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# Waverider Expedition - Tazulmar

The test

The desert sang at night.

For two weeks, Rahim and Kethra had traveled with the Tazulmar, the centipede riders of the Dune Sea. The Waverider could not cross the sands, and so the two had been sent inland to chart the passes and mark the hidden wells, a task no outsider could survive without the nomads’ guidance.

Now, as the Shar’zul rested half-buried in the dunes, the tribe sat around their fires, singing songs that wound like smoke through the dark. The air trembled with the beat of hollow drums, the hiss of sand against shell, and the faint metallic whisper of wind over endless dunes.

Kethra sat beside Rahim, wrapped in her cloak. The firelight caught the brass fittings of the Tazulmar instruments, the glint of tattoos on dark arms. Beyond the circle of flame, the desert stretched away into blackness, vast and empty, its silence threaded with the sigh of drifting sand.

Rahim’s eyes were elsewhere.

Something had moved. A ripple of shadow at the edge of the dunes, too smooth, too slow to be the wind. He stood, silent. Kethra reached for his sleeve, but he was already walking, his steps soundless on the sand.

She cursed softly, grabbed her sword, and followed.

The songs faded behind them, replaced by the breath of the desert, a living, endless exhale. When Kethra crested the first dune, Rahim was gone. Only his footprints marked the slope, already half-covered by shifting sand.

Then she saw him, standing alone on the flat below.

And with him, something else.

A man-shaped figure rose from the darkness, tall and thin, wrapped in veils that moved though there was no wind. Its skin was black as obsidian, its eyes twin fires burning through the night. When it spoke, its voice was like sand poured through a hollow drum.

“Who walks in my shadow?”

Rahim did not bow. “A soldier,” he said. “One who has fought men and monsters alike. I would prove myself against a djinn.”

The being tilted its head, as though considering. Then it smiled, a slow, bright curve of light across its dark face.

“So you are,” it said.

Flame rippled along its arm. A curved sabre of flame formed in its hand.

Rahim drew his blade.

They met in a rush of sparks and wind. Steel struck flame. The sound was like thunder swallowed by the sand. Each movement left afterimages, flashes of light, lines of motion too swift for sight. Kethra watched from the rise, breath caught, unable to move. She knew this was Rahim’s test, for him alone.

They fought until the dunes themselves seemed to breathe with them. Neither yielded. Neither bled. Then, as if by unseen accord, they broke apart.

The djinn lowered its weapon. The flame flickered once, then died.

“You are worthy,” it said. “Tested by man and djinn alike.”

It bowed deeply, not in defeat, but in respect, and vanished. The air shimmered, heat fading into stillness. Only Rahim remained, his blade buried in the sand, his chest rising with slow, steady breaths.

Kethra ran to him. “Are you...”

He smiled faintly, eyes still reflecting fire that was no longer there. “Alive,” he said. “And seen.”

For a moment she just looked at him, the distance between them filled with something wordless, fragile as the space between heartbeats. Then she nodded. “Come on. The Tazulmar will think the dunes have swallowed us.”

They walked back together, side by side, their shadows long and close under the twin moons.

When they reached the fire, the songs were still rising, slow and winding, like prayers. The centipedes stirred in their sleep, the desert wind turned warm, and the stars above burned like distant watchful eyes.

Kethra sat beside Rahim again, closer this time. Neither spoke.

Around them, the Tazulmar sang on, songs of dust and djinn, of pride and passing, and in the rhythm of the drums, Rahim thought he heard an echo of laughter, deep, soft, carried by the dunes.

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