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Walking the Dust

6: Blood & Sand

Sunners believe Sand-Eaters were once human. That they spurned Mother Sun, and in vengeance she burnt their skin, turning it black and hard.

Goatshit. When you're faced with five of them ambushing you from a hilltop, screaming and hissing with their high-pitched rasping, then come back and tell me they were once people.

It happened back when I first crossed the flatlands, South-West out of Lo-Wil. In Flad-Si-Dee I joined a small group who were heading West, to Waters Meet.

Our guide was an old guy called Jayms, said he used to be a ruin runner on the route. I wasn't sure if I believed him—even to my younger self it sounded damn unlikely—but he seemed to know what he was doing, and he looked the part with his big old duster, huge pack and sand goggles. Besides, guides weren't exactly lining up to take us across the desert.

Four days out, we seemed to be making pretty good time. After some initial suspicion, Jayms got his head around who I was and what I did and we got along fine. At night he told me about the things he'd seen. And according to him, he'd seen a lot.

So we got into our travelling routine, and everything was fine for a few days. But five days in, we came on two corpses that looked fresh. Travellers, probably on the same route as us.

Jerod once told me he saw Wulves as far south as Waters Meet. I was still young at the time, and thought he was just trying to scare me. Everyone knew Wulves lived in the cold, they wouldn't come this far south.

But I believed him now. This couple had been torn apart, attacked by something savage and merciless, then half-eaten and left in the dust.

Jayms checked for tracks, but he said the bodies looked as if they'd been there for a few days and the sands had shifted since then. We carried on, and that night was the first night we all took our watch posts seriously.

But nothing happened. We figured Jayms must have been right; whatever it was, they'd moved on. It's not like we were in a populous area. Quite the opposite. There was nothing but sand and rocks as far as the eye could see. No Precities on the horizon, no communities, no landmarks. We hadn't seen a living person for three days. Why would a predator stick around?

Then, two days later, we found an abandoned camp at the base of a hill. A small fire pit, some cans and bowls, and a hat. That was what got my attention—why would anyone leave their hat in a place like this?

When we crossed the brow of the hill, I got my answer. They hadn't left it—they'd been slaughtered. Their bodies lay in a pile, four adult travellers who looked like they could have handled themselves. People in our party began to get real nervous. If these guys couldn't fight the wulves off, how would we?

Then I saw one of the corpses was holding a ragged piece of thick hemp cloth, like it had been torn from something. But there was no tarp anywhere, and none of the bodies' clothing was ripped like that. I mentioned it to Jayms, but he said nothing.

We kept moving. Four days to go. We could make it if we stayed alert, kept the fire burning at night, made sure everyone knew how to use a weapon. Father taught me shooting when I was younger, so I ended up joining the guys as they showed the other women and children.

Jayms was real quiet this whole time. I asked if he knew something we didn't, if there was something he was holding back from us 'cos we might be scared, but he wouldn't talk about it.

Next morning the Sand-Eaters attacked.

Had we caught them up? Or did they stop and wait for us? It didn't matter. When I saw the heavy cloaks they wore, covering their faces and bodies from the sun, I realised they'd killed the people we'd passed. Not wulves. We'd followed right in their footsteps as they crossed the wasteland, just a couple of days behind.

I shot one in the face. That's all I can tell you about that fight, because by the time I'd recovered from my first ever non-hunt kill, it was all over. Two of our party were dead and three were injured. But five Sandies lay still on the ground, their black blood soaking into the sand. The air was filled with gunsmoke, and Jayms' backup weapon, a long vicious-looking knife, dripped blood.

We made it to Waters Meet three days later, and didn't see another Sand-Eater the whole time. Probably just as well. I don't know what they'd have thought of the Sand-Eater tooth I hung around my neck.