“Well,” Laquin said, starting toward the others, “Honestly, I was going to start the trip back without you. But I felt bad, and so I turned around.”
“You were going to leave us here?” Orn asked.
“I figured getting the amulet back was paramount,” Laquin said.
Orn nodded. “It was not wrong of you to think that. In fact, your sentimentality may prove to be a grave mistake. But still, I’m glad you returned.”
“I’m not looking forward to hearing opinions on the matter back in Haven,” said Laquin.
“Let’s just not tell them,” said Orn.
Laquin opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again and nodded. “I suppose that’s a fine idea,” she said.
“Are there any more of those horrible monsters around?” asked Mills.
“Oh, certainly,” said Laquin. “But they’re not our biggest concern.”
“What’s our biggest concern?” asked Anaxis.
“Water, at the moment,” Laquin said. “Our particulator was busted in the crash.”
“Was it? I hadn’t had a chance to check it yet. That’s… sort of terrible,” said Orn.
“What does it mean?” asked Mills.
“It means we’ll probably die,” said Orn. “Or, most of us.”
Mills turned to Anaxis with terrible fear in his eyes.
“Why do you say that so casually?” Anaxis asked Orn.
“Because it’s a fact,” Orn answered. “I would say I was speaking factually, not casually.”
“Orn doesn’t waste much time on being casual,” said Laquin. “He was speaking casualty, though.”
Xala scrunched up her face. “Is that supposed to be a joke?” she asked.
“It was supposed to be,” Laquin sighed. “I guess it’s not a joke if it’s not funny. Anyways, we’ve got a few hours before the sun comes up and we can start to move. I recommend trying to get as much rest as possible. It’s going to be a twenty-five length day tomorrow, minimum, and it doesn’t look like we’ll have any water.”
Orn moved to one of the fallen yuta as he unscrewed a canteen hanging at his side, then knelt down and cut the beast open so that its blood could drain into the canteen.
“What… what’re you doing that for?” Mills asked, much more horrified than either Xala or Anaxis at the sight.
“It’s something to drink,” Orn answered. “You don’t want to drink too much blood, but a bit helps.”
“They drink blood!” Mills whispered loudly to Anaxis. “Just like the Gnirean in the stories!”
“We don’t make a practice of drinking blood,” Orn said. “But if it’s that, or die in the scorching heat tomorrow, which would you rather?”
Mills whimpered. “This is awful, just awful.”
“You can stop that self-pity right now, young man,” Orn said. “There’s no place for it in the desert. You follow Laquin and I and we’ll do all we can to keep you alive, alright?”
Mills nodded and frowned.
“You said it will be four days, before we’re out of the desert?” Anaxis asked.
“That’s right,” Orn said. “Though we may be met with a flash storm, which would be a stroke of great fortune. I’ll take a few more days’ delay if it means water to drink.”
Laquin, who was draining another of the yutas of its blood, added, “A flash storm is either a stroke of fortune or the worst thing we could ask for, depending on where we are when it happens.”
“How do you figure?” asked Xala.
“Well, if it happens tomorrow, we’re in luck, because tomorrow we’ll be walking over the Jarry Sand Wastes,” explained Laquin. “If it happens, say, the third or fourth day, when we’re in the Great Wash, it could drown us and carry our bodies out to sea.”
“How often do you two have to make this journey?” Anaxis asked.
“I never have before,” answered Laquin. “I’m excited to see how it goes.”
“Excited?” Mills asked under his breath.
“That’s right,” Laquin answered. “You only get one life, right? Might as well fill it with novelty.”
“This one’s got a beaded bracelet,” Orn said from where he crouched over the third of the dead yutas. “I’ve always said the beasts aren’t as savage as is commonly thought.”
“Well,” said Laquin. “If it’s trying to kill me, I’m going to kill it. I don’t care if it’s wearing a dress and a tiara.”
“I know you all just woke up,” Orn said to the three from Talx, “But it would be wisest to try and rest now, with sustenance in your systems. I’ll take first patrol, and Laquin second. We’ll leave at pre-dawn.”
“Are we just supposed to sleep right here?” Xala asked, looking around.
“Here, on the sand, or over there,” Laquin answered.
“What’s over there?” asked Xala.
“Different sand,” answered Laquin.
“Oh, dear,” Xala sighed. “Well at least I brought something with me…” she said, rummaging in her backpack. She produced a tent. “Can you boys help me set this up?”
“You have a tent?” Laquin asked.
“I came prepared,” Xala said. “I like to travel in comfort. Don’t worry, there’s room enough for everyone.”
“That makes me feel a lot better about sleeping out here, for some reason,” said Anaxis. “How much longer do you think we have, until the sun comes up?”
“Three or four hours,” answered Orn. “Get what rest you can. I’ll wake you when it’s time to go.”
As Mills and Anaxis closed their eyes to fall asleep inside Xala’s roomy tent, Mills asked, “Do you think we’re going to be okay, Anaxis?”
“I guess we can only wait and see,” Anaxis answered.
“Do you think our parents are worried about us?”
“Probably.”
“Do you think we’ll get in trouble?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. Does it even matter? I don’t see how anything can be the same after this,” said Anaxis. “It’s like, everything has changed, isn’t it?”
“I guess so,” said Mills. “But will anything change in Talx?”
“It has to, doesn’t it?” asked Anaxis. “I mean, all we’ve learned so far, about the Gnirean, and history… It changes everything!”
“I’d like to think it does. Or would. But, you know Talx.”
“I guess I do,” said Anaxis. “I’m not sorry I left, regardless. Flying through the air, and yutas, and giant frecks! They’ll never know the half of it.”
“I’m still scared,” said Mills. “But if we make it, the stories will be incredible.”
“They sure will be,” said Anaxis.
Mills yawned. “Night, Anax.”
“Night, Mills,” Anaxis answered. He turned over onto his side and tried to sleep, but he couldn’t get the image of Cine’s mangled body out of his mind.
9
The rising sun shone its first light through a rock arch that framed the waking day with a rim of fiery orange. Anaxis and Laquin had the perfect view of the scene from where they sat sipping their steep.
“Isn’t it gorgeous?” Anaxis asked Laquin.
“For about a half an hour,” Laquin answered. “Then it will get very hot and very trying, very fast.”
Anaxis gulped his steep and nodded. “I’ll enjoy it while I can, I guess. Or should I wake the others?”
“That’d be wise,” Laquin answered. “Don’t waste your steep, though. I’ll get something going for breakfast.”
Anaxis drank the last of his steep and headed into the tent.
“Alright, guys, it’s time to wake up,” he announced. “Laquin’s starting breakfast.”
“I’m awake, I’m awake,” Xala groaned, rolling over and sitting up. “That was the worst night of sleep I’ve ever had. I forgot how uncomfortable sand was to sleep on.”
“At least you slept,” said Anaxis. “I gave up. Great stargazing, though. Mills? You awake, Mills?”
Anaxis sh
ook his friend. Mills didn’t budge.
“Mills, wake up.”
Mills choked on a snore and rolled over.
“If we could filter his drool we wouldn’t have to worry about dehydration,” said Xala.
Mills uttered a muffled, “No way.”
“Let’s get moving,” Orn called to the tent upon returning to the campsite.
Xala got up with a pained groan and waddled over to see what Laquin was cooking.
“Mills,” Anaxis said, shaking his friend’s foot. “Come on, you’ve got to get up.”
Mills jumped up with a start and a shout.
“What? What is it?” he gasped, ready to fight or run. “Are they back?”
“No, it’s just me, Mills,” Anaxis said. “It’s just morning. Let’s get some steep.”
Mills took a second to remember where he was. When it came back to him, a look of regret and disdain settled over his face. “Awww. We’re still here.”
“It’s not that bad. I think there’s some breakfast waiting for us,” Anaxis said.
“Great. Yuta in yuta blood?” said Mills. “Gross.”
“I’m not sure what it is, let’s at least go see,” said Anaxis.
Xala tasted the sludge Laquin had prepared from the tip of her finger.
“Well?” Anaxis asked her. “How is it?”
“Not terrible,” Xala answered.
“Best review of my cooking to date. It’s high in energy,” Laquin answered. “It’ll see us through to sundown.”
“Why isn’t he eating any?” Mills asked of Orn, who was packing up camp.
“He already did,” Laquin answered. “Didn’t you, Orn?”
Orn grimaced and nodded. “Yes. Hurry up and get ready,” he said. “There’s no time to waste.”
After the breakfast sludge had been choked down, the team finished preparations and began to move. Wading through the shifting desert sand was extremely wearying. The grains acted like mud on the travelers’ feet, sliding them back a half-step for every step they managed forward. Furry finz hopped frantically about the rare patches of yellow-green and pink grass, searching for whatever food they could find and trying to avoid snarr attacks. The teal snarr would fly in loops and dive-bomb the finz endlessly, and when they were successful the pitiful screams of the furry little finz as they were dragged away were something terrible to hear in the stark, empty quiet of the waking desert.
All around the desert floor were rock arches and walls, in shades of orange and rose that changed hue and radiance as the sun continued to rise. Some of the taller, pointier formations appeared like static licks of fire, lolling up from the sand to taste the cloudless sky. The arches framed each new coming stretch of desert for the travelers like a preview of what was next, and made for little check-points that kept the walking from feeling too monotonous, as every window passed meant a new vista to aim for and feel rewarded for having passed.
“It’s very pretty out here,” Xala said.
“Truly,” Laquin agreed. “Funny how a place so deadly can be so beautiful. Usually nature makes the deadly things ugly. Or, we’ve adapted to see them as such. Thorns. Swamps. Bazzebs.
Yutas. But the desert, despite its complete disregard for our survival, remains beautiful to our sensibilities.”
“I’d agree with that, for only the sunrises and sunsets,” Orn said. “But I doubt you’ll be saying it’s pretty come high noon.”
“How do you know where we’re going?” Mills asked. “It all looks the same in every direction.”
“I plotted our course by the stars last night,” answered Orn. “All of our electronics are disabled, so that the drones can’t find us, but a good old barkplate map and a compass will do the trick every time.”
“How long have we been walking?” Mills asked. “Three, four hours?”
“Maybe one and a half,” Laquin answered. “Why, tired already?”
“I’m always tired,” Mills groaned.
A leaping finz scared the boy to yelping.
“If a finz frightens you,” Laquin laughed, “Just wait until we get to the Midnight Valley.”
“Why?” Mills asked.
Orn laughed with Laquin.
“Why are you laughing?” Mills demanded. “What’s in the Midnight Valley?”
“You’ll see when we get there,” Laquin answered. She unscrewed her canteen and took a drink. “Anyone thirsty?”
“Sorry, I don’t like blood,” Mills answered.
“Well neither do I,” Laquin said. “You don’t think we’re drinking pure blood, do you? We processed it.”
“Oh,” Mills said, rolling his eyes. “That’s a lot better.”
“Of course,” Laquin said. “And what we took out was breakfast.”
Mills stopped and grabbed Anaxis’s arm to keep himself from vomiting.
“Easy,” Anaxis said. “She’s probably just messing with you.”
“Sure, yeah, that’s it,” Laquin said.
“There it is,” said Orn, pointing ahead. “Great Vaulting Arch.”
“What does that mean?” Anaxis asked.
“It means we’re on the right course after all,” Orn said. “I was a bit worried.”
“What about your barkplate and compass?” Anaxis asked.
“Vallor has some magnetic abnormalities that can interfere with a compass,” Orn explained. “I didn’t think there were any such abnormalities here in archland, but I wanted to see Great Vaulting to be sure.”
“Can we stop to pee?” Mills asked.
“If you have to pee, go ahead,” Orn answered. “But we’re not stopping. Catch up.”
“I’d recommend holding that water as long as you can,” said Laquin. “If we can all go together, we can run it through the filter at the same time.”
“What a nightmare,” Mills said. “I hate the desert.”
Sundown was a huge relief for the travelers, celebrated for them in glowing ambers and burning purples, like the landscape was lightning a bonfire. As the sky’s gradient bled from blue through to yellow and then white along the horizon, the rock formations changed as many colors as the travelers had walked miles that day, and the temperature dropped as quickly as their tensions.
“Oh thank goodness,” Mills said when he was finally able to remove the wrap that had been pulled tightly around his head. “I don’t think I’ve ever been so relieved in my life.”
“It feels so good, the wind,” Xala murmured, smiling blissfully into the sunset.
In the near distance, a pair of long-limbed chun playfully chased each other across the sand.
“Are there any yutas out here?” asked Mills.
“No, most likely not,” answered Laquin. “Their skin can’t handle the heat. Ours can’t, either, really, but we wear clothes.”
“Help me gather wood,” Orn called to the others. “We’ll get a fire going and have something hot for dinner.”
There were only small bits of wood to be found, from a strange type of tree that had sprung up about halfway through the day’s journey. It had a spindly trunk that wove in and out of itself, and pointy, yellow, star-burst leaves that acted like daggers if one came at them the wrong way. The fire Orn built went up fast and burned through the thin little pieces of dry wood quickly, so it needed constant feeding. Anaxis tended to it, while Mills tended to his blisters, Xala her aching muscles, and Laquin the small dinner she was preparing.
“What’re we having?” Mills asked as he examined a sizeable blister on his foot.
“Don’t pop that,” Laquin said from where she stirred a pot. “Let it work itself out.”
“But it’s huge!” Mills said. “I don’t think I can fit my shoe around it again.”
“It’ll squish,” Laquin said.
Mills poked at the watery bubble on the bottom of his foot and frowned.
“Does anyone else need any relaxant?” Xala asked. She was massaging a greenish cream onto her legs, taken from a glass container in her bag.
“I may tomorrow,” said Orn. “But I feel alright today.”
“Best to take care today, and prevent twice the hurt tomorrow,” Xala said. “It’s a tincture made from venudi bush. It works like a charm.”
Orn broke the last of his dried meat sticks into the pot Laquin was stirring and relented. “Alright,” he said. “I’ll use a little.”
“The walk wasn’t so bad,” Anaxis said, “Once I fell into the groove of it. I stopped thinking about walking and let my mind wander. It really wasn’t as bad as it could have been.”
“Nothing’s as bad as it could be until you’re dead,” Laquin said. “And then you’re dead, so who cares? Want to try some?”
She offered some of the grayish goop from her pot to Anaxis on a long spoon. Anaxis stuck out just a bit of his tongue, as if tasting only a bit of the goop wouldn’t be as bad should it have been terrible, and dipped it into the foodstuff. It wasn’t immediately horrible, so he rolled it around inside of his mouth.
“Not bad,” he said after a long assessment. “Not bad at all!”
“Really, though?” Mills asked. “Like, not bad because you’re not dead, or actually edible?”
“It’s better than breakfast,” Anaxis said.
“Well that’s not saying much, but I’m glad to hear it,” said Mills.
The stars started to show, and the moon Paya came visible over the horizon.
“There’s old Ms. Paya now,” Xala said. “She looks good, despite her age.”
“I wonder when the last humans were out here, where we are,” Anaxis said. “Do you think ever?”
“Oh, probably,” Orn said. He passed around barkplate bowls of the grey goop as Laquin filled them.
“What, no spoon?” Mills complained.
“Use your fingers,” Laquin said. “That’s another reason to not pick at your feet.”
Mills grumbled and picked at his dinner.
“Humankind was much more active on Valor, before the War,” Orn said. “I’m sure some passed through where we are now.”
“The War?” Anaxis repeated.
“The war to end all wars,” Orn said. “Maybe three thousand and five hundred years ago. Maybe many more. Or less. It’s difficult to say.”
“Who fought it?” asked Anaxis.
Legend of Alm -The Valor Saga Pt 1 - Falling Star Page 8
