Kenton picked up a handful of sand—he would have to use his step method to climb up the back of the rock basin and join the mastrells. He only paused for a moment to regard the strange rock formation around him. The sides were smooth and steep, almost forming a pit with a sand-filled bottom, perhaps fifty feet across. How many years had it taken the Kerla’s dry winds to carve such an odd bowl-like formation?

Kenton froze, his abrupt stop kicking up a small spray of sand. As his eyes had scanned the basin, they fell on something so dumbfounding it almost caused him to trip in surprise. There, sitting in the middle of the circular flooring of sand, was a speck of red. It sat like a drop of blood, stark against the white background. Ripples in the sand had caused him to miss it earlier, but now there was no mistaking the red sphere.

Kenton looked up at the mastrells with confusion. They stood along the rim of the basin, their white robes fluttering, as if in unison, before the wind.

Something’s wrong. There had to be more—some test. This was the last sphere. It should have been the most difficult to find.

Only a moment later he felt the sand begin to shift beneath his feet.

“Aisha!” Kenton yelped in surprise, jumping backward. It couldn’t be …

The sand near the sphere began to churn like boiling water. There was something beneath it—something that was rising.

Deep sand! Kenton thought with shock. The sand-filled pit must go down farther than he had assumed.

A black form burst from the ground, burying the sphere in a wave of sand. Kenton gasped in amazement as he regarded the creature that slid from the ground. Sand streamed like water off the twenty-foot-tall monstrosity’s carapace as it rose into the air. Its body was formed of bulbous, chitinous segments stacked on top of one another. A pair of arms sprouted from each “waist” where segments met, arms that were tipped with thick, jagged claws. Its head—if that was the right term—was little more than a box with deep black spots instead of eyes, with no visible mouth. The worst thing was, Kenton knew that the bulk of the creature’s body was probably still hidden beneath the sands.

He was so busy staring that he was almost crushed as the creature swiped a claw in his direction. Kenton yelped, dodging to the side, dashing toward the wall of the basin. The sandling’s body was huge—perhaps ten feet wide. Kenton was going to have a difficult time staying out of its way.