Jake: Thace

Chapter 1

Jake pulled out the hard case and slipped on his sunglasses, relieved to see the harsh sunlight of the dunes reduced to a cooler shade. He carefully put the hard case back into the leather pouch on his belt. He didn’t wear his shades much these days because they attracted so much attention—they were probably the only ones in the Dreamlands, and highly reflective, too—but they sure helped as he peered outside the cave.

“Bug-eyed Jake! Can’t handle the sunshine, lover boy?”

“Got nothing against sunshine, Nadeen,” he grumbled. “This is way beyond sunshine, though. Your eyeballs made outta stone?”

“Practice,” she replied. “And a good kaffiyeh.”

“We had deserts in Australia, too,” he continued. “Spent a lot of time training in them and hating most every minute of it, but they never got this hot. Christ, you could boil fucking water in your hand out there!”

“It’s not that bad today; still early yet;” she countered. “Might be best to wait until dusk, but if you’d like to keep going and discover what ‘hot’ really mean I’ll be happy to accompany you.”

“Ah, no, but thanks. A little nap would be wonderful.”

The two of them sipped a little water, and Nadeen dripped a little between Beghara’s lips: she was still unconscious and sweating heavily in spite of the coolness of the cave.

Jake was exhausted.

He spread his mat and sat down, unlacing his leather boots and pulling them off with a grunt.

He didn’t miss wearing pants, but he really missed good boots. The boots he’d brought with him from Australia had finally given up the ghost last year, and there weren’t many shopping centers around he knew of. He’d come to appreciate the robes everyone wore here in the Eastern Desert, but their boots—or even worse, sandals—sucked.

He’d gone through desert training in Australia, of course, when he was in the SASR out of Campbell, but he’d spent most of his time in Borneo, Timor, and other jungles north of Australia rather than the deserts of the Middle East. In the jungle you needed good boots for several reasons, and he’d come to appreciate them over the years. The Special Air Service Regiment was the cream of the crop when it came to Aussie special forces, and they didn’t skimp on gear.

He recalled the ’scopes they’d had back then: lightweight binocs, and nightscopes. Once again he wished he’d thought to grab one of those when he left. All he had now was his shades, his Glock and a couple mags, and the Suunto.

Thank God for that Suunto compass. It sure saved their asses this time… Until now, at least. Now they could really use a little luck, and some salt tabs, and the compass didn’t offer either.

As Jake lay down, he placed the small box containing the amulet under his head, wrapped in some cloth to serve as a pillow. He wanted to keep it very close after all they’d been through.

It hadn’t started as a very difficult job…

* * *

They’d been relaxing after guarding one of Chóng’s merchanters from Pungar Vees to Rinar via Aphorat, enjoying a few days off with each other before the ship was loaded up for the trip back, when a messenger handed them a note.

Chóng’s people knew where they were staying, of course, but they hadn’t expected anyone to bother them yet.

The wax seal on the envelope showed that it was from Factor Humaydah, the woman in charge of Chóng’s operations in the Rinar region. Rinar being the hub city it was, she was a major player in Chóng’s trading empire.

Her office was located in one of Chóng’s huge warehouses, in the southern reach of the city.

It was bustling, of course, with horse-drawn carts shuttling in and out of the warehouse constantly, herded along by Chóng’s crew of workers. The office was also huge, with about a dozen workers scribbling in ledgers or scurrying about on various tasks, taking care twice that many customers.

Everyone was talking at once, and nobody seemed to be in charge.

Jake and Nadeen came to a halt just outside the doorway, staring hesitantly at the apparent chaos inside.

They’d been ordered to come but had no idea of exactly where to go… until a short, stocky man approached from the warehouse floor.

“You’re Nadeen? And Jake?”

Barely stopping to acknowledge their nods he turned and walked back into the warehouse, calling back over his shoulder: “Well, c’mon! Don’t just stand there!”

They looked at each other. Nadeen shrugged, and they trotted after him.

At the back of the warehouse, almost hidden in the shadows, was a staircase leading up. The guard at the bottom nodded to the man who had led them there, and stood aside to let them enter.

The woman waiting for them at the top of the stairs gestured down the hallway, a carpeted corridor serving quiet offices where people sweated over their paperwork and sums.

“This way, Mistress Nadeen, Master Jake.”

They followed her silently toward the closed door at the end of the corridor.

She knocked.

“Come!”

She announced them as she opened the door, “Mistress Nadeen and Master Jake.”

The room wasn’t as opulent as they’d expected… it was almost spartan, in fact.

A wide desk with stacks of parchment and scrolls, several chairs and benches, a maroon-and-blue prayer mat to one side, a small library of dozens of scrolls and even a few vellum-bound books, and her. Factor Humaydah.

The woman who’d led them here sat down silently in a chair next to the door and folded her hands.

The Factor looked up from her desk and laid down her quill.

An older woman, maybe in her fifties or sixties, she had a long, thin face and prominent cheekbones, contained in a black hijab that covered her ears and hair. A few wisps of grayish hair escaped its confines on the sides of her head.

Later, Jake couldn’t actually recall what she’d looked like, because all he could remember was the piercing gaze of those brown eyes. They saw him, saw through him, evaluated him, and decided he was a good man for the job, all in the merest fraction of a second before they shifted to Nadeen.

“You come highly rated,” she stated, skipping the introduction. “Factor Chóng says you can be trusted to get the job done.”

“Yes ma’am,” responded Jake. “We can.”

“I have a task that requires guards who can do what it takes. It’s an escort job and should take you about a month if all goes well.”

“Land or sea, Factor?” asked Nadeen.

“Land. You need to escort a woman from Dothur to Eudoxia. The most likely route would be the caravan route through Thace. Her carriage will have its own escort of a dozen troopers. You two will be in command.”

“That sounds simple enough,” mused Nadeen. “Who’s in the carriage?”

“Good,” said the factor, and waved them back toward the door again. “Your ship leaves in the morning.” She turned to the secretary, if that’s what she was, and continued “Give them funds for a month and anything else they need.”

Humaydah returned to her paperwork, and the secretary bowed and ushered us out of the room, closing the door behind them.

“The Factor has hired a swifter to take you to Dothur, called the Bella. It is waiting for you at the No. 8 Chóng wharf, and should get you there in three days. You will join Captain Feng’s party in Dothur, and take charge.”

She handed Nadeen a small scroll, and a leather bag shut with a drawstring.

“Fifty gold pieces. When you reach Dothur, Captain Feng will be waiting at The Silver Cockerel, just outside the dock area. You will receive an additional fifty when the mission is completed.”

“You people don’t waste any time, do you?” said Nadeen, hefting the bag.

“The Factor rewards well for the services she requires, but you would do well to uphold your part of the agreement,” the woman advised. “She does not appreciate those who let her down.”

“Is this just the two of us, or can we hire some troopers?”

“Master Jake, how you accomplish the task is entirely up to you. The Factor wants results, not questions.”

Nadeen raised her eyebrows.

“Well, then, I guess we’re done,” she said, and walked out the door with Jake.

They waited until they were a reasonable distance away to start talking.

“Quite an operation she’s got there… no wonder Chóng’s gotten as powerful as he has, with people like that working for him.”

Nadeen nodded. “I don’t think she even knows our names, really… just tools to push around as needed.”

“We can always just leave,” he said.

“You know you’re not serious… we’ve both sworn oaths to Chóng, and while I doubt he’d bother to chase us down, I’m not quite sure of her.”

“Fifty gold isn’t enough to live on for long anyway…” Jake laughed. “Notice she didn’t say who was in the carriage?”

“Or what… she didn’t forbid us from looking inside to find out, though, either.”

“So she said the carriage already has a dozen guards, but who knows if they’re any good. Could be palace flunkies in silk pantaloons for all we know.”

“Thinking the same thing,” she said, still walking with him. “How about just Danryce for now, and we can always hire more troopers in Dothur later once we see what we’ve got?”

“Works for me,” agreed Jake.

He’d been close friends with Danryce since he’d come to the Dreamlands—heck, he was practically the first person he’d met here! A huge Pargite, the black man was a master swordsman, and wielded a monstrous, two-handed sword that most men would have trouble swinging easily. He’d beaten Danryce at arm-wrestling once (and lost the next two times), but they’d become good friends since. He’d learned a lot about sword-fighting from the man, in return teaching him the intricacies of knife-fighting. Danryce had always relied on his sword and power, and had never learned just how useful a little dagger could be.

“I’m pretty sure he’s still in Rinar,” he continued. “Last I heard he was working on the docks, night watch or something on the merchanters.”

“Still working for Chóng?”

“After that Penglai mess he went to work for a mercenary company here, but ended up guarding Chóng’s ships anyway. We’ll find him quick enough if we just ask around at some of the taverns on the waterfront.”

“Are you inviting me on a date?

“Damn right, Nadeen! Nothing like cold ale to get a hot lady in my bed!”

She waved her hand to let him lead the way.

“Don’t get too drunk, Jake. If you get that hot lady in your bed you’ll have to hold up your end of the bargain, too.”

“Not a problem, drunk or sober,” he smiled, and they strolled on toward the water.

* * *

They found Danryce in the third tavern, arm-wrestling for ale. Friendly bets, with the loser paying for the winner’s refill, and judging by Danryce’s shouts and table-thumping, he’d already won quite a few times. He wasn’t drunk—quite—but he was certainly in a good mood.

The tavern was drenched in odors: sweat, spilled ale, tobacco and thagweed smoke, sawdust… a heady mixture that perfectly matched the raucous shouting and table-pounding coming from a table surrounded by onlookers, many of whom were paying off bets.

Danryce, bare from the waist up and shining like polished onyx in the light of the oil lamps, was smiling and flexing his fingers. The man across from him, a huge desert-tanned man with a hook nose, rose from his bench, massaging his right arm with a scowl.

Jake thumped down onto the empty bench, and slammed his palm into the wood tabletop.

“Do I have to beat you again to buy you an ale, or can we just skip that part?”

“Jake!” shouted Danryce, jumping up in joy and leaning over the table to embrace Jake in a bearhug. “Damn! Jake!”

“Hey, Danny. How ya been, man?” he responded, slapping Danryce’s shoulder half in greeting and half in panic because he couldn’t breathe.

They broke, and when Danryce saw Nadeen he immediately tried to hug her, too, but she backpedaled fast enough to escape.

“Hi, Danryce,” she said. “What’s a girl gotta do around here to get a drink anyway?”

“Master!” bellowed Danryce in a voice that shook the rafters. “Ale! Ale for my friends!”

The serving man promptly brought more ale: a massive mug that must have held a liter for Danryce, and more reasonable sizes for Jake and Nadeen.

Danryce flipped him a few silver tiaras: “Bring a keg, would you, lad? We’ve got some serious drinking to do and I can’t be shouting for more ale every five minutes.”

The man smiled, pocketed the coins, and vanished into the smoky darkness.

As the onlooking crowd began to disperse, the three of them sat down and bumped mugs in a toast “To old friends!”

Danryce chugged down about half his ale in one breath, and set his mug down.

“Good to see you again after all this time.”

“And you, Danny,” replied Jake. “See you’re still beating up innocent bystanders.”

“Ain’t nobody innocent in this place, Jake!” he laughed. “So what are you two up to these days? Still with Chóng?”

“Yep,” said Nadeen. “Good money from people we can trust. Came over on a merchanter a few days ago; guard duty.”

“I hate ships… hey, I thought you did, too, Jake?”

“Still do, but they needed a few guards and we figured it’d be a good way to see the city. Nadeen’s been here before, but not me.”

“So how is it?”

“Pretty much the same as every other city, I guess. Walls, people, markets, pickpockets, temples, minarets…”

“Yeah, but I’ve come to like it. No snow.”

Jake gave a noncommittal grunt and drained his mug. “You got anymore ale in that keg you’re guarding?”

Danryce hefted the keg and sloshed refills into everyone’s mugs. He shook the keg and listened, shaking his head. “Kegs used to hold more… musta brought me a half-full one again.”

He took another swig, belched, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“So are you here to drink my health, or…?”

Jake leaned forward, dropping his voice a bit.

“Humaydah herself wants us to handle an escort job, from Dothur to some place called Eudoxia. Ever heard of it?”

“Sure, True Carpet and all. Never been there, though. Dangerous?”

“Who knows?” said Nadeen. “It’s a carriage with a dozen escorts already. She wants us to take charge, so it sounds like she’s scared of something.”

“Who’s in the carriage?”

“She didn’t say; we didn’t push it.”

“And…?”

“And we were wondering if you’ve got anything planned for the next few weeks.”

“Standard wages?”

“Oh, I think we can do a little better than that,” smiled Jake, handing over a handful of gold coins. “And more later when we get paid the rest.”

Danryce reached across the table to grasp Jake’s wrist to seal the deal, the other hand reaching out to Nadeen simultaneously. They grasped his wrists in the usual Dreamlands “wristshake” and then they were three.

Chapter 2

The voyage to Dothur was straightforward. The Bella was a lot smaller than they’d expected, built for speed. Nadeen pointed out that with the shallow draft and speedy design, it would be perfect for smuggling, even if it didn’t have that much cargo space.

Jake wondered why a major trading company like Chóng’s would need a smuggling ship, but realized that they might not be welcome in every port… Every government has its “off the books” arrangements, he chuckled to himself, recalling a vicious little firefight he’d been in years ago in New Guinea, wearing a uniform with no identifying markings…

Blessed with good weather and a steady wind, they made Dothur on the third day, a little ahead of schedule.

They thanked the captain, who hadn’t said two words to them the whole trip, and located The Silver Cockerel.

Caring for their animals was always a critical task, but they also had to care for their weapons, purchase supplies (including a few sheafs of arrows), and pack everything to distribute the weight reasonably. Danryce was by far the heaviest, and even though he also got the largest horse, his steed carried less in its panniers. This time, though, they’d be crossing the desert, which might mean using both camels and horses.

While Danryce and Nadeen were making preparations, Jake sought out the carriage and its dozen guards. The guards were in the rooms on both sides of a third room where, he guessed, the mysterious woman they were escorting was hidden.

The group was led by a clean-shaven Asian man, who acted a lot more experienced and professional than Jake had expected. He was a head shorter than Jake but with narrow waist and broad shoulders. His muscles and scars made it clear he’d been around.

He was dressed in well-worn tunic and leather, and armed with paired long and short swords.

Jake handed over the letter of introduction, Humaydah’s wax seal yet unbroken.

“So you’re Jake,” said Feng, sizing him up. “The letter’s bona fide, but let me see your famous glasses.”

Jake cocked his head, then nodded. It was as good a proof as the letter, maybe better. He pulled his shades out of their pouch and slipped them on. The mirror lenses cut the afternoon sunlight from brilliant glare to familiar muted colors.

“Good enough for me,” said the Asian, finally reaching out for the standard wrist-shake. “Feng of Oxuhahn. Might be hard to hide in those, though… I could spot them from klicks away!”

“Jake of Penglai,” replied Jake, putting them away again. “I don’t hide much. Usually people try to hide from me.”

“I see you came in with two others… all three of you will be going with us?”

“Yes. Nadeen of Lhosk and Danryce of Parg. Nadeen and I are still working for Chóng and are here at the request of Factor Humaydah. Danryce worked with us for years but is a free lance now, working for us.”

“A large man with a large sword.”

“And he knows how to use it. That’s why he’s with us,” said Jake. “Maybe we can continue this conversation inside over some ale?”

“Excellent idea,” agreed Feng, and they stepped out of the sunlit courtyard into the dim building.

As they continued their talk over warm ale they discovered that they had a lot in common, mostly that they were both professional military men who avoided revealing much about their past experiences. Feng had the advantage, because Jake and his “mirror eyes” already had quite a reputation among Chóng’s people.

Feng ran his own small troop, working as mercenaries or guards. Right now he was also working for Chóng, he admitted, without explaining precisely who he answered to. He and his troop—himself, eleven guards, and a guide—had brought the carriage this far, and the Factor had instructed them to wait here and transfer command to Jake.

He never mentioned just where they had come from, Jake noticed.

“So who’s in the carriage?” he asked.

“I don’t know myself,” replied Feng. “It’s a woman, but whoever it is, she’s important to somebody.”

“Betrothal?”

“That’s my guess. I don’t know if this is something Chóng is doing to cement a relationship with one of the warlords out here, or if Humaydah was just hired by someone, but they’re paying good money to get it done right.”

“Are you being paid by Humaydah?”

“Yes, half in advance, half upon safe delivery to Eudoxia. Plus generous expenses in advance.”

Jake nodded. “Same.”

He didn’t ask exactly what amounts were involved.

“Tell me what I need to know about your people.”

“We’ve all been through it; even the new lad’s got four or five years under his belt. And we’ve all worked together for at least two years. A few of them have been with me for a dozen.”

“Any people problems I need to know about?”

“None. Troopers who cause problems don’t stay. The only problem we’ve got right now is that they don’t know you or your people. They trust me, and if I say I trust you that’ll help, but I think there’ll be some hesitation until things settle out.”

“Maybe we can work out some of those issue tonight, then,” said Jake. “A little wrestling with some free ale to help work out the kinks?”

Feng raised his mug. “That’s be a big help. Arm wrestling or real wrestling?”

“Both?”

“Deal.”

“What else?”

“The carriage is tough, and my people are tightening it up now just to be sure, but if we have to leave the trade route and head into the rough, the carriage is going to be a problem.”

“Spare cartwheel?”

“Yes, and tools, if it comes to that.”

“Can we ditch it and just take the woman with us if we have to?”

“They told me no.”

“Hmm.” Jake thought for a moment. “Humaydah told me I had to escort a woman to Eudoxia, but didn’t say I had to escort the carriage.”

“Not my call,” said Feng. “but hopefully we won’t have to make that choice. You won’t have to make that choice. It’s been a quiet trip thus far.”

“Where did you start from?”

“Up north,” replied Feng vaguely, obviously unwilling to go into details.

Jake let it ride.

“Are you familiar with the route from here?”

Feng nodded.

“Been in this area for some years now, and on this road a few times. Yeah, I know it pretty well. So do about half my force.”

“I’m familiar with deserts and jungles, Captain, but I’ve never been to this desert before. I’m gonna need your help and advice once we get started… Can I count on you to speak up?”

“Yessir, you can,” replied Feng. “And I’m damn glad you brought it up, because I expect I’ll need to, and it helps to know you’ll listen.”

“Didn’t say I’ll follow your advice, but I’m definitely gonna listen,” nodded Jake.

Feng pulled out a map and unrolled it onto the table, pushing aside a small ale spill with his arm.

“Thace is here,” he explained, tapping the map. “It’s an oasis a couple days’ ride east from the Dothur, and surrounded by desert. It’s not a big city because it’s not a big oasis, but it commands the only real trade route between here and there. There are a lot of tiny villages scattered about, of course.”

“Why not just cut through the forest here? It’s less than half the distance…” wondered Jake.

“Nobody goes into that forest and comes out again,” said Feng. “The jungles of Cuppar-Nombo do not welcome visitors.”

Jake filed that tidbit away for future reference.

“OK. So who do we deliver the woman to?”

“Ganzorig, First Lord of the city.”

“Not a king?”

“The city is said to be under the protection of Thuba Mleen.”

Jake took another sip of ale.

“The mysterious Emperor of the Eastern Desert… does he exist?”

“Who knows? He’s been around for as long as anyone remembers, and has one hell of a palace up north, on the edge of the desert. I’ve met people who claim to have encountered his palatial tents on the desert, saved from certain death only by the sheerest chance. Truth? Boasts? I don’t know. Never wanted to go visit that palace myself and find out, considering the tales going around.

“One rumor says those lost in the desert and dying of thirst will meet Thuba Mleen, and be offered a chance at life.”

“A chance?”

“A roll of the dice, they say. Life or death.”

“Maybe we should add some more waterskins to the load…”

“Or wineskins!” suggested Feng. “Do you have a spyglass?”

“Yes. Always.” Jake had a collapsible telescope in his pack. Not as good as what he used to have, but better than nothing.

“Here’s a shimmer and a bag of incense.”

“What’s a shimmer?” asked Jake, looking at the blob of silver hanging from a chain. “Lucky charm?”

“Charm, yes. Hopefully a lucky one. It’s a glamour made for the desert. It makes an area about a hundred meters across hard to see. Anyone who gets reasonably close will spot it, of course, but from a hundred or two hundred meters away, you have a good chance of not being spotted. We use it when we camp. It also cuts the heat and light a little, which is nice in the desert.”

“Neat! I coulda used one of these a few years ago! I gather they don’t work on water…”

“Water moves too much; breaks the illusion. Can’t use it when you’re walking or riding, either.”

“Pity. How do you turn it on?”

“Just light the incense. It lasts six or eight hours, and while it’s smoking, the glamour is active. When the incense burns out, so does the shimmer.”

Jake nodded and slipped amulet and incense into his pack.

The talk turned to details of the route, carriage, the individual guards, column formation, and other matters. They inspected the carriage, mounts, and supplies together, and agreed to meet again later to get to know everyone better.

* * *

They pretty much had the room to themselves… there were two men still talking and drinking at a table to the side, but the dozen troopers making up Feng’s group dominated the room, and other patrons found reasons to go elsewhere. No doubt they’d had experience with the sort of mischief a bunch of drunken troopers could get into, and decided they could get safer drinks elsewhere this night.

Jake didn’t blame them—he didn’t know these people, but if all went well he expected quite a bit of “mischief” tonight. He’d already slipped the tavern owner a few gold pieces, hoping that by paying for broken furniture in advance he could keep things a bit simpler.

Everyone was armed, of course, but most of them had unbuckled their bigger weapons and laid them down at hand, feeling safe in their lodging and the company of their friends.

As Jake walked in with Nadeen and Danryce the conversation stopped, replaced shortly by a quiet murmur as Feng’s troop looked them over. Feng immediately walked up to greet them, welcoming Jake into the room with a wrist-grip, then turning to the others.

“This is Jake of Penglai… some of you have heard of Mirror-Eyed Jake, or already met him today.” He waved in the direction of the other two. “Nadeen of Lhosk, and Danryce of Parg. They’ve all worked with Chóng, and I trust them.”

He lifted his ale mug.

“More to the point, he’s paying for the ale!”

There was a cheer from the watching warriors, and the buzz of conversation started up again.

“Captain Feng tells me you’re all professionals. Looking at the way you’re guzzling my ale, I guess he must be right… Doesn’t look to me like any of you are any good at wrestling, though. Pity.”

A mug slammed down on the table, and a tall man—about as tall as Danryce, but with drooping mustache and a long grey braid hanging behind—stood. He twisted his head around and bounced his shoulders up and down, loosening them up.

“Well, I guess maybe your eyes aren’t as good as you think. Long of Ophir.”

He stepped forward and shoved an empty table out of the way.

“You show ’em, Sarge!” came a shout from the back, and all of a sudden everyone was moving tables and benches out of the way to clear a large space. The floorboards were scattered with straw and sawdust, and stained with ale and other, less appealing things.

“Want me to take this one, Jake?” asked Danryce.

“That’s Sergeant Long,” said Feng. “He’s pretty good at wrestling…”

“Is he now,” murmured Jake, unbuckling his swordbelt and dropping it on a nearby table. “I guess we’ll just have to see about that, won’t we…”

He stepped forward, looking up into Long’s eyes—Jake was about ten centimeters shorter.

“Friendly match? We’ve got a job to do tomorrow.”

“Sure, cap’n. I’ll be very friendly!” laughed Long, stretching out a massive hand to wrist-grip Jake as the onlookers laughed and jockeyed for a better place to watch from.

They gripped once, then separated to take positions a few meters apart from each other.

Almost in synchrony they stripped down to loincloths and bare feet. Long slapped his hand into a nearby platter of meat, and smeared the grease over his torso. Jake bared his teeth and lowered his head a bit more.

There were very few “rules” about wrestling, and it was certainly more than just grappling. Kicks, punches, and throws were common, and a variety of martial arts had crept in one way or another: it was free-form fighting. They’d agreed to a “friendly” match, though, which meant no weapons, and that they’d try to avoid any serious injuries that might interfere with the jobs tomorrow.

Still, accidents happen.

They began slowly circling each other, looking for an unexpected opening.

Long suddenly surged forward, his left foot stamping down into the floorboards with a rattling thump.

Jake didn’t react, and a split-second later Long danced to the right, kicking his left up in a furious swing that could have toppled a small tree.

Jake stepped back just enough to let it pass, slapping his hands onto the other’s calf and giving him a good shove.

Long took a small hop away from Jake, body no longer facing Jake directly, off balance and on one leg.

Jake’s own foot kicked forward, smashing into Long’s right leg, and Long collapsed, his head narrowly missing a too-close bench.

Jake danced back again, hands loose and ready in front of his chest, feet light on the floor.

Long was back up in an instant, shifting his weight from one leg to the other, back and forth, checking if anything hurt.

Apparently it didn’t, because he hunkered down a bit more and advanced toward Jake, ready for another kick.

Jake dropped, and kicked out low, aiming for Long’s ankle—and missed as Long jumped into the air, letting loose a sledgehammer kick toward Jake’s head.

Jake dove to the side as the other’s foot missed his temple by a finger’s width, neatly rolling and springing to his feet again.

Expecting Long to be on the attack, he dropped and spun, ready to defend, and caught Long’s punch right into his solar plexus, a perfect shot that collapsed him to the floor gasping and groaning for breath.

Long slowly rose from his crouch, breathing heavily.

“Enough?”

“Enough,” gasped Jake, or tried to, still unable to draw enough breath to speak. He hit the floor with his palm to signal his surrender.

“Good,” sighed Long, collapsing onto a bench and massaging his thigh, where Jake had kicked him. “Leg hurts like a summabitch; don’t think I could’ve kept it up much longer…”

Still wheezing on the floor, Jake sat up.

“Good punch you’ve got there,” he wheezed.

Long stretched out an arm and helped Jake up onto the bench.

“I guess you’ll do OK,” he said, offering Jake a mug of ale.

“And I guess maybe you aren’t so bad at wrestling after all,” replied Jake, his voice almost back to normal. “Of course, they can whip me every time, you know,” he added, pointing to Nadeen and Danryce.

“Can they now,” mused Long. “Well, we’ll see about that, won’t we?”

He turned to look at the crowd.

“Hey, Seri! Get your skinny little ass up here!”

A tall, thin woman stood. Her head was completely hairless, even her brows and lashes, and head and body both were covered in intricate tattoos from top to bottom.

Nadeen stepped forward.

Again, Feng’s choice was the taller, but Nadeen’s chunky body looked significantly heavier and more muscular.

“Serilarinna of Cydathria,” said the tall woman.

“I recognized your tattoos,” said Nadeen. “I’m not familiar with your tribe, sorry to say, but the blue falcon on your shoulder tells me all I need to know.”

“You bear no tattoos,” replied the other.

“No need,” smiled Nadeen. “I’m a natural.”

The two women faced off against each other: Nadeen with cropped black hair and a short, stocky build, Seri tall, hairless, and brilliantly tattooed. Both stood motionless, studying their opponent and waiting for an opening, Nadeen with knees slightly bent and arms half-stretched out forward, Seri standing straight, legs only slightly separated and arms straight at her sides.

There was a tiny whisper from one of the onlookers, and then silence.

Seconds passed.

Suddenly both women leapt into the air, Nadeen high and Seri low, and there was a furious tangle of arms and legs, and the sounds of flesh hitting flesh. Grunting, both women hit the floor. Seri landed on her feet, Nadeen on her side, rolling to jump up immediately.

They froze again, panting as they glared at each other.

Somebody let out an explosive breath, unable to bear the tension.

Nadeen slowly, ever so slowly, began sliding her right foot forward, leaning into it. A millimeter, five, ten… she stopped, and her left foot began sliding forward from behind, her body slowly rising with it

Seri’s leg snapped out with incredible speed and absolutely no warning, a straight kick to Nadeen’s knee that was almost impossible to see… or stop.

Nadeen didn’t try to stop it, she merely rolled to the side, smashing her fist into Seri’s calf as she fell. She pulled her body into a ball and rolled farther away from the other woman.

Seri crashed to the floor only a few centimeters from Nadeen, knee ramming into the floorboards with an audible thump. Nadeen, still trying to get out of reach, tried to defend herself, but the edge of Seri’s hand managed to get through, somehow, chopping into Nadeen’s right arm.

Nadeen twisted her body away, and simultaneously kicked into Seri’s injured calf.

Seri wobbled, off-balance for a second, and Nadeen took advantage of the instant to break free.

The women faced each other once again, this time Nadeen standing, half-hunched, massaging her right arm, holding it folded up against her chest. Seri stood tall as always, but one leg was bent, off the floor. She tried to stand on it and quickly abandoned the trial in pain.

“I think you need no falcon after all,” said Seri, eyes fixed on Nadeen.

“And I think yours is well deserved,” replied the other woman. “Can you stand?”

“In a few minutes; it’s not broken,” said Seri, relaxing and dropping to sit on a bench. “Your arm?”

“I hope it’s not broken, but that’s a hell of a strike you’ve got!” Someone in the watching crowd pushed another bench forward. “Maybe call it even before we get serious?”

“Yes, let’s. I’d hate to hurt you so badly you couldn’t come,” smiled Seri.

Nadeen bared her teeth. “You probably could, at that… but you’d not be going, either!”

“Master! Another round for everyone!” shouted Jake, and the innkeeper stepped back from the crowd of spectators to scurry off for more ale.

Conversation bubbled up again as they began dissecting the fine points of the fight. A few of the younger troopers hadn’t even been able to see what had happened, it was so fast. Jake noticed a few wagers being paid off.

Sergeant Long, sipping a new mug of ale, cocked his head as he looked at Danryce.

“So you gave me a good run for my money, and said both of them could beat you…”

“Yup,” said Jake, noncommittally.

“And she seems pretty even with Seri, who’s probably the best wrestler I’ve ever known…”

“Yup.”

“And this big guy—Danny, did you call him?—still hasn’t gotten up off his bench…”

“Nope.”

Jake took a gulp of his own ale.

“Danny-boy doesn’t like working for free,” he said, leaning forward toward Long. “Now, if one of your troopers is silly enough to bet him a mug of ale on arm-wrestling, I imagine he’d love a free drink.”

“Win a mug of ale off us in arm-wrestling!?” guffawed Long. “As it happens some us like free drinks, too!”

He turned to his fighters.

“Hey, Danny here says he’ll buy you a drink if you beat him in arm-wrestling.”

Everyone turned to look at him, falling quiet for a moment.

One middle-aged woman smacked her hands flat against the table-top, pushing herself up off the bench.

“I’m never one to turn down free ale!” she said, picking up her mug and draining it in a single gulp before slamming it back down on the table.

“Go to it, Beghara!”

“Remember what she did to that mason back in Ilarnek? He’s big but she’ll take him, she always does.”

She walked over to where Danryce was sitting. She was almost as tall as he was, and almost as broad.

“Axe?” asked Jake.

“Double-sided axe,” confirmed Feng. “Has a habit of cutting people in two.”

Jake nodded. Quite a bit different than boasting you could put one through a rabbit’s eye at a thousand meters, but he’d gotten used to it.

She took a seat opposite Danryce.

“Beghara of Baharna.”

“Danryce of Parg.”

They shifted their weight on the benches, finding firm footing. Left hand stretched out to grasp table edges, and their right hands grasped each other.

“Captain Feng, would you…?” Jake motioned toward the two, inviting Feng to serve as referee.

Feng bobbed his head in thanks, and stepped over to take a knee at one end of the table.

“Trooper?” he called, inviting Nadeen to do the same from the opposite end.

She shook her arm and flexed her fingers once more, then knelt down across from Feng as a second referee.

Danryce, gripping Beghara’s hand securely, suddenly turned to Jake: “Hey, Jake? Would you get me a refill on the ale? It’s running a little low.”

As he was speaking, looking away, Beghara gave a grunt and her body tensed. She concentrated all of her considerable strength into her arm, determined to slam the his hand into the table while he was distracted.

Danryce didn’t seem to notice, and held out his mug with his left hand for Jake to refill. His right arm didn’t even tremble.

Beghara roared, kicking the bench backwards out from under her and bracing her feet solidly on the floor. Red in the face, teeth clenched, she screamed as her bicep swelled even larger, fingers white with pressure.

Danryce turned back to face her, new mug in hand.

“Oh, did you start already?” he asked kindly, not even out of breath. “My apologies.”

He took a sip of the ale.

“Sorry. Shall we get on with it, then?”

Ignoring Beghara’s efforts completely, he set the mug down and inquired pleasantly, “On the count of three, OK?”

“One…”

Beghara’s feet shifted again, and she leaned more of her upper body weight over the table.

“Two…”

Beghara tried to scream with rage but only a squeak came out.

“Three.”

Her arm began to move, slowly but smoothly, backwards toward the tabletop.

Danryce was smiling, but he put his mug down and gripped the table edge with his left hand for leverage.

It was over in a few seconds.

The back of her hand kissed the tabletop, and Danryce held it there until she relaxed.

“I owe you an ale,” she said, her hand still lying limp on the table.

“Well then, you’ll have to join me,” said Danryce, handing her his own (almost untouched) mug. “That’s a mighty good grip you’ve got there…”

“Not good enough by half,” she grimaced. “Never had any problem with it before.”

“Not enough ale,” he smiled, and waved for a new mug full.

“Impressive,” observed Feng quietly, studying Danryce.

“Give it a try?” invited Jake. “I’m sure Danny would love another free ale…”

“No, everything seems to be going well as it is. No point in getting everyone all fired up again,” declined Feng. “Still, I can beat Beghara, you know…”

Jake smiled and leaned towards the other man.

“And I can beat Danny,” he replied. “Most of the time, anyway…”

Feng grinned. “Next time, then.”

“Next time,” Jake agreed, and they raised mugs to clink in a promise.

Chapter 3

The next morning they were up with the sun, preparing for the first stage of their journey.

The two groups were still not well integrated, but at least they accepted each other as professionals, and everyone—as far as Jake could tell, anyway—could live with that and get the job done.

He wasn’t quite sure how to handle that couple in Long’s dozen, though… He couldn’t care less what other people’s sexual preferences were as long as they didn’t try to impose them on others. The fact that two men—Bjørn and Renweard—were married to each other was fine, but having them in the same dozen seemed dangerous. If they had to make a choice between the mission and their husband, which would it be?

He tapped Feng on the shoulder and pulled him aside, letting Nadeen and Feng’s two sergeants handle things.

“We’ve been in that situation,” advised Feng. “Bjørn had to make a hard call, whether to cover Renweard or the group, and chose the group. As it happens we were able to break the ambush, thanks to Seri and Khairi, and saved Renweard. We lost Khairi and another trooper, and Renweard was out of action for a few weeks, but Bjørn didn’t hesitate that I saw.”

“Good, thanks,” nodded Jake. “I prefer people who leave their wives—or husbands—at home, and want everyone to stay alive so they can get back home. Never had a couple in the ranks before.”

“They’ve been through some hard places, Jake. They’re solid.”

Just then a woman stepped out of the inn, completely concealed in a burka. Even her eyes, hidden deep within the hood, were hidden from view.

She seemed to be of average height and build, judging from what he could see through the burka, and walked easily, so unlikely to be old or infirm. Could be a cute bride-to-be, could be.

She stepped into the carriage without a word, and another woman climbed in after. The second woman was dressed in more casual garb but also with niqab and eye veil hiding most of her face. She also had well-worn twin daggers sheathed obviously on her thighs.

The carriage was a light-weight, two-wheeled affair with a wooden roof and curtains hanging all around. The curtains were heavy enough to hide the faces of the riders, but their silhouettes should still be visible. Hopefully the breeze will get through, he thought, or it’s gonna get pretty warm in there.

They were taking the caravan route Eudoxia, which meant about ten days to Thace, a day or two to rest, and then another week or so to Eudoxia.

Jake studied the map again. It would be so much quicker to cut through the forest, northeast straight to Eudoxia. Or even start in Despina instead of Dothur, but that would mean a longer trip through the desert on a less-traveled route, instead of using the well-established caravan route they would be taking.

And even if Feng warned that nobody ever goes into the forest, at least they’d be walking through grasslands and along the coast: far better than more hot sand!

The guide was a local man, Malchinkhüü. He was a bearded, taciturn man with a dark, weather-worn face. Dressed in well-used robes and an off-white kaffiyeh, he could have been any of a hundred men lounging about the market. According to Feng, he’d been guiding caravans throughout the Liranian Desert and Cuppar-Nombo for decades. They’d worked together several time in the past, he added.

“He’s in it for the money, no question, but he does what he’s paid to do and does it well. No rumors about him.”

“But rumors about other people?”

“Every time a caravan vanishes there are rumors.”

“How frequent is that?”

“One out of every three or four caravans gets attacked somehow, usually losing an animal or two, a few men. A couple caravans a year never make it. Sometimes the battleground is discovered later, but usually the desert reclaims it all.”

“The route is patrolled, correct?”

“Yes, sporadically. Troops from Dothur, Thace, and Eudoxia are common, even Despina, sometimes, but there’s an awful lot of desert out there, and lots of places to hide.”

“Why doesn’t the route go through the Hills of Noor, here, instead of Thace?”

“It’s shorter, that’s all. There is a route from Thace to the mountain-fed lakes of Noor, but their waters vanish into the desert all too soon.”

He pointed to the map again.

“There is also a route from Thace due east, through the mountains here to Adelma and the Night Ocean. Dothur to Thace to Eudoxia is the shortest, quickest route. Unless you fly over the forest.”

“Why didn’t Humaydah just fly the woman there? Would’ve been a lot faster…”

Feng shrugged.

“She’s not stupid. There must be some good reason. I’d guess she worries more about attacks from the air than from the desert.”

Jake looked out over his command: Feng’s troop of a dozen, Malchinkhüü, the two mysterious women in the carriage, Nadeen, Danny, and himself. Eighteen in all.

In addition to the two women, the carriage also carried an ample supply of water.

Feng said the caravan route was well-marked and well-traveled, and most caravans would share water in need. He didn’t expect any problems, but mentioned the possibility of bringing along some camels just to be safe. Jake was unsure, because camels were so slow.

The ancient roads networking through the desert were paved stone, marked by eroded stone pillars sculpted in bizarre shapes. For the most part they were kept free of sand by minor magics, but there were always tales of sandstorms that buried roads—and caravans—or unknown roads suddenly exposed after millennia, leading to forgotten cities that should have stayed buried in the shifting sands. Assuming all went well, horses would be better because they could travel two or three times faster than camels. Camels could carry enormous loads, but only moved about as fast as a man could walk.

Their only loads this time were the carriage and their own supplies—food and water, mostly—and they expected to make good time.

He decided to stick with horses, opting for speed over load, and increasing their dependence on water. Camels could go without drinking for a week, but not horses.

Jake put Danryce up front with a small dark woman named Ridhi Chabra, who looked like she might be Indian or Pakistani. Feng recommended her for scouting, commenting she was silent and deadly, but better scouting or infiltrating than in a melee. He knew from personal experience that Danryce, in spite of his bulk, could move swiftly and quietly. And he was very good in a melee.

The guide, Malchinkhüü, and the rest of Feng’s six joined Nadeen around the carriage, while Sergeant Long’s half-dozen brought up the rear. He would stay mobile, moving along the tightly spaced column as he felt the need. He didn’t expect too many surprises with Danryce on top and Long watching the tail.

He checked with Feng once again, as Feng was far more familiar with the route than he was. Feng didn’t seem to have any difficulty bringing up potential problems, which he appreciated, and had said they didn’t expect any surprises, but then again… if nobody expected trouble why had Humaydah hired him? Or not just flown the woman?

Feng didn’t suggest any adjustments to the plan. It may have been overkill, but Jake always liked keeping the pucker factor as low as possible. Feng was a pro, too… he knew the drill.

He scanned the column once more, not so much looking for anything in particular as just trying to catch anything that looked out of place.

He nodded to Feng, who gave the long whistle to move out, and the wheels began to roll.

The horses were trotting, which wouldn’t tire them much. They’d stop every hour or so to give the horses a chance to catch their breath and drink, and should be able to make forty kilometers a day, give or take. And still have energy to run away from something if they had to. The coastal region of Cuppar-Nombo was as hot as the desert, but very, very humid, and troopers and horses both would need water to stay cool.

Outside the city walls and past the rough shacks and odors of the unfortunates living outside the city proper, the road straightened out, passing through farmland—mostly rice paddies, with vegetable or barley fields every so often—and tiny clumps of houses not yet big enough to call a village. To the west was the Sea of Thul, and across the eastern horizon stretched the dark jungle of Cuppar-Nombo.

He kept a close eye on Feng’s troopers because he hadn’t worked with them before, but was quite pleased… he was especially happy to see his fears about the couple, Bjørn and Renweard, were unfounded. They stayed alert, eyes trained outwards, and made no effort to stick together. When on the job, at least, their minds were on the job, too. Good.

Danryce and Ridhi were way out in front, keeping a good distance. Every so often one of them would leave the main road to investigate someone or something, while the other would hang back.

Good visibility around here, for the most part, so it was a lot easier to scout, and unexpected surprises a lot less likely.

Plenty of water, too.

After about an hour he signaled Danryce, who rode onto the next good watering place—the road forded through a fairly wide stream, with grassy banks perfect for resting the horses—and dismounted. The rest of the caravan followed suit as they reached the ford, and Feng called out a few people to keep an eye out while the rest of them rechecked the loads and animals.

The two women stepped out of the carriage, too, but Jake still couldn’t tell anything about the mysterious lady hidden in the burka. She even kept her face hidden when she drank.

Throughout the day he moved up and down along the column, getting to know everyone on a more personal level, and letting them see that he might not be that bad after all. In particular, he wanted to check on how the married men—Bjørn and Renweard—handled things.

Renweard, a big, bearded man, looked to be in his forties, he guessed, while taller, slender Bjørn was maybe a decade younger. They both struck him as professionals, and he noted that while they sat next to each other at rest, they usually stayed apart from each other on the road.

Jake guided his horse over to Renweard.

“How long you’ve been with Captain Feng?”

“Must be almost a dozen years now… He hired me down in Zaïs after he lost a few troopers to the Rot.”

“The Rot?”

“The blue mold from the southernmost jungles… it’s usually only found deep in the hottest, wettest jungle, but every so often it pops up in Zaïs, or the lands of King Kynaratholis, or even Cydathria.”

“Deadly?”

“It’ll eat you alive if you’re unlucky. I was lucky.”

“You contracted it yourself?”

“I had a mild case. My wife bathed me in vinegar for a week until it was gone.”

“Your wife? You mean Bjørn?”

“Bjørn’s my husband. Things change.”

Damn, thought Jake. Dangerous subject.

“Once you recover, can you still catch it?”

“Unfortunately. I haven’t, though.”

“Feng tells me he’s been throughout this whole region, from Shiroora Shan through Cydathria. You been with him all that time?”

“Yup. We’ve been beyond Cydathria, though… once we went all the way to Theth. Damn spiders. Lost a couple of good troopers in that damned jungle.”

“Strange… all jungles and deserts down here… you ever see snow?”

“Sure! We’ll probably see some this time, too. The mountains of Noor are almost always snow-capped, even if the desert around them is hot enough to fry bacon.”

Jake recalled seeing the mountains on the map. It hadn’t occurred to him they might be that tall, but it would explain where the water in the oases up there came from.

They passed by another faceless, unidentifiable roadway column.

“You have any idea what these statues are of? Or who made them?”

Renweard shuddered and turned away, looking out in the farmlands instead.

“Nope. And I’m glad I’ve never seen one clearly.”

“Me too,” said Jake. “Me, too.”

They traveled north along the coast throughout the day, stopping every so often for a rest as the forest grew closer and closer, until the sun began to slip toward the horizon.

Jake cantered up to join the two scouts, and asked them to start looking for a good spot for the night. He was pleasantly surprised to see Danryce turn to Ridhi.

“Ridhi? You’re more familiar with the area…”

She thought for a moment, then nodded.

“About half an hour ahead of us is a small village, which should have an inn. We might as well enjoy the comforts while we can.”

“Works for me,” said Jake. “Lead on!”

The village wasn’t even that, really… it was basically an inn for travelers on the trading road, with a few houses clustered nearby, surrounded by fields. An ancient stone bridge spanned the broad, placid river, and the inn’s front gate and stables could be seen on the other side.

The inn itself was a strange combination of ancient, old, and new… the stone walls seemed to be as old as the road itself, weathered over the centuries, and the woodwork had been patched and fixed and replaced so many times it was impossible to tell what the original inn might have looked like. If it had even been an inn.

The sign at the front gate was fairly new, though, the carven words still standing out in white against the darker wood of the signboard: Snailsworn.

“A strange name,” mused Jake.

“An old and honorable one in these parts,” said Malchinkhüü. “Once the snails saved Dothur from the jungle.”

“Snails!?”

“Not garden snails, Captain,” the guide corrected. “Giant snails, the size of your head, or larger if legend is to be believed. You can still see them here and there along the road, if you look.”

He looked. It occurred to him that what he had thought were rocks scattered among the rice seedlings were actually snails, moving so slowly he hadn’t really noticed.

“Doesn’t seem to me that snails could move fast enough to protect anybody from anything.”

“The story goes that in return for being free to wander the paddies, the snails would keep the jungle at bay. It is said that they even slimed the city walls with something toxic, killing off the vines trying to tear them down and reclaim the land.”

“Did it work?”

“City’s still there,” snorted Malchinkhüü, and led his horse off toward the stable.

Feng, who had been listening, broke in.

“Don’t know how much truth there is to the tale, but it’s a fact that snails cover the city walls, and vines can’t seem to climb it. The farms close to the jungle that try to farm barley or corn, in dry fields instead of paddies, have to burn the jungle back every few weeks, or be overrun.”

“It grows that fast?”

“Everybody claims to know of a farm that was swallowed by the jungle, or found empty of all life in the morning. They say the vines twist and burrow as fast as a man can walk.”

“The jungle’s still a good distance from here, I see…”

“Oh, we’re safe here. This wayhouse has stood here since the road was built; I imagine it’ll be here forever,” laughed Feng. “We’d better get inside, though… sun’s setting.”

There was a huge snail shell standing next to the gate.

Jake knocked on it with his knuckles: it wasn’t the thin, fragile shell he was used to, more like knocking on a rooftile. And the damn thing stood as high as his belt…

Jake and Feng went inside to speak to the master, arranging rooms for the night and fodder for the animals. There was already another caravan there, heading toward Dothur, and while Jake was talking to the innkeeper, Feng pumped them for information on the road ahead.

“Only have two rooms open tonight,” drawled the innkeeper. “That caravan master just took the rest.”

“Two will be fine, and we’ll need the food for the horses.”

“Pasture out back, and the river’s always free,” said the innkeeper. “Pay in advance for the rooms.”

Jake dropped a few coins into the outstretched palm.

“Rest of your party can stay in the stable, or the yard. Don’t expect rain.”

“We’ll be wanting some food and drink for ourselves, too.”

“All the venison and pork you can eat, and ale to wash it down with.”

“Let me guess… payment in advance, right?”

“Or on the barrelhead,” the innkeeper nodded. “Extra if you break things.”

He checked out the two rooms.

Both were on the ground floor, which was better if there was a fire, but also easier for intruders to get into.

He decided to put the two women, with Nadeen and Serilarinna if possible, in one room, and a half dozen troopers in the other. The rest of them would sleep outside, and handle guard duty.

Nadeen and Serilarinna seemed to be getting along well after their fight.

He’d just leave that alone and see how it played out; didn’t expect any trouble from Nadeen, at least. Seri? He didn’t have a clue, but she seemed to have herself well under control.

The women from the carriage flatly refused to share their room, offering to stay in the carriage overnight if necessary.

Jake realized that he’d never even heard the woman in the burka speak; it was always the maid—or bodyguard?—with the two daggers.

No help for it. He’d just have to put guards around their room.

All the troopers had their own gear, of course, and roughing it right next to an inn with food and water was no trouble at all.

Nadeen and Serilarinna slept in the hall in front of the room, Feng and his six in the adjacent room, and the rest scattered about outside the inn, with watches set.

He’d get to sleep early but would also rise in the early hours, when things were at their quietest and unwelcome visitors most likely.

* * *

He woke at the changing of the guard at the Hour of the Ox, hours before dawn, and walked through and around the inn, but discovered nothing unusual. The stars were brilliant, and the moon about half-full, providing ample light for the grounds.

He walked with the watch, or sat with them when they rested, and got to know them a little better. They, in turn, discovered that he was as rough and ready as they were, and quick to laugh at a practical joke or jibe.

The eastern sky began to lighten in the Hour of the Hare, promising another hot and sticky day.

The farmers began their morning chores, feeding their oxen, collecting eggs from the henhouses, firing up the stove for the morning rice, and the noise of the community gradually rose around them.

Inside the inn, the kitchen was getting busy preparing to feed their guests—their own group and the larger caravan that had arrived before them.

An oxcart pulled up, piled high with hay, and a young boy, perhaps twelve or fifteen years of age, began unloading it into the yard in front of the stable.

Jake walked over and saw that their horses were already cared for, with water in the trough and fresh grain in their feedbags.

It had been a quiet, restful night, and an excellent start to the day.

It was also, according to Malchinkhüü, the last inn this side of Thace, which meant they’d be camping on the road from now on. No more maids and stableboys to take care of things!

They were ready to go an hour later, and set out on the road in the same formation as before.

As they continued away from Dothur, the jungle gradually grew closer and closer, until they reached The Gullet, as it was called: the narrowest portion, where the road ran between the waves of the Sea of Thul to their left and the vine-webbed darkness of the jungle trees to the right. The worn paving stones of the road were sometimes partially concealed under scattered drifts of beach sand that shifted with the ocean breeze, or under a desiccated root.

There were a few places where the beach had covered the road entirely in sand and stones, but the path was well marked by hoofprints and wheel ruts. Every kilometer or so one of those hulking columns stood, too, marking the path clearly. They were so worn it was impossible to tell just what they might have been statues of, but every so often he thought he could make out something—usually something unpleasant, although he could never identify exactly what it was that bothered him… something about the dimensions of the body, or the way it stood… and whatever they were, they often seemed to have tails.

Jake had yet to see a tree growing close enough to burrow under or through the road… as they rode on, he wondered if it was somehow protecting itself. Or was it the snails after all…?

He noticed Feng’s riders never rode between the road and the jungle, although they would often canter out onto the shore when the rocks were small enough for the horses to move freely.

Jake trotted up to join Feng near the carriage.

“Your troopers don’t seem to like the jungle much.”

“Nobody does.”

“Is it that dangerous?”

“Probably not, but we’ve all seen the trees dance.”

“Dance?”

“It’s not really dancing, but they sort of sway back and forth, and all the branches and vines whip back and forth. Some say they’ve seen roots writhe and trees walk, but I never have.”

“You don’t believe they actually move, then?”

Feng was quiet for a moment.

“I don’t know… I’ve never seen one walk, and it sounds pretty unlikely, but I have seen a cow torn in half by something that came out of the jungle and vanished again. I don’t know if it was a tree or some beast, but anything that can tear a cow in half is worth keeping an eye out for in my book.”

“It didn’t eat the cow?”

“Nope, just tore it in half, pretty much, and left the pieces lying there. The birds had already gotten to it by then, of course, but it was still fresh enough that we could see what had happened.”

It was Jake’s turn to fall silent.

“If you ask Malchinkhüü, he’ll talk your ear off with stories of the jungle. Some might even be true!”

Jake laughed, but uneasily… his eyes kept straying toward the shadowed trees.

“Even so,” Feng continued, “I’ll be happier if we get out of The Gullet before we had our midday meal. There’s something about that darkness that makes me uneasy.”

“How much farther is it? The end of The Gullet?”

“We should be out in under an hour, I’d say. Normally we should be stopping around here for a rest, but the ocean breeze is cooling things down and I think even the horses want to clear this section as soon as possible. The road curves a bit inland there, and the shore is covered with grassy hills the horses will enjoy. A much better place to rest, I think.”

“I agree,” said Jake. “To be honest I’ve been watching the jungle get closer and closer as we rode, and something doesn’t feel right.”

“Nope, never does in The Gullet.”

“Why is it called The Gullet?”

“Don’t know, and never wanted to find out.”

“Hmm. Yeah, I get that… Well, another hour or so and then we’re out.”

“Yup.”

Jake twitched the reins and let his horse slack off a little, waiting for the rearguard to catch up.

Sergeant Long looked as alert as always, eyes darting here and there, but he also had a long stalk of wheat dangling from his mouth.

“Sergeant.”

“Cap’n.”

“Quiet again today… think we’ll be this lucky the whole way?”

“It’d be nice for a change, but I doubt Humaydah would spend that much money for a pleasure jaunt.”

“I feel the same way,” nodded Jake. “I know I’d regret it, but I almost want something to happen so it would be so damn boring!”

“Nobody hides in the jungle around here—not if they want to ever come out again—and there’s enough traffic on the road to make robbery difficult. I expect it’ll get more interesting once we reach the desert.”

“I don’t mind jungles,” mused Jake. “I trained in both desert and jungle, and spent most of my enlistment walking through jungles that look a lot like that one…”

“Did they eat people?”

“Well, no, they didn’t eat people,” admitted Jake. “People just killed each other.”

“Well, there you go. Not at all the same. No people in there.”

Jake had to agree.

The jungles of New Guinea and Indonesia were deadly, sure, but trees didn’t walk around and eat people. You could get bitten by something deadly, sure—hell, you could get bit or stung to death on his Dad’s old ranch back in Australia!—but the biggest danger had always been other people with guns.

Not many guns here.

He patted his fanny pack, reassured by the heavy hardness of the pistol inside.

“The road always marked in the sand?”

“It’s usually hidden, but the caravans leave trails, and the statues mark the way.”

“Where I come from the dunes can get pretty big, and move in the wind… statues don’t get buried?”

“Hard to say… you hear a lot of stories about new ones being exposed, marking roadways to unknown places.”

“Ever seen one?”

“A few years back we were trapped in a bad sandstorm, and after it passed the road was exposed over a pretty big area. The road we were on was clear because we could see the sun, but all of a sudden we could see that there were two other roads splitting off in different directions.”

“To where?”

“Never found out. Our guide said he didn’t know, and we never saw them again.”

“And nobody knows?”

“The guides are a pretty close-mouthed bunch, who knows? Like I said, though, lots of rumors and stories floating around. Especially farther up north, around Irem.”

“Irem… heard a lot of things about that city. Chóng’s physician, an old Arab named ibn Sina, said he came here—to Dreamlands, I mean—somehow after he entered Irem back in Wakeworld. Something happened, and he was gone from there and he’s been here in the Dreamlands since.”

“There are lot more stories about Irem than these roads, that’s for sure,” said Long. “I’ve no desire to go there, good money or not.”

Jake noticed that the head of the column had stopped, and he could see Ridhi Chabra, the woman on top with Danryce, riding back toward the carriage.

“Column’s stopped,” he said, and spurred his mount to meet her there.

Ridhi was waiting for him near the carriage. Most of the column was stopped now, and he could see Danryce still out in front, keeping an eye on things in that direction.

“The jungle curves back from here, and the open space around the road widens out. There’ll be low scrub and grasses for another few klicks before we enter the real desert.”

“This is a good place to rest, then.”

“Yessir.”

“Thank you, Trooper,” said Jake, then raised his voice. “Danny! Time for a break! Pick a spot for me!”

“Yo!” came the shout back, and he pointed up ahead and inland. “Right over there, Captain!”

Jake waved to Feng to accompany him, and they cantered up to see where Jake was pointing, and it was indeed a good spot… a large flat space with a small stream running along one side, mostly covered in grass, and well away from the jungle.

“Looks good, Danny. Thanks.”

“Wasn’t me, Jake. Trooper Ridhi suggested it.”

“How’s she working out?”

“Good.”

Jake lifted his arm and signaled the column to move up and take a break.

“How long do you think, Captain?” he asked Feng.

“The horses are a little tired after that last stretch, and maybe a little nervous, but they should be back in shape in an hour or so. Give us time to eat the midday meal, top up the water, and get ready for the desert.”

“How tight is our schedule this afternoon?”

“No inns out here; we’ll be camping on the sand.”

“How about staying here until dusk, and starting the desert then? If the road’s clear and we have enough light, ride through the night and stop when it gets hot.”

Feng smiled and nodded.

Jake realized he’d just passed a test.

The desert nights would be far cooler than the days, which would also save water, but at the same time darkness and shifting sand (not to mention snakes and scorpions and God knows what else…) made walking or riding dangerous. If the road stayed clear, and they had enough starlight and moonlight to see where they were going, it made sense to travel by night.

If they couldn’t see the road he knew they’d get lost in a heartbeat, though.

“Unsaddle the horses, and let them graze,” he called out. “We’ll rest here until dusk. Captain, would you assign guards?”

“Sir,” nodded Feng, and rode off to talk to Sergeant Long.

Jake dismounted and unstrapped his saddle gear and panniers, letting the horse relax and roam for the afternoon. It headed straight for the stream.

The rest of the column was unsaddling and inspecting horses, stretching, one man was already stretched out with his hat over his face… and he saw Bjørn and Renweard strap their weapons back on and take positions where they could see what might be coming. Tapped for guard duty.

While most of the column gathered around a central fire they quickly built, there were a few little groups forming, and he watched to see who ended up with whom.

The guide by himself, eating rice cakes on the grass next to his horse.

Serilarinna and Nadeen by themselves… no, now Ridhi was walking over. Three women, but not red-headed Larb, the woman wielding the scimitar in Feng’s six. Or Beghara, the axe woman.. where was she…?

Ah. Over there, sitting next to Danryce. The two of them seemed to be hitting it off right.

And Feng and Long sitting together on a slight rise, back to back so they could scan the entire horizon.

He walked deeper across the field, away from the shore, just enjoying the sea breeze and the smell of wildflowers and growing things.

There was a little depression up ahead, and for no particular reason he strolled that way and glanced down.

Snails. Dozens of snails, some as big as his head.

Rags, white sticks covered with snails… no, not sticks. Bones.

Fresh bones, not yet bleached by sun or wind-worn.

Horses. And people.

He turned to Feng and Long, who were already looking in his direction.

He waved them over.

“Looks like traders,” said Long, “judging from the clothing.”

“I don’t recognize anything in particular,” added Feng, “but I note that most of their weapons are gone, and there are a lot of broken arrows lying about.”

“Ambush, then.”

“Arrows to take out the troopers, then full-on attack, I’d say,” agreed Feng.

“And there are more people than horses… and no trade goods at all,” said Jake. “They just took the whole caravan and left the dead here.”

“See, they dragged them here… from over there somewhere,” said Long pointing. “But I can’t see any place where they might have hidden.”

“No trees, no hills, no nothing. They could have hidden right here, but we’re quite a distance from the road, and a standing horse would be obvious…”

“Maybe they disguised themselves as another caravan, and suddenly attacked?” wondered Jake.

“Could be,” nodded Feng. “It happens, and there isn’t any place to hide around here, that’s for sure.”

“How many archers do we have?”

Feng and Long exchanged glances; Long gestured to Feng.

“Everyone can shoot a bow, of course, but most of us are better with other weapons. Three are masters of the bow, though: Yeung, in my six, and Lau and Renweard in Long’s.”

“I can’t shoot worth a damn. Not with a bow, anyway…”

They looked at Jake curiously.

“You mean… one of those musket things?”

“Something like that, yeah. Called a rifle. If I still had mine I could reach and touch someone a klick away.”

“One kilometer!?”

“If I had a sniper rifle, I could double that.”

“But they take forever to load, and the smoke marks you!”

Jake laughed.

“A rifle and a musket are two different animals, Feng. I don’t have one to show you, but believe me, if I had the ammo I could take the whole column down in about thirty seconds. From a safe distance.”

“Well, I’m just as happy muskets are as noisy and slow as they are,” said Sergeant Long. “Gives us a fighting chance.”

“Anyway, I think we should move those three archers back close to the carriage, pull the rear guard up a bit closer, and push the scouts out a little farther. Comments?”

“We’d have to mix up the sixes,” mused Long. “Should be OK.”

“We’ve done it before,” agreed Feng. “If there’s a problem we’ll be fighting defense, and it won’t matter. Our sixes are balanced for independent action, if needed, but in this case we’ll all be together.”

“Your archers likely to get confused about who’s in command?”

“Nope,” promised Feng. “Won’t be the first time we’ve done it, and sure won’t be the last.”

“Good. So you agree?”

“Sounds reasonable to me,” said Feng. “I’d suggest outriders to the sides, too, terrain permitting. I don’t think a single small carriage with a well-armed guard force has much to fear from desert bandits, but it can’t hurt.”

Long nodded. “It’ll reduce the force we’ve got around the carriage, but it should guarantee us a little more warning, and since everyone’s on horse they can pull in fast.”

“OK.” Jake made up his mind. “Captain Feng, Sergeant Long, tell your sixes what we’ve found, and what we think happened. When we move out tonight we’ll use the new formation.”

“Yessir,” they echoed.

“I’ll inform the lady of the change and why, although she’s never taken any interest in how we handle thing yet that I’ve seen.”

“Nor I,” agreed Feng. “Hasn’t taken an interest in anything at all, as far as I can tell!”

Jake turned to look back at the bodies.

“Should we build a pyre?”

“They belong to the snails now,” said Long quietly. “It’s how they do things here, rites of Nth-Horthath be damned.”

They walked back to the column and the word circulated quickly.

Nobody said much either way, but everyone quietly checked their weapons again. This was, after all, why they were hired, and they’d known it was coming, one way or another.

Chapter 4

The column set out again as the sun was getting low on the horizon, over the Sea of Thul. The towers of Despina should be out that direction, thought Jake, but it was too far to see them even without the sun in his eyes. Just the whitecaps pounding on the shore.

The troopers had been strung out lengthwise while they were still near the city, but now that they were entering the desert—and with extra caution, due to the gruesome discovery he’d just made—the column was shorter and thicker. The rearguard was closer, and there were outriders on both sides, as much as the terrain would permit.

Danryce and Ridhi Chabra were farther ahead, and distanced from each other.

As the grassland fell behind and the dunes began to rise, the column pulsed like a living thing, adapting to ever-changing road and dunes.

The road was still mostly exposed, and the surrounding dunes small enough that the chance of an ambush low. The statues marking the road were clearly visible, stretching off roughly northward, away from both ocean and jungle.

As the evening deepened visibility dropped, and the temperature began to cool. There was even a slight breeze, bone-dry and dusty.

A half-moon and stars provided enough light to keep track of each other, and the road itself was the best guide. Every so often someone would whistle or call out for a quiet response checking that they hadn’t strayed too far.

Jake realized they’d have to start navigating from statue to statue using torches if the nights got much darker… still, the moon was waxing, and unless it got unusually cloudy—this was the desert, after all—it should be OK.

If he had to, they’d put one torch on the carriage, and Danryce or someone would carry a second torch in their direction of travel until he found the next statue, then signal the carriage to move up. It meant showing torchlight on dark nights, but they could shield it most of the way around and still move fairly rapidly.

Malchinkhüü and Feng agreed that the trade road was pretty straight, curving very gradually when it curved at all. If there was a sharp bend in the road, added Malchinkhüü, it almost certainly led somewhere they did not want to investigate. He advised it would be better to wait until morning to find the right road.

It was getting downright cold… The horses blew out spumes of white mist in the darkness, and he could see his own breath. Jake figured it must be getting close to freezing. He’d expected it, of course, they’d all expected it, but it was still a shock to be this cold after the day so hot.

At least the wind stayed down… he didn’t look forward to wind chill and blowing sand in the darkness.

They rode on through the moonlit night, stopping at roadside statues to rest as needed, and as the eastern sky began to lighten ever so gradually, began looking for a good outcropping that could shield them for at least some of the day.

The area south of the Noor range was dotted with mesas and a few plateaus, surrounded by dunes and well-hidden gullies. The road usually traced its route across the broad, windswept highlands, dropping down to cross vast stretches of desert to the next. A gully, or even better a well-positioned cliff, would give them enough shade to make the day survivable.

A flashflood sweeping down a gully could be very unpleasant, and while the chances of rainfall were slim out here, nothing was very definite in the Dreamlands.

The gullies were also excellent places for the Ibizim—the lizard riders—to hide out.

He’d never seen one of their lizards, but from the description guessed they looked much like monitor lizards—or the sand goannas of his homeland, Australia. Even though they weren’t big enough to actually ride, in spite of the name “lizard riders,” they weighed as much as a man, and sported an impressive set of fangs and talons, they said. Deadly on the sand.

Feng said they’d be unlikely to try anything against this large a party with only a single light carriage to plunder. Jake hoped he was right.

“Captain?” It was Feng, pointing up ahead to Ridhi.

She stood in her stirrups on a low rise, signaling that she’d found a promising site.

Danny was a bit farther away, also halted and looking back toward the column.

Jake nudged his horse into a canter to join her, gesturing Feng to accompany him.

The cliff face twisted, creating a sand-floored, mostly walled enclosure. The entrance faced northwest, and the cliff walls were high enough to shield from most of the direct sunlight except at noon, which was all they could really hope for.

It was defensible, and they would stretch shades overhead to keep the noon sun at bay.

“Looks good to me, Captain,” he said, turning to Feng. “What do you think?”

“We’d be trapped in there if anyone attacked, but they’d have a hard time getting to us through that narrow entrance. And it should be cooler during the day. I’d say do it.”

Jake turned back toward the column, which had continued to move along the road toward them. He waved them over, pointing out the way.

The troopers set up camp and set the shimmer near the entrance.

It was a minor glamour that would make it harder to spot them from afar, but anyone getting within a hundred meters or so would be able to see through it immediately. Still, it helped them stay out of trouble, and even better—it was a little darker and cooler inside.

Unfortunately, it didn’t conceal sounds, only sights, so neighing horses or shouting troopers would defeat the whole purpose.

Jake called Feng over again.

“The road’s getting pretty hard to see in places. I’m a little worried about the carriage wheels… you think it’s about time to put on the sand rims?”

“The wider rims will make it harder for the wheels to sink into the sand, but they’ll slow us down on stone,” said Feng, thinking over the day’s performance. “What do the scouts think?”

“Let’s find out.”

Jake whistled, and called out “Danny! Ridhi! Over here!”

They walked over from where they’d been setting up camp, Danny squatting down next to them and Ridhi standing.

“You’ve been watching the road and the sand all night,” said Jake. “You think it’s time to put the sand rims on the wheels?”

The scouts looked at each other for a minute.

“No, I don’t think we need to yet,” said Danny. “The road’s mostly clear so far. We can always do it on the road pretty quickly if we have to.”

“Ridhi?”

“I think we should put them on now while it’s still cool, and we can take our time. It’s too risky to drive that carriage fast through these rocks anyway, so we might as well put the wheels on and accept the slower speed. We’ll make up any lost time crossing sand.”

“Captain Feng?”

“Ridhi’s been through here many times. Danryce hasn’t.”

“Right.” Jake stood up and stretched. “OK, we mount the rims.”

“I’ll take care of it,” said Danny. “Be good to get a little exercise instead of just sitting all day!”

“Captain Jake, you’ve been checking that amulet from your belt all day,” asked Feng as the two guides left.

“Amulet?”

“In that pouch there,” he said, pointing.

“Oh, my Suunto!”

“Your what?”

“My Suunto compass,” he said, pulling it out. “I’ve been keeping track of our general direction.”

“Ah, a compass! It’s very small and light!”

“I’ve had it for decades; saved my ass a few times.”

Feng examined the compass carefully.

“This glass is very light, too. How do they make it?”

He handed it back to Jake, who carefully tucked it away in its padded pouch.

“That’s plastic, not glass. I don’t know how they make it. It’s from Wakeworld.”

One horse had a stone lodged in its hoof, but they were able to remove it without any difficulty. Other than that and some sunburns, they were off to a good start.

He checked the water supplies first of all, making sure that nothing was leaking, then the horses, and finally the carriage. Captain Feng took care of the guard schedule.

They all got a good day’s sleep, hot as it was.

The guards woke them as the sun started to drop toward the horizon, shadows lengthening and the first traces of a breeze beginning to stir the sand.

After a quick meal of rice and dried meat they were back on the road again, following it through winding canyons, once up a set of hairpin turns to the plateau top, and then straight as an arrow to the other side, always guided by those time-worn statues keeping watch.

After they descended the plateau, this time via a long, shallow slope, the outcrops of rock became fewer, and the dunes began to grow in size.

The road became harder to see, and at times they were forced to rely on the statues for direction.

Danryce and Ridhi continued to scout the path, while Bjørn and Ng, the youngest trooper, rode to the sides.

Jake rode closer to the carriage, eyes darting here and there to check on everyone, and checking the route ahead of them for likely ambush sites. With mostly dunes surrounding them, almost everywhere was equally dangerous, albeit unlikely.

Suddenly Bjørn gave a shout of surprise, and Jake spun in his saddle to see Bjørn—and his horse—suddenly stop, and wheel away from the column.

“Feng! Take over!” he shouted, and kicked his horse into a gallop toward Bjørn’s last position.

Bjørn had dismounted, and was uncoiling a rope.

In front of him was a huge conical pit made of sand, with a boy—Jake guessed maybe twelve or thirteen—struggling to keep from sliding down. Arms and legs splayed out as wide as he could spread them, he was trying desperately to hold onto the sand, with little success.

Every so often a spray of sand and pebbles would erupt from the pit in the center, thrown up by something sinuous and black that flicked like a whip.

The bloodied body of an Ibizim lizard was ahead of the boy, sliding into the blackness at the center… no, it wasn’t sliding, it was being pulled!

A long, sticklike leg was pulling it, huge teeth like scythes lining it, hooked into the dead lizard’s flesh.

“It’s a sandroach!” shouted Bjørn as he threw the rope toward the boy. It landed a few meters away from the boy’s outstretched arm. “Grab the rope, boy!”

He pulled it back and tried again as the boy slipped down another meter.

The rope landed on the boy’s leg, and he quickly grabbed it.

Bjørn began pulling, and Jake dismounted, running over to help.

At the bottom of the pit the sand erupted, a reverse landslide of sand and rock bursting up the slope to engulf the boy and Bjørn both.

Jake turned away to shield his eyes from the sudden sandstorm, then back again.

The boy was motionless on the slope, still holding the rope, but Bjørn toppled from the rim, rolling deeper into the pit, rope useless in his hand.

Another black leg burst out of the sand, driving pincerlike into Bjorn’s stomach to drag him closer. The first leg abandoned the lizard to instead swing at the boy, catching him across the chest with those cruel barbs.

Bjørn’s horse screamed in fear and broke, galloping away into the gathering dusk.

“Bjørn!”

He snatched his gun from its pouch, trying to find something to shoot at, but there was just a thin, black leg holding the limp body of the boy, dragging it down to the bottom of the pit where the thing hid.

There was nothing he could do, and it was all over in seconds.

He heard voices behind him.

His hands wavered, the gun slipping down to point at the ground.

He stood up straight again, rising from his shooter’s crouch, and held the gun loosely in one hand.

Sergeant Long was there, with Nadeen.

Renweard came running up behind them, bow in hand, and stopped on the rim to take in the scene.

He saw Bjørn’s broken body in the pit, slowly slipping into the sand.

The boy, probably dead, being dragged down to join Bjørn.

The rope, lying useless on the sandy slope.

“Renweard, no!”

Sergeant Long shouted, and Jake turned to see Renweard lay his bow down next to his quiver, taking sword and dagger in his hands.

“I must, Sergeant,” he said quietly. “I have no reason to live with Bjørn gone. And that sandroach will die with him.”

Long tried to grasp his arm to hold him.

“We can kill it with fire, lad!”

“If I fail,” said Renweard, and leapt into the pit.

He ran down the slope, sword and dagger out, making no effort to catch himself but instead using his speed to launch himself like a spear at the hidden sandroach.

With a metallic screech the thing’s head reared up out of the sand, mandibles clacking and multi-faceted eyes glinting in pain, Renweard’s sword buried deep into its neck.

Jake fired two shots from his Glock into the thing’s head, the 9-mm round punching a clean hole through the chitin between its eyes and blowing the back of its head off.

As the echoes died, so did Renweard, a mandible punched through his chest.

Jake gradually noticed his ragged breathing, realized he was standing with gun still outstretched, both hands trembling with adrenalin.

He slipped the gun back into its pouch, and knelt to pick up his brass. Eventually he needed to figure out a way to reload the things. Horse piss!

The rest of the group had gathered now, looking down into the pit, talking quietly amongst themselves.

Behind them, on a rocky outcrop, three unknown figures stood silhouetted against the dark red sunset. After a moment, they slipped away into the darkness.

The pit as already beginning to fill, sand and pebbles sliding down the incline to bury the four corpses.

Jake silently mounted his horse once again, and the rest of the party slowly followed suit.

They were back on the road shortly, this time with Nnamdi of Zar riding the right flank.

It was quiet ride, in both ways.

When dawn finally came they made camp once more, and around the fire Feng’s troopers each spoke of Renweard and Bjørn, telling tales of their feats, their love, and their deaths.

Chapter 5

The next night was quiet, and the caravan was more careful than ever to stick to the road—when they could see it. The moon was bright, but the dunes often hid the road entirely for long stretches.

Feng drew his horse up closer.

“Thank you for avenging Renweard.”

Jake grunted.

“That was no musket.”

“No, it’s called a pistol, or handgun. The same thing as a musket, only a lot smaller.”

“You didn’t load it, or light the fuze.”

“No. It is already loaded.”

“And is it still?”

“Yes, but I only have a couple dozen bullets left.”

“Bullets?”

“Shots.”

“May I see it?”

“No.”

They rode I silence for a while longer.

“I see why the Factor put you in charge now,” said Feng finally. “I would have stayed to honor their bodies.”

Jake glanced at Feng. Was he condemning him for not giving them a proper send-off? Burial or funeral pyre or whatever. Or was he just speaking his truth?

“The desert will honor them as well as the snails,” he said. “I hate the idea of leaving anyone behind, alive or dead, but even if we had managed to dig them out again, we could have done nothing but give them back to the desert.”

Feng nodded, sighed.

“I agree. Now. Some of the troopers don’t, yet.”

“Will that be a problem?”

“No, they’ve all bitten the branch. They’ll settle down.”

“Bitten the branch?”

It was Jake’s turn to ask for more explanation.

“Bite the branch. When we need to be sewed up, we ‘bite the branch’ to stand the pain. Like your first kill, it’s a mark of passage.”

“Never bitten a branch,” mused Jake.

“But surely you’ve been wounded?”

Jake pulled up his tunic, exposing his back and the round, puckered scar on it.

“A bullet hole,” he explained. “Through my lung and damn near killed me. But I was unconscious when they sewed me up.”

“Same thing, branch or no branch. It’s the scar that counts, but can’t say I’ve ever seen a round one before.”

Jake grunted again.

“You saw what my two shots did to that thing’s head, right? I was damn lucky I survived this one. Wouldn’t have if the extraction bird hadn’t been right there.”

“You flew on birds?”

Jake laughed.

“No, no, that’s just what we called our heli… uh, flying boats.”

“I wish we had a flying boat instead of slogging through the desert every day…”

Jake laughed.

“I wish I had a lot of things right now!”

The caravan rode on through the darkness, the sky slowly lightening to the east.

After they stopped in the morning and began setting up camp for the day, Feng pulled Jake aside.

“Malchinkhüü is looking at the sky quite often… something’s up.”

“I noticed it, too, but not a cloud in it.”

They walked over the guide, who had not yet set up his own canopy.

“What’s wrong, Master Malchinkhüü?”

“Sandstorm’s coming,” he said. “I think from the west, but I can’t tell yet.”

“Sandstorm? But no wind, no clouds!”

“It’s coming. I can feel it.”

Feng looked around, searching.

“If he’s right, we need better shelter. There’s nothing here but more dunes.”

“Get the word out to everyone, Captain Feng. We might be in for an interesting nap today.”

They split up, warning the caravan of what was coming.

The took the roof and wheels off the carriage, making it as low as possible, and did what they could to prepare their horses and themselves.

Malchinkhüü didn’t put his canopy up.

In about an hour the sky to the northwest—the direction of the enormous Eastern Desert, of which this was but a small part—turned black, and the wind began to blow, small gusts at first but rising steadily until it was difficult to stand.

The wind-driven sand blasted in their faces and hands, whipping words out of their mouths with fierce fingers, and forcing them to wrap cloths over their faces to breathe. They hung on, scrunching low and waiting for it to pass.

Jake turned.

Had he heard something over the howling of the wind…?

A shadow moved, a dark figure running, barely visible through the whirling grains.

“To arms!” came Feng’s shout, and chaos erupted.

“Nadeen! To the Lady!”

She was already running toward the carriage, and Jake followed, dodging the sudden swing of a sword from out of the sandstorm, and thrusting to hit something solid. He pulled his sword back.

A figure dressed in sand-colored tunic and trousers came with it, toppling onto the sand at his feet.

Assassins?

“Jake!”

It was Nadeen’s shout.

He left the body behind and ran toward her voice.

She was holding off another of the assassins, barely holding her own with her swordwork. Behind her the Lady’s guard was down, lying atop one body and half under a second. The Lady herself stood near her body, neatly dodging under a swing to lodge a dagger deep into her opponent’s belly, slicing him open from crotch to ribs.

She was wounded, her left arm hanging useless, clothing drenched in blood from some wound to her abdomen; he couldn’t see.

He ran to her.

She spun around, almost striking him before she noticed who it was.

“My Lady! Are you all right?”

“Take this! You must get it to Lord Ganzorig at all cost!”

“Your wounds! We must get you to safety!”

The Lady yanked off her veil.

“You idiot! Take the damn box and get it to Ganzorig!”

It was the Factor! Factor Humaydah!

She had out a small wooden box.

He took it.

“Master Jake. Get it to Ganzorig. Go!”

She slipped to on knee, almost toppling over.

Jake reached out to steady her.

“Factor! Let me bind your…”

“You can’t escape carrying me, Jake. Just go. I order you.”

He let go.

“Jake!”

Nadeen called out; he turned.

More figures were coming toward them through the sand curtain, figures dressed in sand-color tunics and pants. Three… four… he backed up against Nadeen as they spread out, surrounding them. Six…

He reached for his Glock.

It was the only way.

One of the assassins suddenly moved.

Not to the attack.

He collapsed, folding up neatly like a suit slipping off a hanger.

Within seconds, all six of them were down, silently, dead.

A single man stepped toward Jake, hands empty. An Ibizim.

“There is no time. Come.”

Jake and Nadeen exchanged glances.

She shrugged. They had little choice.

Jake straightened, closed his pistol pouch again, and lowered his sword.

The Ibizim, cheeks daubed with some ochre paint, pointed, and they turned to see three more Ibizim standing, barely visible through the whirling sand.

They ran.

Jake felt a hand touch his shoulder, guiding him through the storm. He could hear Nadeen’s feet next to him.

A few minutes later his guide pushed him into a tent, still air, the whirring of the sand changed to a constant pounding and pattering on the thick walls of the tent as it shook and twisted in the gusts.

Nadeen toppled in after him, he steadied her from falling.

“Captain Jake!”

It was Beghara.

Her enormous axe was at her side, bloody, but she seemed unhurt.

“The Ibizim led me here, and now you. And Nadeen.”

“Only the three of us?”

“So far. Maybe the rest still to come?”

“No, no more,” came a quiet voice from the other end of the tent.

An older woman sat there, something like a rosary in her hands. In front of her a warrior sat cross-legged, sword flat on his knees.

She beckoned them closer.

“Captain Jake. Your man tried to save our little Batu, and died trying, as did his friend. And you killed the sandroach, avenging their deaths,” she said. “We have repaid that debt.”

“Who were those men?”

“Some men, some women. All desert fighters sent by Thuba Mleen to take what you hold.”

“Thuba Mleen? What I hold?”

“Sit. Drink.”

They sat on the carpeted floor, cross-legged.

“I am Altansetseg, Matriarch of the Ibizim of the Copper Beetle.”

The man leaned forward with a tiny cup of clear liquid.

Unsure of how to respond but aware that this was important somehow, Jake carefully accepted the cup with both hand, bowing his head in thanks to the matriarch, and chugged it down in a single gulp, still holding it in both hands.

It was pure, fresh, cool water.

He bowed his head again as he reached forward to hand it back to the man.

The man nodded in appreciation.

I guess I guessed right, thought Jake. Looks like nobody wants to kill me yet.

Nadeen and Beghara followed suit.

“We were only able to save you three,” Altansetseg continued, “but not all of you were killed. Thuba Mleen’s fighters left as soon as they discovered the Factor’s body, and that you were gone. They are still hunting you, however, and what you carry.”

“You knew Factor Humaydah?”

“Yes. We, with others, planned this many moons ago.”

“What is in the box? What’s so important she was willing to die to deliver it?”

“The Emperor of the Sands, Thuba Mleen, does not take kindly to rebellion. The best desert dwellers can hope for from him is to be ignored; the worst, enslavement. In the desert, death is always simple, and many find it preferable to working in his mines.

“We Ibizim have an agreement with him that lets us go our way, but if our way interferes with his desires things would go hard for us. We were able to save you only because we struck quickly, and left without leaving witnesses.

“We can provide you with supplies, to an extent, and escort you unseen a bit farther on your journey, but we cannot protect you beyond our borders.”

“What’s in the box?”

“Something to help Ganzorig, First Lord of Eudoxia, free his city from Thuba Mleen’s rule. The first of many cities to declare their freedom and survive, we hope.”

“This was all the Factor’s idea?”

Altansetseg’s wrinkles crinkled.

“Hardly. Many camels have their tongues in this waterhole.”

“And the Ibizim would like to see Thuba Mleen’s power reduced as well…”

“No doubt,” the matriarch agreed. “No doubt.”

“What of the rest of my troopers?”

“We cannot help them, I’m sorry.”

“But we are safe here?”

“Yes. Thuba Mleen’s fighters are also of the desert, of course, but we are Ibizim, and this is our homeland. They could not find us here with a thousand troopers.”

“What can you tell me of my people? Of the battle?”

“Little, I’m afraid… we could not afford to be seen, or leave one who had seen us alive. The giant Pargite was alive, though, standing over four of Thuba Mleen’s assassins while fighting a fifth. Malchinkhüü is dead. And there were other bodies that were not Thuba Mleen’s.”

“And Feng? Captain Feng?” asked Beghara.

The matriarch shrugged.

“We will look later, after the storm is gone, and see what we can see.”

She stood.

“I will have food and water brought,” she said. “Eat, rest, and be at peace. You leave at nightfall.”

She turned and left through a tent-flap, followed by the silent man. He returned in a few minutes with trays of curried rice and goat meat, juicy cactus chunks, and water.

The shriek of the windstorm was slowly dying, the tent not jumping around as much. They ate, wondering which of our friends—if any—might have survived.

Jake pulled out the Lady’s box and slid the cover open.

Inside was folded cloth, something soft like wool. He carefully unfolded it, and revealed an eye.

At least, it looked like an eye. A lizard’s eye, maybe, with three lobes, yellow in color, and embedded in what looked like amber.

Jake figured it was magical, an amulet of some kind.

He wrapped it up again and put it back in his belt pouch.

Later, after the winds had fallen silent and the afternoon slowly slipped into dusk, the matriarch returned, this time accompanied by three warriors, two men and a woman.

“It is time to go,” she said, skipping the pleasantries. “If Thuba Mleen discovers we have helped you it would not go well for us. Yargui will help you reach Thace in safety.”

The woman nodded when she spoke her name, eyes black above her red-painted cheekbones. She was armed with a long, wickedly barbed spear and a long, thin sword of some kind. The other two were similarly armed, and all three wore sand-colored robes and kaffiyeh.

“Can we return to our camp for water and supplies?” asked Nadeen. “We have nothing.”

“It is too dangerous,” replied Altansetseg. “We cannot be seen with you, and you would be killed by Thuba Mleen’s troopers, who still search for you. We will provide.”

She turned and left the tent, calling back over her shoulder “Come.”

The other woman followed her, halting outside to hold the tent flap open.

It was getting quite dark now, and the stars will beginning to shine dimly. The moon had just topped the ridge in the distance, but the desert shadows were already impenetrable black.

“We run,” said Yargui. “Follow me, and remain silent.”

Without waiting for a response she set off at a jog, and the three of them followed—they really had no other options.

The other two spread out to their flanks, and the matriarch watched the six of them vanish into the desert night.

They kept running for about an hour: a measured pace they could have kept up for longer, if needed, but suddenly Yargui halted next to a rock face.

She waited for them to join him, then squatted down and slipped under an overhang, out of sight underneath.

A hidden entrance!

Jake followed suit, grunting as he dropped down to see the entranceway. Well-hidden by the overhang and adjacent rocks, it was invisible to anyone who didn’t know where to look… and in the middle of a trackless desert, surely only the people of the Copper Beetle would know where to look!

The entrance was quite small—he had to sit and slide forward—but once inside the tunnel sloped downward and larger. Only a few meters in and he could stand comfortably.

Nadeen, Beghara, and the other two Ibizim soon joined him.

Yargui took one of the torches off the wall and lit it with her flint and steel, using it to light two more, which she handed to the troopers.

“We can talk now, if you must,” she said. “We will walk in Xinaián for about another hour to reach Home.”

“Xinaián? Home?”

“This underground world is called Xinaián, and Home is our city. Many roads lead to Home, through the desert or through Xinaián, and it is safest to take these secret routes to avoid the searching eyes of Thuba Mleen. A bit farther there is water, come.”

Holding her torch up, he began walking deeper into the tunnel.

While the desert nights were always cold, in the caravan we had heavier robes, and the warmth of the horses… here, we had only the clothes we had been wearing when Thuba Mleen attacked us.

Fortunately, Yargui set a fairly brisk pace, and we were soon quite warm enough.

As they walked, Jake studied the tunnel. It gradually but steadily sloped downward, and while it had apparently been carved from the stone, it was clear the architects had taken advantage of existing caverns. In one place a stone bridge arched across a chasm. As he crossed he glanced down to see a river moving sluggishly below, glinting in the torchlight.

As they walked deeper into the earth, the tunnel began to glow with a faint, bluish light, emitted by what looked like lichen over the bare rock. It gradually increased in brightness, and eventually their eyes acclimated to the point they no longer needed the torches.

The three guides extinguished their torches, but kept them at hand.

There were a number of branches, other tunnels leading off into dimness, and at most of those intersections a statue stood. It looked like the same statues that marked the roads through the desert, he thought, but these were weathered only by time and fungus, and leaving enough detail visible to reveal that they were lizardfolk.

Walking on two legs, often with sword or spear, they always faced away from their direction of travel, as if protecting the road against invaders. With strangely flattened head and reptilian eyes, pendulous writhing lips that bared curved pointed fangs, and a hideously misshapen, dwarfish body, they set his heart racing and raised the hair on the back of his neck every time he saw one.

“The Children of the Night…” whispered Beghara, shifting her axe to be sure she could use it quickly. “These are their tunnels, and their road.”

“We do not speak that name here,” said the man bringing up the rear. “Some say they are still here and listen.”

“Are these things real?” he asked Nadeen, shifting to the far side of the tunnel to pass.

“Legend says so,” she answered, “but I’ve never heard of anyone actually meeting one…”

“They do not come this close to the sun anymore,” said Yargui, “but I would not like to venture below to Yoth.”

The tunnel walls fell back, the tunnel broadening, the ceiling rising, and the echoes of our footsteps changed… Illuminated by blue radiance, the scene in front of him was like nothing he had ever seen before.

They faced a forest of stalagmites, some rising up into invisibility above, all covered with moss, or fungus… and between them, a lake stretching off into the distance, tiny waves lapping the shore.

“It is safe to drink,” said Yargui, cupping a palmful for herself. “We will give you waterskins when we reach Home.”

Jake dipped a finger in… it was cold, and felt wonderful. He plunged both hands in, washing off the dust and sand, splashing it on his face and shoulders, and drinking down handful after handful.

“Stay alert for snakes,” warned the Ibizim. “There are far larger dangers here, too, but they rarely come here to the shallows. Snakes, though, may be anywhere.”

Jake lifted his head from water, darting his eyes here and there, dagger in hand.

Seeing nothing, he relaxed again, but his eyes continued scanning for ripples in the water.

Their three guides contented themselves with a quick sip, but Jake, Nadeen, and Beghara took advantage of the chance to rinse themselves off, and felt refreshed.

“Now I’m hungry, too!” grumbled Beghara. “No breakfast today. Never did like fighting on an empty stomach.”

“Let us continue,” said Yargui, standing and brushing bit of moss off her clothing. “Come.”

Suddenly a deafening hoot sounded, trailing off into a plaintive whistle, echoing through the chamber in a clash of sound.

“What…?”

“One of the larger dangers I mentioned,” said the woman. “There are too many stone columns here, we’re safe. But it would be good to leave before it notices us.”

They left.

The road, now a broad, perfectly flat structure of black basalt, curved around the lake in a perfect arc, clearly built before the stalagmites grew. In a few paces, stalagmites almost a meter high rose from the surface of the road itself, suggesting how incredibly old it was.

Jake had no idea how long it took them to grow, but since they formed from drips of mineral-carrying water from above, it must be tens of thousands of years. If not more.

The road split, one part continuing around the lake, and a second branching off into the rock away from it.

Yargui took the branch, leading them into a smaller tunnel that gradually inclined upwards.

They were heading back to the surface.

Sure enough, as the blue radiance from the tunnel began to fade, there were more torches.

Yargui lit three, taking one for herself and handing the others to the other two Ibizim.

They walked for a while in their bubbles of brightness amid the pitch blackness until suddenly Yaergui extinguished her torch, placing it to the side of the tunnel. The other two quickly followed suit, and as their eyes adjusted they noticed a faint, yellowish light up ahead.

Yargui motioned them to stop, and walked ahead by herself to stand in the center of the tunnel.

Another Ibizim, sword bare, stepped out of the shadows to talk briefly to her, then nodded and gestured with his hand.

Hearing a rustling behind him, Jake spun around to see half a dozen guards standing in a rough semi-circle around them.

Instinctively he reached for his sword, seeing Nadeen and Beghara reach for their weapons out of the corner of his eye.

“They are just the guard, Master Jake,” said Yargui. “You are free to pass now; this way.”

Keeping one eye on the guards, Jake and the two women followed Yargui up the tunnel, which turned sharply to the right up ahead. As he turned the corner, he stopped in astonishment. Nadeen bumped into him, then stopped in shock herself.

The top of Beghara’s axe hit the stone floor with a clang as she rested it there, the three of them looking at the adobe city that stretched out before them.

Eyes watering from the sudden brilliance of the sunshine, they stared.

They were looking out of a hole halfway up a cliff face that must have been five or six hundred meters high, Jake estimated. A valley stretched out at their feet, with a river winding through it, surrounded by green fields and houses, and beyond the river the ground sloped up, gradually at first and then more steeply until it, too, became a cliff… covered with haphazard buildings of every color of the rainbow.

“Welcome to the Home of the Copper Beetle,” she said.

Chapter 6

It reminded him of the photographs he’d seen of adobe cliff dwellings in the United States, and while these also looked to be made largely of adobe, he could see wood and stone as well. But the colors! Each building seemed to be painted a different color from its neighbors, some bright, some dull, some almost fluorescent. Seen from here, the cliff looked almost like a living thing, pulsing and dynamic with the rainbow of colors, shifting as people and carts moved about.

It was hard to see clearly from here, but it looked like the people were also dressed in brilliant colors. Robes, perhaps? Trousers and tunics? He couldn’t tell from this distance.

“Over here,” called Yargui, pointing to a bamboo cage hanging suspended from a rope. She stepped inside, and beckoned the others to join her.

The floor was made of loosely interwoven bamboo poles, and there was only a simple rail around the edge. If you weren’t careful your foot could easily slip between the bamboo poles of the floor, or you might even topple off the platform completely.

When everyone was aboard, Yargui nodded to the three men standing at the crank, and they began to turn it with a loud, wooden clacking.

The elevator descended to the ground as a counterweight rose in time.

It crunched to a stop on the scree, and they had arrived.

They were standing on a wooden stage at the base of the cliff, flanked by farmland on both sides.

An Ibizim woman, dressed in a rose-red shift with leather belt and matching headband, leaned on her hoe as she watched them, resting from tending the onions.

The fields stretched from here—the cliff’s edge—down to the river, a hodgepodge of different crops and animals, fields packed together tightly in no apparent pattern, dotted with farmers hard at work.

As they walked down the slope toward the river, Ibizim going about their daily lives stopped to briefly assess them, sometimes calling a greeting to Yargui or one of the others, then returning to their own work.

Horses, camels, and even a few of the big deinos could be seen. The sand lizards were everywhere, some tethered, some just roaming about.

“Try not to startle one,” warned Yargui. “Most are trained, but not all. And some spit poison.”

“How can you tell which ones spit poison?” asked Jake.

“You can’t. We’ll try to warn you if one gets too close,” said Yargui. “It’s late afternoon. We will walk upstream—east—and rest closer to the road you must take.”

“Damn… totally lost track of time down there,” mumbled Jake, glancing up at the sun. “Have we been walking that long?”

“Exactly where are we?” asked Nadeen.

“This is Home,” answered Yargui. “No enemy has ever discovered it, and none ever will.”

“The tunnels,” mused Jake. “But what about by air?”

“It cannot be seen from above,” said Yargui briefly, without going into details.

Jake figured it must be a glamour of some sort, and since they obviously didn’t want to talk about their defenses, let it drop.

“But you’ve let us in…”

“Are you enemies of the Ibizim?” countered Yargui. “The Matriarch says otherwise…”

“We work for—worked for—Factor Humaydah. She has entrusted us to deliver something to Ganzorig, First Lord of Eudoxia. And apparently Matriarch Altansetseg wants us to complete the mission.”

“So, not enemies, then. And perhaps allies,” grinned Yargui. “No ally has ever been here uninvited, either, Master Jake. We Ibizim rule this desert and the mountains of Noor, and have for six grand dozens of years or more.”

“But Thuba Mleen rules you,” said Jake doing the sums in his head. He worked it out to 864 years.

“No, he claims to, and he collects taxes in return for not killing us when we venture into the world. But the times are changing.”

“So the Factor said,…” agreed Jake. “For better or worse, things always change.”

They crossed a small bridge and continued to the opposite cliff, where Yargui led them to a small tea house overlooking the valley. The proprietor came bustling out with a teapot and six tiny cups. Yargui poured the reddish tea, handing each of them a cup in turn.

It was chilled and spicy—Jake tried to figure out what spices might be in it… cinnamon, maybe, and… tarragon? He gave up. It was good, and it was cold.

“Fura’kk and po for all!” requested Yargui, and the cook began banging pots around inside.

She poured another round of tea for everyone.

“After we eat and rest a bit,” she continued, “we will walk the roads of Xinaián again.”

“To where?”

“To the last branch, and from there you can just follow the road to the exit.”

“And once we reach the surface?”

“Travel due east and you will reach Thace shortly.”

Jake mulled that over.

“Any word on Captain Feng or the rest of our party?”

“Not yet, I’m afraid… but perhaps later.”

The fura’kk turned out to be roasted strips of chicken and beans and red peppers, stir-fried in some sweetish sauce, and po was steamed buns full of minced meat. Mutton, Jake thought, but it was hard to be sure.

Whatever it was, it was fresh-cooked and delicious. Famished, they finished off several platters.

“The Matriarch has given orders to provide you with whatever you need,” said Yargui. “Water, food, and sleep are yours, but do you need anything else?”

Jake looked at the other two raising his eyebrow.

“Other than more water and food, what else do we need?” he asked.

“Thuba Mleen’s skull!” spit Nadeen. “That’s all I want.”

Beghara chuckled.

“I left my dagger in someone’s chest earlier—got stuck in his ribs, I think—and could use a replacement if you’ve got one. My axe is great when I can swing it properly, but once in a while I really need a good dagger.”

“I can’t get you Thuba’s skull,” grinned Yargui, “but I can certainly get you a dagger or three. After we eat, though.”

Beghara nodded and turned her attention back to the fura’kk, chopsticks flying.

After food and more tea, they walked through the twisting cliffside labyrinth of Home to a small smithery, where Beghara quickly selected a new dagger. They took advantage of the opportunity to hone their weapons, and then Yargui led them up the river again.

The entrance into the underworld was at the base of the cliff this time, marked by a stone gateway. The pillars were the same lizardfolk statues they’d seen throughout their trip, but these were still well-preserved, although somewhat eroded by time and weather.

Jake decided that he really didn’t want to meet a lizardfolk… while they seemed to only come up to his shoulders, they looked to be very muscular. In addition to the usual assortment of swords and such, they also had a protruding jaw fitted with remarkable fangs, talons, and a thick tail that looked like it’d be handy for balancing.

Inside the tunnel, Yargui lit torches, and they all waited for a minute for their eyes to adjust. As before, the three Ibizim carried the lit torches, but Yargui handed Jake, Nadeen, and Beghara two each.

“Keep them for later. Just leave them inside the tunnel entrance when you’re done.”

They walked. The tunnel was mostly level, inclined very slightly down. After a short distance they extinguished the torches and replied on the blue luminance of the walls.

They passed several intersections, and twice came upon groups of guards who let them pass at Yargui’s word.

They walked for several hours, continuing to slope gradually downwards, until Yargui finally stopped where the path split into three.

“We need go no farther,” she said, pointing to the left-hand branch. “Follow this road to the end, and from there continue due east to reach Thace in less than a day.”

“No other branches up ahead?”

“None. The road curves around a lake, but it is clear.”

“Thank you, Yargui,” said Jake, holding out his hand.

Yargui looked at it but made no effort to shake.

To hide his embarrassment he turned to Nadeen and Beghara.

“Ready?”

“Let’s go,” said Nadeen, checking to be sure she still had her torches.

Beghara nodded.

Jake nodded to Yargui and the two silent fighters, and they started off down the tunnel.

The blue light was still strong enough that they could see without the torches, and the tunnel itself was clear and amply wide.

After about a few hours the tunnel began getting wider, and the ceiling higher… they were approaching the lake. The blue radiance grew stronger, and the air was rich with the smells of water, earth, and growing things.

The chamber seemed to be much smaller than the one they had seen earlier—they could see most of the ceiling, although the far reaches were difficult to make out clearly though the mist. Everything was covered in moss, with huge clumps of mushrooms sprouting in profusion.

There were even a few tiny flowers growing amid the moss, here and there, and Beghara stopped to look closer.

“This tiny flower! Look!” she called. “It has an even tinier frog inside!”

She reached out to pluck it, and something long and thin and scarlet and impossibly fast darted at her hand, and away.

“Damn! Snake!”

She yanked her hand back, holding it to her mouth and sucking the blood out.

Nadeen ran over and looked at it: two deep punctures in the soft flesh of her hand, between thumb and index finger.

She grabbed her dagger and sliced the wound open, spilling a few greenish drops onto the ground, and splashed water onto it, then put her own mouth to it to try to suck out the remaining poison.

Beghara swayed, then suddenly sat down with a thump, legs sprawled.

She screamed, and her eyes rolled up into her head.

She collapsed.

Jake placed his hand on her neck, feeling for her pulse. It was still there, but not as strong as it should be for Beghara.

“The blood is flowing clean now,” said Nadeen, spitting again, “but I fear there’s too much left.”

“Damn. Stay here, or carry her to Thace?”

“Yargui said less than a day to Thace. I’d say wait until dusk and then try for it… she’s going to die soon without help.”

“Agreed.”

Jake stood.

“Let’s get away from this damn lake, and then I’ll scout on up ahead and see how far the exit is. Yargui said there aren’t any enemies down here.”

“Except for snakes.”

“Yeah, except for snakes…”

With Nadeen’s help, Jake lifted Beghara up on his back, and they moved farther down the road until they were a good distance from the lake, on clean, dry stone paving again.

He set her down, checked her pulse once more, and started jogging.

Only another ten minutes down the road and the blue radiance was gone, replaced by the usual pitch black of the upper tunnels.

He took out his tinderbox and lit his torch with flint and steel, then continued in its light until he reached the exit.

He glanced outside… the sun was low above the horizon. The eastern horizon. Sunrise. The desert sand stretched forever around their little outcropping.

He couldn’t carry Beghara in that heat… they’d have to wait for nightfall to have any chance at all.

He trotted back.

“Any change?”

Nadeen shook her head.

“Breathing and pulse are both faint, but no worse than before,” she said. “Did you reach the exit?”

“Yeah, maybe about thirty minutes at a jog. Sun’s coming up. We’ll have to wait until it cools off, or we’ll all die on the way.”

“Damn.”

“Yeah. Damn.”

He knelt down to check Beghara’s pulse.

Not very good, but still there.

Maybe she had a chance, if they could get her to Thace.

“Help me get her up,” he said, “I’ll carry her on my back to the exit.”

Nadeen helped lift Beghara’s unconscious body up onto Jake’s back, and he held her arms tight across his chest as he stood, feet planted solidly.

“Damn, she’s built like a fucking tank.”

He wobbled for a moment, catching his balance, and shifted her weight.

“This is gonna be a bitch and a half,” he said, taking the first step.

Nadeen brought Beghara’s axe and bag, walking near Jake and lighting the way with the torch. Every so often she reached out to steady him as he took one plodding step after another, down the long tunnel toward the exit.

It had only taken him a about fifteen minutes to jog there by himself, but it took more than two hours that to finally reach the exit with Beghara on his back. Nadeen couldn’t carry her weight for more than a few dozen meters, and he needed frequent rests himself.

Nadeen helped get her down to the tunnel floor, taking care not to bang her head, and Jake collapsed, panting.

“No change,” said Nadeen, checking Beghara’s pulse and listening to her breathing.

The sun was already up, and they could feel waves of heat radiating into their darkness from the desert sand outside.

Jake pulled out the hard case and slipped on his sunglasses, relieved to see the harsh sunlight of the dunes reduced to a cooler shade. He carefully put the hard case back into the leather pouch on his belt. He didn’t wear his shades much these days because they attracted so much attention—they were probably the only ones in the Dreamlands, and highly reflective, too—but they sure helped as he peered outside the cave.

“Bug-eyed Jake! Can’t handle the sunshine, lover boy?”

“Got nothing against sunshine, Nadeen,” he grumbled. “This is way beyond sunshine, though. Your eyeballs made outta stone?”

“Practice,” she replied. “And a good kaffiyeh.”

“We had deserts in Australia, too,” he continued. “Spent a lot of time training in them and hating most every minute of it, but they never got this hot. Christ, you could boil fucking water in your hand out there!”

“It’s not that bad today; still early yet;” she countered. “Might be best to wait until dusk, but if you’d like to keep going and discover what ‘hot’ really means I’ll be happy to accompany you.”

“Ah, no, but thanks. A little nap would be wonderful.”

The two of them sipped a little water, and Nadeen dripped a little between Beghara’s lips: she was still unconscious and sweating heavily despite of the coolness of the cave.

Jake was exhausted.

He spread his mat and sat down, unlacing his leather boots and pulling them off with a grunt.

He didn’t miss wearing pants, but he really missed good boots. The boots he’d brought with him from Australia had finally given up the ghost last year, and there weren’t many shopping centers around he knew of. He’d come to appreciate the robes everyone wore here in the Eastern Desert, but their boots—or even worse, sandals—sucked.

He’d gone through desert training in Australia, of course, when he was in the SASR out of Campbell, but he’d spent most of his time in Borneo, Timor, and other jungles north of Australia rather than the deserts of the Middle East. In the jungle you needed good boots for several reasons, and he’d come to appreciate them over the years. The Special Air Service Regiment was the cream of the crop when it came to Aussie special forces, and they didn’t skimp on gear.

He recalled the ’scopes they’d had back then: lightweight binocs, and nightscopes. Once again he wished he’d thought to grab one of those when he left. All he had now was his shades, his Glock and a couple mags, and the Suunto.

Thank God for that Suunto compass. It sure saved their asses this time… Until now, at least. Now they could really use a little luck, and some salt tabs, and the compass didn’t offer either.

As Jake lay down, he placed the small box containing the amulet under his head, wrapped in some cloth to serve as a pillow. He wanted to keep it very close after all they’d been through.

Chapter 7

Something had made a noise.

Without moving, he listened, trying to recall exactly why he’d suddenly woken up.

Nadeen…?

He opened his eyes, and started to sit up.

“OK, you just relax,” came a man’s voice. “I’ve got a gun on you, and I’m guessing you know what that is.”

Whoever it was he sounded like he knew what he was doing.

“Can I sit up?” asked Jake.

“Sure, go right ahead. But no sudden movements.”

Jake slowly sat up, and glanced around. Beghara’s body was lying in the same place; he couldn’t see if she was dead or alive.

Nadeen was gone.

“Where’s Nadeen?”

“The other woman? She went outside as soon as it cooled off a bit; I’d guess she’s scouting the area.”

He was wearing dirty, torn fatigues, enormous military boots, a thriving beard, and a very large Browning Hi-Power automatic pistol that was pointed right at him.

“I see you’ve got a Suunto compass, and a real nice pair of shades, so I’m guessing you recognize this, too,” he said, moving the Browning a fraction of an inch.

“Browning Hi-Power. I’ve used one myself,” said Jake. “Haven’t seen one in quite a while, though…”

“Take a good look, then, and let’s keep this nice and friendly. And if your lady friend comes back I’ll have to ask you to stop her from doing anything that might spoil our little chat here.”

“Nadeen? Yeah, I think I can do that. She doesn’t have a gun.”

The other man nodded and sat down on their packs. The gun stayed pointed right at Jake, though.

“Thomas T. Highweigh, United States Marine Corps. Friends call me TT; everyone else calls me either Gunny or sir, depending. And you?”

“Jake Evans, formerly Special Air Service Regiment.”

“That’s Aussie, right?”

“Yup. Out of Campbell Barracks in Swanbourne.”

“You guys saved our fucking bacon in ’nam.”

“Before my time, I’m afraid,” grinned Jake. “Maybe we can relax and put the gun down now?”

“Yeah, might as well. Got no bullets left anyway,” he said.

“Thanks, TT,” said Jake, and pushed his robe open to reveal his Glock.

“Mine’s loaded,” he added. “Glad that all worked out.”

“Well, yeah, me too!” said TT. “Mind if I call the others in?”

“Others!?”

“Yeah, the rest of my team is waiting down the tunnel.”

“Sure, but let’s do it slow, OK?”

“Sure, no problem.”

“And since things seem to all be copacetic here,” said Jake, “Nadeen? C’mon in, it’s OK now.”

TT spun around to look at the tunnel exit as Nadeen stepped in, a throwing knife in each hand.

TT called out “All clear, guys!”

There was a shuffling in the tunnel darkness and three men emerged into the light.

Jake kept his pistol at ready until it became obvious they were unarmed, pointed to the side.

They were all wearing the same fatigues as TT, equally torn and dirty. One had a bloody bandage wrapped around his arm.

“Welcome to my humble abode, gentlemen. I’m Jake Evans, formerly a corporal in the Australian Army, and this is Nadeen. We’re currently employed by a trading company as, um, security, and took a little detour through the caves here.”

The three men found places to sit.

“Speak up, guys… this is the first guy we’ve met that might have a fucking clue what’s going on!”

“Uh, Dr Nolan Geiszler, biologist. On loan from the K-Science Lab.”

“Mack Watney. Botanist. US Army Reserve.”

“Wilhelm Littlejohn. Professor of archaeology at Marshall College. Call me Johnny.”

“And why are you people wandering around these tunnels?”

“We were investigating the tunnel network around Metropolis, and—”

“Metropolis? Where’s that?”

They stared at him.

“You… Metropolis? You don’t know where Metropolis is!?”

“One of the biggest cities on the East Coast!?”

“You mean New York City?”

“No, Metropolis, not New York!” said TT. “You’re shitting me, right?”

“Nope, never heard of it,” said Jake.

“This woman is in bad shape.” It was Geiszler, the biologist. “Snakebite?”

“Beghara was bitten earlier today at the tunnel lake. We have to get her to Thace or she’s going to die.”

“Thace?”

“Whoa, everyone slow down!” shouted TT. “Nolan, can you help her?”

“Yeah, the antivenin should work, I guess.”

He shrugged off his backpack and started rummaging around inside.

Jake’s Glock shifted a bit but stayed pointed at the wall.

Dr Geiszler pulled out a black case and unzipped it to reveal a row of syringes.

He picked one up, bent her head back to reveal her neck, and carefully injected the orange fluid into the artery there.

“Might be an hour or so until she wakes up, but her pulse and breathing should start recovering pretty quickly.”

“You have antivenom that work on these snakes?”

“Yeah, it’s a new type of antivenin developed by Dr. Tompkins at the Project.”

“Nolan, zip it,” broke in TT.

Dr Geiszler shut his mouth for a moment.

“Sorry, not supposed to talk about that. Um, it’s a new type of antivenin that doesn’t need refrigeration and works on most reptilian venoms.”

“And you work for the Project,” mused Jake, “which is presumably some top-secret American deal.”

“Yes, I’m afraid it is secret, and I haven’t been authorized to talk to you about it,” said TT. “Not to change the subject or anything, but you said Vietnam was a bit before your time… what did you mean by that?”

“Mean by it? Damn, I wasn’t even born then!”

“You what….!?”

“I was born in 1974,” said Jake.

“But… it’s 1971!”

A confused babble broke out.

“So we got bumped in the future?” asked Professor Littlejohn.

Jake sighed.

“No, it’s rather more complicated than that, I’m afraid. This is sort of a parallel universe, as far as I can tell.”

“With dinosaurs.”

“With dinosaurs,” agreed Jake. “And magic.”

“Son of a bitch!”

“Yup, it is that,” laughed Jake. “I was security for an Aussie mining outfit that discovered a tunnel leading here, and I stayed after things went south.”

“And we wandered around in those damn tunnels until most of our party was dead and we ended up here.”

“How many people in your party?”

“We began with fourteen,” said TT. “I was along for security, not that we really expected to need any. And nobody else was even armed.”

“What happened?”

“We stumbled into a huge chamber full of dinosaurs and what we think might have been Neanderthals. They didn’t like us.”

He closed his eyes.

“I only had a few mags, and used them all up getting us into a tunnel. We lost half our team right there, and more later. Just us now.”

“How’d you get through the tunnels?”

“Just tried to use tunnels that sloped upwards… most of our batteries died, and we were down to two pretty weak penlights by the time we stumbled into that lake back there.”

“And you saw us.”

“Actually, heard your voices. I sneaked up for a look and followed you here.”

“Pretty damn quiet!”

TT grinned.

“Nice to hear that from an SAS man!”

“SASR. Aussie, remember?”

“I was a gunnery sergeant,” continued TT, “until they pulled me out of Hanoi to handle security for Probe Six.”

Jake waved at the men. “You’re Probe Six?”

“Yeah, what’s left of it.”

“Wait a sec… pulled you out of Hanoi? You were in North Vietnam?”

“Yeah, sure, I was there as part of the peacekeeping force. Why?”

“Peacekeeping force? What peacekeeping force?”

“Uh, Kurtzberg—I mean, President Kurtzberg—convinced Mao to let the UN run the country until things settled down, and I was in Hanoi helping to keep everything from falling apart.”

“The President of America is named Kurtzberg?”

“Yeah, Jack Kurtzberg… why?”

Jake shook his head in disbelief.

“Wow. I knew time was wacky here already, but…. wow.”

“What?”

“As near as I can recall, you had Kennedy, then Johnson, then Nixon…”

“Who?”

“Tricky Dick. Richard Nixon.”

“Nope. Johnson lost to Kurtzberg, and the whole Vietnam mess was pretty much cleaned up by 1970 or so, once the US and China began working on it together. Who the hell is Nixon?”

“Doesn’t fucking matter anymore, does it…” said Jake. “The world I came from has a different history. Vietnam was a suppurating wound, and Saigon fell in 1975. President Nixon was impeached for spying. China is a world power, the Soviet Union doesn’t exist anymore, and there is no city called Metropolis.”

TT sat back on his haunches.

Everyone just looked at Jake.

“So those lizard statues are real, then?” asked Professor Littlejohn.

“Yup, I think so,” said Jake. “I’ve never seen one in the flesh, but I’m told they ran this place a ten or twenty thousand years ago.”

Littlejohn’s eyebrows rose. “Ten or twenty thousand? That’s a long time…”

TT broke in. “So where is ‘here’?”

“They call it the Dreamlands. I don’t understand it myself, but apparently a lot of human dreams and creations—I mean, books and movies and stuff—end up here, for real. The guy we work for, Factor Chóng, he was born in China in the Han dynasty.”

“Han Dynasty… That would be about 200 BC to 200 AD,” explained Littlejohn.

“And he’s still alive?”

“Very much so. Like I said, time works funny here. And there’re deinos.”

“And there are dinos,” echoed TT.

“Beghara’s waking up,” called Nadeen.

Jake stood, packed his pistol away in its pouch again, and walked over to Beghara.

Nadeen was helping her drink.

Her eyes were open, color good, breathing normal.

Geiszler squatted down next to her to take her pulse. Beghara pulled back at his sudden approach, not knowing who he was, but Nadeen reassured her.

“It’s OK, he’s with us. Relax.”

“Pulse is strong, breathing’s good…” he said, and lifted her hand.

Beghara yanked it away and sat up.

“Easy, Beghara, easy,” calmed Jake. “He saved your life; let him look at your hand.”

She slowly held it out, deep furrows appearing between her brows as she did.

Geiszler peeled back the bandage he had put on earlier, splashed a little water on the wound, and wiped it clean.

The swelling had gone down considerably.

“I don’t see any major tissue damage,” he said. “Looks like you got most of the venom out early and the antivenin took care of the rest.”

He took a little tube of something out of his pack and smeared it over the wound, then put a new bandage on.

“Antibiotic cream. With luck she’ll be able to use that hand normally within a couple days.”

Beghara’s frown had vanished, and flexed her hand a few times to see how much it hurt.

Apparently not much, because she starting searching for her axe, and stood to retrieve it when she finally found it.

Once it was safely in its sling again she sat back down with a sigh of relief.

“Have any more water?” she asked.

Jake handed over a skin.

“Welcome back.”

“Is it safe to drink that?” asked TT. “We ran out of halazone tabs about a week ago.”

“The Ibizim said it was, and since we didn’t have a choice we’ve been drinking it since. Don’t have the runs yet.”

“Ibizim?”

“Local desert tribe. They led us through the tunnels to here, and told us how to get to Thace.”

“You mentioned Thace before.”

“A good-sized oasis on a trade route. We were escorting a caravan there until we ran into some trouble.”

“Trouble?”

“Bandits. We started with over a dozen troopers.”

“And you’re the only ones left?”

“We don’t know. The caravan got separated, and we ended up in the tunnels. I’m hoping the rest of the caravan made it, but I’m still in the dark. They might be in Thace, I guess.”

“Those three profs want to spend the rest of their lives down here cataloging stuff,” said TT, jacking his thumb toward the other three men, “but we’ve gotta get out of here and somewhere with supplies and communications, or those lives will be pretty short.”

“Should be plenty of supplies in Thace, but ‘Who ya gonna call?’”

TT noticed the sing-song quote but just looked blankly at Jake.

“You never heard of Ghostbusters, huh?”

TT just shook his head.

“Never mind, just a dumb movie. Point is, this place is pretty much in the Middle Ages, give or take. No phones, no radio, and nobody to call even if you did.”

“How’d you get here?”

“Through a portal on the other side of the world. And yeah, I think it’s still open, and I think I could probably get you guys there, but even if you go through you’d end up in Australia in the year 2020, I think.”

“2020… you’re shittin’ me, right?”

Jake pulled out a handful of coins: gold, silver, copper, stamped with a wide range of different faces and names. Among them were a few Australian coins.

He held out his hand for TT to take a look…

TT picked up a few.

“Elizabeth II, 1994… Elizabeth II, 2012… 2018… 2006… Well, shit. Ain’t that a bummer.”

“Sorry, TT… I’m afraid you’re stuck here for a while.”

Professor Littlejohn seemed quite happy at the prospect: “There a lot of ruins like this around?”

“Shitloads,” said Jake. “Often inhabited.”

Littlejohn grinned. “I’m staying!”

Geiszler and the quiet botanist, Mack Watney, nodded their heads.

“Hell, yes!” said Geiszler. “Probe Six is supposed to look at wildlife, and what I’ve seen here is as wild as it gets!”

“I’m in,” added Watney.

“Well, I guess we’re staying after all,” grinned TT. “So how do we get to Thace?”

Jake turned to Beghara.

“How do you feel?”

She flexed her shoulders, twisted her head back and forth a few times.

“Exhausted. Doesn’t matter; I’ll walk.”

“It’s just past nightfall, and the temperature will be dropping fast out there. Yargui said to travel due east to reach Thace, and I think we can trust her word.”

TT raised an eyebrow obviously wondering who Yargui was, but when he saw Nadeen shoulder her pack and Beghara tie her mask over her nose and mouth, he turned to get his own people ready.

“Ok, you nerds. We’re going out into the desert, which means we can expect sand in the air and in your face. You have something you can use as a mask?”

The three men found pieces of cloth that would serve; one ended up tearing off a shirtsleeve to use as a makeshift mask. TT had a towel in his pack that would work fine.

“Do we need to fill up on water?”

“We just did,” replied Nadeen, “and we were told we’d reach Thace by morning.”

“Everyone good? TT?”

“Good to go.”

“We’ll handle security,” said Jake. “You keep an eye on your people. And look, if you see anything move, anything at all, you make sure one of us knows about it real fast.”

“Expecting anything in particular?”

“Poison-spitting lizards, venomous snakes, swordsmen wearing sand-colored robes, giant antlions that can snap a horse in half… that enough for you?”

“Yeah, that’ll do,” said TT. “I think we get the picture.”

“Nadeen, you see anything out there when you went out?”

“We’re on the eastern side of a pretty large outcropping,” she explained. “Reasonably flat, sloping up slightly all around, but I could see a couple hundred meters in all directions except the rocks, of course. We’ll have to check what’s on the other side when we get to the top of that rise, but there shouldn’t be any surprises waiting right here, at least.”

“Good. You take point.”

“Got it.”

“Beghara, do what you can on the flanks. I’ll bring up the rear. If there’s a problem everyone head for TT.”

He turned to TT.

“You herd the kittens.”

TT nodded.

“All I have is my Ka-Bar. You got a spare toad-sticker?”

Nadeen drew one of her swords and handed it over.

“I want that back,” she said.

“Pretty long,” said TT, swinging it for heft. “Never used one of these… maybe I’ll just stick with my knife for now.” He handed it back and adjusted his pack.

“Got any ammo you can spare?”

“9 mil, sorry. Your Browning’s .40-cal, right?”

“Crap. Yeah.” He turned to his team members. “Ok ladies, let’s get this parade on the road.”

It was almost a full moon now.

Nadeen scouted ahead, walking up the incline to look over the edge. After a minute she waved, and the rest of the party followed.

Jake checked the horizon for a landmark eastward… there was a nice triangle of stars just above the horizon almost directly ahead… It’ll do for now, he thought, until it rotates out of position. Have to check it every so often.

Nadeen was setting a good pace, and even the three scientific members of the team were keeping up so far.

He spotted a good-sized lizard hunting off to the side, but it was small enough to fear them more than he feared it. No doubt most of the wildlife around here has heard us coming and gotten out of our way. Hope we don’t meet anything bigger, though…

They walked for a couple hours, Jake changing his star target every so often as the sky whirled.

He was a little worried about their pace… the scientists were flagging a bit, unused to walking on sand, but he was especially concerned about Beghara. She looked dead-tired, trudging along on sheer obstinance. She was still sweating heavily in spite of the desert cold, and breathing hard.

They couldn’t keep this pace up until morning, and he sure as hell couldn’t carry her very far; she weighed damn near as much as he did!

Jake decided to start looking for a place to shelter during the day, and was just about to signal Nadeen to drop back so he could tell he when suddenly she crouched, holding up her hand.

TT immediately stopped the others, finger to lips, and got his knife out.

Jake and Beghara moved up toward Nadeen, keeping quiet.

“I heard a horse whinny, up ahead,” she whispered.

“How far?”

“Hard to say, but within a couple hundred meters.”

He hand-waved Beghara to stay with TT. She nodded and slipped back as Jake and Nadeen edged forward into a small outcropping.

They both jumped at the sudden voice from above: “I could pincushion you both with arrows where you stand.”

Chapter 8

Jake’s reflexes jumped him back, rolling and drawing his sword in the same motion even as he recognized the voice. A huge, black shadow leapt from the top to land on the sand a few meters distant. The other’s white teeth and eyes flashed brightly in the darkness.

“Danny! It’s you!”

“Of course it’s me, you idiot! Who the hell else would be out in this Godsforsaken desert in the middle of nowhere waiting for you to come bumbling along!”

“But how…?”

“An Ibizim told me you’d be along in a bit… we searched for you last night, too, but you didn’t show. So we came back tonight, and here you are!”

“Coming up!” came a shout from ahead.

Long’s voice, followed by the sounds of horses approaching.

“Sergeant! You’re alive!”

Sergeant Long emerged from the darkness, riding a horse and leading a few more.

“Good to see you, Captain. We thought you were all gone until the Ibizim showed up.”

“We’re good, but Beghara needs a doctor,” said Jake, reaching up to give him a wrist-shake.

“Who are your friends?”

“Later. What about Captain Feng?”

Danny looked down.

“Sorry, the Captain’s dead. So are Ng, Larb, and Malchinkhüü. Ridhi’s hurt bad.”

“Damn. And the Lady and her guard are dead, too.”

TT approached.

“Danny, this is TT. He’s a friend, but he’s new to this part of the world. Those three,” pointing to the three scientists, “are also friends, but not fighters. TT, Danny—Danryce—and Nadeen have been with me for a long time. Sergeant Long is part of the caravan guard.”

TT held out his hand, and Danryce clamped it in a wrist-shake.

It was the first wrist-shake ever for TT, but he’d just watched Jake do it a few times, and caught on fast.

Danny walked over the Beghara, who was leaning on her axe.

“Glad you made it, Beghara… had me worried.”

“And you, Danryce. They can’t get us that easily.”

He picked her up, heavy as she was, and carried her over to the horses, thrusting her up onto the closest one.

“You ride for now; we’ll be back in Thace soon enough.”

Beghara smiled.

“Nothing like a romantic ride under the stars,” she said, and slung her axe across her back again.

“We don’t have enough mounts for everyone, but it’s a short ride from here,” said Long. “Get everyone doubled up—except you two lardballs; you two ride single,” he warned pointing to Danny and Beghara with his chin.

Jake helped TT get his people up onto the horses, and showed them what to hang on to.

“Now let’s get the fuck outta here before Thuba Mleen finds us!”

Sergeant Long led the way.

* * *

They rode east through the desert for about half an hour until they saw the familiar time-worn statues up ahead marking the ancient trade route. Once they were on the road they increased their speed and reached the walls of Thace shortly.

Sergeant Long trotted ahead to talk to the gate guards, and they waved us through without any problem.

“Take them to the inn,” he called to Danny. “I’ll get the physician.”

He galloped off, and Danny pointed down one of the dark, dusty streets.

There were oil lamps scattered here and there, but the city was mostly quiet and empty as we clattered through.

The Spitting Toad was a small inn built close to the city wall, and even in the pre-dawn darkness had clearly seen better days. Still, they had a stable boy who was awake enough to take the horses, a fire still glowing in the fireplace, and a hearty welcome—Yeung and Lau, the archers, were there, with tattooed Serilarinna of Cydathria and Nnamdi.

Jake and Danryce picked up Beghara, each of them draping one of her arms around their neck, and half-carried, half-dragged her to the corner where another body was already lying on mats. She was only half-conscious.

It was Ridhi Chabra, sleeping or unconscious, bandaged wrapped around her upper leg with a smudge of crimson on one side. There was a bowl of water next to her, and a wet cloth folded up across her forehead.

Nnamdi hurriedly spread out another mat, and they laid Beghara down.

“How bad is she?” asked Jake, indicating Ridhi with his chin.

“Bad slash in the thigh,” said Danny. “Surgeon said he might have to cut it off if her fever doesn’t go down.”

“Jake,” called TT. “I’ve got some broad-spectrums left… we didn’t have many injured…”

Jake looked up, understanding the unspoken thought: most of his people died suddenly.

“If you can spare some we’d appreciate it, TT.”

TT dropped his pack and knelt next to it, pulling out a small medkit. He unzipped it and handed over a metallic strip with a dozen red pills. “One a day’ll do it.”

Danny and most of the others were staring at the medkit he was holding. Everyone watched carefully as he zipped it closed.

“What did I do? What’s the big deal? You never seen a medkit befo…. Oh.” He stopped and looked at the zippered medkit in his hand. “Never saw a zipper before, huh? Wow…”

He reached into his pack and pulled out another small zippered case.

He unzipped it, and touched the rolls of film inside, then transferred them to his pack.

“If we’re gonna be here for a while, I guess these photos won’t be of much use.”

He tossed the empty case to Danny.

“Here you are, your very own zipper!”

Danny caught it, raised it to his eyes to study it more closely. He pulled the tab back and forth a few times and grinned, then tossed it to Nnamdi to have a look.

Jake wrung out the cloth and wiped Ridhi’s forehead, then lay the cool cloth across it.

He punched out one of the pills and pried open Ridhi’s mouth.

“Give me a few drops,” he said to Nadeen, who moistened another cloth in the water.

He placed the pill as far back in her mouth as he could, then closed it after Nadeen dripped in a little water.

They waited for her throat to move, and Jake let out his breath as she finally swallowed water and antibiotic.

Jake sat back on his heels.

At last he could relax.

He closed his eyes, savoring the moment.

“I think you need an ale,” said Danny, and Jake returned to the present.

He looked up, stretched out one hand to Danny to help him get up, and the other for the mug of ale Yeung held out.

TT and the three scientists already had their own mugs, and the innkeeper was bringing a plate of roast meat. It was still predawn…pretty strange for any innkeeper to provide this level of service!

They sat and brought each other up to date.

After the Lady and her guard were killed and Jake’s party vanished, the desert assassins vanished, too, leaving their dead behind. Sergeant Long and the others were astonished to hear that the Ibizim has saved them, although he said he suspected it when one suddenly showed up at the inn a few days earlier and said Jake was coming.

They still had most of their horses, and even the carriage, although with the Lady dead it probably wasn’t needed. It had proven invaluable in getting the wounded—Ridhi and Larb—to Thace, though. Larb had died on the way, but with luck Ridhi might survive.

“Captain Feng, Ng, Larb, Malchinkhüü… and Bjørn and Renweard before that,” sighed Jake. “We still have a mission to complete, though, and with luck Lord Ganzorig will pay us what we’re due.”

“Oh, I don’t think payment is much of an issue anymore,” grinned Sergeant Long, pulling out a lumpy leather bag and dropping it on the table. “The Lady was carrying more than enough to cover our expenses, and keep the innkeeper very happy indeed.”

“That’s… gold?”

“Mostly. A little small change mixed in.”

“May I see it?” asked Professor Littlejohn, who had been listening to the conversation intently.

Jake waved at the bag, “Sure, help yourself.”

Johnny poured it out on the table… It was a diverse collection of coins of all sizes and shapes, mostly gold but with a scattering of silver, copper, and even a few orichalc. Round, triangular, a seven-sided flat coin, a four-sided pyramid of silver, all adorned with the faces of once-famous kings and emperors and gods, or worn smooth through decades and centuries of use.

The archaeologist picked them up one by one, studying them intently and murmuring to himself.

He held one unusually large disc of yellowish metal in hand, hefting it.

“This is marked with characters I’ve never seen before,” he said, holding it closer. “and what is this metal? It’s heavier than gold, and the color’s funny.”

Jake held out his hand.

It had an spiral inscription running one side—at least, he assumed it was characters, although he’d never seen anything like it. It sort of reminded him of Arabic, but this was a single line, jumping and darting left and right, with dots and marks on either side. Maybe more like a signal trace on an oscilloscope, he thought. Weird.

He handed it to Long.

“That’s T’pictyl,” he said after a glance. “Don’t know it, myself. Orichalc, of course.”

“T’pictyl? Never heard of it! Orichalc is famous in history and myth, of course, but I thought it was just brass…?”

Jake laughed.

“I warned you, Professor. You are living in a myth now, and if he says it’s orichalc, I’d believe him.”

“And what’s T’pictyl?”

Jake looked at Sergeant Long, raising an eyebrow.

“Legend says they’re giant beetles, the size of men, who created the gods. I’ve seen their writings here and there in forgotten places, over the years. It’s written vertically,” explained Long. “Never seen a giant beetle, though.”

“Orichalc… wow. I wish Alan was still here to look at this…”

“Who’s Alan?”

“Alan Helmsley. He was our geologist,” said TT. “The dinos got him.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard any legends of giant beetles,” mused Littlejohn. “We’re here, and we’ve still got scattered bits of equipment left, so apparently you can move things between home and here…”

“You had a lot of gear with you?” asked Jake.

“Oh, yeah, tons of cameras and measurement instrumentation and such. The dinosaurs got some of it, and most of the rest we threw away after the batteries ran out. Still have the film, of course, much good that’ll do us here…”

“Shit! You said penlights! Batteries!”

“Yeah?”

“Quick, give me your penlights and any batteries you have left. Everything electronic or electrical that might still have a charge left! Hurry!”

TT and the three scientists were taken aback at Jake’s sudden outburst, but scrabbled around through their bags and pockets to put four penlights (one broken), an assortment of batteries, and one Nikon light meter on the table.

Jake scooped them up and ran to the fireplace. He dropped them on the stone hearth, and picked up one of the large rocks lined up in front of it.

“Hey, what are you—”

TT’s shout was lost in the noise as Jake smashed the rock down on the batteries and lights, crushing them. He lifted it again, and a third time, until there was nothing but fragments left.

“What the hell, Jake!” cried TT, dropping to his knees to look at the pieces. “You fucking destroyed our lights!”

Jake sat down heavily, the rock falling from his hand to clunk on the floor.

“I’m sorry, I should have realized earlier. You can’t use electronics here, and probably not electricity.”

“You mean you don’t want to teach them about electricity?”

“No, it’s not that,” sighed Jake, catching his breath. “It’s magic, and yeah, I know you’re not going to believe me, but believe me. There’s a goddess or shaman or something running around that really hates electricity, and when she notices it she fucking destroys stuff. I mean, everything is just fucking gone.

“Remember I said I came here from Australia? I was a security guard at a mine. They discovered this portal, and had no fucking idea what it was, but when they prospected they found rare earths, so they set up a mine. Made a deal with a local trader, had a whole little mining town running.

“And then this bitch Reed finds out about the mining equipment and radios and shit and in the space of like ten seconds destroyed the whole thing. Huge fucking holes in the ground, spherical gouges where everything was just gone. Equipment, Quonset huts, people. Sonic booms as the air rushed to fill the vacuums where everything had been, and then just fucking holes.

“I was damned lucky to be far enough away to escape.

“Chóng never did find out how many of his people died, but probably well over a hundred.”

“Who’s Chóng?”

“The trader they dealt with here in the Dreamlands. And my current employer.” Jake stood. “Anyway, I’m sorry for destroying your stuff, but I’m not gonna fuck with electricity here again. That fucking bitch killed a couple dozen of my buddies, too, and if she never comes near me again that’ll be just fine.”

“Reed, you said?”

“Yeah. They said something about reincarnation and some god named Amaterasu.”

“Amaterasu is the Japanese goddess of the sun, and the mythical founder of the Japanese imperial line,” said Johnny. “Never heard of Reed; that’s certainly not a Japanese name.”

“Whatever. I’m more interested in staying alive,” said Jake. “You guys sure you haven’t forgotten anything? I’m dead serious—if you’ve got something hidden away, either give it to me now or get the fuck out of this inn.”

“Hey, easy guy, take it easy,” said TT, holding his hands up to placate Jake. “I’m sure that’s everything, but maybe let’s all take another look just to be sure, Ok?”

He turned to the three scientists, and they began rifling through their packs again.

One more tiny battery turned up, a button cell that was rolling around in the bottom of a pack.

TT gave it to Jake, and it was quickly smashed to join the others.

“Jake! Beghara’s waking up!”

At Nadeen’s call everyone turned to look at the corner where Beghara and Ridhi were lying.

Beghara was sitting up, sipping water.

Dr Geiszler walked over and reached for her wrist, and Beghara dropped one hand to her dagger, just in case.

“Easy, Beghara,” called Danny. “He’s a physician. Let him see.”

Nolan took her pulse, then unwrapped the bandage on her hand for a closer look.

“The wound is inflamed, of course, but it’s not badly infected as far as I can see,” he said. “Her pulse is strong, and her breathing’s good. Fever’s gone. As long as that bite doesn’t get infected she should be fine.”

He turned to Ridhi, taking her pulse, prying open one eye for a look, and then peeled back the bandage on her leg for a closer look.

“Not great, but stable, I’d say. Still has a fever, but she only just took that antipyretic a little while ago.”

He replaced the wet cloth on her forehead with a new one.

“We’ll just have to wait and see, but let me clean this. Can you boil some water?”

Yeung trotted over the fireplace where a huge kettle of water was boiling away.

“Plenty of hot water,” he said, bringing back a bowl full.

“Get that cooled down,” said Nolan. “and tell me when it’s about body temperature.”

Yeung began fanning the bowl of water.

Jake and TT sat back down at the table.

Beghara slowly stood, hand on Nadeen’s shoulder for support, and walked to the closest bench, sitting down with a thump.

“So,” said Sergeant Long, “what now?”

“We still have a job to complete,” said Jake.

“But the Lady is dead!”

“You all saw her body, I think… there never was a Lady, only a stratagem by Factor Humaydah to deliver something to Ganzorig, First Lord of Eudoxia. The Factor entrusted me with that message before she died.”

“So we are still under contract, then?” asked Beghara.

“Yes, and as part of that contract, I claim this gold,” said Jake, sweeping it all toward himself. “And, as part of that same contract, I will now pay out the amounts you are owed.”

“Master! A scale, please!”

“In a minute, in a minute,” came a response from the kitchen, and shortly a server came running with a small, handheld scale and weights.

Jake began weighing up gold for each member, paying them the funds that had been agreed upon for the entire trip to Euxodia. He also weighed the amount due the dead—Ng, Larb, Bjørn, Renweard, and of course Feng—and pushed the pile of coinage to Sergeant Long.

“Sergeant, I think you should keep this… you know who should get it, I think, and if they do not have families then of course split it amongst yourselves.”

“I… Thank you, Captain,” replied Long. “Ng Mei-Sun was not married, but he sent cash to his parents in Ophir. I know nothing of Larb of Baharna. Bjørn and Renweard had nothing but themselves.

“I will make sure that Ng’s parents receive his money, but propose giving the rest to Ridhi Chabra,” he continued. “She may never walk again, and will need all the help she can get.”

He turned to the others: “What say you?”

The others—Yeung, Seri, Nnamdi, Beghara, and Lau—all signed their assent.

He handed the piles of coins to each of them, set aside Ng’s pile, and then pushed the remaining, largest pile into a leather pouch.

“You put your own share into that pouch, too, Sergeant,” pointed out Jake.

“Yes, I did.”

Long placed the pouch next to Ridhi Chabra’s head.

“TT, we will be leaving for Eudoxia—a major city several days south of here, again through the desert,” said Jake. “I expect enemies to follow and no doubt attack us again. You are welcome to accompany us, if you like, and here are some funds to help you.”

He handed over another pile of coins, including the large orichalc coin that Johnny Littlejohn was so interested in.

“My recommendation is for you to travel south to the sea and then by ship to Celephaïs; King Kuranes was an Englishman, and would probably be able to help you all better than I can. Still, I’ll circle back here after the mission’s done, and escort you to Celephaïs if you can wait.”

“I don’t think taking these three men on a combat mission is such a good idea… would we be in danger here as well?”

“Only from the usual city thieves and robbers,” said Sergeant Long. “Thuba Mleen’s after us, not you.”

“Wish I knew more about the whole situation out here,” complained TT, “but I guess I gotta play what I’m dealt. We’ll stay for a while—maybe until Miss Chabra is back on her feet—and then head up towards this Celephaïs. Hopefully you’ll be back by then to help us get there.”

Jake nodded.

“Before we go, let me give you a copy of my map, and some info. You’ve got a lot to learn real fast, and no Google to help.”

“Google?”

Jake laughed.

“Sorry, I forgot. After your time. Uh, Google is a communications and information network accessed by mobile terminals. The successor to your ARPANET. Doesn’t really matter that much, since it isn’t here anyway.”

“Great. What other unobtainable surprises do you have to offer?”

“Shit, I’d love a drone right about now.”

“What the fuck is a… Never mind, don’t wanna know.”

“TT, can I rely on you to stay with Ridhi Chabra until she’s out of that bed?”

“I’ll be driving blind half the time, but it can’t be that much different from Vietnamese villages out in the jungle,” replied TT. “We’ll take care of her.”

“Thank you. The innkeeper has already been paid, but once we leave he’ll open it up to other customers, and you’ll have to move into that room in the back. I don’t expect anyone’ll bother you, but keep your eyes open.”

TT nodded.

“Now let me talk to my Sergeant a bit,” said Jake, turning to Long. “Oh, by the way… don’t chuck your brass, TT. I’m hoping to figure out a way to make reloads.”

“Don’t have many left: things were sorta busy.”

“Hopefully I can get new ones made, too… anyway, we’ll see.”

TT stood and walked over to his three charges, and handed Johnny the orichalc disc.

Jake and Long began talking about preparations.

“Do we need to hire more troopers?”

“Wouldn’t hurt,” said Long. “but we can’t hire enough to really make much difference if Thuba Mleen attacks… he can field hundreds of warriors. He must have hit us with a couple dozen, at least… speaking of which, what happened? As soon as you vanished, so did his troopers!”

Jake dropped his voice.

“How much do you know about the Factor’s mission?”

“Nothing, really… just deliver a woman to the Lord. Except obviously that was all just a ploy.”

“I don’t know much myself, but Chóng, Ganzorig, and the Ibizim are working together to stop Thuba Mleen. The message I carry is part of that, and the Ibizim saved us because of it.

“They only saved us because they could do it without being seen, in the sandstorm. It has to stay secret.”

“I wondered how you managed to kill so many of Mleen’s fighters…”

“They pulled us into a tunnel, and from there to safety. We walked through their Home, too.”

“You’ve been to Home!? It’s death to enter!”

“Apparently it’s only death if you’re uninvited…”

“Can they help us get to Eudoxia?”

“They said no, but they might be watching from the shadows. Could be useful.”

Sergeant Long digested the new information.

“By the way, we picked up your pack, with your spyglass and shimmer… and a few other things we thought might be of use. Didn’t know if you would be coming back for them or not…”

He handed Jake’s pack over, a little the worse for wear.

“Thanks. Both will be needed, I think. You have you own, right?”

“Of course.”

Jake sat back, and spoke in his regular voice so everyone could hear.

“So, I think we can assume Mleen knows where we are. He hasn’t bothered us yet, because he was searching for you. And now that you’re here—which he no doubt knows by now—he’s likely to come calling.”

“Yup. Which is why we have to be gone before he gets here.”

“Will they be alright?” Long tilted his head toward the four strangers, and Ridhi.

“Probably. Once we leave, four lost tourists and a wounded scout shouldn’t attract much attention.”

“You’re thinking speed over stealth, then?”

“All that rigamarole pretending to be a wedding party didn’t work… I don’t see any reason to believe we can sneak out of here, either. This is Mleen’s territory.”

“Not sure I take kindly being called a tourist,” said TT.

“Well, until you get up to speed on swords and bows, you’re closer to a non-combatant, I’m afraid,” said Jake. “A good swordsman would probably kill you before you got close enough to use that knife.”

“Only if he saw me,” smiled TT. “But I take your point. Dammit.”

“You know, Sergeant, we still have quite a large war chest, thanks to the Factor… I’m thinking maybe we should put it to good use…”

He explained his plan to the Sergeant, who spoke with his remaining troopers. They all slipped out of the inn shortly.

Chapter 9

Ridhi Chabra’s fever broke just as the sun was just peeking above the horizon.

She was weak and terribly hungry and thirsty, but lucid.

Nadeen and Danny helped her get cleaned up, and Nolan Geiszler gave them a quick course in how to keep wounds clean.

After she had a full belly and was up on the latest news, Sergeant Long told her they’d be leaving the next evening, and showed her the gold they’d left her.

Jake sat down next to her , assuring her he’d be coming back to Thace as soon as the mission was completed. “I’ll escort you back to your home, wherever that it, if you like.”

She had little to say… a fighter with a bad leg was unlikely to find much work, and a woman with a bad leg unlikely to find a good husband—except for very rich households, everybody worked. Her future looked bleak.

Jake dropped his voice and spoke to her quietly; the others gave them some space.

Nnamdi returned shortly with a load of paper, followed shortly by Serilarinna with a bundle of small cylinders, and sticks of wax.

As Nnamdi tore the paper into index-card sized pieces, Jake got a quill and ink from the innkeeper and began writing messages on them.

“EXACT FILMY GHOST LOWER PIZZA?” read TT. “Some kind of code?”

“A very secret message indeed! So secret that I haven’t the faintest idea what it means myself!” laughed Jake. “You know any languages other than English?”

“Vietnamese, a little Hmong, a little Russian, six words in French… what do you need?”

“Vietnamese, that’s great! Here, write something that looks like a coded message on some of these, will you?”

“Yeah, sure, but what’s the deal here?”

“I have to deliver a message to Lord Ganzorig in Eudoxia, and Thuba Mleen wants to stop me. I figured since he wants it so much I’d give it to him! In a couple dozen different ways.”

Nnamdi began writing out a handful of messages himself, in Arabic.

As each message was finished, they handed the paper to Seri, who blotted it, carefully folded it, and sealed it with melted wax and one of the many seals she had brought.

“Each one looks very official, and is written in some code, and is sealed by someone, so it must be important. Nobody will be able to actually read any of them, but each one will have to be taken to Thuba Mleen so he can see it,” explained Jake. “And there are going to be a lot of these things…”

“First batch is ready,” called Sergeant Long from the door. Lau Hu stepped inside and picked up a completed message, and a few coins. Outside in the sunlight he gave one of the sealed messages to the robed man waiting there, and then placed a gold coin on top of it.

“You can receive another from Lord Ganzorig of Eudoxia when you deliver this message,” he told the man, who examined the coin and nodded. “Tell him it is from Factor Humaydah, who promised you a gold piece on delivery.”

A few minutes later another fighter showed up, and Lau repeated the process.

Yeung joined Jake at the table and began writing messages in Chinese.

“How about mixing them up a bit?” he suggested. “Might be fun to have Arabic and Chinese on the same one!”

“Sure, go for it!”

Over the source of the day dozens of prospective couriers had come to receive their payments and instructions, and finally they were done.

Seri threw the wooden seals into the fireplace.

The couriers would leave whenever they liked over the next day and night, by whatever routes they liked. Some would travel by themselves, others in groups, but they were all headed toward Eudoxia.

Jake realized a few of them would just take the advance payment and run off, but that was fine, too… they’d still have received a message, and assuming that Thuba Mleen was watching he’d have to collect every one of them even if they didn’t head for Eudoxia.

As the last of the couriers left, the horses arrived.

There were two dozen horses, and after they were tied up to the inn’s hitching post, the merchant walked over to Sergeant Long, who counted out the agreed-upon price.

Humaydah’s gold was just about gone, but they wouldn’t have any more use for it after this, thought Jake. Either this plan works, or we’ll be dead. Or maybe both.

They split into two groups, Sergeant Long saddled up with archer Yeung, lithe Serilarinna, and Beghara, while Jake, Nadeen, and Danryce would ride with Lau Hu, the other archer, and Nnamdi, who favored a scimitar.

Each group took two spare mounts for each rider, and they checked every horse carefully. One horse turned out to have a bad hoof, and was left for the innkeeper. Another, blind in one eye, they decided to keep.

Water and food were distributed among the horses to minimize loads, but Lau’s load included three quivers of arrows.

Sergeant Long left in the early morning, before the sun got very high, and planned to stop at a known resting spot down the road, setting forth again in the evening.

Jake and his group would until nightfall, and would spend the rest of the hot day catching up on sleep.

Jake took the first watch, and at the noon Hour of the Horse collapsed into slumber as Nadeen relieved him.

* * *

The shadows were getting quite long when Nnamdi woke everyone. He had slept until Nadeen woke him at the Hour of the Cock, taking over guard duty until it was dark enough to leave.

After a hasty meal, Jake gave a few of their last gold coins to the innkeeper, requesting that he continue to help Ridhi and TT’s team.

“I expect to be back in about a week,” he said, shaking TT’s hand Western-style instead of with the wrist-shake they used in the Dreamlands. “If something happens, leave me a note, and I’ll try to catch up.”

“We will,” said TT. “You’re awfully confident you’ll be back.”

“I always come back,” laughed Jake. “Considering you’re about, um—ninety years old?—you take care of yourself, too!”

“Fuck you, Jake.”

“And you.”

Ridhi came to the door to see them off, supported by Nolan.

She and Jake exchanged a glance, and she nodded.

“Wait for us, Ridhi. We’ll be back as soon as we can,” said Danny.

“I’ll be here, but don’t dawdle or I’ll sign up with another group and get back to work!”

Danny smiled, and wheeled his horse to join the waiting others.

“Ready? Then let’s go,” said Jake, and they started out at a trot.

They were through the city gates a few minutes later, and back on the familiar store road, marked by the decaying stone statues. They passed a camel caravan about ten minutes later, a string of pack beasts carrying innumerable boxes and bales bound for Eudoxia, and from there to Adelma, Shiroora Shan, and the other cities on the shores of the Night Ocean, and beyond.

“Did you notice the guide?” asked Nadeen quietly, a few minutes later. “He was one of the couriers.”

“I did. Good luck to him.”

“Haven’t seen anything unusual yet, though…”

“Me neither. Hope it stays that way!”

They kept the pace for about an hour, then stopped to change mounts, and let the horses drink and rest. The moon was yet almost full, and the cloudless sky revealed the empty night desert stretching away on all sides. It would be difficult for an enemy to surprise them here.

They hoped to ride another seven or eight hours before finding a place to hide from the day’s heat. The following night should take them to the crags of Adelma, and depending on their speed they might even reach Eudoxia itself.

Several hours later, Nnamdi guided his horse closer to Jake and spoke in a low voice.

“There are at least two riders riding parallel to us on our right. They’ve been there for maybe half an hour now.”

“That didn’t take long,” said Jake, and signaled to Nadeen, Danny, and Lau in turn, holding up two fingers and pointing in the direction of the riders.

Lau Hu picked his bow up from where it was hanging on his saddle, and made sure the arrows in the front quiver were loose.

“Take Nadeen with you,” said Jake. “There might be more out there. And don’t chase them! We need you with us!”

“I’ll let my shafts chase them,” replied Lau. “I’m much too scared to get close!”

They unhitched their spare mounts, handing the ropes to Danny, and suddenly Nadeen and Lau broke into a gallop, breaking right.

It took an instant for the two pursuers to react, and in that instant the two of them cut the distance between them dramatically.

Lau began shooting from the saddle, quickly hitting one of the men in the shoulder and his horse in the flank.

The horse reared in pain, and the rider, caught off-guard in his own pain, was thrown.

Nadeen leaned from the saddle as they rode past and lopped his arm, sword and all, clean off, while Lau fired at the remaining rider. They’d lost their advantage, though, and the other man rode safely out of range, and into the darkness.

Nadeen cursed.

“Damn. One is better than none, but I really wanted to stop them from getting word out.”

Lau grunted in assent. “If they’ve been following us for any length of time, they’ve already sent a messenger… our best bet now is to get off the road, or ride a lot faster than they expect.”

They stopped to recover as many arrows as they could, and check the body.

The dead man had only a few coppers and a cheap sword, but he was missing his ring finger—common among troopers sworn to Thuba Mleen.

“If that’s the best Thuba Mleen has, we’ve little to worry about… not very impressive fighters.”

“Just chaff, sent to find us. Their real troopers will come next time.”

They led the wounded horse back to the road, removed the arrow, and cleaned the wound…. it wouldn’t be able to keep up with them, but they’d leave it here, and maybe a slower caravan would find it before it died of thirst.

“Lau? Nnamdi? What do you think?” asked Jake. “You’re more familiar with this area, and Thuba Mleen… hide, leave the road, or race on?”

“They can ride as fast as we can, and almost certainly outnumber us,” said Lau. “I’d say leave the road, even if it costs us a day.”

“Nnamdi?”

Nnamdi shrugged. “Who knows what Thuba Mleen may do? But he knows the desert better than we do, certainly, and if we leave the road we would lose our only sure guides.”

“So ride, then?”

“That’s my suggestion. Hiding won’t do any good; he’ll just keep combing through the area until we run out of water and have to start running again.”

“Nadeen? Danny?”

“I’m not much on hiding,” said Danny, “and I’m pretty fed up with wandering around the desert… I’d say ride, and fight if we have to.”

Nadeen nodded. “It’d be real nice to see open water again, even if it is the Night Ocean. Ride.”

“That’s that, then. OK, let’s change horses now and give them a little rest, then pick it up.”

They watered the horses, switched to fresh mounts, and got ready.

The desert night was chilly and light enough to ride the road safely… they’d have to move slower on the desert sand itself, or risk unseen holes and loose rock. Their horses were already a bit tired, but they’d been trotting, with breaks every so often… they’d be riding much faster now.

“We’ll have to let the horses loose,” he said. “It’ll be impossible to keep them roped when we start; hopefully they’ll tag long.”

He dug into his saddlebag and pulled out a few apples. Chucking them to the others, he cut his apples into quarters, walking among his horses and feeding them all: “Maybe if they want more apples they’ll tag along.”

In about ten minutes Jake mounted his horse, and the other followed suit.

“Let’s go.”

They broke into a fast pace, not a full gallop but considerably faster than the leisurely pace they’d set thus far. A gallop would tire their horses very quickly, and they needed distance more than they needed speed.

The other horses followed along behind, content to stay with the group for now.

The cloud of dust rising in their wake left a clear trail for any watchers to see, even in the night’s darkness.

They crested a small hill, revealing the road stretching away in both directions.

“Can’t see anyone,” said Lau Hu, straining his eyes. “As long as they didn’t kick up dust, though, they could be anywhere.”

“Let’s hope the one who ran away was the only watcher, then.”

The horizon was beginning to pale with the coming dawn when Danryce whistled and pointed off to the side.

Jake slowed to look… an outthrust of stone half a kilometer away looked to be a good place to camp for the day. No oasis, of course, but merely having a cliff nearby to hide the sun for a few hours—or more, if the shadows fell in their favor—would help. They still have water, and sunshades to cover them and their horses.

They circled around to the far side of the outcropping, out of sight from the road, and set up camp.

They did what they could to camouflage themselves, but it’s difficult to hide a herd of horses in the desert. The shimmer would help—Jake had gotten one from Sergeant Long in Thace; he kept the other one that Captain Feng had used—but it only hid them from people more than a hundred meters distant, and did nothing to block sound at all. Still, every little bit helped, and the fact that it would be a little cooler and darker inside was a bonus.

If they could keep the horses quiet and none of Thuba Mleen’s fighters stumbled close by accident, they should be alright.

They unsaddled the horses, watered and fed them, and prepared for another hot, sweaty sleep.

Danny lost and took the first watch.

Lau woke Jake up in the afternoon for the last watch.

“Anything?”

“Not really,” said Lau. “A single rider went past a few hours ago, out in the desert. Too far to tell if it was one of Thuba Mleen’s troopers or not, but he was in a hurry.”

“Might have been one of the people we hired to carry a message.”

“Might have been… didn’t see anyone chasing him.”

“Thanks. Go on, I’ve got it now.”

Lau Hu stretched out on his own bedroll, leaving Jake to check the horses and keep watch.

They couldn’t make a fire for dinner, of course—the smoke would give them away—but in this heat nobody really needed one. It would be another day of jerky, dried fruit, and stale bread washed down with hot water.

Jake wished he had a cigarette… he never had smoked much, but being forced to sit and wait for the sun to go down was driving him crazy. The desert was swarming with people who wanted to kill him, and he was stuck here watching the sand grow.

They should have had three horses for each of them, and swapping them out every so often had helped them keep their speed up, but that last spurt had cost them. Unable to keep the horses roped together, they’d let them run alongside, and two of them had decided to spit off and go their own way.

Maybe they got injured and slowed down, maybe they smelled water, he didn’t know. The key point was that they didn’t have three apiece anymore, and that meant the horses they still had would be working harder.

He checked them all carefully, and selected the biggest two for himself and Danny: the two heaviest riders. Nadeen was about the same as an average male trooper, but Lau and Nnamdi were both pretty small and light. The two of them got only one spare apiece.

A few hours later he woke the rest of the party and they got ready for the night’s ride.

Nobody had much to say, and the tough jerky kept them all pretty busy anyway.

“Tonight we’ll reach the Adelma mountains,” said Jake. “If the horses can hold the pace we might get within spitting distance of Eudoxia. I don’t think they spotted us here today, but once we start moving it might get real interesting real fast.”

Lau counted his arrows. “They might lose interest after I knock a few off their horses.”

“I hope there are that few,” grimaced Nnamdi, “but I don’t think Thuba Mleen does things that way.”

“We’ll find out soon enough.”

Jake stood, adjusting his sword belt.

“Shadows are getting pretty long. I want to push the horses tonight, hopefully they’ll last at least until the Hour of the Rat, and we can switch off to our spare mounts. We know we were spotted earlier, and it’s likely there are scouts looking for us.

“I’d rather outrun them than have to outfight them,” he added.

He checked his compass again.

“Assuming we’re where I think we are, just head for the mountains… once we get a little closer we can figure out the best route. And since we can see the mountains, I’d like to stay away from the road for now. We’d be faster on the road, for sure, but we’d also stand out.”

They mounted up and started off at a trot.

“If anyone sees a wadi coming down from the mountains tell me… we could make good time that way, straight to the mountains.”

“Assuming it doesn’t rain,” commented Nnamdi.

“Assuming it doesn’t rain,” agreed Jake. “A good bet in my book.”

They kept up a steady pace, but not a gallop. The horses couldn’t gallop very long without getting winded, and even at this relatively leisurely pace they were getting tired.

Jake pushed them more than usual—he didn’t like to do it, but they were getting close to Eudoxia, and if he had to kill a horse to get there safely, he would.

The desert was a study in contrast: the sand glowing almost white in the moon’s radiance, and shadows a deep black that would hide anything.

This eastern stretch of the desert was covered with crags and outthrusting rocks, with sand everywhere. When the wind blew, very fine dust got into everything, and could reduce visibility to a few dozen meters. When the air was still, he could clearly see the black shadows of rocks a kilometer away, and realize that a hundred enemies could be hiding there, unseen.

They stopped for their first rest about three hours later. The horses were panting, streaked with sweat, and eager to drink. They changed mounts and did their best to rest the animals. One more horse had broken away from the group, who knows why or where… it was gone.

Half an hour later they started off again, and two more horses—the pair that had carried Jake and Danny—followed them for a few hundred meters before falling behind, eventually stopping to rest.

Jake pressed on.

A few hours later and the ground was slowly rising, as they reached the edges of the desert and began entering the mountains.

“Somebody’s following us now,” called Nadeen. “Looks like about a dozen… too far to make out much detail, but they’re following our trail.”

“Damn. I was beginning to think we might make it.”

Jake checked his compass—straight on ahead, right between those two large outcroppings.

“A little faster, then… let’s get deeper into the mountains so they can’t encircle us!”

He picked his horse, urging it to go a little faster. There was no point in riding it to exhaustion, but he needed a little more, and the horse had a little more to give.

The others followed.

Danny was in the lead, with Lau bringing up the rear, but they were all pretty closely bunched. They had no carriage to protect this time.

Suddenly Danny’s horse reared, and leaped to the right, collapsing to its knees on the sand right next to the rocks, then staggering forward, eyes white in terror.

Danny barely managed to hold on, and would have fallen off if his shoulder hadn’t smashed into the rock face.

Sandroach!

Chapter 10

The horses neighed, bucked, and broke.

Nnamdi’s horse, perhaps too tired to pay attention, was unable to stop, and began to slip into the pit. Nnamdi leapt off at once, landing on the flat sand outside the pit, unable to do anything but watch as the terrified animal slid deeper and deeper into the sandroach’s lair.

A black pincer snapped out, a horse screamed, and died.

“Get them under control!” shouted Jake. “Get their blinders on!”

They yanked on their ropes, managing to bring their mounts under control, but all the other horses but one fled into the shadows around them.

“Can we get through on the side?” yelled Jake.

“Yes, there’s enough room. Be careful it doesn’t hit you with a rock, though!” shouted Danny in reply.

They tried it, gingerly leading one horse at a time along the narrow path between rock and pit.

The sandroach flung sand and stones at them, hoping to dislodge more prey into the pit, but outside of getting even more sand in their hair and eyes, they all got across safely.

“We’ve lost our spare mounts, and Thuba Mleen’s troops are coming fast,…” said Danny. “Time to find a good place to make a stand.”

Jake cocked his head.

“How wide would you say that pit is, Lau?”

“Wide? Uh, maybe thirty, forty meters… why?

“And the shimmer is good for about a hundred meters… so if I set up the shimmer here, and they come riding at full speed…”

Danny laughed.

“Oh, you’re a nasty one, aren’t you, Jake! But they won’t be able to see you on the other side of the shimmer.”

“Rope me; I’ll set it up in the pit,” said Jake, tying one end around his waist and walking toward the pit. “Pull me up when I shout, or if that damn thing knocks me out with a rock!

“Nadeen, hobble my horse so it looks like it’s got a bad leg. I want it to look wounded, or exhausted.”

He jumped into the pit, half falling and half sliding down the slope, and about halfway down stopped to place the incense holder, which held both the shimmer and the smoking incense.

“Stay lit, you son of a bitch. I’m counting on you!”

As soon as it was set he pulled away from it, sliding around the pit in the hope of getting any new rocks aimed at him and not the shimmer.

It worked, and he was rewarded with a spray of gravel and sand.

“Pull me up, Danny!”

The rope went taut, and he lost his balance, dragged up out of the pit faster than he could walk.

And faster than the sandroach could react, apparently… a pincer slammed into the sand where he’d been a few second ago, and by the time it was ready to strike a second time, he was almost at the pit’s rim.

“Well,” he panted, “that was fun…”

He sat up and untied the rope.

“They’re all looking for me, so I’ll let them find me,” he said. “Get behind those rocks, and get ready to take care of anyone who makes it past the roach. I’m going to play bait.”

He waved them off, and began slowly walking with his horse uphill, away from the pursuing fighters, as if trying to flee with a wounded mount.

Nadeen watched for a second, then wheeled her horse and followed after Danny and the others.

The horse was very angry about the hobble, and was not in the mood to walk. She bucked and pulled and generally acted like a horse that couldn’t be ridden… which was exactly what Jake wanted.

He heard shouts, and turned to face them.

He swatted his horse’s flank, urging it to continue up the slope to join the rest of the horses. It complied, hobbling along and complaining loudly.

Jake drew his sword, a lone swordsman preparing to defend himself again a mounted force that outnumbered him.

Seeing their prey at their mercy, they kicked their horses’ flanks, surging into a gallop, each eager to claim the bounty.

The man in the front saw the sandroach’s pit at the last minute, and tried vainly to pull his steed to a halt, only to be toppled in by a second horse close behind. One after another they tumbled into that hell of snapping jaws and flashing pincers, screams silenced all too rapidly.

Three managed to pull their horses to the side in time, avoiding certain death, then turning to flee back into the night.

“Thanks, bug… appreciate the assist!” said Jake, racing after his horse. He slashed the hobble free, and mounted, trotting up this hill to join the others.

“Worked like a charm!” he said. “A few got away, though… they’ll be back soon enough, and with a bigger crew. Time to get moving.”

The sandroach had given them a little time, but at the cost of their shimmer and most of their spare mounts… only two left for the five of them.

“We’ll have to try to make Eudoxia tonight, I think,” said Jake.

“Most of our waterskins are gone with those horses,” added Nadeen. “And no shimmer and low on water, it’ll be tough tomorrow. We have to make Eudoxia.”

The others agreed.

“The fastest way is down out of the mountains again,” suggested Jake, “and back into the desert. We’re getting out of dune country and into flat scrubland, so the horses can make some speed.”

“If they’re strong enough…”

“I don’t see any other choice,” said Jake, twitching the reins to guide the horse away from the snow-tip peaks ahead and back down toward the desert.

Fifteen or twenty minutes later they were out of the rocky area and back on mostly flat land.

The full moon was heading toward the horizon, but there was still ample light to see scattered cacti and scrub stretching to the dim horizon. Already the sky was lightening in the east.

They upped their speed, always heading toward Euxodia but letting the horses pick their own courses, for the most part.

A statue appeared off to the right—the road!

They angled toward it, then turned again to head for Eudoxia.

The roadway was buried in sand here and there, but they could see wheel ruts and tracks indicating that caravans had passed very recently. Clearly, this led to the city.

“Horsemen coming up on the left, Jake!” called Lau. “A lot!”

Jake turned to look.

He couldn’t see them too clearly yet, but Lau was right. There were a lot of them.

No time to put Danny on the spare mount after all.

He kicked his heels into his horse, goading it to put forth even more effort, but it was clear their pursuers were gaining.

An arrow hummed through the air over his head.

Damn. They’d pincushion them all, and nothing he could do about it.

Ahead of them, somewhere in the distance, was Eudoxia.

There was no way they’d make it.

He wondered if his plan had worked after all… looked like he’d never find out.

Suddenly his horse snorted, throwing its head.

Jake turned to see what had spooked it.

A tsunami!? Couldn’t be… a sandstorm?

A black cloud, a rolling, crashing storm of sand, came racing toward them from the direction of the city, and before they even had time to react was past them with not a single hair ruffled in the passing.

Behind them, though, it tore into their pursuers like the talons of a monster, ripping them apart, throwing them high into the air, shattering them in an instant.

Then it was gone, off like a light, and their horses slowed to a walk, and stopped.

Behind them, around them, scattered rags and broken bodies fell from the peaceful sky, decorating the whitish desert sands with bits of color and gore.

“…what the hell…?”

Jake laughed.

“Well, damn! That was good timing!”

“What just happened?” asked Nadeen in a tiny voice, still in shock.

“That was the Lady’s amulet, I suspect,” said Jake. “I think Lord Ganzorig just announced he doesn’t need Thuba Mleen’s protection anymore…”

“What amulet!?”

“The Lady wanted me to deliver an amulet to Ganzorig. The bride and the ‘secret message’ were just camouflage.”

“So how did he get the amulet, then? You have it, right?”

“Hell, no. I gave it to Ridhi Chabra when we left Thace, and she flew it here by dragolet. Like I said, I’m just bait.”

“You son of a bitch! We could have been killed!”

“Yup, me too.”

“And Sergeant Long? Does he know about this ploy of yours?”

“Nope, just me and Ridhi. Everything else was just a scam. And it worked!”

“Riders coming from the city,” said Nnamdi, pointing.

About a hundred horse warriors, lances high, rode toward them into the dawning light.

“If they’ve got lances,” said Nnamdi, “they’re not Thuba Mleen’s. Must be Eudoxia.”

With them rode Sergeant Long and Serilarinna.

As the lancers fanned out to make sure there were no more enemies lurking, they greeted each other.

“You made it.”

“We did. Not real happy to find out I was just bait, but it worked,” said Long. “Lord Ganzorig, on the other hand, is very upset with you because he had to pay a half a dozen couriers for worthless slips of paper.”

“He’ll get over it. He’s got the amulet now.”

They clasped wrists.

“Where’s Yeung?”

“Dead. Took an arrow through the chest.”

“Damn. And Beghara?”

“She’s fine. Real pissed at you, and said she’d rather drink alone.”

They let their horses rest and drink, then walked back toward the city slowly.

Yeung, Ng, Larb, Renweard, Bjørn… Feng! All gone.

And the Factor, of course.

Ridhi Chabra probably crippled.

Chóng owed him an explanation.

Whatever.

Chóng, and Ridhi, even TT, they could all wait.

For now, he wanted to get the sand out of his mouth.

END