Duel

"NO!!!" yelled Fred as he saw their intent. He turned from the creature and focused on the men and woman about him. He concentrated on their eyes and shifted his voice with subtle skill. "I shall deal with this thing, you must go and not be detained. The amulet is your guide, follow it away from here. GO!!!"

There was something in Fred's voice, a power that compelled the others. Astra felt the strength of Fred's desire to vanquish the creature in one- to-one combat; Simon saw the sacrifice that Fred was willing to make and made a prayer to his spirit-god; Aethir heard Fred's total commitment to the quest in which they were all part; and they all kicked their mules hard and rode as quick as hell away from Fred and the monster made of desert plant.

All but the Sdano who watched the affair from a short distance off. He saw the monster erupt from under the sands; he saw Fred command his compatriots to flee the scene; he saw the knight pull off his gloves...

The Green was pale; the Blue was strong, as was the Red of the celestial star. The Avenger shifted in the sands, its tendrils deep within them keeping contact with the moisture far below, with the creeping things, the slithering things small and smaller. The Green was pale but the Hated Ones were here; colors of Pink and Brown flowed within its senses. Then sound waves of electric intensity, and then the figures shifted, coalesced, faded...leaving only one of the Hated Ones. The Dangerous One. The Burning One. The Cold One. Stripes of sound mixed with slivers of movement, shape, smell, and then touch. It knew that it was the Avenger, this was its Reason. It knew that it was the Blasphemy, it walked within the Green while the Green was rooted. It would embrace the Dangerous One, with its barbed arms and fingers of pins. This was its Reason, after all.

The Sdano could barely believe what he witnessed. The flash of cold steel was replaced with the flash of bare hand. The monster swam as if it were a dolphin in a sea of sand. The man kicked and flipped and seemed to fly in the air. Shock hit the dunes as cactus penetrated flesh and power struck power. Sizzling sounds replaced burning lights, and then only a cloud of slow-falling sand obscured the gypsy's vision. When the air was clear, there was no monster, and there was no man! The Sdano began to walk towards the scene, wondering what could have made both disappear. Then he felt the tremors beneath his legs, but too late. Suddenly the very earth beneath the gypsy erupted in a rage of hatred! The fight went on for a long time, longer than time it may have felt, yet finally it came to an end. What was left of the Stick Man lay here, there, everywhere; the fleshy cactus smelled of ozone and was hot to the touch. Fred lay panting upon the sands, one arm wrapped around his bleeding stomach while his left foot seemed not to want to move naturally anymore. The Sdano lay too upon the sands, his eyes wide open and his face with a look as if he had seen the burning trash heaps of Gehen, which in a way he had; and he was quite dead.

Fred lay a long time. His whole frame burned with pain. His face was red with his own blood, one of his ears was nearly ripped out, his cheek was pitted with cactus needles, as were other parts of his flesh. The skin of his stomach was ripped, bleeding, and he knew that if he wasn't careful his own intestines would soon follow suit. But worst of all was his left leg; it was twisted in like a lame beggarman. The fact that it didn't hurt one bit was a grave sign. Fred sat up and searched the dunes for his mule. He knew that without the animal it would take a while to rejoin the others.

1. Fred thought of a saying he had once heard of the desert, 'Sands are known to swallow men'

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