Chapter One:
To the Grave
In the distance, through the haze of the desert, a shape began to appear.
At first, Isaac thought it was another sandwyrm surfacing through the dunes. He started to panic again. There were many things he had learned about the creatures since the start of his journey, more than any ancient tome had managed to teach. The beasts were colossal, highly territorial, and vicious when disturbed. Their natural armor was impervious to arrows and blades. And, if Isaac could see the wyrm now, then it had already sensed his presence long ago.
He stopped, feeling the heat of the sand through the thin soles of his boots, and wiped sweat from his face. He squinted against the glare of the sun. Out in the distance, the shape only grew larger. Isaac couldn't spot the vestigial wings or any other identifying anatomy. The lessons and diagrams from his textbooks slipped from his mind like mist. The sun beat down on his face and sweat stung his eyes. All he could see were vague colors swirling on the horizon.
He knew he shouldn't have been out during the day. Travel by night, his uncle had told him, pressing the scrolls and phylacteries into his pack. Don't ever go out during the day. His uncle had impressed upon him that this was not only to protect against the worst of the heat, but to avoid the sandwyrms at the peak of their activity.
Isaac had followed that advice initially, making camp inside dry gulches during the day and travelling around the deeper pockets of sand during the night. But, by the fourth day, he'd exhausted his waterskins, and had been forced to scavenge in the morning light for what little vegetation existed in this desolate area of the world, ripping the plants from the scraggly dirt and sucking moisture from their roots. His rations of salt meat and hardtack only worsened his thirst. Now, at the dawn of the sixth day since he'd entered the desert, he was stumbling half-blind through valleys of dunes, searching for an oasis his map told him was only a half-day's journey away. He knew that, if he didn't reach it soon, he would die.
His journey was in grave danger. He couldn't fail. Not now. Not even at the cost of his life.
Right now, the only thing he could be sure of was that the shape was heading in his direction. Isaac had read many adventurer's journals in preparation, and more than a few had spoken of mirages--hallucinations brought out by thirst and heat. He couldn't be sure that this shape was not a trick of the mind. It seemed to float on the edge of the sand like a blade of grass on still water.
He couldn't take the chance. The shape was still coming closer. If it was a sandwyrm, then he had to act now. Before it was too late.
He wiped more sweat from his eyes and reached down into the quiver at his hip. Instead of arrows, it held scrolls. Catalysts, his uncle would insist. Amplifiers of his body's natural energies. No magic was free.
He unfurled one of the few remaining papers and held the glowing sigil in the direction of the approaching shape. With his other hand, he performed the necessary mnemonics. A familiar draining sensation sucked through his inner being, channeling into the scroll. His arm grew weak, but Isaac forced himself to keep it aimed and steady.
For all their might and ferocity, the sandwyrms were not mindless creatures. A single warning shot was capable of scaring them away. The spell was exhausting to perform, even with the scrolls, but anything less would not intimidate the beasts. He had to seem like a threat.
Isaac aimed. His breath steadied. In the distance, the shape seemed to become--
A fireball erupted from the scroll. It arced across the dunes like a second sun blazing through the sky. Isaac wobbled on his feet, the sudden transfer of energy nearly making his legs buckle. He watched the fireball complete its downward trajectory towards the shape. It exploded into a nearby dune, searing the sand into glass, edges of the flames raining down close to the sandwyrm. A perfect shot. That would frighten the beast.
But something odd happened. Instead of diving below the sand, as Isaac expected, the shape seemed to turn, and, as it turned, it grew larger. Suddenly, Isaac could make out more details. He saw the angled lines of netting and rope. He saw cannon portholes stitched in rows across a wooden broadside. And, finally, he saw twin masts sporting a single large sail, which glowed with the circular sigil of wind propulsion magic.
The shape had not been a sandwyrm. It was a sandship.
A sharp semicircle of sand kicked up into the air as the ship pulled a hard turn across the face of a dune. Seeing clearly now, Isaac could discern individual sailors rushing along the deck, some of them climbing into the rigging. Their forms seemed large and varied, covered in patches of leather armor and weaponry. The magical sigil on the ship's sail glowed brighter as the crew threw fire directly onto the fabric, which was absorbed like water and transformed into momentum. The ship was accelerating hard, and still turning in Isaac's direction.
A black standard unfurled itself along the foremast, depicting a canine skull over crossbones.
These were pirates, and they were not human.
For a moment, Isaac could only stare in awe. He had read about the pirates of this desert, how their ships travelled across sand and gravel as easily as water, the magical technology plundered from neighboring nations. They were anthros near exclusively--predator species that were more adapted to the desert, foxes and hyenas and lions. Most of them stood a head or two taller than humans. Most of them could kill him with a single swipe of their claws.
And Isaac had just shot a fireball at them.
He was knocked out of his shock by their first cannon salvo. Plumes of smoke burst from the broadside of the ship, and the ground erupted before him in a rushing line. Isaac dove away, feeling the wind of an iron ball screaming past the spot where his torso had been a second earlier. Clouds of sand pelted his face. He scrambled to his feet, blinking and spitting. The ship had completed its turn, gaining speed as it sailed down a valley of dunes, and it was now bearing down square in his direction, the black pirate standard fluttering in the desert breeze as the crew poured more fire on the sail.
Isaac ran for his life.
He sprinted to the edge of the dune and jumped, sliding down the slope in a desperate tumble. His worn and dirty clothes were destroyed even further by the rushing sand, flaying the skin on his hands and legs. Once he reached the bottom, he rolled head over heels, barely managing to regain his balance before he was running again.
There was nowhere to go. All around him was sand, sloping off in gentle waves as far as he could see. His feet sank into it with every step, and he quickly lost any bearing or direction he had obtained from his map. There was only panic and fear, an urgent will to flee.
He heard the cannon shots just in time. He dove again, and twin explosions of sand launched themselves up into the air, mere yards away. Crawling along the sand on his hands and knees, Isaac looked back to see the sandship crest over the dune like a normal ship would cross a wave, her bow pitching and yawing over the peak of the sand until the whole vessel was sailing clear down the other side. Smoke trailed from the forward cannons, and the crew were all manning their battle positions, foxes and lions clinging to the rigging and pointing their sabers at him.
Isaac couldn't run. The ship was much faster than him.
He had to fight.
He dumped his quiver of scrolls onto the sand and grabbed the first one he saw. It just so happened to be the same catalyst he'd used a minute ago. Fireball. Stumbling back to his feet, one arm performing the casting mnemonics as fast as he could, Isaac began to aim the scroll at the ship as it finished descending the dune, bearing down on him faster than any sandwyrm could possibly manage.
Isaac was lucky. The pirate ship fired first, but the yawing of the vessel as it raced across the sand tilted it upwards, just enough for the twin forward cannons to shoot above his head. Even still, if Isaac hadn't been concentrating on feeding his bodily energy into the scroll, he would've flinched. He pushed himself harder, gritting his teeth as his body was drained. The magical catalyst crossed its threshold, leaping to life in his hand, and the fireball that erupted from the scroll flew like a well-aimed comet right into the rear deck of the sandship.
The effect was devasting. Half of the top deck was immediately engulfed in fire. Burning figures of hyenas and foxes flailed into the rigging, spreading the flames further. The lions who had climbed up the masts tried to scramble down, some of them jumping directly into the sand below.
But the ship kept moving. Even if both the wheel and navigator were burning to ash, the ship itself still had momentum.
Before he could fully regain his strength, Isaac grabbed another scroll and ran laterally, hoping to get out of the vessel's path. Pirates on the bow were close enough to fire crossbows at him, bolts whistling past his head as he kicked his way through the loose sand. He dove clear of the ship as a graveyard of buried shafts grew at his feet. Dozens of bolts flying at him, the desert sun directly in his eyes, Isaac got to his feet and unfurled the only scroll he had left.
Wind. The same sigil that powered their ship. This one was much simpler to cast. Cock your arm back, concentrate as much energy into your palm as possible, then release. His uncle's lessons came back to him--years of constant practice and painful instruction. He had trained his entire life for this moment.
Isaac pulled everything he had into his hand and flung it at the ship.
The port broadside of the pirate vessel exploded in a shower of splinters, rope and blood. Bodies and flaming planks rained down across the sand. The bilge of the ship immediately sunk below sand level as its hull lost integrity, all its magical momentum arrested in seconds. As the front buried itself deeper, the flaming stern leaped into the air, nearly three tons of wood and sail rising like a bucking horse, and the entire vessel was ripped apart by shear force just as quickly as it could capsize. In seconds, all that remained of the sandship were flaming husks of the multiple decks tumbling across the sand, anthro bodies twisting between nets, broken planks and spilled cargo.
Isaac collapsed into the sand, breathing desperately hard. He'd put too much of his energy into that hurricane. Blackness creeped into the edge of his vision. All he could do was gasp for air and watch the pieces of the ship burn. Somewhere, he was amazed that he was still alive.
Then the pirates began to emerge.
Some of them clawed their way out of the wreckage. Some of them had leaped from the ship to escape the flames, trudging along through the deep sand. Most of them were injured. All of them were armed.
