The Kraken didn't roar. It shrieked—a sound like a rusted saw cutting through bone—and lunged.

  It ignored the steel tip of my spear. It ignored the shield I raised to protect my chest. Its target was smaller, wetter, and currently dripping down my forehead.

  It wanted my sweat.

  “Move!” Liam shouted, his voice cutting through the haze of heat and panic.

  I didn't need to be told twice. I threw myself to the right, my boots skidding on the loose crystals. The beak snapped shut inches from my ear, the sound like a guillotine dropping. A blast of hot, dry air smelling of ancient dust washed over me.

  “Defensive wedge!” I roared, scrambling to my feet. “Faelar! The legs! Liam! Get the bird!”

  Nugget was still held aloft in a tentacle twenty feet above us, squawking with indignant fury. The Kraken seemed undecided on whether to eat the chicken or use him as a bludgeon.

  “I’m trying!” Liam yelled.

  The elf moved like smoke over the white ground. He sprinted toward the beast, leaped off a solidified salt-mound, and landed on the creature’s back. He drove his daggers down, aiming for the thick, gray hide.

  CLINK.

  Sparks flew. The daggers didn't penetrate.

  “It’s armored!” Liam shouted, struggling to keep his balance as the monster thrashed. “The dry skin is like granite!”

  “Aim for the soft bits!” Faelar bellowed, charging the flank. He swung Bessie in a massive, overhead arc. The axe struck a stationary tentacle with a bone-jarring CLANG, bouncing off harmlessly. “By the Anvil! I need a pickaxe, not a blade!”

  The Kraken ignored the dwarf. It whipped its head around, trying to dislodge the elf on its back.

  Nugget, sensing the chaos, decided he had been a hostage long enough. He stopped squawking and started pecking. His beak hammered against the sucker-pad holding him, striking the same spot over and over with the speed of a sewing machine.

  Tink-tink-tink-tink.

  The Kraken flinched. It wasn't damage; it was annoyance. Like a mosquito bite that wouldn't stop itching.

  Distracted, the beast opened its beak to hiss.

  Liam saw the opening. He didn't try to cut the skin again. He vaulted over the Kraken’s head, hanging upside down for a split second, and drove his dagger into the soft, wet tissue at the corner of the creature’s eye.

  SQUELCH.

  The Kraken screamed. The tentacle holding Nugget spasmed and opened.

  Nugget dropped like a stone.

  “Got him!” Liam twisted in the air, catching the chicken against his chest, and rolled across the salt as he hit the ground.

  The Kraken, now blinded in one eye and thoroughly enraged, lashed out blindly. A massive, tree-trunk tentacle swept across the battlefield.

  “Incoming!” Willow shrieked.

  I stepped forward, planting my feet. I couldn't dodge this one; Faelar was right behind me. I slammed my shield into the salt, braced my shoulder against it, and gritted my teeth.

  WHAM.

  The impact was like being hit by a siege engine. The force traveled through the shield, up my arm, and rattled my teeth. My boots dug furrows into the salt as I was slid backward ten feet, twenty feet, plowing through the crystals.

  I came to a halt, gasping for air, my arm numb.

  “Is everyone… alive?” I wheezed.

  “Barely,” Faelar groaned, picking himself up from a dune where the shockwave had thrown him. “This thing is invincible! We can't cut it!”

  “We are using the wrong methodology!” Elmsworth screamed.

  The gnome was cowering behind a jagged salt formation, his goggles adjusting rapidly as he watched the beast.

  “Observe!” Elmsworth pointed. “When the wet tentacle touches the salt, it recoils! Look at the ichor!”

  I looked. Where Liam had stabbed the eye, blue blood was dripping onto the white ground. The moment the liquid touched the crystals, it hissed violently, turning into gray steam. The blood didn't stain the salt; the salt consumed the blood.

  “Osmosis!” Elmsworth shrieked, jumping up and down. “Hypertonic desiccation! The creature is a biological sponge! It survives by retaining moisture! The salt is extracting its vitality on contact! We cannot cut it—we must cure it!”

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  Faelar stared at him, blinking through his sunglasses. “Speak Common, wizard!”

  “It hates the salt!” Elmsworth yelled. “Salt the snail! Bury it!”

  “Salt the snail,” Faelar repeated, a wicked grin spreading beneath his bandit mask. “Now that is a plan I understand.”

  “How?” Liam asked, dusting himself off. “We can't just throw handfuls at it. The hide is too thick. We need to get it inside the gills. Or bury it completely.”

  I looked at the terrain. We were fighting on a flat pan, but fifty yards to the west, the wind had piled the crystals into massive, unstable dunes—white cliffs of loose grit waiting to fall.

  “We trap it,” I said, the plan forming instantly. “We need an avalanche.”

  “It won't follow us,” Willow said, clutching her staff. “It’s holding its ground.”

  “It’s thirsty,” I said grimly. “We need bait.”

  I looked at Willow. She was the only one who hadn't been hit yet. And she was carrying the botanical flask—the one that held water that smelled of the jungle.

  “Willow,” I said. “You’re the juice box.”

  Willow’s eyes went wide. “Me?”

  “Run for the High Dune,” I ordered. “Uncork the flask. Spill a little. Make it smell the water. Make it want you more than it wants to live.”

  Willow hesitated for a fraction of a second. Then, her jaw set. She nodded.

  “Cover me!” she yelled.

  She sprinted across the open ground, heading for the base of the massive salt dune. As she ran, she pulled the cork on her flask. A few drops of precious water splashed onto the hot ground.

  Hiss.

  The scent of rain and flowers hit the dry air.

  The Kraken’s head snapped toward her. The burning purple eyes flared. The beak clicked. It ignored me. It ignored Faelar. It launched itself forward, dragging its bulk through the salt with terrifying speed.

  SCREEE!

  “Go!” I shouted. “Liam, Faelar! Get to the top of the dune! Prepare to push! Elmsworth, suppress it!”

  “Magic Missile!” Elmsworth cast, sending three bolts of force into the creature’s flank. It didn't stop. It didn't even slow down.

  Willow reached the base of the cliff. She turned, her back to the wall of unstable salt. The monster was closing in—a freight train of obsidian and hunger.

  “Come and get it!” Willow screamed, shaking the flask.

  The Kraken reared up, towering over her. It raised three tentacles to box her in.

  “Now!” I roared.

  On the ridge above, Faelar and Liam were ready. They had positioned themselves behind a massive, precarious overhang of crystallized salt.

  “EAT GRIT, CALAMARI!” Faelar bellowed.

  He slammed his shield into the fault line of the dune. Liam kicked a supporting rock free.

  CRACK.

  The cliff face gave way.

  It wasn't a slide; it was a collapse. Tons of white, jagged crystal poured down like a waterfall.

  The Kraken looked up too late.

  The avalanche hit it squarely on the back. The sheer weight slammed the beast into the ground. It thrashed, trying to burrow, but the salt was relentless. It piled up, burying the tentacles, burying the body.

  The hissing sound was deafening. It sounded like a thousand snakes. Steam rose from the mound as the salt began to suck the moisture directly out of the creature’s skin.

  Willow dove to the side, rolling clear just as the edge of the avalanche buried the spot where she had been standing.

  “Is it dead?” Liam shouted from the top of the dune.

  The mound shifted.

  A single, massive tentacle burst free from the salt. It was wet, blue, and furious. It lashed out, catching Willow by the ankle.

  “No!” I yelled.

  The beast dragged her backward. The head burst from the pile, gasping. Its gills were wide open, wet and pulsing, trying to filter oxygen from the dust.

  It was going to eat her.

  I was twenty feet away. I didn't have time to run. I didn't have time to plan.

  I dropped my spear.

  I dropped my shield.

  I scooped up two handfuls of raw, jagged salt from the ground.

  “Hey!” I screamed.

  The Kraken looked at me.

  I sprinted. I didn't stop when I reached the reach of its beak. I remembered what Liam had taught me. Negotiate with the terrain.

  I threw myself into a slide.

  I hit the ground on my knees, momentum carrying me forward across the slick surface. I slid under the flailing tentacle. I slid under the snapping beak.

  I slid right up to the pulsing, wet gills on the side of its head.

  “Drink this!” I roared.

  I jammed both fists, full of salt, directly into the open gill-slits.

  The reaction was instantaneous and violent.

  The Kraken went rigid. It arched its back, lifting me off the ground as it let out a sound that wasn't a scream, but the sound of moisture leaving a body all at once.

  FWUMP.

  I let go and rolled away as the beast collapsed.

  The transformation was horrific to watch. The blue, wet skin turned gray. Then white. Then it cracked.

  The creature calcified before our eyes. It froze in a twisted pose of agony, becoming a statue of dried jerky and salt.

  Then, with a sound like a crumbling wall, it disintegrated.

  The monster collapsed into a pile of gray dust, leaving nothing behind but the silence of the desert and the ringing in our ears.

  I lay on my back, staring up at the blinding sun, my chest heaving. My hands stung where the salt had cut my palms.

  “Everyone...” I coughed, the dry air burning my throat. “Sound off.”

  “Alive,” Faelar groaned from the top of the dune.

  “Intact,” Liam called out, sliding down the slope to check on Willow.

  “I… I’m okay,” Willow whispered, sitting up and rubbing her ankle. “It just grabbed me. It didn't squeeze.”

  “Fascinating,” Elmsworth wheezed, poking the pile of dust with his wand. “The rapid cellular dehydration was almost instantaneous. A perfect kill.”

  “Bawk.”

  We all looked.

  Nugget was standing on top of the pile of monster dust. He scratched at the ashes, looked disappointed that there were no worms, and then pecked at something shiny half-buried in the remains.

  Liam walked over and picked it up.

  “What is it?” I asked, sitting up.

  Liam held it up to the sun. It was a pearl the size of a fist, swirling with deep, oceanic blues. It felt cold even from here.

  “The Pearl of Tides,” Elmsworth identified, breathless. “A condensed core of hydro-magic. Highly valuable. And completely illogical for this biome.”

  “And this,” Liam added, using his dagger to pry a massive, black curved object from the dust. “The beak. Obsidian. Indestructible. Faelar could make a hell of a pickaxe with this.”

  “Shiny,” Faelar grunted, sliding down the dune to inspect the loot.

  But I wasn't looking at the pearl. I was looking at Willow. She was holding her flask upside down.

  It was empty.

  I checked my canteen. It had cracked when I slammed into the ground earlier. The leather was damp, but the inside was dry.

  Faelar’s skin had been eaten by the beast.

  We stood there in the blinding white silence. The monster was dead. The loot was legendary. And we had exactly zero drops of water left.

  I licked my lips. They felt like sandpaper.

  “We need to move,” I said, my voice cracking. “We need to find the oasis.”

  “What oasis?” Liam asked, shielding his eyes.

  I pointed at the horizon.

  The heat shimmer was getting worse. The mountains in the distance seemed to be dancing. And above them... above them, the sun seemed to be splitting in two.

  “That one,” I whispered, swaying slightly.

  The Ward Stone in my bag buzzed again. This time, I didn't hit it. I didn't have the strength.

  We walked into the white, leaving the dust of the Kraken behind, while the thirst began to set in like a second shadow.