SandRider (31 page)

“Do not answer back!” Oraton-Marr snapped. He glared at those gathered around the Egg—Mysor, the Egg Boy, the three guards and an open-mouthed Kaznim, clutching her mother's hand. Oraton-Marr now addressed them equally severely. “The Orm Egg is about to hatch. When it does you will all look away. You will
not
catch its gaze. If the Orm
Imprints
on anyone else I shall
kill them
. Do you understand?”

There was silence. They understood.

Oraton-Marr took advantage of having an Apprentice. He left Tod beside the Egg—with the instruction to fetch him at once if the Egg Tooth broke through—and he went to meet the party on the camel and donkey who were heading wearily toward the tents. Oraton-Marr greeted them and irritably beckoned the guards to help Drone get his sister off the camel.

Horribly fascinated to see her step-aunt again, Tod stole a few glances in their direction, but as Aunt Mitza waddled toward the fire by the pool, Tod stared stonily down at the Egg and refused to catch her eye.

With much fuss the Lady was settled on some cushions from Karamander's tent. Karamander's sleeping baby daughter was lifted from the papoose on Aunt Mitza's back. Oraton-Marr instructed Aunt Mitza to stand beside the pool
with the child in her arms and then he addressed them all. “If anyone gets between me and my Orm—
anyone
—Mitza Draddenmora will drown the child immediately.”

Karamander suppressed a gasp, but Kaznim did not supress anything. “No!” she screamed. “No! Not Bubba!”

“I will
not
have any disturbance,” Oraton-Marr told Karamander. “Take your daughter to your tent and stay there.” Karamander led Kaznim away and as they disappeared into the star-strewn tent, an excited cry came from the sorcerer. “Breakthrough!” he shouted out. “Breakthrough!”

Like a baby's tooth pushing through the gum, a white point gleamed wetly at the top of the bump on the Egg. It was the Egg Tooth. It had pushed its way through the leathery skin of the Egg, and a serrated edge now revealed itself. Slowly, the Egg Tooth of the Orm began to cut its way along the length of the Egg.

“All of you, turn around! Close your eyes!” Oraton-Marr barked.

His sister, his servant, Drone, Aunt Mitza, the three guards, Mysor and the Egg Boy obediently turned away toward the shadow of the dune and the darkness of the pool.

Oraton-Marr's hand descended on Tod's shoulder. “As my
Apprentice, you will stay with me beside the Egg,” Oraton-Marr said. “You will close your eyes until I tell you otherwise. Do you understand?”

“I understand,” Tod said meekly.

A tense silence fell. Head bowed, Tod discovered that she could raise her eyelids just enough to see the whiteness of the Egg Tooth as it sawed back and forth, its sharp teeth glinting in the firelight. She saw Oraton-Marr crouch down, put his hands on the Egg and lean over it, like a small child keeping a favorite toy for himself.

The Egg Tooth slowly cut a slit along the length of the Egg, then it stopped moving. It wobbled for a moment, then it fell out like a milk tooth and lay wetly on the sand. For a few long seconds the Egg was still and all was suspended, motionless, while Oraton-Marr stared into the Egg, seeking the gaze of the baby Orm.

Like a midwife at a difficult birth, Oraton-Marr was now leaning right over the Egg, intent on the stirrings inside. Safe in the knowledge that the sorcerer's whole being was fixated upon the Orm, Tod dared to open her eyes a little more. She saw that the cut along the length of the Egg was beginning to gape and beneath she glimpsed something moving. Tod knew
that any second now the Orm would hatch.

Her heart beating fast, Tod readied herself. As soon as the Orm emerged, she would throw herself at the sorcerer and send him reeling. She would
Imprint
the Orm and then . . . Tod remembered Bubba clutched in Aunt Mitza's iron grasp beside the pool. She swallowed hard. She could not think about what would happen next.

A thin wail of pain came suddenly from Bubba—Aunt Mitza had pinched the child to stop her wriggling. And with the wail, Tod's resolution evaporated. If Bubba drowned it would be because of her actions.
What should she do
? Tod no longer knew. She wished that Ferdie and Oskar were with her. Or Septimus. Or Dandra. She needed to talk about what was right. But there was no time for that. She was on her own.

Tod was not quite as alone as she thought. After some discussion, Ferdie and Oskar had decided that whatever Tod might have said, she needed backup. They were now creeping through the shadows at the foot of the star-strewn tent and the Orm Egg had just come into view.

Tod's there
, Oskar said to Ferdie in PathFinder signs.

Is she okay?
Ferdie signed.

So far
was Oskar's reply. And then he added,
I'm going to go for the Orm
.

Ferdie frowned.
Tod said to let her do it on her own
, she replied.
Anyway, they'll see you coming.

No they won't
, Oskar signed.
They're facing the other way. And he told them to close their eyes.
With that Oskar set off.

Petrified, Ferdie watched Oskar pad noiselessly across the sand, heading for the Egg. Not one person reacted. She saw him reach Tod and blithely confident, she saw him tug at Tod's tunic. Surprised, Tod swung around. Oraton-Marr caught the movement and glanced up.

And then it happened.

There was a flash of brilliant blue and a glistening, wet tail flipped out of the Egg. Oraton-Marr grabbed hold of it and pulled. Oskar was shocked. It was cruel to pull a creature out of its egg before it was ready. But Oraton-Marr did not care—he had the tail of the Orm in his own hands. The sorcerer leaned back to get more traction, and pulled as hard as he could.

“Don't just stand there, Apprentice,” he snarled. “Help me
pull! And you, boy,” he snapped at Oskar. “Pull!”

“But you'll hurt it,” Oskar protested.

“Rubbish!” Oraton-Marr grunted with the effort. “It's an Orm, for goodness' sake. It eats
rock
.”

But Oraton-Marr
was
hurting the Orm. Its tail felt as though it was being wrenched from its body, and the little Orm, still inside its Egg, quite reasonably became convinced that something was trying to eat it. It switched into attack mode.

No one wants to be near a young Orm in attack mode—let alone holding its tail. Suddenly the casing of the Egg flew apart as though an explosion had happened from within. Oraton-Marr went staggering backward but he did not let go of the tail. The Orm—five feet of slippery, spiky, wriggling, snapping fury went flying through the air and arced up, taking Oraton-Marr with it. As it went, its little wing bones began to flap and the soft membrane between them opened out like a parachute. But the dead weight hanging from its tail was pulling it down and so the Orm did the only thing it could. It dropped its tail. Oraton-Marr plummeted to the ground and lay senseless on the sand, a cold blue tail clutched to his chest.

The Lady heard the thud. She sneaked a look, staggered to her feet and set off toward her brother. “Orrie, Orrie!” she screamed.

Tod and Oskar raced after the Orm, which, with no tail to balance it, was flying erratically away, dipping and soaring. “Hey!” Oskar yelled. “Hey! Ormie, Ormie! Look at me!
Look at me
!”

Karamander Draa rushed from her tent. She saw the sorcerer unconscious on the ground and the woman in blue hovering over him like a giant, predatory butterfly. She ignored them and raced to the pool. The woman with Bubba wheeled around and Karamander saw the flicker of fear in her eyes as she strode toward her. She took her baby with no resistance whatsoever. Then she turned her back on the woman and walked quickly away to the tent. “Kaznim!” she yelled as she went. “Come here. Take Bubba, please!” Kaznim came running and in a moment she had her baby sister in her arms and was watching her mother stride over to the stricken sorcerer.

Karamander Draa had come prepared. She knelt down beside Oraton-Marr, elbowed the Lady out of the way and sent
her reeling backward onto the sand where she lay stranded like a beetle, yelling for help. No one came.

From her pocket Karamander took a vial of black liquid labeled “
HeadBanger
. Maximum strength.” With a long pipette she dropped the liquid into Oraton-Marr's mouth, then she held his nose closed until he swallowed it. Brushing the sand off her robes, she stood up. “Get out of here,” she told the Lady, who was struggling to her feet. “And take your filthy sorcerer with you.”

“You've killed him! You've killed my Orrie!” his sister wailed.

“I do not kill,” Karamander told her. “I have sworn to uphold life. He is asleep. He will sleep for seven days. And when he wakes he will have the worst headache imaginable. I have something that will cure it if he wishes to ask me. But he will have to come to me in person and ask very,
very
nicely indeed.” With that she turned and went over to her Apprentice.

“Mysor,” she said. “See these people off the premises, will you?”

Mysor smiled. Nothing would please him more.

The tailless Orm lurched away into the desert on a roller-coaster flight, heading toward the rising sun. Leaping uselessly up into the air, arms reaching for the Orm, Oskar followed the shimmering, oddly truncated scrap of blue. It was
his
Orm; he had loved it at first sight. No one else could
Imprint
it—
no one
.

From somewhere far behind him, Oskar heard Ferdie yell, “Watch out! Watch out!”

But Oskar—intent upon his dance with the Orm—took no notice. It was only when the shadow of the dragon fell across him that Oskar looked up and saw two great taloned feet heading, it seemed, straight for him.

It was not Oskar but the little Orm that Spit Fyre wanted. However, he got both. As Spit Fyre's huge feet curled gently around the body of the Orm, Oskar at last timed his leap perfectly and grasped the Orm. It was slippery from the Egg and gritty with sand. Oskar wrapped his hands around its belly
and the next thing he knew he was shooting vertically up in the air, looking into the irritated eye of a dragon. It was then that Oskar had second thoughts, but it was too late—he was now dangling fifty feet off the ground and far below he could see Ferdie and Tod running around like a couple of demented ants. He pushed away his fear and concentrated on the Orm. He must get it to look into his eyes.
He must
.

“Look at me!” Oskar yelled. “Please, Ormie, please.
Look at me!
”

But the little Orm took no notice. It only had eyes for its mother—or the creature the Orm assumed to be its mother: the creature who had rescued it from the animal that had tried to eat it and the other animals that had chased it. The little Orm gazed into the eyes of Spit Fyre and
Imprinted
the dragon deep into its flat little reptile brain. It loved Spit Fyre forever. And then, realizing that one of the animals that had chased it was still holding on to it, it turned around and spat at it.

The Orm spit stung viciously. Oskar's hands flew up to his face and he fell.

Ferdie screamed.

Human-
Imprinted
dragons like Spit Fyre have a reflex called
Rider Retrieve
. Even though Oskar had merely hitched a ride on another passenger, the reflex kicked in. As Oskar plummeted to the ground, the dragon fell even faster. The split second before Oskar would have hit the ground, Spit Fyre let go of the Orm—which was perfectly capable of flying for itself—grabbed Oskar and took him up into the air.

Spit Fyre landed a shocked Oskar gently beside the fire and then flew off to catch the Orm. He plucked the tiny, spiky, gritty creature out of the air and, watched by all below—bar Oraton-Marr—Spit Fyre flew up and over the top of the long dune.

And then the sky was empty. Dragon and Orm were gone.

Back at the fire beside the pool, Tod and Ferdie stood staring into the sky, hoping that the dragon might come back. Oskar, stunned from his fall, lay beside the pool with his hands over his eyes. He was bereft: he had lost his Orm.

Tod, however, felt relieved. She may not have been about to return to Septimus in triumph with the Orm, but Bubba was alive and the sorcerer had not gotten the Orm either. It could, she told herself, have been a lot worse. As she squinted up into the blue of the sky, out of the corner of her eye Tod saw a small figure in red approaching. Kaznim came hesitantly, nervously even, and when she reached Tod she kneeled on the sand before her. “I betrayed you,” she said. “I beg your forgiveness.”

Tod felt embarrassed. No one had ever kneeled to her before. “Oh! Um . . . well, that's okay,” Tod mumbled. “I understand why you did it. Please, please get up.” And she pulled Kaznim to her feet.

Karamander joined them. “I wish to thank you all,” she said. “Kaznim has told me what you did for her. My tent is your tent. Please come inside and rest.” A sudden bellow from the camel interrupted her. “Excuse me for a moment,” Karamander murmured. “My Apprentice needs some help.”

The Tribe of Three watched Karamander and Kaznim help Mysor despatch their unwelcome guests. The Egg Boy was sent to look for Aunt Mitza, who had disappeared. The Lady was heaved onto the camel, and the unconscious
Oraton-Marr, still clutching the Orm tail, was slung over the donkey with a distinct lack of respect. Suddenly Oskar was on his feet and staggering away, heading for the donkey. Unsure of what harebrained plan Oskar might have now, Ferdie went after her twin.

Tod was watching Ferdie arguing with Oskar when a low, malevolent voice came from behind her. Tod swung around and found herself face-to-face with Aunt Mitza.

“Alice,” said Aunt Mitza. “We do bump into each other at the strangest of times, don't we?”