Rebel of the Sands by Hamilton Alwyn

Rebel of the Sands by Hamilton Alwyn

Author:Hamilton, Alwyn [Hamilton, Alwyn]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2016-02-08T22:05:36+00:00


fifteen

We had no choice except to walk through the dark. There were dangers in the desert night, but there were threats behind us in Fahali, too. And we needed to be far away from them by the time dawn came. Not even Commander Naguib would be stupid enough to follow us through the desert in the dark.

Night in the desert was different when it wasn’t on the edge of the campfire. When there was no laughter and music and storytelling from the caravan to eclipse the sounds that came from the dark. There were things that made noises underneath the sand in the desert night. Things that screamed from the mountains. Now we could hear them all.

The Camel’s Knees huddled close together. The only noise that came from them was the clink of the tack on the beasts and the sound of mumbled praying. Yasmin’s face looked pale in the light of the lamp swinging from the back of the nearest camel. One of her little cousins had fallen asleep with his head on her shoulder.

“Three hours until dawn,” Jin said, checking the sky.

I nodded as he dropped back to hold up the rear of the caravan while I stayed in front. I knew we’d been walking for a long time. Distance had swallowed Fahali behind us. The night seemed much bigger than it ever had. And I felt a lot smaller than I ever had.

I heard a sound then and stopped walking. There was something out there. I turned slowly, peering into the dim glow offered by the moon and the handful of oil lamps that hung from the camels we’d been able to take with us, casting them in small pools of light.

I saw it a second before it sprang. The ghoul unfurled from a viscous leathery ball into spindly limbs and filmy black wings, its huge gaping mouth opened in a screech as it leapt.

I fired. A few of the caravan folks cried out and ducked instinctively at the noise.

My bullet caught it square in the chest. Black guts scattered across the sand. The thing screeched again. And this time, from the deep of the night, a hundred identical voices screeched back.

Yasmin turned the body over with her toe as the caravan silently stared. Frozen in shock.

“A Nightmare,” Yasmin confirmed.

I hadn’t seen a Nightmare since I was a kid. One had crawled into the house I grew up in while we slept. My mother had put a kitchen knife through it before it got to anyone. It’d barely put up a fight. But that one was alone and injured and desperate. This one was in its own territory, where they traveled in packs.

I could see them now as my eyes adjusted to the dark. Scuttling through the sand, their sinewy wings rippling through the blackness. They fed on fear instead of flesh and blood. One venomous bite sent victims into an uneasy sleep, and a second drew out the fear that bled from the first bite. Some said they drained the soul itself.



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