Wandering Wolves

11. Land Shark

As we approached land it was a rocky coast. A very tall rocky coast. Our mast was the only part that reached up as high as the coast. Luckily the water was deep even this far into land, we got as close as possible. Worm tossed us down a rope ladder from the crows nest. Kate climbed up first followed by the rest of us. Donner took ages but it was understandable with his arm.

"So far just rocks and sand." Worm slid his foot into a small sand pile.

Kate sighed and put down the scope she was holding "We're going to need clothing to cover our faces with. There's a lot of sand and no shade. Worm you'll have to put shoes on or your feet will burn. Everyone else grab whatever water you can carry, it's going to be a long journey."

"What if it's just desert and no city?" Donner asked.

"We better hope there's a city."

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It was hot. Scorching hot. Sand for miles on end. Not a single sign that people live here. Stella managed to fashion us head-wear that covered every inch of our face except our eyes. We all had a different color to tell each other apart. Kate had blue, me red, Alex green, Donner yellow, Beda purple, Worm orange and Stella had pink. She even managed to give Worm a pair of boots to wear though he did not enjoy them all though they do keep his bare feet from burning in the sand. Good thing too since we have been walking for what seems like hours.

"What I wouldn't give for a shower right now." Groaned Worm.

"You hardly ever take a shower anyway." Stella nudged his arm.

"Yeah but right now, now would be a good time."

Just then he tripped.

"How do you manage to trip over sand?" Stella helped him up.

"It wasn't sand." He knelt down and pushed away some of the sand. It revealed some sort of fin. A very tiny fin in the sand.

"What the heck? Is that a fin?" Donner knelt down beside him. The fin disappeared below the sand but not before an even bigger fin came out of the sand and knocked Donner and Worm to the ground. The creature came out of the sand and jumped at me. Kate tackled me to the ground just barely dodging the creature. I sat up and finally got a good look at it. It had a whale like tail with only two arms with webbed hands. It's mouth wide with many teeth. Very sharp teeth. It had three fins on its back. A huge one in the middle with two little ones on either side of it.

"What is that thing?" Kate sat up next to me and her hand went to her sheathed sword. It jumped at us again but this time Beda sliced it in half with his axe.

"There are creatures that want to eat us in the sand?" I stated, more shocked then anything. Stating the obvious that there was sand everywhere around us.

I stood up and knelt down to better see the body of the creature.

"Now what?" Kate pulled out her sword and I glanced up to see what she was looking at. There were two of those creatures now but they were leashed like horses. Pulling what looked like a sled behind them. Someone was leading these things toward us?

"It looks like he's trying to tell us something, doesn't it?" Beda took the scope out.

"You have that super hearing Kate, what's he saying?" Worm asked.

"He..." Kate took a few steps forward, paused then looked behind us. "He wants us to run."

"Run? From what?" Stella turned around and went pale. I looked as well. There was something headed our way. Something huge. Bigger than any of the sand dunes. All the sand that bellowed up you could see a giant fin. A giant fin coming towards us.