by James Wyatt
“Now to find Krael and the rest of his soldiers,” Janik said as the blazing boat floated out past the ship.
“We’re not going to follow them all the way to their camp and fight them alone, are we?”
“No. All I need is to see some clear tracks, and I should be able to get a sense of how long they’ve been gone. With any sense of the land, I can figure out what course they’re taking. Once we get that, we can meet up with the others and plan our own course.” He started back down the dune to the place where the boat had been stowed.
“If you don’t mind my saying so, you and Dania have an … interesting relationship.”
Janik grunted.
“You care a lot about each other.”
“You are the most inquisitive dwarf I’ve ever known. Aren’t your people supposed to be more, I don’t know, taciturn?”
“I suppose I’ve never been an exemplar of my race,” Auftane said, looking away. “I’m sorry if I’ve pried.”
“No, it’s all right, Auftane. Everyone else on this trip knows all about it, and you’ve been with us all these months and held your tongue this long. You’ve got a right to understand. Especially since she and I seem to have such a tendency to blow up at each other.”
Janik walked in silence for some time. Auftane chewed on his lip, waiting for Janik to answer the question.
“Maija and I were married just before we all took our first trip to Xen’drik, fifteen years ago. I had been in love with her for years, since long before she introduced me to Dania. So Dania was always just a good friend—a very good friend, even more than Mathas, and in some ways, more than Maija. At least that’s how I looked at our relationship. I always had Maija, my true love, my wife, and I had a wonderful friendship with Dania. The best of both worlds, you might say.
“Well, Dania’s perspective is a little different. She’s a couple years older than I am, but she’s never been married, she’s never really had anyone—anyone except this group of friends and allies. I get the sense that when she was in the army, she felt like she needed to be tougher than all the men in her unit, and that put off any possible suitors. Plus, she comes from a noble family, which almost certainly was not true of her comrades-at-arms. Anyway, when I met her, she’d never really been in love or had a lover.
“Look, there are some tracks.” They had reached the place where the boat had been hidden, and Janik pointed at the sand nearby. He led Auftane to the spot and knelt down to examine the tracks more closely. After a moment, he got to his feet. “Let’s follow them a little way. I want to see where the tracks go into the scrub—that’ll make it easier to judge how old they are.”
Janik led Auftane around the dune and farther inland, then picked up his story where he left off. “So it sounds bad for me to say this, but Dania pretty much fell in love with me as soon as Maija introduced us. It was terribly awkward for her, because Maija was probably her best friend up to that point. And to her credit, she hid it quite well. I don’t think Maija or I ever knew until she told me later.” Janik heaved a sigh. “So after our first expedition to Mel-Aqat … you know what happened there?”
“I think I’ve pieced together most of the story,” Auftane said. “Maija betrayed you to Krael and left with him?”
“I took that pretty hard. Sea of Fire, we all did, Mathas and Dania, too. I guess it was natural for me to look for comfort from my best friend, and it was natural for her finally to confess the love she’d kept inside for twelve years. But what we did—well, it was a mistake.”
“You became lovers?”
“Exactly. My feelings for Maija didn’t change—they still haven’t. And when we got back to Sharn, well, I just sort of disappeared. I don’t think she took that very well. Eventually she left Sharn and went to Karrnath. So the first time I saw her since we got back was just before we started this expedition. Which might explain why there was some tension between us at the start of the trip.”
“Right,” Auftane said. “Good thing that tension is completely dissipated now.”
“Right,” Janik said through clenched teeth.
By the time Janik and Auftane returned to the keelboat, Dania and Mathas had loaded the supplies for the overland journey. Four heavy backpacks were piled on the bank beside the boat. They had seen no sign of monsters or Emerald Claw agents. Janik related the story of finding the boat and killing its defenders, and explained what they had done with the boat—and the bodies of their foes—after the fight.
“I hardly expect they’d give us the same consideration,” Mathas said.
“No,” Janik said. “If Krael ever gets the upper hand on us, I fully expect to end up as a zombie marching at his command.”
“If not a vampire,” Dania said.
Janik scowled. “Promise you’ll kill me before that happens.”
“I promise,” Dania said, without a hint of a smile. “I’m sure you’d do the same for me.”
Auftane interjected, “We also figured out which way they went into the plains—or Janik did, right?”
Janik scowled briefly at Dania before responding. “Right,” he said. “There’s a seasonal riverbed running parallel to this inlet. They started following it eastward.”
“How long ago?” Dania asked.
“During the night, as we expected. It’s hard to say for sure, especially since everything’s so dry once you get away from the beach, but I’d guess they set out about eight or ten hours ago.”
“What’s your recommendation, Janik?”
Janik ran his hands through his hair, thinking for a moment. “I think we should follow this inlet east—chances are it turns into another dry riverbed pretty soon.”
“Can’t your map tell us that?” Auftane asked.
“My map is my best attempt to sketch the shoreline as we rowed along it last time. No other maps of this area exist, unfortunately. Anyway, we’ve got a good six hours until nightfall, and I don’t think they could have traveled more than four hours before dawn. If they stopped and camped at dawn, we’ll pass them—hopefully at a good distance, assuming the riverbeds run parallel for a while and don’t meet up right away.”
“It’s a plan,” Dania said.
“Not to say it’s a good plan,” Janik said, frowning. “But I guess it’s the best we have.” He sighed heavily as he bent to pick up his pack, and grunted as he settled it on his shoulders. The others did the same, and with a last look at the keelboat—which Dania and Mathas had tried to cover with loose foliage—Janik led the way eastward along the inlet.
Just as he had predicted, the inlet quickly dried up into a seasonal riverbed. While Khorvaire was enjoying its summer and autumn, the winds off the ocean would bring endless rain to this part of Xen’drik, and these riverbeds would churn with water rushing to the sea. Now, in Khorvaire’s midwinter, the beds were dry as bone, the shrubs on their banks parched and dry.
The group walked mostly along the bottom of the riverbed, but Janik climbed the bank every half-hour or so to survey the surrounding plain. It was easy to see how the Wasting Plain had acquired its name: nothing grew that seemed at all vibrant or healthy. Blackened grasses stood in thick clumps above a layer of brown thatch that was occasionally interrupted by more of the same dry shrubs that dotted the riverbanks. The sky was obscured by a brownish haze that hung over the ground, as if the earth were emitting some vile gas that clouded the air.
After about four hours of trudging along the dry bed, another branch joined it from the left. Janik presumed it was the route that Krael’s party had followed, and after a short time scanning the ground, he spotted sure signs that his group was now following the trail of the Emerald Claw force.
Janik was uneasy. “If I’m right,” he said, “and they traveled about four hours before the sun came up and they were forced to make camp, then we could stumble on their camp around the next bend.” He cast his gaze at the banks above, alert for guards.
“Right,” Dania said. “As long as we’re following their pat
h, there’s no easy way for us to get past them. That could mean they’re in the lead all the way to Mel-Aqat.”
“Unless we find their camp and attack first,” Auftane said.
“There’s too many of them,” Janik said, shaking his head.
“I’m not convinced of that,” Auftane retorted. “The two of us took four of them down and barely broke a sweat.”
“That’s a bit of an exaggeration,” Janik said. “I was sweating pretty hard, and my back is still sore from where that flail hit me. Besides, four is a lot different from fourteen—or twenty, or thirty. I’m not sure how many they have.”
“Don’t forget Krael,” Dania muttered.
“I’m not forgetting Krael,” Janik shot back, “or that warforged friend of his. We could probably handle fourteen of his soldiers, but they’d distract us from the real threat. No, I don’t think we can risk attacking them.”
“Won’t we have to deal with them at some point?” Auftane said. “Whether it’s here or at Mel-Aqat, sooner or later we’ll have to face them, won’t we?”
“No doubt,” Janik said, his face breaking into a grin. “But the later we do it, the more likely the hazards of the journey will whittle their numbers down.”
“I don’t like the sound of that,” Auftane said. “What if the journey whittles our numbers down?”
“So far, we’re four bodies up on them,” Janik pointed out. “And as much as I hate having them ahead of us, they’ll be more likely to stumble into danger than we will.”
Mathas broke his silence. “I’d rather have them ahead of us than behind us. They won’t have any qualms about attacking our camp.”
“You’re right, Mathas,” Janik said. “So we’ll keep traveling until dark. But if we see their camp, we back off, keep our distance. And we won’t try to pass them.”
“Again, a plan,” Dania said.
The sun followed its westward course as Janik led the way east. By the time the sky turned red, they still had not seen any sign of a camp. Janik began to worry that Krael had found some way for his soldiers to carry him on their march during daylight, as Mathas and Dania had speculated. The red light faded from the sky and darkness crept up the riverbed to cover them. They made their way slowly along the riverbed a little longer, until two of the larger moons rose up before them in the sky, just past full, large and bright enough to cast faint shadows on the ground.
Janik pushed them a little farther, but by the time the moons had fully cleared the horizon, his friends were lagging.
“Be kind to an old man, Janik,” Mathas groaned at last. “We’ve had well more than a full day of travel. I need rest.”
“But elves don’t sleep, Mathas,” Janik said.
Mathas didn’t respond, but stopped walking. Glancing around, he set down his pack in a smooth, clear area of the riverbed and rummaged in his pouches.
“What is he doing?” Auftane asked Janik.
“Setting up camp.”
“Camp? What’s he going to do, conjure us a campfire?”
Janik grinned. “You have to understand, Auftane. You described yourself as a child of the city—well, you’re a wild animal next to Mathas.”
Mathas had begun gesturing and chanting, and unseen forces began to move around them.
“Coming to Xen’drik is like being thrown in prison for Mathas,” Janik continued. “But he tries to make the best of a bad deal.”
“I’ll gather some fuel for a fire,” Dania said, smiling at the look of bewilderment on the dwarf’s face.
“So he’s not conjuring a campfire?”
“No, we’ll make that ourselves,” Janik said. “But ‘campfire’ never seems like the right word.”
Dania climbed the bank to gather woody brush, while Janik and Auftane watched Mathas cast his long spell. Janik continued to smile at Auftane’s open-mouthed wonderment.
A short time later, a large, sturdy cottage made of sod stood before Mathas. He pushed the door open and invited his friends inside.
Seeing Auftane’s face, he said, “What’s the matter? Haven’t you ever seen a magical shelter before?”
Auftane shook his head.
“Strange,” Mathas said, frowning. “Your knowledge of magic is otherwise quite impressive.”
“Oh, I’ve heard of the spell,” Auftane said, “and I’ve read about it, but I’ve never actually seen one. Not much call for them in the city, is there?”
“Maybe not,” Janik said, “but House Ghallanda makes them even in the middle of Sharn once in a while. They tend to blend in with the towers.”
Auftane shook his head and stepped inside the cottage. Eight bunks lined the side walls, eight stools surrounded a trestle table, and a small writing desk stood near the door. Opposite the door, a fireplace stood empty, but Dania squeezed in past Auftane to set a load of branches in it, then started working on setting it alight.
Mathas groaned as he settled himself into one of the bunks. “Miserable, as always,” he said. “Someday, we’ll really camp in style. We’ll walk through a shimmering portal into an extradimensional space appointed like a mansion.”
“So do you conjure food for us as well?” Auftane asked, clearly impressed.
“What do you think is in that pack on your back?” Mathas said. “No, for cooking, I rely on—” he broke off.
“Hmm?”
“Oh.” Mathas looked uncomfortable. “Well, you see, Maija was quite a cook. I confess I hadn’t even thought about preparing our food.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Janik said, but Mathas looked pained.
“I don’t suppose you cook, Auftane?”
“Oh, I’ve had dwarf cooking,” Janik groaned. “Let me handle it.”
“Actually, I’m quite a good cook,” Auftane protested. “We’ll do it together, Janik. You can steer me away from anything that doesn’t appeal to you.”
Mathas caught Auftane’s eye and whispered, “Don’t listen to him!” The look on his face made his opinion of Janik’s cooking skills quite clear.
Dania had a fire raging, and she stepped toward the door again. “I’ll see if I can get us some fresh meat.”
“Careful out there, Dania,” Janik called after her.
An hour later, they had devoured a pair of scrawny rabbits and were asleep in the hard bunks. Mathas assured them that the magic of the shelter would alert him if anyone tried to enter, but they all slept fitfully, waking at any sound outside. A few times, Dania rolled quietly out of her bunk and stepped to the door, sword in hand. One time she caught sight of a large, crouching form—a plains lion, she guessed—clearly silhouetted against the moonlit sky, but it stalked quickly away from the cottage. She never saw any sign of Krael or his soldiers.
Janik roused them all early to start the day’s travel, eating jerky and dried fruit as they walked. With a wave of Mathas’s hand, the sod hut melted into the earth behind them. As the morning mist burned off, Janik led them up the side of the riverbed to look around and get their bearings.
He pointed to a small range of mountains far in the southeast, purple and white against the clear blue sky. “Those are the Sun Pillars,” he said. “East of them are the Fangs of Angarak—the main mountain range at the eastern edge of the desert. So that’s our gateway—we’ll go past the Sun Pillars on the north, then turn south between the mountain ranges and enter Menechtarun.”
Dania shaded her eyes against the morning sun to gaze across the plain before them. “Do you think we can just follow this riverbed all the way?”
“Probably,” Janik said. “I expect that most of the rain falls on the mountains and flows down this way. As long as it doesn’t rain now—and it shouldn’t, since it’s not the season for it—this should be as good as a road.”
“And a good thing, too,” Auftane commented, surveying the nearby plain. “I wouldn’t want to cut our way through all these brambles.”
“Right,” Janik said, leading them down into the riverbed.
As the day went by,
Janik stopped frequently to kneel on the ground and look for tracks, and his curses grew increasingly vitriolic with each passing hour.
“They’re getting farther and farther ahead of us,” he said around midday. “I haven’t seen any sign of a camp—it looks like they marched through the night and all day yesterday as well.”
“What’s Krael going to do, march them to death?” Auftane said.
“Quite possibly,” Dania said grimly.
Janik urged them to keep walking after the sun had set and the moons had risen in the sky, but he held little hope of catching up to Krael. Exhausted, they repeated the previous night’s routine, collapsing into the hard bunks after a simple meal.
The days wore into a week. In the soft earth of the riverbed, the tracks of Krael’s party were easy to follow, but clearly, the tracks were getting older. Worse, as the eighth day dawned, the sky did not lighten as it had on other mornings. Climbing to the crest of the bank again, Janik looked to the southeast as he did at the start of every day—and saw a mass of gray clouds towering in the distance, near the Sun Pillars, shrouding the morning sun.
“If I didn’t know better,” he muttered to himself, “I’d say it looks like rain.”
Janik hurried them along in the riverbed, but he kept their course near the southern bank. Around midday, his caution was rewarded. He heard the rumble of an approaching flood in time to guide them up over the bank, where they stood and watched the torrent sweep down the riverbed, a mantle of branches, dry brush, and other debris draped over its head.
“What is the rainy season in this part of the world?” Dania said.
“Lharvion to Sypheros,” Auftane said blankly, staring at the water.
“Midsummer to mid-autumn,” Janik said, shaking his head. “It should have been over three months ago. I admit I don’t know this area as well as the northern peninsula, but I was almost sure—”
