Chapter 21
SUSANNA
“What are we going to do?” I asked Xavran.
The wind howled like a wild beast outside of our macabre shelter made from the carcass of the dead creature.
“There’s not much to do during a storm in the desert but wait until it’s over.” He stretched his long legs in front of him, leaning back against the centipede.
I remained sitting upright. My back felt stiff. But I preferred that to getting too close to the corpse.
“How long will it take?”
“At least a couple of hours. But most likely all night. Sandstorms in these parts like to take their time.”
The prospect of sitting here all night sounded dreadful. But going out there right now would be stupid—if not outright suicidal—with all those nasty creatures roaming the desert.
“The frontier is a horrible place,” I determined.
“It sure isn’t a walk in a garden.” He chuckled. “But this is how all Aldrai used to look in the not-so-distant past. My ancestors survived in the desert for hundreds of thousands of years.”
“I can’t imagine how.” I was getting thirsty. The sand seemed to have made its way everywhere on my body. I wouldn’t be surprised if it were found in my bloodstream too.
It was hot like in an oven, even as the sun was no longer visible at all.
“There are ways to make this survivable,” Xavran assured me. “Lean against the pheiza.”
I shook my head. “No way. I’m not touching that.”
“Trust me.” He splayed his hand on the hard plating of the dead creature’s back. “It’s cooler here.”
“Cooler?” I touched the glossy plates too. They indeed felt colder than the air around us, like a tiled floor in a basement on a hot day.
“Instead of generating heat, a pheiza’s body converts energy into cold, allowing it to stay outside even on the most scorching days. Its body will take at least a few hours to warm up to the same temperature as the air around us. My ancestors used to hunt them for that and for their blood.”
“What did they use the blood for?”
“Pheiza’s legs are basically hollow, save for one muscle, thin like a thread.” He rose to his knees. Using one of the sharp narrow horns on his right forearm, he chopped off a leg of the dead creature. Milky blood dripped from the cut. “See?” He showed me the leg. It looked like a thick drinking straw filled with watered-down milk. “Have some.”
“Um... You mean to drink?” I cringed inside.
“It’s cool and refreshing,” he assured me. His expression remained open and genuine. He wasn’t kidding. “You must be thirsty.”
“Not enough to drink a dead bug’s blood.” I shook my head resolutely.
“Suit yourself. But it tastes the best when it’s cold.” He took a sip, like sipping a cocktail from a straw. Emptying the leg, he tossed it aside.
As Xavran took his place by the creature’s back again, I touched its hard plates once more. They really felt like ceramic tiles. Maybe I could pretend I was relaxing against a tiled shower wall or something?
Shifting back, I tentatively leaned against the pheiza. It didn’t feel too bad if I didn’t think about my back support having been a ruthless predator that had been trying to kill me just a little while ago.
“Well, it’s...okay.”
I would’ve loved to lean against Xavran’s arm too. I wouldn’t even mind the gore of the pheiza’s blood on his forearm horns from killing the creature. It had mostly been rubbed off by the sand, anyway. But all the horns and bumps on his shoulders and elbows seemed to be designed specifically to deter any close contact.
As if reading my mind, he lifted his arm.
“Come here,” he invited me under it.
I wasn’t going to make him ask twice. Crawling closer, I cuddled against his chest. He was all bumps, horns, and hard places on the outside, but his chest, belly, and the inside of his arms had no horns and no hard plating. It was the most comfortable place to be. I almost didn’t mind being tossed off the crozan. Almost.
My thoughts rushed back to that giant piece of machinery and what we’d left on it.
“I hope the children are okay.”
His chest rose with a deep breath. “They’re safe on my crozan. The crew will take care of them until we return.”
His calm voice was reassuring.
“How do we get back?”
By the time the storm was over, the crozan might be hundreds of miles away. Even if we headed after it now, we’d never catch up.
“Once the crew realize we’re missing, they’ll search for us,” Xavran replied. “In the worst-case scenario, another crozan will be coming here two weeks from now. It’s doing the next step in the terraforming process after mine.”
“Two weeks!” I gasped.
He rubbed my arm soothingly.
“Hopefully, the weather will be nice enough then for us to get their attention.”
Two weeks of surviving on dead bugs and their blood and trying not to become their food while hunting them. I sighed, not looking forward to that.
“I suppose it could’ve been worse,” I said. “At least we’re alive and uninjured.”
That was a very good thing.
We fell silent. I thought back to the start of the storm and the attack of the giant flying animals, then even further back to saying goodbye to Mara.
“Will the cargo airship be okay in this storm?” I asked.
“Yes,” he assured me. “It took off in time to avoid the worst. Your sister will be fine.”
“Good.”