Free Star of Cursrah by Clayton Emery

clothes and pack bobbing and shedding sand like a dog shaking off water.
    The earth roiled under their joint vibrations.
    “Run!” yelled Amber, and they charged the next dune.
    “The sand is too soft,” Reiver countered, “and the herders like soft sand.”
    Kicking and climbing, Amber yelped, “The rocks are ahead. They must run under the sand.”
    Ahead, Hakiim reached the crest of the dune and hollered, “More rocks! Little ones!”
    A good sign, but Amber saved her breath for running. The sand behind her already dimpled. Reiver shouted as a bulge chased him. He veered away from his friends and the bulge surged after.
    Amber shouted, “Reive! Stay together!”
    The bulge suddenly subsided. Perhaps the monster had hit rock or hard sand. Reiver switched back for the dune’s crest, arms and legs pumping, rags, pouches, and bundle flapping.
    Cresting the tall dune, Amber dashed down the slope, skimmed across another sandy trough as if it might shatter like glass, plowed up another dune, and trotted on. Hakiim’s head bobbed across the dunes, and Amber and Reiver soon caught up, sobbing for air.
    Onward the three pounded. Amber’s lungs burned as if steeped in hot sand, and a stitch cut her ribs. Treacherous sand sucked at her feet. She imagined borers everywhere, a thousand tunnels honeycombing the desert, burrowing miles after her pounding feet, hungry to bite her legs off and eat the rest of her slowly.
    “Do these fiends ever tire?” she gasped. Reiver didn’t spare breath to answer. More rocks dappled the sand, which grew harder underfoot.
    Running, running, running, up and down dunes, their feet floundered while twilight grew dimmer in Amber’s vision. If she blacked out and fell, she’d be herder fodder. She prayed, “Selune, get us safe and I’ll fill a basket with coins at your alta—aah!”
    Stampeding down a wide shingle slope, they saw rocks and pebbles plink into the air and two, no, four sandborers burst upward like columns in a mosque. Amber dodged wildly, clattering and skittering on shingle, and fell. Up ahead, Hakiim circled back and ran toward Reiver, his scimitar pumping. The thief was hemmed by the four creatures like a sheep run afoul of wolves.
    Reiver scooted and aimed his dagger at the closest borer. Stabbing quick and true, he impaled the creature below its wriggling teeth. It proved too weighty to hold, and Reiver’s arms sagged, but he cranked the dagger blade up. The great body tore itself free. Steel carved a furrow in the thing’s body then ripped through the jaw. Slime splashed in Reiver’s eyes. A tooth flipped down his ragged shirt—and mindlessly tried to burrow into his belly. The thief yelped and slapped it away.
    Meanwhile, two thunderherders wriggled from their holes and undulated across the scree toward the thief. Amber saw their wicked stingers flick against stones like obsidian daggers. Reiver had said the stingers were poisonous and even as she ran, Amber shuddered to think of being stung and dying slowly as her organs rotted within her body.
    Hakiim dodged two holes that looked like abandoned wells and barely escaped as a borer popped out of an existing hole and nipped at his heels. The rug merchant’s son angled toward one creature and hacked with his scimitar. The deep cut made the beast curl into a loop and quit moving. Reiver used the opportunity to jump over it, and all three ran on.
    “How many have we killed?” Amber panted.
    “I don’t know,” Reiver said. He looked behind them and saw two thunderherders turn to pursue them. “Don’t talk… run!”
    “That way,” Hakiim hollered.
    Together, they pelted down the scree and up another dune. Despite panting, sweating, and struggling for air, they outran the two wriggling horrors. Thunderherders must travel faster underground than above, Amber thought. She plunged on, fearing her lungs would split. Gasping, stumbling, she reached another dune crest and tripped over Hakiim, who lay