Gia stared up at the giant snake, watching the neck muscles force the lump that had been Geth further downwards. The faint signs of struggling slowly faded and Gia"s stomach lurched. She was glad she hadn"t eaten anything recently."I can sssee you there, sss, hiding among the bonessss," hissed the snake, it"s head weaving back and forth. "Don"t, sss, think you can hide from me, ssss."
"I"m not hiding," she managed to croak softly.
"Then, sss, why are you not running, sss?" it hissed, turning its head slightly to get a better view of her.
"The man you ate," she said, motioning with one of her hands. "He captured me. My arms and legs can barely move…"
Licking her dry lips, she wondered if she was already dead. Why was she talking to a snake??
"That man, sss, was a nice treat. Ssss, I rarely get soft meat."
"Please don"t eat me," she whispered, trying to move something, but the weight of the bones pressed down on her already injured limbs and the after affects of the drug were making her feel weak. Or was that fear causing that? She couldn"t tell.
"Sssuch a sssmall sssize, I think you are sssafe tonight. But, ssstill, there are othersss…" The snake looked around, settling its long body deeper into the sand.
"He was trying to take me away from my family," she said softly, wishing Vonn were there. Or her dad. Either of them wouldn"t hesitate to speak to this snake and figure out a way to get out of danger.
"Family? Perhapsss your nessst?" asked the snake, tilting its head in confusion.
Gia realized this snake probably didn"t understand the concept of families. Living out here in such a harsh place would mean it was probably on its own as soon as it hatched. Thinking about what words she should use to convey her meanings, she struggled to move some of the bones again, but they were too heavy.
"He took me away from my mate, hoping to force me to take him instead," she tried to explain.
"Why did you, sss, not kill him?" asked the snake, tasting the air with its tongue.
"He tricked us by putting poison in our food to make us sleep. And then stole me away," Gia continued trying to explain. The longer it was talking, the longer she had to live.
"Want me to ssspit him out, ssso you can ssslay him?" asked the snake, starting to reverse the muscles that were pushing his lump down.
"No!" Gia cried. She didn"t think she could stand to see his dead body again. "I would never ask you to forgo a meal!"
"How nice, sss," hissed the snake, resuming swallowing him. "You should not ssstay here. Thisss isss not a good ssspot for you."
"I know that humans should not be in your desert," she said, trying to think of something else to say.
"I mean, sss, there are othersss coming. They will probably eat you, sss," said the snake, glancing off in the distance.
"I"m not strong enough to move these bones off me," admitted Gia, trying once again to push one off.
"You should have sssaid sssomething," hissed the snake, starting to grab bits of the elephant and eating them.
The moment she was free, Gia scrambled away from the dead elephant, and took a deep breath of the cooling night air.
"Sssit on my back, ssso nothing triesss to eat you," offered the snake, moving one coil over towards her.
Swallowing the lump in her throat, Gia reached out with a shaking hand. Could she do it? A soft noise off to her left drew her attention, and she glanced over to see something moving towards her, just under the sand. Scrambling back away from whatever was under the sand, she ended up on the back of the snake. Something that looked like a cross between a demon and a c.o.c.kroach poked out of the sand, right before the snake attacked it. One long fang pierced the middle of the nightmare bug before it disappeared down the same throat that swallowed Geth.
"Hold on, human, sss," hissed the snake after a moment, and it began to slide across the sand, away from the remains of the elephant.
Gia managed to glimpse a mult.i.tude of the nightmare bugs starting to swarm over it, before the snake had taken her too far to see any more in the dark.
"I can take you to the sss, city, but it would be hard for your mate to get there. Perhapsss I should travel to the wa.s.ssstessss. I might find sssomething sssoft to eat again…"
The snake was thinking to itself out loud, because Gia was too busy trying not to fall off the constantly moving scales underneath her to respond. She was just thankful the edges of the scales didn"t try to pinch her as they slid back and forth with the snake"s movement.
Turning around after a few minutes, the snake started heading in the direction Gia thought was the wastes. She couldn"t wait to get back with her family after this. She didn"t even care that she would have to be squished back into the elephant without any room to move, just so she would be safe and with them and away from this desert.
Sounds all around her made her wish she could see in the dark as the snake seemed able to. Why did Geth think it would be safe to travel here?? There was swishing noises as things moved away from the snake quickly, not wanting to stick around and see why the snake was moving so purposefully in one direction. She didn"t remember any of these noises while they were traveling in the elephant. Had they been there and she just didn"t remember them, or did the sounds of the elephant hide them? Maybe these creatures didn"t think of the elephant as something worthy of avoiding. They would most likely have been sleeping during the heat of the day anyway.
As the night wore on, she caught herself drifting off to sleep, and almost fell off the back of the snake several times, but it would jerk or move suddenly, and she would find herself wide awake, with her heart beating in her throat, clinging to its back once again.
"There are othersss, riding the dead bea.s.ssstssss. Could they be, sss, looking for you?" hissed the snake, pausing to look back at her.
"Are there three of the elephants?" she asked hopefully.
"No, sss, only two," said the snake, turning to look back the way it was heading.
"That"s not good," she said softly. Had Vonn sent her brother and parents on to the orcs with one of the other traders? She was terrified that he may have, because she wasn"t sure she trusted any of the traders now.
"We mussst hurry, sss, before the sssand wormsss arrive. They are, sss, bigger than me, sss, and I will need you, sss, off my back to fight them properly," warned the snake, before darting forward. "I will eat, sss, good tonight!"
Hearing a shout from the approaching elephants, Gia tried to wave at them, to let them know she was alright, and that the snake was a friend, but it was hard to do with it moving so fast. She had to keep both hands down, to keep from being thrown off. The snake reared up, just in front of the lead elephant, whipping the coil she was clinging to at it, before darting to the side and striking at a monstrous beast as it rose up from the sands.
Gia screamed, reaching out for the elephant"s tusk, and managed to grab it, swinging up under the jaw, and landed in the hollow, in Sudar"s lap. Vonn, who was right behind him, grabbed her and pulled her off the trader, and the rest of the way into the cavity, as Sudar quickly grabbed the reigns to turn the elephant away from the ma.s.sive battle ensuing before them.
Burying her head into Vonn"s shoulder, words poured out of her about the sand worms and the nice snake that ate Geth and saved her before the sand roaches came to eat the remains of the elephant, and how they needed to get back to the wastes before more things came, attracted to the battle.
"Oh! Gia!" exclaimed Carla, trying to give her a hug around Vonn in the confined s.p.a.ce. "We were so worried!"
Gia sat up to see that her entire family was in the elephant, and said, "I thought you guys would have gone with one of the other traders to the orcs."
"And split up?!" cried Tom, "Never!"
���Then why are there only two elephants?" she asked, looking around for answers.
"Brin"s elephant was destroyed by sand crabs," said Sudar, gritting his teeth as he moved the elephant to avoid being crushed by the snake"s tail as it struggled with a second sand worm.
"Is he alright?" she asked, feeling terrible that two of their elephants were destroyed because Geth took her. She knew that it wasn"t her fault, but she couldn"t help feeling bad.
"Kei was able to save him, though he almost lost his elephant too. We"re hoping the orcs can fix the damage to his ride when we get there," explained Sudar, settling in to a long night as they finally pulled away from the fight.
"I can"t believe you rode on the back of a giant snake!" exclaimed Mikey in surprise. "I thought you were terrified of them!"
"Most snakes don"t talk to you, and tell you you"re not worth eating," said Gia with a shudder, laying her head back on Vonn"s shoulder. "I don"t ever want to touch another snake every again."