Page 42 of Serpents of the Night

It was so strange. Was it something about the dunes in particular? Perhaps Payeri was not happy being stuck so long in them with Lori as the sand seemed to shift and billow without even a moment’s notice, getting grit everywhere. Lori was certain that when she finally took off her TRS that she would find sand crusted in places she didn’t even want to think about. She couldn’t imagine it being any more pleasant on the scales of her maiden at hand. Worse, with the heat beating down on them, Lori’s progress had slowed to a crawl, frustrating her companion even further.

Lori gritted her teeth as she battled back her own flash of annoyance. What exactly did Payeri expect from her? Did the female think she wasn’t just as eager to return to Aglatha? Although she couldn’t entirely fault the female’s annoyance at her weakness that had made her incredibly sick with just a short, direct exposure to the sun and made her movement increasingly sluggish as she attempted to stretch out her supplies; she was doing the best she could, damn it! Yeah, she knew better than to forget protection. That was her fuck up. Even the heavy equipment that was worn by colonists to survive Seshana’s sun was an imperative that had been drilled into her head since taking flight out to Darvel’s mining company. But that didn’t mean that she was trying to subject the Seshanamitesh to as much misery as possible on the dunes.

She sure as hell wasn’t enjoying it. Lori squinted as the wind shifted direction and blew fine, gritty sand into her face and eyes. Coughing, she drew to a stop and covered her eyes with her arms and rapidly blinked as she faced away from the breeze. Gods, it wasn’t even that strong of a breeze and her eyes were burning. Of all things, she decided that she missed eye protection the most.

“How far do the dunes extend?” Lori shouted back to her maiden at hand, praying that they were nearing the edge.

“A fair distance,” came the reply and Lori’s heart sank momentarily before it sank in that the female’s voice sounded surprisingly distant.

Lori paused and slowly turned. “Payeri?”

The violet female stared back at her, her violet form even farther away than she had guessed. The female had stopped moving altogether a while ago, allowing distance to grow between them. Lori swallowed but quickly glanced away. That was not normal, but she pretended not to notice as she tipped her head back and frowned at the milky moon suspended above them. She didn’t stop listening, however. There was something in Payeri’s bearing as her wings rattled with a papery rustle as if preparing to snap open at any moment that sent needling pinpricks of alarm through her.

Okay, Payeri had been impatient, but why was she acting so weird now? A cold sweat broke out over her as she slowly swung the lantern to peer more intently at the sand. They were high enough that she couldn’t even make out the mountains from her position. Which way was she facing? She shivered as an unearthly rumbling growl echoed from an unknown origin. Even if the creature wasn’t anywhere close, it wasn’t helping her state of mind. The dunes around them seemed to almost resemble gaping, moaning mouths in the light of the lantern.

“Payeri?” she tried again; her voice weak as her fear climbed through her.

“Don’t be afraid, human,” the female’s voice returned in a sing-song manner, as if that wasn’t going to be creepy.

She turned again toward the female, lifting her lamp higher only to find that the female had moved out of its circle of illumination. Lori’s heart thumped harder and faster in her chest.

“Payeri, where are you?”

“I am here. I am with you,” Payeri replied. “And we are exactly where we should be... finally.”

Lori’s blood chilled at the triumph and finality in that word.

“What do you mea—”

“Be silent,” her maiden at hand snarled. “I am sick and exhausted of all of your silly questions. Of your feebleness. How can one Seshanamitesh male tolerate this, much less three? You are nothing compared to the females of our kind. You deserve to be cleansed from Seshana and out of the sight of Shangla. You would dare to breed your weakness into our shinara.”

“I... I thought you wanted to help me?” It turned out that she had been right to be wary. She never should have given the female the benefit of the doubt. But she had done it for peace between the colonists and those of the Aglatha cave system. There would have been far easier ways to kill her. It didn’t make sense.

“Help you?” The female scoffed. “Pitiful. I merely wished to get you exactly where I wanted you where no one within the shinara would know your fate outside of what I told them. Whereas someone could find your remains in the caverns if they were determined enough, no one from the shinara comes to the surface. I finally have you exactly where I want you.”

“What are you going to do?” The question felt absurd to ask but it was abundantly clear that the female meant to kill her, which was confirmed by Payeri’s next words.

“I am just going to let Shangla kill you,” the female replied with a feigned sweetness.

Her words shifted, the sounds sliding upward into a shriek that sent a tremor through Lori. The calls of the females were different from those of the males. She remembered that belatedly as she stumbled away as the sand shifted and moved, spilling down the sides of the dunes around her. They weren’t just spilling but seemed to be rising and rolling all at once.

It wasn’t just the sand moving from the vibrations of Payeri’s resonating call, but it appeared that there was something rising from beneath the sands. Lori’s legs trembled as the sand beneath her feet slid out from beneath her, and she stumbled from the right to the left as she attempted to regain her footing. The sand was roaring as it tumbled, but she was certain that there was a distant base beneath it as a gaping mouth materialized within the heart of the rolling sand—and this time it was not an illusion brought on by her lamp. In fact, she had a great look at it as her lantern slipped from her hands and tumbled onto the sands sliding directly into the mouth that rose higher and higher revealing a round bulbous body like some sort of fat taper root rising from the ground with numerous arms rising from all around it, swiping at the sand searchingly as numerous beady stalks rose above the sand, rotating slowly as they searched.

Searching for her. For its prey.

Payeri had drawn a Fazthal to the surface to hunt!

Its jagged teeth moved as its mouth widened and unhinged before snapping together and opening again in a gruesome fashion and the sand spun faster and faster around as other Fazthals surfaced, their multitude of arms stirring up the sand with far more strength than any of the sandstorms she had seen from the safety of her quarters in Raza. Lori raised her arms defensively as she staggered over the ever-moving sand, Payeri’s laughter floating down on her from somewhere above. The bitch had taken to the air. Of course she had. This was her trap, she wasn’t going to do Lori any favors by remaining within it with her and sharing in the fate she had devised for her.

“Give up, human filth,” Payeri trilled mockingly, her voice raising above the roar of the sand and the moaning of the Fazthals. “You will not escape these dunes. Just know that I will castigate myself publicly before your mates for failing them and I will be the one to comfort Slengral while he grieves for you.”

Lori shook her head in denial as she veered away from another long, tapered arm, terror giving wings to her feet as she moved with the sliding sand to help her momentum as much as possible. She had no idea which way she was running, all she knew was that she had to get out of there as the Fazthals’ multitude of arms crashed against the sand, sending thicker fresh clouds that choked the air and blinded her. One slid against her shoulder, tearing into the fabric of her clothes and into the thick material of her TRS, drawing her attention to the long clear barbs that were nearly invisible along the arms in the dark as the Fazthals attempted to skewer her as she ran blindly among them, changing direction at whim with every shift in the air from one of the arms striking at her.

Her heart in her throat, she blindly ran, blood soaking her clothes at each point that the Fazthals landed blows in their unsuccessful attempts to capture her. But it was Payeri’s laughter that sparked a flame of vengeance within her that only grew brighter with Payeri’s parting words as the sand consumed everything around Lori, leaving her lost and battling for her life. Her legs weakened, and her heart felt as if it was about to burst as her breath billowed from her lungs in gasping, weak, dying breaths.

She wasn’t going to make it. Her mates would never know the truth. They would be left alone. Hashal would be alone. Her tears fell freely, mingling with the sand coating her face leaving painful tracks as they slid to her chin. She was going to die in the worst imaginable place, and no one would know the truth of what happened. A choked sob left her as she felt along her arms with her hands. Her arms were stinging with sand and were slippery from her blood as her gloved hands slid freely along the mess.

At some point, she had fallen and had been scraped deeply by several arms before she had wiggled free, helped along by the distracted skirmish of the competing Fazthals that took their attention off her long enough to escape. She had lost her pack, however. If she didn’t bleed out, she would soon die from exposure. She choked on broken laughter welling up from deep within her. She was fucked no matter what she did.

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