The sun was starting to set behind the Yurna Mountains, by the time that the camps around Nokire came into view. Banno barked out Vaenuth’s orders, assigning camping tasks to her workers—five names for setting up tents, three for preparing food, two for patrol and scouting the nearest camps. It was of great importance to know one’s neighbours, and their strengths and weaknesses. Continue reading Vaenuth 14
Across the desert fled the remnants of Vaenuth’s caravan. Her business was alright—as long as the white lead in two of their three wagons made it to Rainrest safely. It had been four days since the massacre, and the windstorms in the morning still meant their journey was slow. Rather than starting late, Vaenuth made her small group press onward. She didn’t want any of the town’s people coming after them. Continue reading Vaenuth 13
It was an incredibly windy day, and their fourth in the town of Logren. The sandstorm relented after noon and Vaenuth sent Crann with two of their wagons and most of her workers in the direction of the lead quarry. They had carefully planned instructions to deposit the contents of those wagons near the horizon-obstructing boulder two hours out of town. And then they were to return. Continue reading Vaenuth 12
Mae frowned when Vaenuth told him, over breakfast, that they sought white lead. They were eating a small meal of eggs and a flax porridge, with a very thin ale, at a table in Mae’s own house. It was unclear if he was the leader of the town, or just the look out who had been tasked with handling visitors. Vaenuth didn’t even know if the small settlement received any other visitors, or if her caravan was the first to warrant a host.
The big man at the end of the table finished his mouthful. “We cannot sell our white lead. It is too hard to procure. And too important” Continue reading Vaenuth 11
Even a week after their fight with the Slithers, Banno seemed bruised, battered, and exhausted. He did little speaking, but kept at Vaenuth’s side as usual. After a quick breakfast meal of nuts and some meats their hunters had cut from the carcasses of antelope and hawks, the caravan got underway. This time it was Hulean who struck up the conversation as they set out on the first leg of the day’s journey. Continue reading Vaenuth 10
The day after her ordeal with the Slithers, Vaenuth slept. Early the third morning, she climbed out of bed at last. When she finally dressed in her sand robe, covering her torso of tattoos, and left her tent, Tagg was sitting outside her tent polishing his iron sword with an oily cloth. “Banno?” she asked, quietly. She wiped her eyes. She was sore. Her whole body was sore.
“Vae? You’re awake!” Tagg’s sword vanished into its sheath, and he stood up, deftly. “Uh, yes, he’s asleep too. Or, still, I guess. And, Vae?” Continue reading Vaenuth 9
Banno and Vae crested another dune and looked around them, a full circle of the sandy horizon. To the south, the distant peaks of the Yurna Mountains were a dark cloud against the horizon, just a looming shadow that scraped the sky. Dawn was slow to arrive, a golden glow far behind them. The sky above was still dim.
They crested another dune. Banno tossed away the apple core he had been gnawing on, and looked at Vaenuth. “You getting tired yet?” Continue reading Vaenuth 8
The caravan rolled onward, toward Logren, in silence. After the eight deaths—the three scouts and the five sacrifices—no one had much to talk about. When they reached Logren, they would need to find some relief, some rest. Some fun. It seemed like such a bizarre, unworldly thought, to Vaenuth. She lived in a kill or be killed world, and fun wasn’t a luxury she could afford. Because she was not the blasted Eternal Emperor.
Banno wouldn’t leave her alone. “You have to eat something, Vae,” he would say. She had eaten almost nothing for days. She ignored his pleas.
As sudden as that first bloody demand had been, so too did the second one arrive. It was the religious hunter, Orsot. Or rather, it was just his head, lying in the sand, with a cactus page next to it. Blood was splattered all around, lowering the sand like it had melted. Continue reading Vaenuth 7
It was about two hours after noon when Vaenuth and her caravan came upon the bloody sign in the sand. They had already eaten, and a few members of the caravan emptied their lunch onto the desert dunes at the sight of three men, half-eaten, and their horses, in the same state. One of the men was completely unrecognizable, while the other two still had faces. An arm was missing here, a leg there. All three had been gutted. The horses were even scantier, most of their meat torn right from the bones. Flies and vultures had already begun to set in, tearing at the carcasses like the feast they had been made.
These three men had been scouts for Vaenuth, riding the dunes to warn of impending dangers or relieving sights of safety where they might be found. The Logren rivers were under ten days away, but these men had been killed without ever seeing them. Continue reading Vaenuth 6
Across the arid sand slid four reptiles, their muscular tails guiding them down the dune toward Vaenuth and Banno. Save one with a near-beige complexion, the Slithers’s scales were all a shade of bronze. They had no legs, just the broad serpentine bottom, narrowing to their tail, while their arms were covered in sharply protruding scales. Their sails, long spine-like ridges that protruded from the back of their torsos, were slack like windless banners. Two carried long rods of bone and black glass that dragged on the dirt behind them, while another held only a bundle of papyrus pages bound between two cured leathers. The armed Slithers approached aggressively, while the other two eyed the traders with uncertain and approached gradually. Continue reading Vaenuth 5