Forged Destiny [Book 6: Ch. 3]

The northern coast of Vacuo made for easier travel, but was no less dangerous. The shifting sands had been replaced with rocky tundra that shifted down into dirty beaches, a thin strip of ground slightly wetter and more sustaining of life than the desert itself. Rugged ferns and shrubs dotted the landscape ahead and behind, back toward Alair, while the ocean and the beaches spanned our right, and the great desert itself our left. The sun was high in the sky but it was late afternoon, our preferred time to travel so as to dodge the blistering heat.

[...]

It was a mostly silent party who trekked on for the next thirty minutes or so, and perhaps it was because of that silence that we picked up an odd sound in the distance. It was faint at first but it grew increasingly louder.

[...]

"We need to find shelter," Pyrrha said. "If this hits the desert we'll have a sandstorm on our hands."

"We could go back to Alair," Nora said. "It's only two hours back."

[...]

"There's a ruin not far south of here, or so the map says. There's bound to be some shelter there." She looked up from the map. "It would mean braving the desert once more."

"We don't have much of a choice," I said. At this point, any decision would be a good decision, so long as we made it quickly. I could hear the distant roll of thunder, confirming Blake's instincts towards a storm. "We make for the ruins. We'll camp there until the storm passes."

/-/

The early part of the sandstorm caught us before we could make it.

The clouds that had been kicked up before paled in comparison to what we faced now, where great gusts of wind would cause explosions on sand dunes, kicking up waves that crashed down on us, more than once driving me to the sand. It was like a cross between the ocean and the avalanches we'd faced in Atlas. To stay laid down for even a second was to invite being buried.

"Jaune!" Ren shouted.

"I-I'm fine," I gasped, pressing my hands down. I'd fallen for barely three seconds but already I had to drag myself out from under the sand, shaking my legs free. Another powerful blast of wind ruffled my clothes but did far worse to the sand, throwing it up like a solid wall in front of me. With one arm over my face, I trudged through, toward the sound of Ren's voice.

He caught my arm and tugged me back to the group. Everyone was hunched, most with their arms up to shield their faces. The wind came from behind, which at least meant we weren't fighting it with every step, but that only made it worse. Instead of sand being thrown at us, it struck us in the back without warning, and it was that which could unbalance a person. It also didn't stop the dust fluttering back into our faces, though to my relief the veils we'd been given held.

[...]

I trudged ahead instead, suiting action to words. Everyone followed.

The dune ahead was a nightmare. The sand shifted and buckled at every opportunity and sometimes a single misplaced foot could cause it to give way, sand skittering down, and at one point almost taking me with it. I fell to my hands and knees and crawled up, as did the others. Once we crested the top, my heart fell.

Nothing.

A whole, fat load of nothing in every direction. I couldn't see far on account of the sand being whipped up into thick clouds, but what I could see were more dunes in every direction, along with vast plains of shifting sand that seemed to be rippling like it was alive, or maybe like it was an ocean, with the top layers creating waves as the wind pushed it to and fro.

[...]

The Reaper moved without explanation, hopping over the dune and falling on her back, sliding down it towards flatter ground. With no other options, we followed, skidding down on our backs, feet or knees. I hit the sand hard and rolled, stumbling back onto my feet in time to see Ruby a good fifty metres ahead, almost lost in the clouds. She was using Crescent Rose as a staff to dig into the sand.

"Here!" she called, voice tinged with excitement. "This is it! I saw a flash of it when the sand moved."

I didn't bother to ask what. None of us did. Devoid of hope and desperate for anything we hurried forward, pausing a few feet away and huddled together. Ruby knelt and brushed her hand on the sand, trying to force it away. When that failed she slammed the butt of her scythe down.

There was a solid, wooden thunk.

Yang and I instantly fell to our knees and started to shovel the sand away with our hands – an impossible task given how much more blasted over us, but the others joined in, Pyrrha, Blake and Ren forming a wind barrier with their cloaks held open to block the sand, Nora helping us drag it aside. Slowly, torturously, a wooden frame began to reveal itself. A panicked part of my mind whispered that it might be driftwood or just a few planks but I dismissed it. If it was, we were dead. I had to believe it was more.

"It's a door!" Yang gasped happily.

—Forged Destiny [Book 6: Ch. 3]