Dustborn Read online

  Table of Contents

  Preface

  Recap of Sandstorm Book 1

  Recap of Windswept Book 2

  Chapter 1: Neena

  Chapter 2: Neena

  Chapter 3: Raj

  Chapter 4: Neena

  Chapter 5: Raj

  Chapter 6: Neena

  Chapter 7: Neena

  Chapter 8: Raj

  Chapter 9: Gideon

  Chapter 10: Kai

  Chapter 11: Darius

  Chapter 12: Neena

  Chapter 13: Raj

  Chapter 14: Neena

  Chapter 15: Darius

  Chapter 16: Neena

  Chapter 17: Raj

  Chapter 18: Raj

  Chapter 19: Darius

  Chapter 20: Gideon

  Chapter 21: Raj

  Chapter 22: Neena

  Chapter 23: Bryan

  Chapter 24: Bryan

  Chapter 25: Raj

  Chapter 26: Bryan

  Chapter 27: Neena

  Chapter 28: Neena

  Chapter 29: Bryan

  Chapter 30: Bryan

  Chapter 31: Neena

  Chapter 32: Raj

  Chapter 33: Raj

  Chapter 34: Neena

  Chapter 35: Raj

  Chapter 36: Raj

  Chapter 37: Neena

  Chapter 38: Neena

  Chapter 39: Neena

  Chapter 40: Raj

  Chapter 41: Raj

  Chapter 42: Sherry

  Chapter 43: Bryan

  Chapter 44: Raj

  Chapter 45: Raj

  Chapter 46: Bryan

  Chapter 47: Neena

  Chapter 48: Neena

  Chapter 49: Bryan

  Chapter 50: Bryan

  Chapter 51: Raj

  Chapter 52: Raj

  Chapter 53: Bryan

  Chapter 54: The Watcher

  Chapter 55: Darius

  Chapter 56: Neena

  Chapter 57: Bryan

  Chapter 58: Raj

  Chapter 59: Bryan

  Chapter 60: Darius

  Chapter 61: Raj

  Chapter 62: Bryan

  Chapter 63: Bryan

  Chapter 64: Neena

  Afterword

  Email & Facebook

  Other Things To Read

  DUSTBORN (Sandstorm 3)

  A Dystopian Science Fiction Story

  Book 3

  By T.W. Piperbrook

  Find him at

  T.W. Piperbrook

  www.twpiperbrook.com

  www.facebook.com/twpiperbrook

  ©2019 Post Script Publishing

  To Pat Clark,

  who remembers everything.

  Cover Design

  Jeff Brown Graphics

  Typography

  Alex Saskalidis, a.k.a. 187designz

  Editing & Proofreading

  Cathy Moeschet

  Technical Consultants

  John Cummings

  Studio A.

  Preface

  Welcome to Sandstorm Book 3.

  Perhaps one of the most intriguing aspects of a story—to me—is watching the characters develop and change. The characters in my favorite stories are not black and white, but multi-faceted individuals, driven by their own motivations and desires.

  We sympathize with them because of their humanity, we empathize with them when they experience tragedy, and we cheer their successes.

  More importantly, we see their flaws.

  Hopefully you’ve enjoyed the saga of Neena, Kai, Darius, Raj, and Samel (and Gideon) so far. As you’ve seen in the last book, things are bleak, but they are about to get worse.

  Will our characters survive a new, emerging threat?

  You’ll find out in DUSTBORN. Enjoy!

  Tyler Piperbrook

  June 2019

  Recap of Sandstorm Book 1

  For three generations, the people of Red Rock colony have been stranded on the harsh desert planet of Ravar, where only the scrappiest animals and the heartiest plants survive. Most live without the foolish hope that Earth’s supply ships will ever grace the skies again. Most believe they are alone.

  Caught in the midst of a severe sandstorm, Neena Xylance encounters a mysterious, injured stranger in the desert and helps him. The stranger, Kai, a man with strange, dark markings on his forehead, explains that he is from a colony called New Canaan. Before they can talk further, an enormous, terrifying creature hunts them from underground. Neena and the stranger, Kai, make their way back to her colony to warn her people of the creature, which he calls the Abomination.

  In Red Rock, Neena’s brothers, Raj and Samel—the remainder of her orphaned family—complete chores for a grandmotherly figure named Helgid. Raj and Samel are gathering water at the river when a group of bullies, led by a boy named Bailey, ambushes them. The sandstorm strikes, getting Raj and Samel out of their predicament, but forcing them to return to their house and hunker down.

  Gideon, the leader of Red Rock, along with his four Heads of Colony Wyatt, Brody, Saurabh, and Horatio, survive the storm in the Comm Building alongside The Watchers, the colony’s protectors. Meanwhile, Darius, a crippled old man who used to explore the forbidden caves on either side of Red Rock, is unable to quell the memories of a boy named Akron, who died in a similar storm.

  In the storm’s aftermath, Raj and Samel encounter a screaming young woman whose grandmother has been buried by a collapsed house. Raj helps uncover the woman’s grandmother, who is dead. They return to Helgid and tell her.

  Gideon and the other leaders assess the storm’s damage.

  Darius resumes an exploration of the forbidden caves, where he thinks Akron might’ve died. He discovers a passage containing a triangular mark from Akron, and returns to tell his friend, Elmer. Meanwhile, Raj and Samel evade the bullies again, and Raj strikes up a friendship with the young woman whose grandmother he tried to help, a girl named Adriana. Adriana gives him an ancient keepsake in appreciation for his kindness.

  Neena and Kai travel through the desert, avoiding a trail of carnage left by the Abomination, while surviving hunger, thirst, and predatory wolves. Neena learns about Kai’s colony, and the markings on his head, which he says are spiritual marks of the heavens.

  Returning to the forbidden caves, Darius makes an emotional discovery: the remains of Akron. He uncovers something else: the enormous skeleton of a long-dead creature, along with the old corpses of what look like dozens of miners that the creature killed.

  While waiting for Adriana, Raj takes a trip to his parents’ graves, where the bullies attack him, steal his knife and his keepsake, and toss them in the river. He collapses in pain.

  After three days of travel, Neena and Kai make it back to Red Rock. They request to speak with Gideon and the other leaders. In a startling turn, it appears the leaders already knew of New Canaan, and are familiar with Kai’s markings. Gideon calls Kai a criminal, and commands The Watchers to take he and Neena to jail.

  Recap of Windswept Book 2

  Worried about Raj, Samel convinces Helgid to let him search for his brother, eventually finding Raj collapsed near the graveyard. With the help of some onlookers and a healer, Samel gets Raj back to Helgid’s hovel, where the healer treats him for sunstroke and injury. In the midst of Raj’s return, Helgid’s neighbor Amos tells her that Neena has been jailed.

  Trapped in a dirty cell next to Kai, Neena questions Kai about the leader’s accusations.
Before she can determine the truth, The Watchers drag him away. Meanwhile, Helgid heads to the Comm Building, where a crowd has gathered to help Neena. Some neighbors tell her about what is happening, before The Watchers break up the crowd.

  The Watchers return Kai to his cell and take Neena away. During an interrogation, Neena tells Gideon and his men about the monster, Kai, and his colony. To her surprise, the leaders accuse her of deception and collusion. They tell her that Kai’s markings mean he is a criminal, and condemn her for consorting with him. They return her to her cell until they can decide what to do with her.

  Darius studies the enormous, strange carcass. Looking at the caved-in wall in the tunnel he found, he makes the astute guess that the creature burst from the sand and into the tunnel, killing the miners before somehow dying. But Akron died more recently. Remembering the covered-up passage through which he arrived, Darius makes another guess: The Watchers sealed up the passage.

  In an unavoidable meeting with the young Watchers, Gideon reveals a secret: generations ago, half the population left and formed New Canaan, while the rest stayed in Red Rock. The two colonies considered each other dead for generations, while the leaders kept each other’s existence quiet—until the representatives arrived a decade ago. He tells the young Watchers that Kai’s markings make him a criminal, but he denies the existence of the monster. He tells the young men that he will arrange a meeting with the colony to downplay the size of Kai’s colony, to keep control.

  In secret, Gideon, Thorne, some elder Watchers, and The Heads of Colony admit the existence of the monster. They say that if it arrives, they are in grave danger.

  Meanwhile, Helgid vows to get Neena out of jail.

  In the cells, Kai explains to Neena that he was a thief in New Canaan, and that he escaped to the desert, where she found him. He tells her that his parents are still in New Canaan. Feeling guilty for Neena’s imprisonment, Kai devises a plan to free her. Simultaneously, Amos goes to the guards on Helgid’s behalf, telling them that Neena’s brother Raj is injured and needs her.

  After returning to Red Rock, Darius discusses what he found in the tunnels with his friend, Elmer. He decides to attend Gideon’s meeting later.

  Acting on a plan, Neena meets with Gideon, insisting that she was delusional. Gideon ultimately agrees to release her, threatening to exile her and her brothers if she spreads more rumors. Neena returns to find Raj injured and ill. She’s upset, but unable to avenge him, knowing that she would end up back in jail. She keeps the truth of her journey from Helgid.

  Darius attends the meeting, where Gideon placates the colony, telling them that Kai’s people are a small group and that the monster doesn’t exist. Afterward, Darius discovers one of The Watchers in possession of Akron’s knife, proving his earlier theory. Speaking with Elmer, he figures out that The Watchers killed Akron to cover up what he found in the cave, and that the monster of which Neena screamed is real. He visits with Neena, comparing stories and confirming the truth. A realization hits them: the leaders will kill Kai. Overhearing a plan, they vow to stop his death.

  Neena returns home, reuniting with a recovering Raj.

  At night, Neena sneaks out with Darius, stopping several Watchers from killing Kai. Together, she, Darius, and Kai abscond to the caves, where The Watchers hunt for them unsuccessfully. While in the cave, Neena and Kai realize that they have feelings for one another. Meanwhile, determining that one of the fugitives might be Neena, Gideon sets up another, colony-wide meeting to enlist the peoples’ help.

  Angry about the attack by the bullies, and embarrassed about losing Adriana’s keepsake, Raj sneaks away from Helgid’s hovel to take revenge on his attackers. Samel follows him. Working as a team, they defeat the bullies, but not without a price: The Watchers arrive in the aftermath, taking him, Samel, and the bullies in the direction of the jail cells.

  In the middle of Gideon’s meeting, the Abomination emerges, destroying half of Red Rock and killing many people, landing on the podium where Gideon and The Heads of Colony speak, assumedly killing them. The bullies who attacked Raj die during the attack, and Raj and Samel get free of The Watchers. Amidst the chaos, Neena and Kai emerge from the caves, leaving Darius behind while they search for Helgid, Raj, and Samel. Finding them, they head back for Darius and the cave. On the way back, Neena, Kai, and Darius assist several hundred other people to safety, but not before the Abomination devours Helgid.

  From the mouth of the cave, the survivors watch as Thorne and his elder guards unsuccessfully fight the Abomination. They wound it, but ultimately die.

  With the attack over, the survivors, led by Neena and Kai, emerge to a ruined Red Rock, finding more people in the Comm Building—including their friend Amos—and some younger Watchers and their families, who survived on the cliffs.

  Neena makes a vow to Kai: she will kill the creature before it hurts anyone again.

  In a surprising turn, Gideon crawls from one of the Abomination’s holes, horribly wounded, but alive.

  Chapter 1: Neena

  “I can’t believe it’s all gone.”

  Neena stared out from the cliff on top of the eastern rock formation, surveying the ruins of Red Rock. Two weeks after the brutal attack, the sight of her destroyed colony still filled her with sadness and grief. The remains looked like an eerie, abandoned monument to her old life. About half of the houses were now piles of mud brick, destroyed during the attack, or toppled over in the aftermath. Even the Comm Building, once an indomitable symbol of strength, seemed like an inadequate place of refuge.

  Dots of color spotted the landscape between the hovels—pieces of clothing, ruined bedrolls, or broken supplies. Too many of those distant objects were bodies.

  Every so often, when the wind was right, the foul odor of the dead drifted to where the survivors were now sheltered, in the caves at the top of the cliffs. Each time they smelled it, they were reminded of the people buried underneath the rubble, lost until the animals got to them, dragging out their corpses and feasting on the meat. Watching a bird take flight from the top of a distant building, carrying something in its beak, Neena shuddered.

  “Sometimes, I feel as if I am looking at a place we discovered, rather than a place we lived,” she said, her eyes searching the colony’s wreckage.

  “Not all the buildings are gone,” Kai reminded Neena, waving at some of the intact hovels, standing among the fallen. “And neither are your people.” He motioned over their shoulders, to the entrance of one of the caves, where Darius and some four hundred remaining survivors waited for them.

  “I know.” Neena nodded and reached for his hand. “It is easy to think of all we have lost, instead of all we have left.”

  “One day the grief will sting less. I promise.” Kai took her hand and squeezed her fingers tightly. His touch filled her with warmth.

  She turned and embraced him.

  In the time Neena had know him, Kai had become familiar enough that she no longer saw the marks on his forehead, or the strange clothing he wore; instead, she saw the man who had risked his life to help her and her family. After several nights in the caves with him, sharing their grief and their loss, they had finally given in to their feelings and pressed their bodies together under the flickering glow of the fires. Neena was no longer surprised by her feelings for him. Kai was a missing piece to Neena that she’d never known she’d lost.

  Even Raj and Samel had taken a liking to him.

  Darius, for his part, had settled into the role of a knowledgeable guide, sharing his expertise of the caves on the cliffs with the survivors in a way that was never before allowed. A little while after the attack—after they had taken everything they could carry—he had even led the remaining colonists from their initial place in the low cave to a safer set of tunnels, joining the people who had survived high up on the cliffs of the eastern formation.

  But e
ven that didn’t alleviate the uncertainty of their future.

  Their new place on the cliffs was as precarious as their old one.

  New threats awaited the colonists in the deep, winding tunnels. They mostly stuck near the entrances, where they could light their fires, but a few times in the night, foxes or rats ran over or around the bedrolls they’d taken before leaving Red Rock. Once, a scared man fled a noise that awoke him, taking a misstep off of a high ledge and plummeting to his death. Even the guards at the cave’s entrance, posted to keep watch for animals, hadn’t been quick enough to save him.

  “I don’t know how much longer we will have food to scavenge,” Neena said. “Even with the reduction in numbers, we are running out of rations quickly, and people are starting to realize that.”

  “Things are going to get worse,” Kai agreed. “Hunger brings out desperate behavior in people. Despite the small trips The Watchers have taken for food since, and the spring Darius showed us in the caves for water, we need more to sustain us. We need a better plan than surviving day to day.”

  Neena nodded. She let go of him and turned to face the overlook. “And we need a plan to kill the monster, too.”

  Kai nodded. She couldn’t tell if he was humoring her, or agreeing. Of course, he believed the Abomination couldn’t be killed, even though she swore she’d slay it.

  “In any case, I think your idea of speaking to them is our only hope,” Neena said. “Hopefully, we can come up with a plan to survive. All of us.”

  They glanced over their shoulders, to where a few young Watchers lingered at the mouth of the cave. Most were young, inexperienced men, used to following Thorne and The Heads of Colony. The loss of those strong, imposing men had left a hole as big as the monster’s. Only Gideon had survived, and he was so severely injured, Neena suspected he would die at any moment.