It casts a shadow across the arid plains, as great wings unfold from the sides of the creature with a span wide enough to block out the sun. I stand, too awed to be afraid as something that has lurked in mythological memory throughout time shows itself to me in all its glory. It is the size of… there is no comparison I can make. It lifts itself through the clouds and they seem small as the buffeting of its wings makes the world beneath dance. I see clouds of dust rising in great walls, tearing across the plains beneath the beast itself.
The length of its body goes on for miles in sinuous motion as it swims through the sky with screaming cries of pure rage, its mouth open wide displaying endless rows of teeth. The great maw is large enough to consume everyone I have ever known in a single bite, a void of total destruction.
It sees us. I don’t know how. We must be tiny specks compared to its leviathan size, but somehow it sees us with great golden eyes like two suns, scorching all that go before it. I am stuck in place where I stand, terrified in a way that turns muscle to stone.
The dust storm reaches us before the beast does, the earthly effects of its incredible power sending rock and grit blasting over the surface of the planet. Now I know why the terrain is so completely devoid of life, why this is a world dominated by sand.
Isu grabs me just as we are both swept up in the wind, our feet lifted from the ground. We are carried in the storm for what feels like miles before Isu grabs hold of something sticking out of the ground and swings us with an impossible act of strength out of the storm’s path and into a hole in the ground.
The back and left hand side of my body has been blasted with the wind and the sand and left my skin raw in places.
“What was that?”
“That was the wyrm. That is the reason I told you not to leave the burrow,” he says, standing over me. “She is voracious. She is the reason we are able to survive on this planet, and she is the reason it will one day be entirely destroyed. You have woken her.”
“I have woken her?”
“The ground trembled on the day you came. Now you walk the surface and she rises. You have woken her, Aspel. This is what the elders were trying to foretell.”
I feel as though the elders should have been more clear about the sky dragon, but Isu’s kind have their own ways, and perhaps they thought it unnecessary to specify… this.
He puts me down and makes a gesture to indicate that I should stay where I am. I do not move. Moving hurts thanks to the grazes and abrasions covering my arms, hips, and thighs. He protected me from the worst of it, but he couldn’t shield me from it all. I know the relatively light aches and pains I am experiencing are nothing compared to what would have happened to me if he hadn’t come to find me. I would have been sandblasted into a bloody treat for the sky beast, the wyrm he speaks of with reverence, but not fear.
This dark cave is not like the other dark cave. It is darker, if that is possible, and the air smells musty.
“This isn’t the burrow.”
“No,” he says. “It isn’t.”
“Then, where are we?”
“In an older set of tunnels. Abandoned ones. The sandstorm blew us away from the burrow. We could be miles away by now. We may not be able to return now that the wyrm is awake. She will fly for many days before returning to sleep, and anything on the surface will be consumed.”
I shudder at the idea of being swept into that mouth of endless teeth.
“You should have stayed inside the burrow,” he growls.
“You should have told me about the flying death monster.” Fear makes me sassy. Or maybe pain.
“The wyrm is but one of the dangers of his planet,” he says. “Look at the power of our species, and still we choose to live underground. If I were to tell you of all the beasts that roam this world, you would start screaming and never stop.”
If he had told me that yesterday, I would have thought he was exaggerating, and trying to scare me. Now I know better.
I fall silent as he moves around, disappearing from view momentarily and then reappearing, his skin flaring bright red and then settling into darker hues as he searches the interior of the cave.
Silence seems to be my friend. I know Master Isu is angry with me. He told me not to go out and I did regardless, because I was not raised in a world with danger. There were no predators on the farm. We were always safe; at least, until our time came.