Raya paused on a grassy hilltop and looked west. The valley between her and the next ridge was obstructed by the occasional cedar tree and a reed-robed pond. She looked back at Dondar, who groaned as he climbed the slope toward her. They had left Vagren three days ago, and left Olston after a short visit the day before. It was too costly to take the Crimson Highway, but the Radregar Highlands made the journey even longer.
“I’m starving,” Benn muttered, resting at a lean, with his hands on his knees.
Raya shrugged. They weren’t in any particular rush. Even though this was her fifth day since leaving Vagren, she was still thrilled with her return to the outdoors. The air was fresher, the sky wider. The sounds of birds had replaced the hubbub of peddlers. “We’ll have a break then,” she said, with a smile.
They had left Vagren a few days after that meeting with Lotha. The plan was to rendezvous in Ith once she had learned more of Dago and Nalisa Orr—if she learned nothing, she would meet Raya there in one month’s time. Raya hoped to know a lot more about Axar by that time.
“What’s your favourite food?” Benn asked, as they split a tough, two-day-old rabbit on a skewer. Dondar looked at them, smirked, and then kept eating the leg he had stolen for himself.
Raya considered his question carefully. “Once, for Santhee’s birthday, the town baker made cinnamon loaves, as a desert. They were delicious, but I’ve only had them a couple times before.” Even though she was already eating, she thought she started salivating even more. “You?”
Benn shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “A chef down the street from the Rest makes these fruit cakes and tops them with a warm, sugary gravy. It’s too sweet to have much, but I love it.”
“I should have tried it when we were there,” Raya said. They’d spent the last two Moons in Vagren, but hadn’t explored the street around the inn as much as they had the busy district around the Archives and Nalisa Orr’s house.
Dondar tossed the greasy bone he had finished onto the embers of their little campfire. “What’s the most dangerous creature you’ve seen out here?”
“Bandits,” Raya said, quietly.
Dondar chuckled. “True, that. You’re smarter than I thought,” he said. “But there are many things better at tracking you than drunk brigands.”
Raya paused. Benn listened intently, and she didn’t want to brag. “I saw a maned cat in the fields north of Olston once. Killed an oryx with ease. And I saw the bane hound that killed those villagers ten years ago.”
“In Mara’s Crossing?” Benn asked. “I’ve heard of that.”
“Almost killed everyone there,” Dondar said, gravely. The small ferry town had only a dozen inhabitants but a few children had gone missing first and even the town guard had been killed when the adults attempted to drive the fierce predator from their lands. Raya hadn’t seen much of the carnage it had caused, but she remembered riding south on a wagon with her father when the burly black canine had dashed through the shadowy hills out of the village.
“Do you ever hunt things that dangerous?” Benn asked.
Raya shook her head and smiled. “I don’t even kill oryx and water buffalo,” she said. “Just rodents and birds.”
Dondar stood up and gruffly kicked dirt onto their fire. “We can make it most of the way to Ith if we keep going,” he said. Raya shrugged, and gave Benn a smile. He matched it, and they followed their poorly-behaved escort down the ridge into the next grassy valley. The sun started to peak through the ashen clouds overhead, but there was still not rain.