Voronica Whitney-Robinson - Sands of the Soul

It lunged forward with its mouth of deadly teeth, and Steorf, partially blinded by the sand, only parried its mouth with his weapon. He didn't see the worm's tail poised to strike like some malevolent serpent. Tazi, who had risen to her feet, did see the impending strike.

"Steorf." she shouted but was too late.

While Steorf had jammed his sword between several of the worm's teeth and used both his hands on the weapon to keep the clicking jaws away from his throat, the worm struck with its tail.

As if it had a life of its own, the creature's tail slashed across Steorf, and the young man's reflexes were a hair slow. He pulled back his body almost enough to miss the gleaming spike at the base of the worm's tail-but the worm was quicker.

The sharp tail sliced across Steorf's chest where it had only moments before exposed his flesh as though this had been its plan all along. Steorf winced at the deep gash and dropped his arms. Tazi ran as she saw that he was completely vulnerable to the worm's attacks.

Steorf recognized his predicament and started to backstep, but he tripped on his own feet. Tazi thought he was moving like a drunkard and wondered if it was a result of dehydration. It didn't matter, she realized, because he was going to perish in a moment. Her heart started to pound harder at the thought of Steorf's plight, and that gave her the burst of speed she needed. She leaped into the air.

"No!" she screamed in defiance.

Breathing hard, Tazi managed to straddle the monster's neck. The creature tried to rear up and toss her from its body with no success. Tazi wrapped her legs tightly around the worm's body and raised her guard-blade, point down, high over her head with both hands. Using what was left of her strength, she drove the sword in with a scream.

The worm let out a high-pitched wail. Tazi winced in pain as she felt her eardrums come close to bursting at the sound, but she didn't release her grip on her sword in the slightest. The dying worm slammed its body to the sands and reared up again in a desperate, last attempt to shake Tazi off of itself.

Tazi gritted her teeth, and when the worm slammed to the ground again, she twisted the blade hard to the right and snapped the worm's brainstem. It sagged to the ground, dead.

Tazi tried to slow her ragged breathing and lowered her head, momentarily exhausted, onto her hands, which still held her sword.

After she was certain the worm was dead, Tazi struggled to pull out her blade. She was shocked how utterly spent she had become as she fought to remove her sword from the dead creature. With a sickening sound, the blade popped free, and Tazi staggered back at its sudden release. She didn't even have the presence of mind to clean her blade before re-sheathing it.

Cale would have my hide for treating a weapon so shoddily, she thought after she realized her mistake. Right now, he can have it.

Tazi stopped her wistful thinking as soon as she saw Steorf. For as long as she had known him, he had never looked vulnerable to her. But as she saw him, leaning against some rocks, Tazi's heart missed a beat.

His head of unruly hair was bowed, and Tazi could see that both he and Fannah dabbed at a wound across his chest. Tazi forgot her weariness and ran to kneel at his side.

On closer inspection, Tazi could see that the slash that ran over Steorf's heart was no ordinary wound. The edges of his torn flesh had puckered, and the cut itself was a strange, purple shade. Very little blood ran down his exposed skin, but a milky white liquid seeped out. Tazi looked up at Steorf to see that his eyes were already regarding her.

"What is it?" she asked, already knowing the answer.

Steorf winced and said, "I think that vermin poisoned me with its tail."

"Well, then," Tazi replied matter-of-factly, "get rid of it."

"That's what I've been attempting to do," he said through gritted teeth.

As Fannah passed over a section of the wound with a torn piece of her robe, Steorf bit back on a scream and dropped his head down. Though sightless, Fannah raised her head and evenly met Tazi's worried stare.

"He has been trying," Fannah told her. "I think he is too weak to expel the poison."

Tazi refused to accept that. She gripped his face in both her hands and looked him hard in the eyes.

"If you were able to save me from the spider's venom," she told him, "then you can do this for yourself."

Steorf nodded briefly. He brushed away Fannah's ministering hands and closed his eyes. He laid both of his hands on the oozing gash, and Tazi watched hopefully as his fingers glowed with a faint white light.

That was all that happened.

With beads of sweat rolling down his face, Steorf let out a defeated sigh, and his hands slipped to the ground.

"No use," he whispered. "I can't get it all out. I just don't know the spell very well."

"I'm sorry," Tazi told him, stood up, and reached to get an arm under his.

"What are you doing?" he demanded with surprise.

"What does it look like? I'm helping you to your feet," she said in a tone that brooked no refusal.

Steorf didn't budge. With a burst of strength, he grabbed Tazi's arm and pulled her crashing back to her knees.

"I am dead weight," he said. "In more ways then one."

"I refuse to accept that," she argued.

"Open your eyes, Tazi," he replied. "I don't know how much farther I can walk, and you and Fannah cannot carry me the rest of the way. I am no longer an asset. You have got to cut your losses."

Tazi stood up and faced north.

How many more miles? she wondered. I have to face him with a blind woman and a dying mage, no water, and only one sword. And all I have to do is keep him from presenting my friend's soul to a goddess as some kind of gift.

She shook her head and almost laughed at the absurdity of the picture she had painted for herself.

Turning, she told Steorf, "You are absolutely right. I have to cut my losses."

He closed his eyes almost gratefully at her pronouncement.

"I knew you'd see the merit of my words," he finally said.

Tazi squatted in front of him and replied, "How can I argue with logic?"

Fannah turned with a worried expression, and Tazi leaned across to pat her on her forearm comfortingly.

"I'm going to need your help, Fannah," she told her blind companion. "Could you take Steorf's sack?"

Fannah didn't say a word, but she did accept the bag that Tazi helped remove from Steorf.

"It's the only choice you have," he told the Calishite.

"Now," Tazi added, "If you grab his right arm, I can get his left and we'll get him to his feet."

"What?" Steorf exclaimed.

"You are absolutely right," she told him gravely. "At this stage, I cannot afford a single liability. And you are hardly that."

"But, Tazi…" he implored.

"No," she cut him off. "Don't waste your breath. We will have only one chance to defeat Ciredor. Our strength lies in our unity, and that is how we will face him: together."

Tazi took Steorf's left arm and laid it over her shoulders as Fannah took his right. He shook his head but when the women tried to stand, he struggled to help them. They rose, as one, from the bloody sands.

Steorf had been passing in and out of awareness for the past few hours. He spoke less and less coherently to Tazi and started, instead, to mumble strange words and phrases as she and Fannah had helped him across the wasteland.

"The desert nomads say there are six stages of thirst in the Calim," Fannah said. "First, there is the clamorous stage. I think it is fairly obvious that is what he is entering."

Tazi leaned slightly forward of Steorf's dangling head to look at Fannah.

"I think you're right. What else can we expect?"