Deserts are hot.

  This shouldn’t be surprising to anyone, especially me. But when Malakar first offered me the contract, I’d envisioned something legendary: Cape billows in the wind without footsteps kicking up soft puffs of sand. Measured swigs from a waterskin, a subtle wipe of the brow, a dramatic squinted stare into the distance, directly into the hot sun at the silhouettes drawing nearer for battle.

  The reality? I’m chafing under my arms and other places that aren’t important. Any part of my skin that I’ve neglected to cover is burning after being in the sun’s unforgiving glare for days. I hold my waterskin vertically, upside down, tapping the bottom to coax the last few drops onto my tongue.

  Deserts are hot.

  Did I think that already?

  What’s even worse is Ulfgar panting like a dog.

  “Do you have to breathe like that?” I ask.

  “I’m boiling from the inside. This is helping.” A bead of sweat falls from Ulfgar’s nose, but it has evaporated before it even hits the ground. “I need more water. Can’t I just get some?” He holds up his waterskin towards the Vein.

  The ancient river is wide here, about four boat lengths across. The banks are covered in grasses and reeds that sway in the wind. There’s actually vegetation close to the river and wildlife. The dunes come into view on the horizon, and I know they stretch out from there.

  Following behind us in the river, an eyestalk pierces up through the water, leaving a small wake. It tracks our path on the shore. When I make eye contact with it, it submerges, but if I leave my gaze just off, it doesn’t seem smart enough to realize that I notice it.

  “We’re still being hunted,” I say. I don’t know what kind of creature that eye belongs to, but I do know that things don’t usually stalk prey they don’t believe they can kill.

  Worse yet. Maybe it’s waiting for something else to kill us first so it can scavange off of the remains.

  “Just have Brick let it bite its arm,” Ulfgar says.

  It’s not a half-bad idea.

  Brick stomps just ahead of us. The heat hasn’t slowed it down at all, but the air distorts above its shoulders, the sun’s energy absorbing into the dark bricks. It’s baking. If I were to put my hand on it, I would get burned. It turns around and communicates its dissent to the plan by shaking its body. Without a neck, it has to resort to some odd nonverbal movements.

  “Come on. Maybe we can eat it,” Ulfgar says.

  Brick turns back around, unmotivated by the idea.

  Wait a minute.

  Brick doesn’t have a mouth. Master Pender told me it ate an apprentice when it escaped.

  Never trust a wizard. I felt even better about lying to them now.

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  “We need to deal with it sooner rather than later,” I say. “I don’t want it creeping up out of the water and getting us at camp tonight.”

  We devise a plan: Brick kneels by the river, sets its fist in the water, and attracts the creature. The beast clamps onto Brick’s arm. We kill it.

  Easy.

  But Brick is kneeling for what seems like an hour. Probably a lot less, but Ulfgar, next to me, fidgets with impatience. “I’m about to swim in after it.”

  “Best not. It’s going to have the advantage in there, whatever it is.”

  Ulfgar groans.

  The eyestalk remains about a third of the way out into the Vein with its gaze trained on Brick, but it doesn’t move.

  “Maybe Brick is too big,” Ulfgar says. He has his ridiculous axe in both his hands, his arms straining just to hold it. I begged him to leave it on the ship, but he wouldn’t listen.

  “I’m not doing it,” I say. It could be that Brick is too big, or that a fist near the water is not vulnerable enough. If this is an ambush predator, then it is waiting for the perfect time. It has been following us for miles. It can wait for the perfect moment.

  “Put your head in the water, like you’re taking a drink.”

  Brick shifts its body toward me to look at me as if I’m stupid or something. Then it gets on its knees and does a one-handed pushup into the water.

  The eyestalk disappears.

  It’s working. I knock an arrow.

  Then…

  The river explodes.

  A burst of white and blue and brown. Mud and water droplets.

  When the aquatic chaos falls to the ground, Brick stands with an appendage, a mass of teeth, wrappeda round its head. It extends like a long tongue to the body of the giant creature, still half-submerged in the river. Eye stalks slither in all directions, and one giant mouth rimmed with dagger teeth the size of Ulfgar’s hand inches toward our golem.

  Ulfgar drops the blade of his axe on the giant, toothed tongue, severing from the source. Blood sprays from either end.

  I loose my arrow into the mass of the creature, just a blubbery mess of eye stalks, teeth. How it swims, I have no idea. Another arrow. And another, and another. Before long, I reach into my quiver, and my fingers grasp at empty air. Nothing left.

  I toss my bow to the side, unsheathe my longsword, and join Ulfgar in the fray. We hack, slash, and cut this thing from every angle. A mess of flesh, water, mud, and blood.

  One final fist drops from the sky, as Brick unloads a punch into the top of the creature’s head. Thousands of tiny crunches echo across the water, and the eyeballs on stalks explode from the pressure.

  Whatever the creature was, it turned out to be less intimidating than I expected. It’s dead in minutes.

  “That was fun,” Ulfgar says. “Can we do that again?”

  “No,” I say. I pluck my arrows from its carcass.

  We fill our waterskins, drink our fill of the river. We really should boil the water first, but there’s no firewood to be gathered anywhere. We will have to risk it. After washing the visceral remains of our encounter from the Vein, the crimson color briefly stained the Vein's top, fulfilling its namesake.

  There’s no wood to burn, and I’ve used up all my charcoal, so our camp that night is dark. Thankfully, Brick can keep watch through the night, allowing Ulfgar and me to rest. It’s all smiles at camp. All fun and laughs and jokes.

  Until we realize the real monster of the river.

  “Zane,” Ulfgar says. He grips his stomach. “I’m going to retch.”

  My body joins in sympathy. It’s an uglier sight than the slaughter of the creature.

  The fever joins the party, as do the hallucinations.

  I dream all night long. Visions of my father. Visions of pasts that never were and futures that would never be.

  One fever-fed visage appears over me, a dark, unkempt beard. An awful smell. Or is that me?

  “Father?” I ask.

  My body pushes through the sand. I’m being dragged. I’m too weak to do anything.

  “No. Shut up. Now.”

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