“No, Your Goldness, don’t!” cried Gravelbeard, but too late.
Nettlebrand sank his teeth into the cactus with relish, only to flinch back, howling. A thousand tiny thorns were piercing his gums — the only unprotected part of his body.
“Pull them out, armor-cleaner!” he bellowed. “Pull these sharp, burning things out!”
Hastily Gravelbeard slid down the huge muzzle, perched on the terrible front teeth, and set to work.
“He’ll pay for this!” bellowed Nettlebrand. “He’ll pay for every thorn, that stupid homunculus. Thick as two short planks, he is! I must find water. Water! I must get out of this desert!”
Then a fine film of sand suddenly rose in the hot air around the bitten cactus, forming into a creature that seemed to change shape with every breath of the desert wind. Its sandy limbs stretched and grew, until a veiled rider was sitting on a spindly-legged camel in front of Nettlebrand. The rider’s billowing cloak, like the rest of him, consisted of a myriad grains of sand.
“You want water?” whispered the rider. Even his voice sounded like sand crunching underfoot.
Gravelbeard shrieked and fell headfirst off his master’s muzzle. Nettlebrand was so surprised, he closed his sore mouth.
“What are you?” he growled at the sandy rider.
The translucent camel pranced up and down in front of the giant dragon, obviously not in the least afraid of him.
“I am a sandman,” whispered the strange being. “I ask again: Do you want water?”
“Yes!” grunted Nettlebrand. “What a stupid question! Of course I do!”
The sandman blew himself out like a tattered sail in the wind.
“I can give you water,” he breathed, “but what will you give me in return?”
Nettlebrand was so angry that he spat cactus thorns. “What will I give you in return? I’ll refrain from eating you, that’s what.”
The sandman laughed. His mouth was only a hole in his sandy face.
“What will you give me?” he asked again. “Tell me, you great tinny monster.”
“Promise him something!” Gravelbeard whispered into Nettlebrand’s ear. “Anything!”
But Nettlebrand lowered his horns, snorting furiously. Armor clinking, he leaped forward and snapped. His teeth crunched, and the sandman collapsed. Nettlebrand coughed as grains of sand went down his throat. Then he bared his fangs in a satisfied grin.
“So much for you!” he grunted, and he was turning away when Gravelbeard suddenly drummed frantically on his armored brow.
“Your Goldness!” he croaked. “Look! Look at that!”
Two more sandmen were rising from the place where the first had just fallen. Bright sunlight shone through the arms they were raising in the air, and a wind suddenly rose over the desert.
“Get away from here, Your Goldness!” cried Gravelbeard, but it was already too late.
The wind howled over the dunes, and wherever it whipped up the sand more and more sandmen rose up. They galloped toward Nettlebrand on their camels and surrounded him. Soon he was enveloped in a vast, impenetrable cloud of sand.
Nettlebrand bit like a mad dog. He snapped at the thin legs of the camels and at their riders’ fluttering robes. But for every sandman he managed to get, two more rose from the desert sands. They rode around him in the flying sand, circling around him faster and faster. Horrified, Gravelbeard put his hat over his eyes. Nettlebrand spat and roared, struck out with his claws, and kept snapping his terrible jaws. But all he got between his teeth was sand — gritty, dusty sand that scratched his nose and throat. Every time the sandmen completed another circle, Nettlebrand sank deeper into the sand, until even his snorting, sputtering head disappeared. When the sandy riders finally reined in their camels, there was no sign of the golden dragon and his armor-cleaner, nothing but a huge hill of sand rising among the dunes. For a few moments the camels stood there, breathing hard, while their masters’ sandy robes billowed in the breeze. Then the wind blew over the dunes, sighing, and the sandmen disintegrated and became one with the desert again.
A viper winding its way over the hot sand a little later heard a scraping sound inside the strange hill. A small head in a large hat emerged from the heap of sand.
“Your Goldness!” called the head, taking off its hat and shaking out enough sand to fill two thimbles. “I made it! I’m in the open.”
The snake was about to slither silently closer to this apparition to find out whether it was edible when a terrible muzzle emerged from the hill of sand, its stinking breath sweeping the viper away behind the nearest dune.
“Come on, armor-cleaner!” growled Nettlebrand. “Dig me out. And wipe this filthy sand out of my eyes.”
25. The Indus Delta
Clouds obscured the moon and stars as the sea serpent swam toward the coast of Pakistan. In the darkness, Ben could make out huts by the flat beach, boats drawn up on the shore, and the mouth of a mighty river pouring into the sea from countless tributaries.
“Here it is!” the sea serpent hissed to the boy. “This is where the dragons used to come until the monster drove them away. That is the Indus, also known as the sacred river Sindh. Follow it, and it will take you into the mountains and up to the Himalayas.”
She swam past the village, where lanterns were burning outside several huts, and glided on toward the mouth of the Indus. The land between the branches of the river was flat and muddy. Flocks of white seabirds had settled there, beaks tucked under their wings, but they flew up in alarm when the serpent rested her gigantic head on a sandbank. The cry of birds tore through the silence of the night.
Ben jumped down from the serpent’s head, landed in the damp sand, and glanced in the direction of the village, but it was hidden by low hills.
“Firedrake can hide in the reeds there,” said the sea serpent, darting out her tongue as she arched her neck, “until you’ve found out if the villagers are still well disposed toward dragons.”
“Thank you,” said Firedrake, letting Sorrel climb off his back. “It did me good to rest for a while.”
The serpent bent her head, hissing gently.
“The river is shallow here,” she told Ben. “You can wade through it when you go to the village. I could drop you off there, but the sight of me would scare the fishermen so badly that they wouldn’t venture out to sea for days.”
Ben nodded. “I’d better set off at once.”
“Hey, Twigleg!” he said, opening his backpack. “You can put your head out again. We’ve reached land.”
The homunculus crawled sleepily out of his warm nest of human clothing, stuck his head out of the backpack, and pulled it straight back in. “Land!” he said crossly. “Land? All I can see is more water everywhere.”
Ben shook his head, smiling. “Do you want to come to the village with me, or shall I leave you with Firedrake and Sorrel?”
“Leave me with Sorrel? No,” said Twigleg hastily. “I’d rather come with you.”
“Okay.” Ben closed the backpack again.
“We’ll hide behind those reeds,” said Sorrel, pointing to a sandbank where they grew particularly densely. “And this time, I won’t forget to get rid of our tracks.”
Ben nodded. When he turned to say good-bye to the sea serpent, the beach was empty. Far away, three glimmering humps rose from the waves.
