Chapter Thirteen
Chapter
Thirteen
Meat
& Bone
A
colossal form spewed from the earth.
It had
rows of sandy scales, rushing and glittering in the cartilage light. It had a
row of mandibles around a circular mouth. Its teeth were shaped like the hooks
of a lamprey. When it coiled into the chest of the dead colossus, it roared a
song so loud, so utterly deafening, that Isaac was forced to cover his ears,
feeling the vibration deep within his flesh. He watched in horror as the wyrm
spit a volley of earth and stone at the rib cage above, chipping away at the
titanic streaks of bone.
Around
the wyrm, giant skulls joined its melodic voice, singing in rapture as they
flipped and spun through the air. The wyrm smashed blindly at the falling
skulls, its segmented body bulging at the seams. It attacked with violent rage.
Jaws
splintered.
Teeth
flew like shrapnel.
The
lungless voices fell into silence.
For a
moment, Isaac watched the wyrm thrash and contort above him, mesmerized by the
display. He only realized he was in danger when Soren began to sprint.
“Fall
back!” the bunny shouted. “Fall—”
A skull
crashed to the floor, landing so heavily that the entire world seemed to lurch.
Soren darted away. Several more skulls collided with the ground, spraying
splinters of bone. As the avalanche increased, the wyrm lurched again, and
another skull came tumbling across the palace courtyard, its cranium shattered,
its motion wild and skittering, forcing Isaac to stumble away. Even though the
skull missed him by several feet, the air pressure struck him like a wall, and
he went careening to the floor, rolling head over heels.
Dazed.
Blinking.
He
gasped for air.
A
shower of dirt poured on his face. He stared at the rib cage above. He spat and
twitched. He heard the voices of pirates, screaming in terror.
“Isaac!”
There
was a hand. The world spun. Seconds later, he was face deep in the fur of
Zaria’s chest, reeling for balance.
“Move!”
Just
ahead, the sandwyrm had extended half its body out through the earth, coiling
into the space beneath the glowing rib cage. Its bulging segments bristled with
the starry glint of sand-woven scales. Slowly, its vestigial wings began to
wriggle outward, unfurling from the carapace, displaying the old skin and sinew
that had once allowed the creatures to fly. By now, it was only a display of
size, a symbol of prowess for mates and rivals.
For a
moment, its circular mouth twitched with a dozen hooking mandibles, as if
tasting the air. It listened through the silence of dirt and broken stone.
It was
trying to find new prey.
Zaria
was tugging him. The rest of the pirates were sprinting back into the
necropolis, leaving every man for themselves. He had no idea where Soren had
gone. Now that the wyrm was here, all bets were off,
and all who were wise would flee.
Isaac
gathered his courage.
“Hey!”
he shouted, breaking through Zaria’s grip. “Over here!”
“Isaac!”
Zaria hissed.
The
dragon twisted, jerking its head in his direction. It had no eyes. Around the
circumference of its latching mouth, there was only a remnant of orbital
depression, a shallow grave where once had been sight. All the same, Isaac felt
a titanic gaze land upon him.
“Yes,
you!” he shouted, sprinting around a shattered skull. “You there! With the
teeth!”
The wyrm rumbled.
“Over
here!”
It
straightened, displaying its wings.
“Look
at me!” He emerged into an open space of the courtyard, surrounded by broken
skulls and crumbled boulders. “Look at me!”
The wyrm bent itself down, its ring of mandibles beginning to
writhe, its bed of teeth undulating around a flexing tongue. Noxious breath
struck him like a storm. Isaac knew, from his studies, that the wyrm possessed
a network of fine hairs between the scales of its carapace, all of which
functioned as a shell of transmitters. To the sandwyrm, his shouting was like a
blaze of light in the darkness, something it felt across its entire body. He
hoped it would be enough to drown the stampede of fleeing pirates.
“Come
on! I’ve faced bigger than you!”
The wyrm chuffed, like a clap of thunder. Another breath roared
across the courtyard, blowing his robes, watering his eyes. With an alarming
amount of dexterity, the creature reared back, tensing itself for a strike.
Isaac
rushed through the mnemonics.
Just as
it widened its mouth, he pointed his finger, firing a burst of sound directly
down its throat. A shower of blood erupted from the maw. The sandwyrm reeled
back, spraying an arc of green viscera across the rib cage above. The ground
trembled and broke as the dragon flailed, blinded by the noise. When it
screamed, the buildings of the necropolis trembled and shook.
Zaria
was grabbing him again. “Isaac, you fucking twit!”
“What?”
“Run!”
“You
were supposed to run!”
“Why
the fuck—”
The wyrm roared again.
By now,
it had caught itself, its senses returning, like a man momentarily blinded by
the sun. More of the segmented body slithered from the earth. It reared its
mouth again, its snarl dripping with blood and teeth.
“Shit,”
Isaac said.
All the
other times Isaac had faced a sandwyrm, he had managed to scare them away. All
animals avoided risk, where possible. Most predators would not injure
themselves to secure a tiny meal. But, of course, this was different now,
because the singing skulls had convinced the dragon that a rival was
encroaching on its territory. It was not peckish.
It was
angry.
It was
willing to fight.
The
sandwyrm tensed, unleashed a colossal roar, and shot itself forward.
For
such a massive creature, it struck with incredible speed. Isaac fired another
burst of sound, his aim panicked. It struck the wyrm on the roof of its skull,
the sandy carapace cracking like glass, and the creature flinched away,
diverting its path, smashing through the debris field of skulls and dirt like a
log rolling through a garden. Destruction rained out on the city beyond.
Seconds
later, it roared, launching another attack.
Isaac
fired again.
He
missed.
“Fuck!”
The
wyrm flooded across the stone, moving with a terrifying swiftness, and the only
thing that saved Isaac’s life was Zaria yanking him bodily off his feet,
throwing him like a heavy doll. He crashed to the floor. The wyrm
thundered ahead, rushing like a snake, its teeth gnashing the air, its massive
size leaving a furrow in the ground large enough to moat a castle. Wind
screamed where it passed.
Zaria
fell down, knocked over by the pressure.
A
second later, the wyrm coiled up, even more of its body gorging out from the
earth, trailing its segments across the ground like a messy spool of rope. It
was walling their escape. It was sensing their true position.
Slabber
fell from its jaw.
When
Zaria moaned, it locked its sightless eye on her.
“Hey!”
Isaac shouted.
The wyrm struck. Isaac ran ahead, casting wind, locking the gust
into a concentrated tunnel. The sudden hurricane caught the wyrm in its
outstretched mouth, splitting the wounded flesh even wider, though the beast
was barely slowed—by now, it was bracing through the pain, every injury only
driving it further into rage. Its body slammed into the ground. The writhing
mouth continued ahead, slithering over stone like a skimmer over sand. The
force of his hurricane was only slowing it down.
He put
all his energy into the wind, splitting the dragon’s maw wide, the sharp
screams of the gales almost louder than the furious bellowing of the dragon.
It kept
coming, sundering all the pavement in its path.
A
tongue leaped from its mouth.
Isaac
braced.
And
just when the long, slimy appendage was about to reach him, Zaria leaped out
from behind, spearing the dragon’s tongue with her poleaxe. It flinched, jerked
its head in pain, and Isaac was struck with a speeding wall of mandibles,
sending him tumbling across the pavement. He crashed into a stack of ration
crates, gasping and reeling, struggling back to his feet as blood leaked into
his eyes.
A short
distance away, the sandwyrm had flattened its body across the remnants of the
palace courtyard. Its mandibles flexed and jerked, its closed mouth snapping
from side to side. Finally, its head shot back, its maw opened, and Zaria was
flung into the air, flipping and spinning.
Isaac
watched in horror.
The
hyena was coated in green blood and saliva, her poleaxe still speared onto a
severed chunk of dragon tongue, turning the weapon into a giant, fleshy hammer.
Below, the sandwyrm snarled, rising to catch her in its mouth. She completed
her arc into the air, catching herself just enough that, when the creature
struck, it found her screaming and twisting and striking her poleaxe down with
all her strength.
The wyrm swallowed her whole.
“Hey!”
Isaac shouted.
As it
coiled back to the earth, it flinched again, snapping back and forth in pain, as
if Zaria were still fighting within the depths of its teeth. Soon, its maw
closed, its ring of mandibles tightened down, and the ends of its body began to
slither away, spooling into its giant burrow within the earth.
It was
retreating.
“Hey!”
Isaac
ran forward. The sandwyrm continued to snake into the shattered ground. Without
slowing, he shot multiple salvos of sound. Each impact on its body cracked its
glittering scales, and the beast spasmed in pain, overwhelmed with noise and
sensation. The assault only made it struggle faster. Isaac kept firing, aiming
for the mouth, hoping to disgorge Zaria from its grasp, but the wyrm’s scaly
hide was too tough for his uncatalyzed spells, and its head soon vanished back
into the tunnels below, leaving nothing but a scarred hole in the earth. The
last thing Isaac heard was a falling bellow of pain.
And,
suddenly, he was alone.
The
palace grounds were destroyed. The pirates had fled. Soren was gone. Only the
silence of the dead city remained.
He