Hellaine: New Companion

Part 1: Lapis Lazuli

Disclaimer: I do not, under any circumstances, own Deltora Quest or any characters from the series.

Rated: T

A/N: I do own Hellaine and her past.

Summary: Lief, Barda and Jasmine meet the mysterious Jordan of the Sands, a fighter that hails from the stony wall around the Shifting Sands. Who is she? What does she want with the Games?

Just in Time

Jasmine stared. "I have never seen tracks like these," she finally said. "What creature would have made them?"

"We cannot know," Lief said flatly. "But whatever it is it is something that doesn't fear the sand beat and something that likes gold. Perhaps it likes gems too. Perhaps its the guardian."

"Surely the sand beast is the guardian!" Barda exclaimed.

Hellaine shook her head. "The beast is just one of the creatures of the sand. I have seen trespassers get hunted less than a mile from the wall. Half a year ago, a small group of five travelers got lost in these sands. Found the wall, but three beasts were upon them in seconds. "

"That is why you were able to cover your eyes."

"I was able to cover my eyes because I have seen far worse." She replied.

Barda cursed loudly, earning a smirk from Hellaine.

"Never thought a guard would curse."

Barda stopped in his tracks.

"I never said I was a guard."

"You wear the uniform of a Deltoran guard." She said pulling out a gold coin. She crouched beside the tracks and placed the coin to match the circle. "As I thought."

"What have you learned?" Lief asked.

"The tracks are not from any creature. It matches the gold coin perfectly."

The low, droning sound drummed in Lief's ears. He tried to concentrate on the rhythm of Hellaine's fingers on her hip as she inspected the circles. She was talking to Barda and Jasmine, but her voice was drowned out by the constant droning. He stared at the circles on the sand as Hellaine sat back, looking at a perfect sketch of the imprints. The circles seemed to mock him. He tried to look away, but his eyes kept being drawn back to them. He forced his gaze up to the sky – but there was no relief there. The unchanging roof of cloud seemed to press down on him, closed in as he was by faceless dunes and all the fear plucked at him like the flies which had returned in force.

Suddenyl he couldn't stand it any longer. With a muffled cry he leaped upon the imprints and kicked at them, destroying them, digging his heels deeply into the soft sand and scattering it everywhere.
"Lief! Stop!" he heard Hellaine cry out, but he was past listening. He shouted and fell to the ground, beating and tearing at it. Barda and Jasmine ran to him and tried to pull him to his feet, but he fought them off. Hellaine broke their hold and pulled his arms behind, locking them in place with one arm while using her other arm to get him into a tight choke hold, effectively holding him.

There was a soft shifting and a low rumbling as Hellaine pulled Lief to his feet. Then the earth began to move. Lief heard Barda and Jasmine cry out. Just in time, Hellaine was able to grab Lief by the waist with both arms and swing him so he could catch them. Huge columns of sand began to thrust upwards around them. Hellaine threw them all to the ground and held them tight to the ground. Lief could hear Jasmine screaming for Kree and the bird's answering screech. He could hear his own voice too, groaning in fear. Hellaine was the only one not showing fear, the only one who kept a firm grasp on all of them.

There is something here.

Lief knew it. He couldn't see anything, for his eyes were closed against the stinging sand, but there was a terrible rage filled presence all around him.

And he knew what it was. It was the thing that had been drawing him on. The thing that was hungry for it sensed he could give it.

It wants the belt...It will not rest until it has...

Then, suddenly, he felt the power withdraw and immediately, as quickly as it had begun, the storm ceased and the ground quieted.

He lay still, dizzy and panting, as the last of the flying sand fell around him like rain.

With a rush of wings, Kree landed on Jasmine's arm. He was unharmed, though powdered all over with red dust. He begand ruffling and preening his feathers, trying to clean himself off. Filli chattered excitedly in Jasmine's jacket. She murmured to him, calming him.

"Is everyone alright?" Hellaine asked, breathless. She brushed sand off her tunic and breathed deeply, calming her beating heart. Lief saw the fear in her eyes as plain as he felt his own. She'd felt that power, she'd felt the rage.

"An earthquake," Barda mumbled. "So – that is why this place is called the sShifting Sands. We should have realized..."

"It was not an ordinary earthquake!" Jasmine snapped.

"No, it was not an earthquake at all. If you must call it anything, it was a sand storm a common occurrence here, but that wasn't created by the winds. It cannot be chance that it began when Lief was kicking those marks away." Hellaine told them. "It was as if the Sands were waiting for you to kick them away, as if they somehow used the belt against you."

Lief could not answer. He was staring blankly around him.

Everything had changed. Dunes had collapsed and formed again in new places, and great valleys had opened where jills had been before. All tracks and signs that had previously marred the sand, were gone. The ruined dune, the place where the guards had died – both had disappeared.

They as well have been dropped from the sky into a part of the Sands they had never seen before. Only the low droning was the same.

"Lief will not speak to me!" he heard Jasmine say to Barda in a frightened voice. She sounded so far away.

"You must not despair Jasmine," Hellaine told her gently.

"Oh what do you know? It's not like you actually have friends to care about."

"You don't know anything about me, Jasmine." Hellaine stated and walked away.

"Jasmine, she has just as much right to care about Lief as we do."

"Why? She just met him three days ago."

"She has as much riding on this quest as the rest of us."

"She doesn't know Lief, she doesn't know us. She has no right to care."

"I promised to protect him." Hellaine stated. "I have given him my loyalty, my life. I am a soldier, a warrior, I have laid down my life at his feet, it is his now."

"You did that?" Barda asked. "Why would you do that?"

"Because you don't need to know someone to care about them. I have cared about what happens to Lief since I saw you Tom's shop. There is no reason I can explain, but I care and I will protect him."

"Were you serious?" Barda asked. "Have you laid your life at his feet?"

"Yes. "I'm the best warrior he will have in this fight. My life is his."

Barda nodded, looking on the woman with new admiration. Her words, the ferocity in which she defended them, made Barda respect her.

"I am proud to have you protecting him and I believe his father would be glad to know he has such a skilled warrior willing to give her life to his son."

Hellaine took the hand he offered, but refused to meet their eyes.

The sun was still blanketed by the clouds above. Lief could not tell which way was east and which was west. He had been spun and tackled so many times that he had no idea from which direction he had come.

So, this is the beginning.

Hs glazed eyes fell on a mark in the sand, quite close to where he'd been lying. His throat seemed to close as he stared at it, and under stood its meaning.

Lief felt Barda take him by the shoulder and shake him. He licked his lips and forced himself to speak. "Don't worry. I'm alright," he rasped.

"Drink this," Hellaine smiled gently. "You sound as though you swallowed sand."

Lief accepted his water skin from her and sipped the sweet water from the spring she had shown them the night before.

"You don't seem alright," Barda growled when Hellaine sipped from her own water skin. "You are acting as though you have lost your wits."

"It is Hellaine who has lost something," Lief muttered. "She lost her dagger – the dagger with the carved diamond in the hilt.

Hellaine looked up in surprise and pat her hip furiously, searching for something. Her eyes grew wide when she found the usual bulk was gone.

"Did you find it?" she asked nervously, looking on the sand for any sign it was still around. "It was a gift, and I can't have lost it."

"So it is as I feared." Lief pointed to the drawing on the ground. Barda and Jasmine gasped, while Hellaine sunk to the ground. "That was...my father's...his favorite dagger."

"What sort of creature is this?" Barda demanded. "Why does it leave marks to show what it has taken."

"To taunt you, to drive the knife further into you heart. It is the guardian, it is evil, meant to hurt you, to drive you away from the treasure it hides."

"You talk as if you know this thing," Jasmine hissed.

Lief shook his head. "It is beyond knowing." The verse they had seen at the cross roads kept running through his mind.

Death swarms within its rocky wall

Where all are one, one will rules all.

Below the dead, the living strive

with mindless will to...

The missing words bothered him. Hellaine was right to say it was not survive as they had first thought, the space not accommodating so few letters, but two words he was sure about.

Mindless will.

A thing of mindless will ruled the Shifting Sands and all that was precious in the fearsome place it gathered to itself. The creatures who shared its domain could have the flesh of their victims. The guardian wanted only the treasure the victims carried.

For the first time since entering the sands, Lief touched the belt under his shirt, checking the fastening was secure. As he did, his fingers brushed the topaz, and suddenly his mind cleared.

It was as though a dusty veil had been ripped from a window, allowing light and air to enter. Somehow he knew that the flash would not last long. There was another power at work here, and it was ancient and terrible.

He whirled around to Barda. "We must move on," he said urgently. "Light is fading, and the place we seek is far from ehre, for the belt is not yet warm. I want you to fasten us together so that we cannot be separated. I must be in the middle, tied very tightly. Put Hellaine in the front so she can navigate. Jasmine between you and me."

Grim;y, Barda did as he asked, using the rope they had bought from Mother Brightly. It was light, but very strong. Hellaine tested it, and nodded.

"Do not release me, whatever I say," he muttered.

His companions nodded, asking no questions.

They drank a little water, then set off, weapons drawn, linked together by their lifeline, as darkness slowly fell.

Thenight brought no moon, no stars. The cloud hung over them black and cold. They had lit a torch so hellaine could see only five feet before her, and they jumped at every shadow. For a long time, Barda and Jasmine wanted to stop, but Lief urged them on. Hellaine stayed silent, never speaking a word, allowing Lief to decide the pace. At last, however, the two refused to listen and made Hellaine stop.

"We cannot go on like this Lief," Barda said firmly. "We must eat, and rest. Hellaine looks dead on her feet.

Lief shook his head, swaying on his feet. All he wanted to do was lie down, yet somehow he wnew that if he slept he would be in danger.

"Lief, you must sleep." Hellaine said. "You are swaying, I still have some of that soup. We could heat it up and share it around."

"Sounds wonderful." Barda said as Jasmine untied her end of the rope. She dropped it to her knees and began fumbling in her pack. In moments she had scraped a shallow hole in the sand and thrown the guards' clubs into it.

"Never have these been put to better use," she said, laying the torch on top of the smooth, hard wood. Hellaine looked at the flames and muttered under her breath. She was happy to be resting and smiled as the flames grew. "Soon we'll have a cheering blaze," she smiled.

Jasmine beckoned impatiently and Lief, unable to resist any longer, flopped down beside her. Barda sat beside Hellaine. Seeing that Lief lay still, he groaned with relief, untied the binding cord from his own waist and stretched out.

The fire rose, crakling. The heavy sticks began to glow. The heat grew and spread.

"You two sleep," Hellaine told Barda and Jasmine. "I'll take the first watch."

"One of us could..."

"If you would allow me," Hellaine told Jasmine. "I would appreciate it. I won't sleep for a time as it is."

"Okay," Jasmine agreed reluctantly. Barda held out his hands. "Ah, wonderful!" he sighed and laid back to sleep.

And that was the last Lief heard. For the next moment, there was a great roar, the sand heaved, and the world about him seemed to explode.