“This is horrible,” Pressip said. The Numa native had spent his lifetime hunting in the humid rainforest. Despite his days learning the ways of the deserts, the Barren Road lived up to its name. There was no sand to blow at them, just arid, dead ground. In the heat, they had all stripped down shirtless. Tagg hadn’t even hesitated to display the spider-web scar tissue on his shoulder, nor his significantly less toned arms.
Vaenuth nodded to Pressip, and wiped sweat from her brow. “I thought our lands were the hottest. They always said they were…”
Tagg chuckled. “They say plenty.”
Pressip nodded and kept walking. They had left Sheld a few days earlier, but were only beginning the long journey. Captain Smetter and The Flying Hound had been dismissed from service. Vaenuth and her comrades would work or pay their way home, but could not afford to continue paying Ovoe’s valued captain any longer. He had left them with kind words and a compliment on their skills and dedication.
“We have to make this journey again?” asked Arloe. “Back to Sheld?”
Vaenuth shrugged, and felt salty water drip down her cheek and onto her bare shoulder. “If Lerran can give us the information, maybe we set sail from Lo Mallago.”
“Lerran won’t have the information,” Tagg said. “No one remembers their whole archive in the field.”
“Ovoe the Keeper would,” Krebin said.
Vaenuth laughed. “Yes, he would,” she said. But she knew even making a deal with Lerran would be unlikely to yield results so immediately. She caught Arloe looking at her in an inappropriate way, but he immediately looked away. She smiled. Even in the heat of the damaged land, men would be men.
“I’m sorry,” Arloe said, awkwardly, seeing her mirth.
Vaenuth shrugged. “Doesn’t bother me any. If it did, I’d wear a shirt.” There was no changing human nature, and Vae enjoyed keeping people on their toes, uncomfortable and malleable. Maybe she’d show Master Lerran of Sheld her tits too. She smiled again at the thought of her body being both the reason for this mission and the solution for it. The smile didn’t last. She would get rid of her tensions and dislikes when she carved up the slaver and her family. And one way or another, Lerran would help.
That evening, the sun set late and they sat around the smallest of campfires waiting for a few rabbits to roast. Vaenuth sipped from a canteen of wine and let Tagg share it with her. A band of light was left on the cloudy horizon, slowly fading, and they watched it together. “I miss Banno,” Vaenuth said. Her oldest friend, she thought, the burly black man had always been the one watching sunset with her.
Tagg said, “Alas, the days of sleeping on his shoulder…” They both chuckled at his sarcastic remark, but then he at last showed a more tender side. “Vae, you’ll always have me and Banno as friends. I know there was some tension after the Logren River fight… But we’ve got your back. I’ll fight whoever you want to fight, and Banno will keep providing for us, keep running his—er, your—caravan.”
Vaenuth nodded and took a sip of the wine. “I know. I’m not worried. I just miss him. You make me eat so my muscles can grow… Banno made me eat because he cared.” She felt like a crab inside a big shell right now, though her body mass had only increased slightly.
“Think you’ve got me all figured out,” Tagg said. “But you don’t.”
Vaenuth looked at him sharply, then smiled. She passed him the wine, and they looked back at the cloudy, night sky.