Fire Country

I see Hawk amidst a large group of Hunters that’ve managed to stay organized, shooting pointers as a collective group, killing anything in sight. But they won’t last. There are too many Glassies.

“We have to go now or it’ll be over before we get there,” Lara says.

Which might not be a bad thing, I think. “We don’t have any weapons,” I point out, hoping I’ve found a way to change her mind.

She reaches behind her and extracts a pair of twin blades, as long as my forearm and sharper’n a Killer fang. “Take one,” she says.

I do, gulping as I feel the sun-heated metal of the hilt against my palm. “Lara, are you sure…?”

“You can do this,” she says, gripping my shoulder in one hand and her knife in t’other. She holds it as easily as a Bearer holds her baby. Me, I feel like the blade is as awkward as a tent pole.

I take a deep breath, my legs wobbling like they’re made of water. All energy’s been sucked from them, from my arms. It’s the strongest wind of the season, almost knocking me off my feet with each gust. This is no game, no daydreamed conversation with a prickler named Perry. This is real. The only way I can cope is to pretend.

I picture Circ on the field of battle, majestic and graceful, sweeping his blade like a dance, protecting other Hunters with every swing. The Glassies close in on him, one from the front, one from behind. He’s helplessly outnumbered. Only I can save him.

“Let’s go,” I say, digging my heel into the dust.

Lara smiles. “Now!” she cries. We race off together, two girls in a desert of men. Actually, more like one and a half girls. Guess who’s the half.

We’re halfway to the battle. It’s all happening too fast—too searin’ fast—and I can’t hold the daydream. Scorch, I can barely hold my blade, which is wavering in my grasp. I’m more likely to impale myself on it than one of the Glassies.

Circ vanishes, gone back to the land of the gods. A fire stick booms and a Hunter drops dead, red all over his chest. The Hunter archers unleash a flurry of pointers and a chariot full of Glassies crashes, pointers sticking out every which way from their skin.

Too fast.

The wind swirls, gusts, unites, threatens.

The sandstorm hits like a tug stampede.

Chapter Twenty-Three

If you ain’t never seen a winter sandstorm, consider yourself lucky.

Surviving a sandstorm is more luck’n skill. But when your people’ve been doing it for centuries, you’ve at least got a fighting chance. The Glassies? Not so much.

Lara grabs my blade, secures it to her leather belt, and in two seconds flat, the air goes from having an occasional burst of sand to being full of sand. And in those two seconds, me and Lara do three things, like we’ve been taught a million times, from Totter to Youngling.

First, we hold our breaths and drop. This is crucial, especially when every instinct is telling you to stay on your feet, to fight through the wind and the sand. To drop is to admit defeat. Not in a sandstorm. Remaining upright just quickens your death. You can’t outrun a sandstorm—the sooner you realize that the better.

Second, we curl up in a ball, throw our hands and arms over our faces—which makes me glad Lara took my blade, ’cause I’d probably have impaled myself—continue to hold our breath. To breathe is to die. The sand’ll get in every nook and cra

So third, we stuff our heads into the top of our dresses. Well, in Lara’s case it’s a boy’s shirt, but you get what I mean. Our clothes are over our heads, which creates a small breathing space. It won’t last forever, but it’ll keep us going for a few moments, maybe more.

I can’t see Lara, ’cause my eyes are closed and my head’s stuffed in my dress, but I know she’s doing the same. The bare parts of my arms and legs are getting stung over and over again by the hordes of sand that batter us like bee stingers. I can almost feel it chipping away pieces of my skin, shaving it all off until I’ll really be Skeleton-Girl, a set of walking, talking bones.

Soon though, the pain subsides ’cause my skin’s got a layer of sand so thick it’s like tug leather, protecting me from the second wave of sand. I take breath after breath, slow and deep, not panicking. Even so, each breath feels more strained’n the last, like I want more air’n my shirt’s got left. Time ain’t on my side, that’s for sure. If the storm don’t end soon, I’m a goner, no better’n the Glassies.

I take a breath, my lungs aching for more. The next breath’s even less satisfying. I can still feel the wind lapping against my body, but I can’t tell if there’s sand in it. My final breath is as deep as I can make it, sucking as much of the life-giving air into my lungs as I can. I hold it, hold it, hold it, start to feel dizzy. If I wasn’t already on the ground, I’d probably faint.

I can’t hold it, not one second longer. I hold it another second. Then one more. Maybe a third, I don’t know, time is moving so slow right now.

I pop my head out of my dress, gasp at the gritty air, take everything in, air and dust and wind, my lungs burning. The storm’s over, and although the air’s far from clean, it’s also far from deadly. Lara’s head is still in her boy’s shirt. She’s not taking any chances and apparently she can hold her breath a lot longer’n me. I tap what I think is her shoulder—she’s so covered in sand it’s hard to tell—and she comes up, poking her head out like a turtle.

“It’s okay,” I say.

Together, we look ’round. The sand is uneven, full of human-size mounds of sand. The dead and the living. But which is which? Some of the humps start to rise up, emerging from the sand like a child’s monsters, crusted with sand and looking less human’n creature. Although the faces are dusty, the brown sun-kissed skin shows us just who survived the storm. The Hunters. There’s not a single pale-white face among the living, not that I can tell, but I’m not ’bout to stick ’round to take a count, and neither is Lara.

“We need to get the burn out of here!” Lara says.

I’m with her there. ’Fore anyone notices our presence, we dash back to the village.

~~~

That sandstorm saved a lot of lives. The Hunters. Lara’s and mine. Probably everyone’s in the village. The first of the season. Short, but a real doozy. It got every last one of those fire-stick-wielding Glassies. They burned their bodies in a separate pile to our dead ones.

I feel Circ’s hand in the storm.

Lara and me went straight to the watering hole and got cleaned up, and then snuck into the crowds when people started emerging from their huts. When she saw me, my mother squeezed me like she was a Totter and I was her tug-stuffed doll. I told her I couldn’t make it home from Learning fast enough, and ended up hiding out in a different hut with Lara. Her eyes told me she didn’t believe me, but she didn’t push it.

My father shoulda been thanking the sun goddess for sending that storm, but instead he was mad at me for not getting home in time, and at the Glassies for attacking, and at the dead Hunters for not surviving. Same ol’, same ol’.

The Greynotes have been hush hush about the whole thing. The only a