Sabit burned—her throat with thirst, her lungs with effort, her limbs with fatigue, her soul with determination, her heart with hatred.
Hauling herself out of the ravine, Sabit looked up at the shrine, at least twenty paces in front of her. The tidy stone steps and carved wooden pillars were still shadowed in the rosy light of dawn. The red tiles of the roof curved up to a sharp cooper spike pointing heavenward, its burnished length glowing red in the first rays of the the new day.
Sabit’s body longed for rest, but she forced it to move. Her arms trembled with exhaustion, but she pushed herself up from the muddy ground. Her legs felt like lead, but she forced them to run like a gazelle, driving her toward the the shrine.
The sunlight anointed the roof now. The pillars were covered in carved faces of ecstasy and agony, each welcoming the sunrise as the light washed across each grimace and grin.
If dawn touched the steps before she did, Sabit’s trip would have been for nothing. With a massive leap, Sabit dove toward the shrine. The air was thicker here, somehow. She could feel herself moving through space, too slowly. The first rays of sunrise warmed her shoulders, her outstretched arms.
Sabit crashed into the muddy earth before the shrine, the thick air doing nothing to cushion the blow. Her mud-spattered hand flopped onto the pristine marble step, just as sunlight warmed the back of it. Sabit lay in the mud, gasping for breath like a fish.
There was a voice above her, deep and cold, “Why have you come, flower of battle?”
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Wayfarings of Sabit: Dawn is copyright (c) 2018 by Michael S. Miller. All rights reserved. New chapters post every Thursday (and the occasional Monday). You can support this and other stories on Patreon: https://patreon.com/michaelsmiller Find more sword and sorcery fiction at http://ipressgames.com/fiction/.