15. A Hatchling and a Journey Across the Sand Isles #3
Kaelen turns over, making a gagging sound as the head disappears through the entrance and the body drops to the ground at their feet.
“That was so sick,” he moans. “Never do that again.”
“You mean save your life?” Sapphira snaps. “You’re welcome, you big baby! You’re the big draek?n here. You should be protecting us.”
“But I’m injured,” he whimpers.
She rolls her eyes, clutching the sword tighter to her chest as she lets out a relieved breath.
“Ziggy, no!” Kaelen cries, stretching out his arm to try to catch the young Hybller, which races out into the night. It slips through his arms, screeching as it disappears into the desert.
“You named it?” Sapphira growls, giving him a glare. “You aren’t meant to—”
“Sapphira, watch out!” Isabel shouts, jumping at Sapphira and just barely managing to shove her out of the way.
Sapphira’s head slams into the wall of the cramped tree’s innards, and when she looks over at Isabel, her eyes widen at the sight of blood.
Her sword nicked the healer, and a long gash runs down her arm.
Sapphira gulps as she looks up at the same growling beast she just killed, muscles rippling beneath its patterned fur.
“How in Gods’ name is it alive?” Sapphira shouts. She swings the sword again, the blade tearing into the flesh of its shoulder as it launches at her.
“Stop it, Sapphira!” Isabel cries. “You can’t cut its head off.
It’ll only— ” Isabel’s accompanying scream is like a brand through Sapphira’s heart.
The woman rolls out of the way just in time as another Vordrdjul comes crashing into the small space.
It hits the tree instead of Isabel, and the entire thing shatters into thousands of wooden shards, and the shelter bursts apart around them.
The desert is harsh and cold at night, with winds fast and screaming around them as they face off against two of Helheim’s creatures.
“Another one?” Kaelen shouts incredulously before he shifts, becoming a giant, fluffy draek?n that towers over the two creatures.
He bats at one with his claws, snapping at the other with a powerful jaw.
The creatures are agile and dart away. Sapphira’s eyes bulge as long, curving claws that appear like they could cut through anything, even a serpere’s scaled armor, dig through the sand, and disappear beneath them.
“Don’t go for the head!” Isabel calls up to Kaelen. The takops is staring intently at the ground, his large head bobbing and eyes searching the sand as he tries to track the creatures crawling beneath their feet. “If a Vordrdjul loses its head, another Vordrdjul grows in its place.”
“And you tell us that now,” Sapphira hisses. That would have been good to know before I made another one. How are we meant to kill it?
When one of the creatures pops up from beneath the sand, Kaelen pounces. And with a quick swipe of his paw, the head goes flying off.
“Oh, great.” Sapphira sighs as another mass of shifting red skin slinks toward them.
Red eyes glare at Kaelen, slobber dripping from its open, growling mouth.
“Can’t you do something?” Sapphira calls to Isabel, who reaches into her bag and searches for something to use against the creatures, which are closing in on them. “Something with your magic?”
Isabel shakes her head. “I can’t. I don’t use my magic to hurt.”
Under her breath, Sapphira mutters, “Seriously? You’re lucky you’re cute, because I would have to haunt you if we don’t make it out of this.”
“Here, try this!” Isabel throws something to Sapphira, who jumps to catch it.
It’s a vial of deep-blue powder. “Try to get that on both of the tongues. It’ll knock them out.
Also, watch for the claws,” she says when Sapphira dodges a swipe of those long, deadly things. “Fable says they’re poisonous.”
Sapphira’s eyes widen, and she glances at the woman, who’s dealing with another of the daemons Kaelen created. “Seriously, Isabel, we’ll talk later about pertinent information!”
Turning back to the hulking Vordrdjul circling her, Sapphira clutches the vial of powder in one hand and her sword in the other.
She’ll have to find some way to keep the creature still so she can get the powder in its mouth.
The daemon bares its fangs and strikes out with its claws.
Sapphira twirls her sword, swinging it at the reaching limbs.
An arm falls to the sand, and the creature hisses, still hobbling closer.
As it moves, the limb grows back in place.
Sapphira groans. “Just great.”
Isabel is fast and doing well to avoid the two-headed beast’s grasp, and Kaelen is fighting off two of them with Ziggy at his side. The Hybller is small but has a powerful bite and no fear. It darts after the Vordrdjul with great ferocity. Sapphira would be terrified if it weren’t on their side.
Sapphira must quickly cut the daemon’s limbs off and get the sleeping powder into its mouth.
It’s the only way she’ll have a chance against a creature that can regrow its limbs and create infinite doubles.
Every time the beast lunges for Sapphira, she aims for its legs, trying to get them as quickly as possible.
But she isn’t fast enough. The creature falls back, scurrying away to regrow its limbs.
She decides that the intelligent creature must recognize her plan, because it burrows into the ground with fast and powerful arms. She watches the sand below her, eyeing dark shadows and movement beneath her feet to keep track of it, as she keeps her sword gripped tight and ready.
But when she spots Kaelen in the distance with only one cat-bear before him, she realizes she was tricked.
They were keeping her distracted so another Vordrdjul could sneak behind her.
The daemon swipes at her arm with a long, curving claw. She dodges just in time to miss her arm being flayed open, but the vial goes flying from her hand, disappearing into the sand in the scuffle.
“No!” she cries out.
The wind is knocked from Sapphira’s chest as she falls on her back, and her sword is knocked from her hand on impact.
She watches in breathless horror as it slides down the dune, getting farther from her.
Sapphira crawls toward it on her elbows but stops when another Vordrdjul blocks her path.
She has both of them on her now and no weapon.
Sapphira rolls, dodging claws and biting teeth.
She scrambles around in the sand, escaping by pure luck and adrenaline.
When something hard bumps her shoulder, she looks above her to see the discarded cat-bear arm she sliced off, and her eyes widen.
She wraps both arms around it, hauling it up.
When both Vordrdjuls leap for her simultaneously, she props its claws out, eyes clenched shut as she waits for her fate.
The creature barrels into her, knocking her back across the sand, but the pain doesn’t come.
There’s a loud, piercing screech and a slinking sound, then she peers to see the Vordrdjul impaled on its own claws.
Arms flail out like they’re trying to reach Sapphira, but the arms are aimless, eyes unfocused and rolling back in the heads.
She notices that the other one isn’t moving but is locked in place.
The same seems true of the creatures Isabel and Kaelen have been fighting.
“What is going on?” Sapphira asks as the Vordrdjul turns to dust and blows off with the wind. The others follow.
Panting and sweaty, Isabel stands at her side, bent over her knees as she catches her breath. “You did it,” she wheezes.
“I . . . did?”
Isabel nods and gulps. “You must have been fighting the main body, so when you poisoned it with its claw, the others also disappeared.”
“Oh, thank the seas,” Sapphira sighs, falling back into the sand with a racing heart and exhaustion settling on her shoulders. “Can we please get out of here before any more of those things arrive?”
The other two agree with her sentiment. Isabel gathers Ziggy into her top, cradling the Hybller to her chest, and they climb onto Kaelen, then fly against an orange-red sky as the sun rises on a new morning.