Banno and Vae crested another dune and looked around them, a full circle of the sandy horizon. To the south, the distant peaks of the Yurna Mountains were a dark cloud against the horizon, just a looming shadow that scraped the sky. Dawn was slow to arrive, a golden glow far behind them. The sky above was still dim.
They crested another dune. Banno tossed away the apple core he had been gnawing on, and looked at Vaenuth. “You getting tired yet?”
“No,” she replied, defensively. They had left Belmyre with the caravan, to save his energy for riding. Out here, scouting, it was a lot of purposeless movement. Better to walk it. “I’m fine. As always.”
“You’re not fine, Vae,” Banno said. They walked down the slope into the next tiny valley.
Vaenuth sighed. “I am.”
They climbed the next hill. In the bottom of the next valley waited a nest of vipers. At least eight Slithers, armed with bone or wooden poles came winding up the dune, filling the air with their hisses.
Banno’s weapon was drawn before Vaenuth’s, but hers soon followed. His bronze sabre swung at the first of the reptiles to approach, but it blocked it easily with its spear.
Vaenuth wielded an iron sword. Two of the Slithers approached, wary of the visible superior blade, but Vae waited for them to attack. One moved forward to prod at her, and she struck down the spear tip before lashing out with a stab. The butt of the other’s pole hit her backside, sending her sprawling. She clambered to her feet to see Banno rushing one of her attackers.
None of the spears had points, she saw, as she climbed to her feet. They wanted her alive.
Three surrounded Banno, pelting him with attacks. Blow after blow he blocked with his blade. A few landed, bruising his arms and legs.
The Slithers forced Vaenuth away from him, and she was soon dancing with their poles on her own. She broke a couple of those staffs with her sword. One hit her leg, and she fell to the sand, blocking a few blows with her blade before reclaiming her footing. She limped on that leg now—it was ringing with pain.
Banno cried out, and Vae looked back to see him charge one of his attackers, taking a pole thrust to the arm as he did so. He rammed his sword into the Slither’s tail and yanked it up into the torso. The creature died with a half-screamed hiss.
“Help us!” Banno shouted eastward, toward the caravan.
Vaenuth parried another blow, and slashed at one of the Slithers near her. The blade skipped across the reptile’s scales, doing no harm, until it caught a few and tore off a section of skin. The Slither hissed and resounded a blow of the pole off of her arm. The iron sword dropped to the sand with a thud and the next blow, swung with two arms, struck her in the temple.
When Vaenuth awoke, she was lying face down in the cold dirt. She opened her mouth to breath and got her teeth all full of grains of sand. It was night time. She could tell from the air temperature and the darkness at the corners of her vision. She twisted her head and saw the camp around them. Not a human camp. There were no tents, just bundles of supplies here and there and the occasional light of a fire. Vaenuth could only see two or three such spots, though the noise of hisses and clicks told her there must, certainly, be more.
She couldn’t see Banno. She remembered him waving his arms and shouting for help before the light was knocked from her eyes.
“Banno—” she tried to say, but her throat was so dry.
Then she felt it. Just a warm touch on her leg. It grew stronger, and more textured. Scales. The long, winding tail of a Slither wrapped itself around her leg and entwined with her other. A slow hiss, and warm breath on the skin of her tied arms. “No,” she whispered, trying to fight it. They were going to eat her.
Then a series of loud clicks interrupted her assailant, and the warm weight on her legs vanished. In her crooked vision, her head craned to the side, she saw two Slithers wrestling. One threw the other one to the sand, it’s tail coiling around the subdued one. Then, with a loud hiss, the victor sent its opponent sliding away into the camp. The winner turned back to Vaenuth, hissed once, and began to glide away.
“Vae?” It was Banno’s voice, though no matter how Vaenuth bent, she could not see him.
“I’m here,” she said.
“Have they hurt you?” he asked. “Have they touched you?”
“No, I’m just bruised. And yes, they’ve touched me…” she whispered. She could still feel the warmth of the one that had wrapped up her legs.
“We’ll get out of this, Vae,” he said. “There’s gotta be—”
There was a thump and Banno didn’t make any more noise.
“What did you do to him?” Vaenuth asked, when she saw another Slither wind away. “What did you do?”
It turned and hissed at her, a mouth full of razor sharp teeth and a long forked tongue.
Then, there was a screech, from further away than the other noises she had heard. The Slither that had turned to glare at her averted it almond eyes and zipped away as quickly as it could. She saw other Slithers lifting weapons, this time forcing obsidian tips into place. They were going to kill.
“Wait!” she screamed. It was her caravan, it had to be. She couldn’t see a thing, but when she heard the clatter of weapons she knew it had to be her friends, her family dying to the Slithers. The combat went on, but the only screams she heard were her own.
When the noise of fighting relented, after half an hour or so, the hisses and clicks continued. Vaenuth had turned her face away from the fighting, pressing her nose into the dirt. She listened to the sounds drawing closer. Is this the end? she wondered. She hadn’t cried.
Strong hands grabbed her, warm and scaled, and lifted he to her feet. Her bindings were cut, and she finally got a look at who had approached her. In front of her, with a bowed head and gently closed eyes, was the female Slither from the first tribe they had encountered. She had the same light complexion, the coppery markings on the sides of her torso and tail. She reached out an open hand to Vaenuth, and Vae touched it gently.
“Thank you,” she whispered, as she watched them free Banno. All around were dead Slithers, the tribe that had captured and killed her scouts and her other men. The friendly Slithers had rescued them, had gone to battle for them. Vaenuth gingerly rubbed her bruises, and whispered again, to the leader and his curious mate, “Thank you so much…”