Twins Read online

  Twins

  Kevin L. Nielsen

  Future House Publishing

  TWINS

  Future House Publishing

  Text © 2016 Kevin L. Nielsen

  Cover illustration © 2016 Future House Publishing

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the written permission of Future House Publishing at [email protected].

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Cover design by Garrett Hamon and Jeff Harvey.

  Copy editing by Future House Publishing

  Interior design by Brooke Sorensen

  The ground rose and fell in small, repeating mounds as if the red sand were water set to boil. The wind caught the sand as it rose and sent loose particles dancing away like scarlet smoke. Tieran, standing on the edge of the plateau and staring down at the oddly moving sand, would have once thought the motion a heat illusion or the wind itself. He knew it for what it was.

  Death.

  “Why aren’t they breaking the surface?” an impatient voice asked.

  Tieran didn’t have to turn and look at his sixteen-year-old twin sister, Sarial, to see the furrowed brow, half pout, and anger lines forming at the corner of her eyes that was her permanent frustrated expression. He’d been on the receiving end of that look far too many times to actually need to see it. Tieran spared a glance toward the only other person with them, an older woman. She regarded him with deep-set eyes and a flat expression on her only-slightly wrinkled face.

  “They have no reason to,” Khari said in her flat voice. “Wouldn’t you say, Tieran?”

  Tieran swallowed, though his throat was dry—what wasn’t in the Sharani Desert, for sands sake?—but nodded. As the Matron of their clan and a mystic, Khari’s rank so far outstripped theirs that her simple presence was enough to make Tieran nervous.

  “The clans have been safe in the Oasis for over a fortnight already,” he said, making it a question almost as much as a statement.

  “That’s right,” Khari said with a nod, brushing a strand of greying hair out of her eyes, “and the last of the outcasts have been accounted for as well. The sailfins have nothing on which to feed.”

  Tieran could almost hear his sister roll her eyes.

  “Still,” Sarial said, walking out to the edge of the red sandstone cliff and peering down, her feet nearly hanging over the edge, “it would have been nice to see a full sailfin pack before our first hunt actually began.”

  Tieran winced ever so slightly as Khari frowned. On anyone else, a simple frown wouldn’t have been much cause for concern. On Khari’s face, the expression was as severe as a shout of rage.

  “Nice?” Khari asked, “A sailfin pack is an instrument of death, Sarial, nothing more.” Khari pushed back the sleeve on her right arm, revealing banded rings of color tattooed into her skin, each representing one of the seven clans. “A sailfin pack means destruction, pain, and broken families. A sailfin pack we’re not hunting means we’ve failed.”

  Tieran nodded seriously. “What is the test of honor,” he recited, “to uphold the flame or to snuff it out?”

  Khari turned to him and gave a rare smile, which is to say one corner of her mouth twitched upward for the briefest moment. Behind Khari’s back, Sarial scowled. Tieran waited until Khari wasn’t looking at him, then stuck his tongue out at his sister. He knew it was childish but didn’t linger on it.

  Sarial rolled her eyes and pointedly ignored him, turning her attention away from both him and the shifting sands presumably to scan the skies for signs of the aevian warriors who would accompany them on this hunt. She looked calm and collected, standing there in her flowing mystic robes. Tieran wished he could be as calm on the inside as she looked on the outside. That, however, eluded him like most things when it came to his sister. She was thin, blonde-haired, and a mystic, and he was broad, dark-haired, and ordinary in every way. Tieran licked his lips, swallowed, and joined Sarial in her search of the skies.

  Sarial pointed out the approaching aevians a few minutes later.

  “Here they come,” Sarial said, giving Tieran a smug look of what he thought was self-satisfaction at being the first to spot them when Khari wasn’t looking.

  Sarial pointed northwest to where five small dots on the horizon were outlined against the dark rock of the Forbiddence. The massive, sheer walls stretched in a circle around the Sharani Desert, a much larger counterpoint to the red and grey rock that surrounded the Oasis.

  Khari nodded, one hand on the hilt of her sword. Tieran watched her and tried to imitate the posture and stance, resting one hand on the hilt of his own sword, but only succeeded in feeling rather foolish. As a mystic, Khari had certain powers and abilities that no amount of practice or skill on Tieran’s part could imitate. No, fate had granted that particular honor to his sister.

  “Go see to your aevians,” Khari said, her voice brooking no argument. “Make sure all the leads are tightened and your saddles are secure. This is your first hunt. I don’t want it to be your last.”

  Tieran chuckled, but Sarial only scowled as the two of them turned away from the edge of the plateau and hurried to do as bidden.

  “She’s not serious,” Tieran said to his twin. “This is only a hunt to gather food for the aevians, nothing truly important. Besides, they haven’t lost anyone on a first hunt in years.”

  “You’ll be the first, then.”

  Tieran snorted, his initial nervousness having passed. “That has about as much chance of being true as you ever finding yourself a husband. You’re the one who’s the bait, after all.”

  “Watch it, Tieran.”

  “Or what?” Tieran asked, “You’ll zap me with your magic? Try it. I’d love to see what Khari would do to you after that. I doubt your—what did you call it—’exceptional skill at the mystic arts’ would keep you from getting in trouble.”

  Sarial shoved him but not hard enough to do more than knock him off balance for a moment. He took a quick double step, regained his balance, and winked at Sarial. She rolled her eyes at him.

  Their aevians waited for them near the center of the plateau. Rather, Tieran’s aevian waited for him. The aevian Sarial was using wasn’t hers, not that any of the aevians could be said to be owned. Tieran had just bonded with his, so the aevian only allowed one rider. Sarial’s was unbonded, which meant that anyone could ride him so long as Khari allowed.

  “Nervous?” Tieran asked, approaching the massive creatures. He’d ridden his aevian several times before, but the flight to this plateau had been Sarial’s first experience riding the winds. That was the main reason they’d arrived well before the others.

  “Not a chance in the seven hells,” Sarial said. Tieran looked over at her and saw a grimace lurking on her lips. He grinned and thumbed at his nose.

  “Really?”

  Sarial scowled at him and rolled her eyes. She did that a lot. “Leave it, Tieran.”

  Tieran shrugged and chuckled to himself. His aevian made a soft chirping noise as he approached. Tieran patted him on the side of the neck as he checked the leads holding the saddle onto the aevian’s broad back. Tieran knew he should probably name the beast but simply hadn’t come up with anything that suited the seven-foot tall, brown-speckled behemoth. The aevian clicked his golden beak and regarded him with dark, near-black eyes the size of Tieran’s fist.

  “I swallowed a bug on the way here,” Sarial said at last. “It was horrible.”

  Tieran peered around his aevian to look at his siste
r and to see if she was being serious. She’d finished checking the leads on her own aevian, which was much smaller than his own. They had to be in order to fly low to the ground the way they did and to be quick to act as bait for the sailfin packs. Tieran’s much larger aevian was built to dive.

  “What kind of bug?”

  “Does it matter?”

  Tieran nodded seriously. “Some are much worse than others. Trust me.”

  “A beetle.”

  “Not one of the little, red-spotted ones,” Tieran said, aghast. “Those are my favorites. They taste just like lamb!”

  Sarial’s mouth worked, as if she were trying to come up with a suitable response. Tieran laughed. Sarial shot him another glare, then threw up her hands, and walked away, mouth clamped firmly shut.

  The other warriors arrived shortly thereafter, so Tieran wasn’t left in silence for very long. Khari called them all together to go over the logistics of the hunt. Sarial made a point to stay near the other rider who would be acting as bait—another mystic clad in red robes, naturally—and far away from her brother. Tieran grinned at her as he joined the other regular warriors and accepted a lance from one of the men. The steel weapon was long and unwieldy on the ground but perfect for spearing sailfins from the air. Tieran let it rest on one shoulder as he listened to Khari’s words.

  “Double check your leads before you take off,” Khari said, eyeing Tieran and Sarial—they were the only new warriors on this hunt. “If you fall off your aevian, you’re dead. If the drop itself doesn’t kill you, the sailfins will. No one will have time to save you.”

  Khari let the words hang in the air. No one argued. They all understood. There were too few of them to do much against a sailfin pack. It was better to lose one warrior than have them all die trying to save someone already lost. Tieran felt his hands go sweaty, and his grip slipped a little on the metal lance as Khari nodded once and gave them their final instructions.

  Tieran squinted against the blinding sunlight and the biting wind. Even then, his eyes watered and stung as he peered down around his aevian’s neck at the ground far below them. Sarial and her mentor flew low along the sand, their aevians darting back and forth in quick switchback patterns. Tieran was high enough up that it was hard to actually see Sarial on her aevian’s back, but he knew which one she was. He tightened his grip on the massive steel lance and made the mistake of licking his lips. His tongue stuck on the desiccated skin.

  “There!” Tieran heard someone shout.

  He looked ahead of him where Khari flew with the two other senior warriors. One of them, Tieran didn’t recall his name, was pointing with his lance toward a spot in the sand below and ahead of them. Tieran pulled in his tongue and looked down. Sand billowed up in small, red mounds far ahead of them, rising and falling in a writhing mass of moving sand. Red dust billowed up and was blown backward across the sky. They’d found the sailfin pack.

  Khari signaled the change in direction with a series of sharp whistles and a gesture of one hand. The wind whipped her long, red mystic robes out behind her as the aevians all banked to the left. The flapping cloth shifted in an exact imitation of the billowing red dust from the sailfins below. Tieran gripped the handle on his saddle tightly with his free hand as his own aevian followed the others. Despite his earlier bravado with Sarial, his knuckles were white.

  Khari whistled again, a series of four sharp notes in ascending order. Tieran tensed, expecting his aevian to shift again, but nothing happened. Confused, Tieran looked over at the other warriors. They were all looking down, and Tieran followed their gaze in time to see Sarial and her companion lower their lances until their tips dug into the sand. From Khari’s careful instructions before, Tieran knew the motion on the surface of the sand would draw the creatures out. He found himself holding his breath as his sister’s lance streaked toward the billowing mounds of sand that marked the sailfin pack.

  “Ready!” Khari shouted, though Tieran barely noticed. His aevian shifted beneath him, but Tieran’s attention was locked on the scene below him.

  The lance tip hissed through the sand only fifty feet from the sailfin pack. Thirty feet. Ten.

  A sailfin burst up out the ground in a shower of crackling sparks and sand visible even from Tieran’s vantage high above. It had a long, tubular body writhing with muscle, a massive, spiked dorsal fin with violet tips, and enough teeth to rip apart anything that lived. The sailfin rose into the air like a monster from Tieran’s worst nightmare. He felt a surge of fear mingled with excitement rush through him. A moment later, Sarial’s companion rammed a lance through the sailfin’s neck and pinned it back to the ground.

  As if this were some sort of signal, a dozen more sailfins burst up through the sands.

  “Dive!” Khari shouted.

  Tieran sucked in a breath despite himself and gasped at the dust that entered his lungs. His aevian shifted beneath him, folding his sickle-shaped wings inward toward his body. Tieran coughed once, then forced himself to ready his lance and to steel himself against the coming dive. The world seemed to halt as his aevian turned in the air and, ever so slowly, turned his head downward toward the ground. Then they were fully into the dive.

  Wind tore at Tieran’s eyes and tugged at his clothes, plastering them back against his skin. Small bits of sand and dust pelted him, and he was forced to squeeze his eyes so tightly shut that he could barely see. Despite that, he kept his lance steady and his grip firm on the pommel of his saddle. He felt the tensions and strain on the safety lead that was hooked into the harness on his back as they plunged toward the ground at a speed Tieran could barely fathom. Emotions raced through him as quickly as their speeding flight, a jumble so mashed together that Tieran couldn’t begin to name even a part of one outside of pure terror.

  A sailfin appeared in Tieran’s sight just below them, suddenly looming large. Tieran reacted by instinct and turned his lance up a few inches to take the sailfin in the back, just below where the dorsal fin met the base of the creature’s skull. The jarring impact raced up Tieran’s arm an instant before Khari’s careful coaching and instructions reminded him to let go of the lance, which he did, not a moment too soon.

  He leaned back, leaving the lance buried in the sailfin body, which was pinned to the ground. His aevain spread his wings, halting their dive in such a sudden cessation of motion that Tieran felt the contents of his stomach turn over and threaten to fly out of his mouth. The aevian shrieked a piercing cry of triumph and beat his wings in a frenzy, pulling them back up high in to the sky.

  Tieran blew out his breath in one explosive burst, his lungs heaving as if he’d just run several miles. Sweat beaded on his forehead and dripped down his face. Relief and excitement washed over him, and he threw both hands into the air. Tilting his head back, Tieran whooped into the sky and let his emotions escape through his own exultant cry of victory. His aevian joined him, screeching and climbing higher into the air.

  Tieran’s cry eventually faded into broken laughter, tears streaming down his cheeks to mingle with the sweat. His arms fell back to the saddle, gripping the pommel. He shifted his weight to signal his aevian to turn and circled back around toward the sailfin pack. He knew Khari would lecture him when they got back for not returning for another lance immediately, but—at the moment—he didn’t care. He’d survived his first dive without soiling himself. He could take a lecture. Sands knows, he’d been through enough of those already. He glanced down toward the sailfin pack, and what he saw brought the earlier terror back in full force.

  An aevain shrieked in agony as it disappeared into the sands, dragged down by what had to have been at least a dozen sailfins. A figure dashed across the ground a few spans away, running as fast as her legs could take her on the ever-shifting sands.

  Sarial.

  Tieran didn’t hesitate. He leaned forward, pushing his aevian into another dive. He urged the creature to go faster, ignoring Khari’s earlier admonition and warning.

 
Faster!

  Sarial dashed across the sand as fast as she could. None of the other warriors were anywhere near there, and Tieran knew that even if they were, they wouldn’t do anything. Khari had already said it. If you ended up without your aevian… if you ended up on the sands, you were dead. No one would come to save you.

  Faster!

  A red mound formed in the sand behind Sarial’s fleeing form, followed by another. And another. Sarial must have sensed them. She spun as a sailfin burst up from the sand. Sarial’s sword flashed and red touched red on the sand.

  Faster!

  Tieran reached behind him and unclipped the safety lead from the saddle with one had. His other drew his sword. A dozen spans from the ground, Tieran hurled himself from the saddle, a scream of rage ripping from his lips as he fell through the air. His sword glistened in the light. He hit the ground and rolled, leaping to his feet and ignoring the pain that rocked through him. A sailfin appeared in front of him, energy crackling along its length. It was a lot bigger from the ground than it had appeared from the air. The sailfin opened its gaping maw and surged toward Tieran. His aevian latched onto the creature with foot-long talons, killing it almost instantly and dragging the corpse a dozen spans before letting it drop back onto the sand.

  “Sarial!” Tieran screamed, spitting sand.

  “What are you doing?” his sister shouted. Tieran spun. There she was, sword wet with blood and a sailfin corpse in the sand behind her.

  “Oh you know,” Tieran said, relief thundering through him, “just looking for the good bugs to eat. I couldn’t find any up there.”

  “You’re a fool!”

  Tieran didn’t respond. Instead, he whistled shrilly, calling his aevian to return. Sarial struggled through the sand toward him.

  “We’re both dead, you know that?” Sarial shouted, tears streaming down her face. “You shouldn’t have come back for me.”