agony on her face. Her glassy feline eyes seemed to reflect his stare. Isaac didn’t feel guilty about killing so many pirates—he had spent many nights mentally preparing himself for such a scenario—but he still found her empty gaze unsettling. He looked away.
Zaria stood over him, blocking the sun. She held a waterskin in her hand. “Open up.”
Isaac opened his mouth.
She squatted down and began to pour. At first, Isaac drank greedily, the sensation of cool water on his tongue almost indescribable in its pleasure, but Zaria never slowed her pouring for his sake, and he couldn’t swallow fast enough. Soon, he was nearly choking on the water, some of it spilling on his face and chest, and she continued to pour even when he bent double to cough and gasp for air. By the time the skin was empty, more of it had landed outside of him than inside, and the amount he had swallowed only blunted his thirst, not satisfied it.
She tossed the empty skin over her shoulder. “Well, now that we’re bathed and happy, let’s get down to business.”
Isaac coughed, trying to lick more droplets from his scraggly beard.
Zaria held out a piece of paper. “What does this say?”
It was the letter his uncle had written him just before the start of his journey. He had not been able to send Isaac off personally, having to attend to urgent business elsewhere, but the letter was there to wish him well and grant him safe passage with its wax seal. It contained references to his mission, where he came from, and the place he was to go. Over the days, he had read it many times.
Isaac kept his face calm. “It’s written in Common.”
The hyena moved the paper closer to his face. “I understand that, love. What does it say?”
He stared back at her for a moment before it clicked. “Oh. Of course you’re illiterate. Don’t know why I expected—”
Her teeth went for his throat. Isaac squirmed against the cannon hole, an entire maw’s worth of sharpness wrapping around his neck like scissors on paper. He could feel his rapid heartbeat pounding into her canines as she pressed into the skin. Her jaw seemed to tense . . . then she slowly pulled back, just far enough away that her breath caressed his jugular like a gentle promise.
“Don’t make this hard,” she said, and, this close to him, he could smell her musk, strong and primal. “I’d hate to leave you for the birds.”
Above the furry ears nearly tickling his nose, Isaac could see buzzards already circling above the wreckage. At least a dozen black shapes. He knew that vultures tended to eat the eyes of the dead first. Sometimes, they didn’t wait until they were dead.
“Tell me if I’m wrong.” Her hot breath danced across his skin. “The gaudy seal comes straight from the desk of some equally gaudy mage, probably robed and such, granting diplomatic passage. The curly-cues and fancy lettering suggest said mage is probably high-ranking enough to jerk off to sigils in his spare time. And, finally, the sweaty fingerprints suggest you’ve poured over this parchment like a letter from your special missus.”
Isaac watched the buzzards circle overhead, trying not to breathe.
Something hot and wet touched his throat. Zaria dragged her tongue across his neck, the small barbs scraping over his skin. His legs kicked and shuddered through the sand, but he was pressed into the section of hull by the bulk of her body, all his senses eclipsed by her weight and musk.
Then she pulled back, one clawed hand gripping his shoulder, brown eyes meeting his. Several scars ran down her complexion—one long line over her eye, another across her snout. The wind gently rustled her flowing mohawk.
“Last time I’m asking,” she said, holding up his uncle’s letter. “What does it say?”
Isaac looked at the letter, back at her, and said: “Fuck off.”
She didn’t react. Kept looking into his eyes. Looking for weakness. Isaac met her gaze like any falter might be his last.
Then she sniggered—slowly at first, building up in strength until she was bent over, leaning a hand on his thigh, laughing with her whole body. Isaac took a deep breath, his throat still wet, thinking of his father.
“Can I tell you something, Isaac?” Zaria asked, pulling herself straight. “I think we’ll make a fine team, you and I.”
“Excuse me?”
She stood up, pacing over to his upturned pack. “Well, I may not have had the good fortune of education, but I do know good fortune when I see it.” She picked up a parchment lying on the ground, shaking the sand off.
A chill went down Isaac’s spine. That was his map. With all his markings and notes.
She came back over, squatting down till she was only slightly above him. “What’s this?”
“I do believe that’s a piece of paper.”
“Funny. I think it’s a treasure map. See?” She pointed at the large X that denoted his destination. “X marks the spot. Classic cartography. Even stuffy mages with silver spoons up their arse like that one, apparently.” She paused. “No offense.”
“Much taken,” Isaac said.
“Well, just so happens I know this place. Most desert pirates do. The lair of some ancient sorceress, carved into the earth from the buried corpse of a giant, the smell of death so pungent it touches your very soul. They say that anyone who ventures into the mouth of that tomb has their essence consumed by demons, their spirit twisted into madness by eternal torture.” She glanced down at the map, then back at him. “You believe in them old myths, Isaac?”
“Maybe just the gist of it.”
“Ah. Well, they also say that old sorceress left behind treasures not seen by any species for thousands of years. Gems and goblets of gold glittering in the dark, more than ten sandships could carry. You believe that, too?”
He swallowed.
Zaria pressed a claw into the X. “See, I think you were sent out by some mage academy or what have you to claim that treasure, and maybe discover a few evil magics along the way. Group of bandits may stand no chance against whatever horrors lurk in those halls, but a mage like you? Someone who’s quite obviously read his weight in books about monsters and incantations?” She looked him and up down. “I bet you could take me right down to that horde of gold.”
“No,” Isaac said, quietly.
“Was that no, you can’t, or, no, you won’t?”
“No. I—” He sighed. “I’m trying to rescue my father.”
She tilted her head. “Is he some aspiring weapon of mass destruction like yourself?”
“He was part of the Diet of Nine. One of the strongest transmutation experts on the continent. He went out to that tomb before I was born to make contact with that ancient sorceress. The Diet had reason to believe she was still alive, sustaining herself by necromancy.”
“Ain’t that death magic illegal?”
“It’s . . . a complex discipline. Hotly debated. Some practical applications here and there. But stealing soul energy from the dead, corrupting the very essence of a person? That is a capital crime, and, thus, my father had orders to kill the sorceress if her presence there was confirmed.” Isaac looked away. “He never made it back. Something trapped him down there in that tomb. Only reason we know he’s not dead is triangulation of his soul energy with advanced machines.”
“Soul locating’s just a thing you can do, is it?”
“Sort of. It’s very experimental. Look, I have spent my life training with my uncle—my father’s brother—in order to rescue him from that tomb. Ever since I was able to speak, that has been my purpose. That is why I’m walking across this wasteland of a desert, risking death by wyrms and pirates. I want to save my father from whatever evil thing is holding him down there.”
Zaria blinked. She almost said something, then thought better of it.
Isaac shrugged. “That a good enough reason for you?”
“As far as they go, sure.” She was looking at him differently now. “Still haven’t answered my question about the treasure.”
“I doubt it’s quite as big as you’ve heard, but . . . yes. It’s real.”
She leaned in. “It’s real? Truly?”
“Diet of Nine thinks it is.”
“Free to claim, then?”
“Sure, I guess. Not like anyone else is coming.”
Zaria sat back on her haunches. She ran her fingers through the sand before glancing around the wreckage. Bodies and pieces of pirates, shattered planks and smoldering cinders. The hot desert wind gently whistling through it all.
“Tell you what, Isaac,” she said. “Since you’ve done me several favors already, I’ll do some for you.”
Isaac glanced at the dead lioness again. “You consider killing all your friends a favor?”
Her snout curled. “They weren’t my friends. Fact is, an hour ago, I was expecting them to give me a painful death. Now, I’m free as the wind, they’re all dead, and I’ve got an opportunity to be richer than the feline queen herself. You could say I’m feeling pretty chipper about things.”
“I just thought you were always like this.”
“Here’s the deal,” she said. “I’ll aid you in rescuing your father. Maybe vanquish some ancient evils if it catches my fancy. Then, you and I are going to split that treasure. Fifty-fifty. Might be your father grants me some titles and land, too, but we can discuss that later.”
Isaac had several responses ready at once. Most of them were impolite, so he said: “Did none of that talk of ancient necromancers scare you away?”
“Why should it? I’ve got this strapping young mage ready to act as my squire boy. Clearly, he knows what for. He’s got naught but his cock in his hands, and he’s ready to march into blackness like a brave little lad.” She patted the haft of the poleaxe hanging on her back. “I’d dare say he’s almost a damsel in need of a knight.”
“First,” Isaac said, “I am not a squire boy. I am a journeyman of magical transmutation from the college of Khador, trained by a nation-renowned expert in necromancy and elemental magic. I have been certified by the Diet of Nine as proficient in the banishment of undead life, destruction of hexes, and counteraction of necrotic spells. I have been fully prepared to arrest or slay a sorceress powerful enough to rival armies!”
Zaria grinned at him. “You rattle off them titles to all the lasses, Isaac?”
“Secondly, I will not have my mission sullied by some greedy pirate looking for treasure! You will only get in my way! I will not put my father’s life at risk for some uneducated beastwoman who thinks she can do my job by swinging some steel on a stick!”
The hyena stared at him for a moment, slowly nodding her head. Then, she shrugged and stood up. “Fine, then. Have fun with the buzzards.”
Isaac hesitated. “W-what? Let me go!”
“Why should I?” she said. “Clearly, you’re as fearsome as they come. You can handle a few birds.”
“I—well—”
“Oh, can you not cast them spells while tied like that? Shame. Rather puts you at my mercy, don’t it?”
On the edges of the wreckage, the first vultures began to descend. They stayed on the periphery, watching the two of them closely, but they seemed to be growing bolder by the minute.
“Which do you think will come first?” Zaria asked. “Sunstroke or dehydration? Maybe they’ll start nipping at your flesh while you’re still breathing. Starting at the soft bits, of course. Eyes and lips. You name it, they’ll get it. They’re very patient.”
Isaac tried to control his breathing. “You will never see a single coin of that gold without me.”
She squatted down again. “I’m well aware. That’s why the deal’s being offered. I help you get your father, you help me get rich. Otherwise, we part ways, here and now.”
“That’s not much of a choice.”
“Course not. That’s why I’ve already packed your bag.” She gestured to the two packs she’d dropped down from the ship. “Managed to pilfer enough skins and rations from the cargo to last us the whole adventure, looks like. Freely offered on condition of agreement, of course.”
He looked at his upturned pack. His only supplies, aside from alchemical equipment, were empty waterskins and dwindling food. With that, he’d never make it to his father, let alone the return journey.
“Smaller one’s yours, naturally. Can’t have my squire grow weak at the knees.”
Isaac glanced at the vultures before focusing his attention back on the hyena.
“Whaddya say then, Isaac? Comrades in arms?”
“Just untie me, you mangy cutthroat.”
“Hm. Right. ‘Bout that. Them magic cannons of yours are staying bound till the coin’s in our pockets.”
He stared at her long enough to hear some of the vultures begin to squabble over the lioness. Then, he leaned forward, raising his tied wrists further up the cannon hole.
She grinned, pulling out a dagger. “Just you wait. You’ll be enjoying my company in no time.”