Kindle Edition
Amazon
Category:
Young Adult/Teen
Publisher: Fire and Ice Young Adult Books
ISBN-10: 1680462288
Type: Fiction
Pages: 350
Copyright: Feb 23, 2016
ISBN-13: 9781680462289
Price: $4.99 (eBook)
The Deadlands:
A wasteland of burning sun and shifting sands that stretches for more than a thousand miles from the foot of the Rocky Mountains to the Mississippi River. The once vibrant Great Plains of the central United States is a bleak and barren desert, a blasted landscape filled with sad reminders of what has been lost.
Rayn and Luk must brave the perils of this arid land of fierce beasts, savage sandstorms, and hidden dangers if they're going to reach the Beastlands beyond. They will encounter new enemies, and discover precious new allies.
Rayn's suspicions about the results of Luk's Sojourn Lottery continues to grow, but she must put those doubts aside if they have any chance of surviving what's coming. The Deadlands will push them to their breaking points while testing the strength of their bond.
Their only goal: Survival.
Excerpt
We're making good progress across the seemingly endless and ever shifting sands. Luk is a few yards ahead following directly behind Grit who's performing his usual scouting technique of sniff, dig, and look. Luk reaches the top of a large dune and turns his head to look at me, and even though I know he’s exhausted he still has a quick smile for me.
I return the gesture, but it fades away as the head of a worm slithers out of the sand and clamps onto his leg. He screams out in pain as he pulls his knife and starts slashing at the creature. I start scrambling up the hill towards him, but the sand keeps shifting and the more I struggle against it, the further I slide back down.
“Luk!” I scream, my throat dry and painful.
Suddenly I see another worm emerge and wrap itself around his other leg, throwing him off balance and pulling him down.
I need to get up there. I need to save him! I yell at myself inside my own head.
Luk struggles with his attackers, slashing and stabbing at them with his knife until two more worms emerge and coil themselves around his arm. Just as they did with Raven, they work together as they slowly begin to pull him under the sand. I strip off my pack and start crawling up the dune on my hands and knees. I suddenly realize that I've been screaming Luk’s name over and over again as I struggle to reach him. By the time I get to the top of the hill only his left hand and the top of his head are still visible. I grab his fingers and start pulling, digging my heels into the sand. Slowly, his head emerges, sand in his hair and crusted to his face. I brush the particles away from his mouth and nose as I continue pulling with my other hand.
“Luk! Luk, are you okay?” I ask, tears streaming down my face.
His eyes suddenly pop open and he takes a deep breath, but then his jaw slowly drops. He looks like he wants to say something, but no words come out. I lean down next to him.
“What? What is it?” I ask, my hands shaking.
His mouth opens a little wider and suddenly a huge worm leaps out from between his teeth and lunges at me. I wake up screaming, thrashing my arms at something that’s not there and wailing in terror. The scream is from a place so dark and so deep down inside me that it feels like it's ripping my body in half. I don’t know how long I shriek, but I eventually realize that Luk’s arms are wrapped around me and he's slowly rocking us back and forth. My eyes focus on the cold grey walls of the tunnel, our little campfire and finally on Luk himself. I concentrate on his face, the way his hair falls over his forehead, the brightness of his piercing green eyes, and the strength I can feel in his arms. Bit by bit, I make myself calm down, using Luk as my anchor.
“It’s okay,” he says gently as he continues to hold me.
I gradually force my breathing to slow and my heartbeat to ease up a little and within a few minutes I'm composed enough to speak.
“Luk,” I say quietly. “I’m all right,” I say, although it’s only a half truth.
“Are you sure?” he asks as he reluctantly releases me.
“Yeah,” I answer, wiping my tears and offering him a weak little smile.
I watch him as he reaches over and picks up one of the loose water bottles sitting by his pack. He holds it out for me and I take it with a grateful and more honest smile.
“Thanks,” I say before taking a drink.
“You’re welcome,” he says quietly. “Bad dream?”
I just nod, still trying to exile the last bits of it from my mind.
“The worst,” I say quietly before reaching out and taking his hand, feeling like I need the concrete physical contact to finally break the dark spell.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asks.
I know that he means well, but the last thing I want to do is to relive it so soon.
“Not right now, maybe later,” I say gently, although I actually have no intention of ever talking about it, if I can help it.
Luk just nods and offers me a soft little smile.
“Since we're up, we should probably get moving,” he says, “but do you want some breakfast first?”
“No thanks. My stomach couldn’t handle it,” I say.
Luk nods silently again. All of our stuff is already packed and ready to go. Yesterday, after the incident with our horses and the sandworms, we led Ashen back to the western end of the tunnel and let him go, discarding the saddle on the side of the road. We kept the reins and some of the other belts and straps just in case we might need them. As I watched him walk away down the road, I felt pangs of guilt that his companion, Raven wasn't as lucky. I know that it could have been much worse, but somehow it doesn’t feel that way.
“Are you ready?” Luk asks, his voice bringing me back to the here and now.
“I’m ready if you are,” I say with more confidence than I really have.
The last thing I want is to step onto that sand again. I don’t know what triggered the attack and not knowing only makes things worse. I tell myself that Sera made it across, so we should be able to as well, but somehow that knowledge does nothing to calm my nerves.
Grit has been lying by the end of the tunnel all night and into the morning. He doesn’t seem agitated or anxious like he was yesterday, so at least that’s a little bit of strength for me to draw upon. Luk also seems eager to get moving and I know he’s not reckless, so that helps as well. I stare out at the sand for a few minutes before turning my attention back to Luk.
“Let’s go,” I say as I get to my feet and we both heft our packs up onto our backs. I tighten the straps and then help Luk get his bag higher up on his shoulders.
He reaches over and takes my hand and I suddenly feel stronger, as if he's passing some of his power to me, but as soon as my boots touch the sand I feel a twinge of panic set in. A quick squeeze of my fingers from Luk and the sense of foreboding fades away and we once again begin our trek into the Deadlands.
The sand constantly shifts beneath our feet and the going is both arduous and slow. For some reason the sun seems hotter than it was just a few days ago, but maybe it’s just my imagination.
We walk side by side, our hands touching periodically. I keep a constant eye on Grit for any sign that he senses the worms or any other predators in the immediate vicinity. The dunes move up and down in soft rolling hills, exposing the underlying landscape in some places while completely obscuring it in others.
“We should probably collect some firewood when we have a chance,” I suggest as we approach an old, dead tree of some kind with it's top branches sticking out of the sand like a bleached skeletal hand.
“Good idea,” Luk agrees.
We stop and break off a collection of sticks, tying them to the top of my pack with the leather straps that we salvaged from Ashen’s saddle. By mid-day we're both forced to don our old face wraps to ward off both the blowing sand and the burning sun. I can’t decide which is worse; the constant grit in my face or the stifling heat that I have to endure to keep it out. We march slowly, without talking for mile after mile, first climbing the western face of a dune and then clumsily making our way down the eastern slope only to be greeted with another featureless beige mound.
Thankfully, by late afternoon the wind has diminished and we both pull off our masks. I glance over at Luk and smile. He grins back at me, his face red and sweaty.
“This isn’t much fun,” I say with a crooked grin.
“Nope, not a whole lot,” he replies.
About an hour later we finally spot an area, half a mile ahead, where the road emerges from beneath the carpet of sand. The blacktop, speed limit signs and even a few cars break the monotony of the terrain. Gradually the sand begins to retreat as we draw closer to the exposed tarmac. When we reach the roadway, we both stop immediately and strip off our packs, setting them on the stark black asphalt. I stretch my back and twist my waist right and left before I turn and look at Luk, shooting him a warm smile. Grit sits down at my feet and looks off east into the distance.
“Hot enough for you?” Luk asks cheerfully.
|
