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.
Her scouts had seen a tribe in the distance, and, under Vaenuth’s directive, had left a trade rune in the sand for them, to see if the tribe would consider a negotiation with the human caravan. When the tribe stopped their progress and set up a makeshift camp using wooden rods and linen sheets, Vaenuth held up her caravan nearby and waited for their ambassadors. Vaenuth had rarely been invited anywhere near the Slithers camps, but she had encountered their traders many times.
After a few hours, these four had detached from the Slithers’s camp and begun wandering toward them.
“Can they understand me?” Hulean asked, quietly.
“Probably not,” Banno said, without hushing his voice. They were standing on a rock plateau that protruded from the side of a sandy slope.
Vaenuth stepped forward. Hulean had been full of questions, since they spotted the Slithers—he’d asked if leaving that trade rune was a smart idea. Wouldn’t it make them easier to track, a big symbol spelled out with rocks in the dirt? Vaenuth had looked at the new man and said, with a smirk, “This is their land. They knew where we were long before we knew.”
But now, facing the four unreadable faces, Vaenuth gave a curt bow of her head and then lowered the cloth in her hands so it was visible. The cloth displayed a few symbols based on the common human language, which, in the agreed upon trade tongue of the reptilian race, meant that they were interested in peaceful negotiation.
One of the bronze reptiles hissed to another, its forked tongue flicking out and its slit eyes not moving from Vaenuth’s. The leader’s comrade did as he was bid and opened their papyrus folio. The paler of the reptiles clicked to the leader, who hissed back. The one with lighter scales was female. They were always of lighter complexion. A complex conversation played out between three of the Slithers, while the last remained a stoic guard.
At last, the leader bobbed his head and gave an order to the communicator. Then came a dozen symbols, one for curiosity, one for colour, several others. The Slither who was displaying the runes then pointed, as delicately as he could at Vaenuth.
She started laughing and Banno chuckled too. Uncertain of the response, the Slither guard tensed. He had somewhat cloudy, and would be moulting soon. Slithers got fairly jumpy when their eyesight faded in such a way.
“What?” asked Hulean, stepped back a step.
“They want to know why I’m white,” she said, raising her open palms to resolve the tension. “They’ve never seen a white human before.”
Hulean shook his head. “Apparently, they haven’t heard laughter either?”
Vaenuth wasn’t certain how to best respond. She turned to Banno and he passed her a piece of charcoal and their book of chalked parchment. She wrote, “Different places, different colours.”
The Slithers discussed this new information. They asked her where she was from, and Vaenuth wrote, “Ocean.”
There were not many words for such things, for no Slither tribes had ever visited the ocean. The ocean of sand was their domain, and the ocean of water was humanity’s. Whenever that rune was used, the Slithers tended to stop asking questions about the topic, because they were unable to comprehend the answers.
But they had one more question for Vaenuth. The leader allowed the female to deliver the question to the translator. A long phrase of hisses and clicks followed, and then the papyrus panels read, “Permission. Contact. Colour.”
Vaenuth smiled, but Banno did not. “Don’t do it, Vaenuth.”
“Why not?”
“What’s going on?” Hulean asked.
Banno put his hand on her shoulder, and Vaenuth glared at her friend. “We’ve seen Slithers eat people before. Don’t give them a taste for…” he smirked, “white meat.”
“And I’ve seen humans eat their people too,” Vaenuth defended, and shrugged past his hands.
She crossed the sand by two steps, and their guard tensed, his obsidian bone spear going from straight up to an angle, but not far. The leader opened his mouth and spun on the guard, his angled carnivore teeth barred. Plenty of humans thought the Slithers were snakes through and through, with fangs and venom and all, but that was not the case.
When the guard stood down, the leader indicated to the female it was acceptable for her to continue. The beige-scaled reptile wove forward across the sand, her tail uncoiling and coiling again as she neared Vaenuth. Her ruffled sail, hanging from the back of her neck, was nearly white.
Vaenuth had never touched a Slither, nor been touched by one. She had touched snakes before, and a few non-poisonous amphibians from the wetlands, but she had no idea if this would be similar or not. She held her arm out, for the curious creature. “It’s fine,” she said, quietly. The Slither returned a quiet whisper, and reached out one of her scaled arms. She had small hands, compared to the muscular guard, with long fingers and small claws at the end of each.
Very carefully, the Slither reached out and placed her fingers on Vaenuth’s arm. They were surprisingly warm in temperature—Vae had always thought they were coldblooded— and the rough-looking scaly skin was as smooth as marble. She clicked from her mouth a few times and nodded her snouted, rectangular head to Vaenuth, like a bow, before offering her own arm for Vaenuth to touch.
It seemed only appropriate that she return the contact, so she touched the scaly arm, careful not to cut or catch herself on the outward angled beige scales. Then she stepped back, and the Slither used its tail to pull itself backward to its group.
Banno shook his head as Vaenuth returned to him. “It’s fine.”
The Slithers displayed a few symbols of gratitude, and then began to ask about Vaenuth’s purpose. They were a little disappointed, it seemed, that she was not interested in an extensive trade of goods with them—she had to get her trade supplies to the river towns to obtain the white lead. Despite that, they exchanged some foods. Despite their carnivorous nature, the Slither tribes enjoyed a variety of spices and salts obtained from humans regions. In exchange, they supplied Vaenuth’s tribe with some antelope meat they had caught recently, and a pack of herbs from rocky crevices and cacti.
That evening, as the temperature dropped, the Slithers set off into the cold night, while Vaenuth’s group huddled for warmth. By the time that the moon rose, she had joined Banno for warmth; they slept close together beneath a sheet. There was nothing odd about it, as many of the men in camp kept close for warmth too.
She awoke at some point in the middle of the night, and found herself crying. She wasn’t certain what memory had brought her to that state, and she dried her eyes, hoping that her big furnace of a friend had not been stirred by her dreams and seen her tears. It would only concern him, and she wouldn’t have any of that. She lay awake for the rest of the night, eyes staring into her dark tent.
They were still fourteen days, close to three weeks, from the Logren Rivers.