Chapter 22
THE FIERY STORMBIRD
Ziara
“Zee, wake up.”
I opened my eyes to darkness, my senses catapulting into high alert. A flashlight flickered nearby, helping me spot Mack’s looming outline and determine that we were still in the underground garage.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, sitting up and trying to get my bearings. There didn’t appear to be any emergency, but the last time he’d woken me up like this, a magical sandstorm from hell had been heading our way. To say I was skittish and marginally traumatized was an understatement.
“Nothing. It’s time to move out.”
I stood and stretched, then collected my bedroll and secured it to my pack. Rust waited by the door and handed us each a stick of jerky when we approached.
“How are you feeling?” he asked. “Still fatigued?”
Fur ghosted Mack’s forearms and faded. “I can shift, sir.”
“No need for that sir shit, when it’s just the four of us.” He looked at me. “Ziara?”
“Better. Not a hundred percent, but I can run and fight.”
“Good. We’ll likely have to do both.” He pulled a desert camouflage cloth out of his bag and held it up for inspection.
“These are military-grade shemaghs. That storm left a lot of debris in the air. This will keep you from breathing it in until it passes. Secure it like this.” He folded the scarf into a triangle and situated it over his head.
Wrapping one side under his chin, he covered from his nose to his neck with the other.
Then he tied the two ends behind his head.
“Mack, don’t shift unless the alpha orders it, but if you do, remove the shemagh first. I only brought one for each of us, and there’s no telling how many more storms we might face.”
“Please tell me those aren’t a regular thing.” We were about to trade the relative safety of a concrete ceiling for open sky, and I had zero interest in a repeat performance of last night’s magical sandblasting.
Rust shrugged. “No way to know. The last time the alpha and I were here, we were still in the service. The entire world has changed since then. Hard tellin’ what we’ll face.”
There’s at least one guaranteed threat, I mused as the dragon clawed at the edges of my thoughts.
Knowing he was aware of our location and was coming felt like sitting on a live grenade. I grimaced. Who was I kidding? More like a damn napalm bomb my team was oblivious to since I was too much of a coward to open my mouth.
I needed to tell the alpha. I would tell him. Just as soon as he was back. Telling everyone at once would be more efficient, so really, I was just being strategic.
The lie tasted drier than the jerky.
I washed both down with a long pull from my canteen and donned my shemagh. I wrapped the piece of cloth the way Rust had shown us, preparing it to cover my mouth and nose at a moment’s notice, all while rehearsing my confession and hating every version.
The door opened, and Dad appeared, scanning each of us with sharp eyes.
This was my moment. I straightened, drew a breath, and—
“Let’s head out.”
He was already through the door. Rust followed. My open mouth closed on nothing, and the words I should have forced out crawled back down my throat as if they’d never existed.
Relief washed over me.
Then disgust, hot on its heels, because I recognized my emotions for exactly what they were. Cowardice dressed up as timing. I fell in line and marched up the stairs with Mack at my back, loathing myself with every step.
“Did they say where we’re going?” I asked Mack.
“The docks.”
The salt on the breeze told me the docks were close. Surely, I could wait to confess until we reached them.
The building spat us out into humidity so thick I could have chewed it.
Sand from last night’s storm still hung in the air, turning every breath into an exercise in grit tolerance.
We yanked our shemaghs into place to filter the stuff.
My clothes were damp before I’d taken three steps, and sweat pooled in places I refused to think about.
I was so done with Al Mukalla.
“I can’t wait to get home,” I whispered to Mack.
As the alpha’s good little soldier, he kept his concerns and opinions to himself, but there was a spark of agreement in his eyes as we set off down the street, trudging through sand drifts.
“Why has this part of the city been abandoned?” I asked as we turned down another vacant street, catching a glimpse of the nearby sea through the buildings.
“Most residents live closer to the portal station,” Rust explained. “A few powerful casters call this place home, and they protect it from threats like the storm we experienced last night. But their magic only reaches so far.”
“How do you kno—”
“Quiet,” the alpha snapped. “Keep your eyes and ears open.”
Adequately admonished, I swallowed the rest of my questions and focused on our surroundings.
We trekked through the city streets until we reached a highway running along the coastline so covered in sand that it was difficult to distinguish where the road ended and the walking path beside it began.
Turning right, we marched beside the sea, keeping an eye on the opposite side of the road, where there were more abandoned, sandstorm-abused high-rises.
Half a mile in, something blocked the road.
At first, I thought it was a collapsed tent made of translucent material, speckled with sand and billowing in the breeze. The alpha held up a fist, and we all froze. He gestured for cover, and the rest of us drew our weapons, scanning our surroundings while Dad approached alone.
Rust and Mack went rigid at the same moment, receiving news through the pack bond that I couldn’t hear. I watched their faces instead, reading the transmission through their reactions. Whatever the alpha was telling them, it wasn’t good.
Rust’s gaze cut to me. “It’s a snakeskin.”
My Glock dipped as my brain tried to reconcile Dad’s verdict with the nightmare before my eyes. Dad stood next to it, and the scale was obscene. He was a few inches shy of six feet, and he could have walked through it upright without brushing the top.
“Holy shit,” I said, annoyed by the tremble in my voice. “How big is the snake?”
Rust considered the skin. “I’d say about eight feet wide and close to a hundred feet long.”
My brain stuttered. I’d never been afraid of snakes, but I’d never seen one that could swallow a house before.
Dad waved us forward, and I dragged my feet, slipping behind the guys. The wind shifted, slapping me in the face with eau de rotting fish and sunbaked brine. My breakfast made a spirited bid for freedom, but I held my breath and looked away.
“You think the storm brought it in?” Rust asked, his tone hopeful.
“Hard to tell,” the alpha replied. “And it doesn’t matter. We’ve killed plenty of snakes before.”
Rust didn’t say what we all had to be thinking… not behemoth snakes that could eat the lot of us for a snack, we hadn’t.
Even more disturbing was the realization that in my dreams, the dragon was bigger. Much bigger.
I opened my mouth to warn the team of that threat, but the alpha snapped, “Let’s keep moving.”
Mackiel eyed the skin as we passed it. “Stay close to me, Zee.”
I gaped at him, wondering where the hell he thought I’d go? No part of me wanted to wander off in the desert by myself.
We fell back into formation and pushed along the coastline, every sense cranked up to eleven. The further we marched from the boundary, the more the city surrendered to neglect. Buildings sagged. Roads crumbled. Sand and salt devoured everything the magic hadn’t already claimed.
Yet people lived here. Evidence of their existence lingered in the occasional flicker of a tattered curtain or waft of cooking spices and seared meat. Thankfully, the residents stayed on their side of the road, and we returned the favor by staying on ours.
The port jutted over the sea in an upside-down L, a graveyard of rusted shipping containers, hollow warehouses, and silos that groaned in the wind.
We wove through the wreckage to the furthest dock, where debris choked the water around the pilings, the destruction looking less like neglect and more like the result of a battle that everyone lost.
I looked at Rust, hoping he’d shed some light on why we were here, but his focus stayed fixed on our surroundings, his rifle ready.
The alpha strode out onto the pier as if he owned it and sat on the end of the concrete dock before removing his boots and socks and setting them aside.
The rest of us fanned out in a triangle around him. We had his back, though I’m pretty sure not one of us had the first clue about what he was up to.
Taking point behind my father’s left shoulder, my eyes nearly bulged out of my head when he rolled up his pants and dangled his bare feet in the murky green water.
My dad had never in my lifetime come remotely close to wading or taking a casual dip in any body of water, and we lived off the Puget Sound.
The surprises weren’t done yet, though, as he withdrew a conch shell, covered in barnacles and mineral deposits, from his pack.
Filling his lungs with air, he brought the shell to his lips and blew.
The sound was otherworldly.
Low and mournful, the note rolled across the water like thunder, vibrating in my chest and making my teeth ache. He repeated the call once, twice, three times, each blast longer and more powerful than the last, until my ears rang with resonance.
I shifted my weight, scanning the containers for threats and hoping like hell no behemoth snakes appeared. The only movement at my back was the fabric of Mack’s shemagh rising and falling with his breath.
The alpha lowered the shell to his lap and waited.