The Watcher In The Dune
676 Words
The desert never let them forget they were intruders.
By the third day of their flight, Alex had learned the rhythm of its cruelty: searing heat by day, bone-deep cold by night, and the endless weight of silence. But lately, that silence felt… watched.
Even Bren sensed it. He stopped often now, not just from his injured leg, but to scan the ridgelines. His axe hung loosely at his side, though his good eye stayed sharp. “Not soldiers,” he muttered more than once. “Too quiet. Too clever.”
Alex said nothing, but he felt it too. The whispers from the Fang had changed. They no longer pushed him to draw, to strike. Instead, they hummed like a warning bell. Eyes upon you. Shadows near.
That evening, they reached a cluster of ruined pillars—ancient stone half-buried in sand. The carvings were worn smooth by centuries, but Alex traced his fingers over one and felt something stir. Not magic, exactly, but presence, as if the stone remembered what had once stood here.
Bren dropped against a slab, wheezing. His limp was worse, and the desert sun had darkened his skin to raw leather. Alex helped him sit, then checked their water. The jug from the child was nearly half-empty. He tried not to think of how many days were left to the edge of the sands.
As night fell, Bren dozed. Alex kept watch. The stars stretched across the sky in cruel clarity, endless and cold. He was staring at them when he caught it—a flicker of movement, just beyond the pillars.
A figure stood against the dunes. Cloaked, unmoving. Watching.
Alex’s breath caught. He gripped the Fang’s wrappings but didn’t draw. He blinked, and the figure was gone.
Heart hammering, he scanned the sands. Nothing. Only silence.
He was still staring when Bren stirred awake. “What is it?” the old mercenary rasped.
“Someone’s there,” Alex whispered.
Bren’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t argue. “We keep moving at first light. Stay too long in one place, and the desert folk’ll circle us like wolves.”
Alex wanted to ask what he meant, but he let it go. He didn’t want Bren’s answer.
---
They rose at dawn and walked on. The whispers returned, louder now. Alex’s steps faltered under the weight of them: Turn back. The sands will claim you. The blade is not yours to bear.
By midday, his throat was cracked, his lips bleeding. He stumbled once, sand stinging his eyes. Bren caught him by the shoulder, steadying him with surprising strength for a man so worn.
“Stay up, lad,” Bren said softly. “The desert kills those who fall behind.”
Hours later, when they finally found a hollow to rest, Alex nearly collapsed. His vision blurred, and for a moment he thought he saw the cloaked figure again, perched on a dune like a crow.
But this time, Bren saw it too.
The mercenary’s hand tightened on his axe. “They’re real,” he muttered. “Desert Watchers. Keepers of old blood. They don’t strike quick—they stalk. Test you. See if you’re worth the sand beneath your feet.”
Alex’s skin prickled. “And if we’re not?”
Bren’s single eye gleamed. “Then we don’t live to find out.”
---
That night, Alex dreamed.
He stood in a vast cavern beneath the desert, the Fang in his hand. Its light painted the stone walls in pale fire. And across from him, in the shadows, the cloaked figure waited. He couldn’t see their face, only the gleam of eyes.
“You carry it,” a voice whispered, not from the figure but from the blade itself. You carry what they seek.
When he woke, his throat was dry, his hands trembling. Bren was already up, watching the horizon.
The Empire had arrived.
Far in the distance, torches bobbed along the dunes, small sparks of fire against the dark.
The Watchers were not the only ones hunting them.
- Writer
