“Dull,” Challie called from the back.
“Painful,” Lucy added. She held up her hands to examine the new calluses on her hands.
“Cold,” said the dwarf.
Lucy began to tap her hand on the sideboard and chant.
“Sweat at noon.
Freeze at night.
Endless wind.
Nothing in sight.
“Dunes of sand.
An empty waste.
We cook for the Khurs,
Who have no taste.”
She was rewarded by a dry chuckle from the rear.
“I’ll be sure to write that down,” Ulin said in tones as arid as the land around them. Things were getting bad when drivel like that was entertaining. Not that he disagreed with them. Their choice words for his imaginary journal were well chosen and could be repeated every day for the past twenty-eight days.
In the beginning, the journey had started with some variation and interest. The caravan slipped out of Sanction in the dead of night on a bleak path that skirted the large camp of the Knights of Neraka, who guarded the east pass. From there, the caravan wound through the Khalkist Mountains just north of the ogre realm of Blöde. The path was narrow and rough, full of ruts and rocks and holes big enough to break an axle, but it was a road. It wound beside a narrow, rushing river for some miles then began the steady and arduous climb over the high mountains.
It was then that Ulin began to develop a real respect for the drivers of the wagons and the small, tough oxen that pulled them. There were ten cargo wagons in all, with narrow beds and canvas tops that held a mixed cargo of fleeces, bags of pumice, a large box of wool dyes, and a few cases of delicacies such as dried mushrooms, bottles of Sanction wines, and dried fruit. Each wagon had a driver who drove his four oxen with only a whip and his voice, a skill Ulin could not master no matter how often he tried. Fortunately, Akkar-bin, the caravan master, took pity on his oxen the second day and produced a pair of bay draft horses for the cook wagon. Ulin ignored the brands of the Dark Knights on the horses’ hips and did not ask where they came from.
In addition to the drivers, there were four assistants and ten heavily-armed guards who rode nimble-footed Khurish horses at the head and rear of the train. Including Ulin and his companions, the caravan had a respectable number of twenty-seven, a number large enough to discourage all but the largest bands of brigands.
Ulin struggled for several days before he learned the knack of cooking for so many hungry people. After the second night of burned potatoes and skimpy helpings, the swarthy Khurs warned him he had one more night to prove himself or they’d stake him to a boulder and leave him for the vultures. Ulin took no chances. He cooked a simple stew based on one of Tika’s recipes, and he tripled the ingredients. The Khurs devoured all of it and gave him a reprieve for one more night. Each night it was the same. He would cook vast amounts of something simple and filling, and the Khurs would eat it and give him one more night’s reprieve.
It did not take long for Ulin and his “helpers” to establish a routine. Every morning before dawn, he, Lucy, and Challie fetched water, lit a fire, cooked gruel, bacon, and fry bread for breakfast, harnessed the horses, scrubbed the pans, packed the wagon, and drove through the day over the mountainous roads. At dusk they set up camp, built a fire, fetched the water, cooked the dinner, cleaned the dishes, tended the horses, and prepared for the next day. After a few hours of sleep they repeated it all over again. Ulin could not imagine how one man could do it alone.
Once the caravan descended from the mountains, it entered the desert wastes of the Khurs and the arid domain of the red dragon overlord, Malystryx. The work routine continued much the same. Only the landscape changed from rock and mountain to sand, barren hills, and scattered oases that were hot by noon and shivering cold by night. The drudgery of work and travel continued, with only one short break when the caravan reached the city of Khuri-Khan and paused for a day while the caravan master reorganized his master’s wagons and drivers and sent the new train on to Flotsam.
Ulin often wondered during the long hours of driving through the dreary, dun-colored landscape of what used to be Balifor, if this was worth the intensive effort.
Now that the trek was almost over, he could say “possibly” it was. They had saved some of their coins and earned enough to buy a wagon for the return to Sanction. They were all toughened by the work and the difficult travel, and they had learned a few things from the Khurs: how to prepare kefre, how to spice a stew so it burned off several layers of one’s tongue, and how to wrap a burnoose to stay on in a sand storm.
Best of all, to Ulin’s mind, Lucy had learned to cook. At least she could start a fire and boil water now. Together, they made a good partnership.
“Akkar-bin is coming.” Lucy broke into his thoughts.
Ulin straightened and saw a rider trot his horse down the file of wagons toward them. Akkar-bin, the caravan master, looked grim when he wheeled his stallion around beside the cook wagon-but then Ulin had never seen him look any other way. The man was the most laconic, humorless barbarian he had ever met, and not once on the long trip from Sanction had he seen him laugh. At least Akkar-bin wasn’t arrogant or contemptuous of the foreigners in his caravan like some of his guards. He was too emotionless for that.
“The point guard has found sign of draconians,” Akkar-bin said without preamble. “We’ll stop early tonight.” His horse sprang forward, and he rode back up the line without further explanation.
Lucy watched him go. “Wonderful. I suppose that means we won’t get to the watering hole tonight, which means no water.” She swiped her sleeve across her forehead again, wiping the dust and sweat off in muddy streaks.
Ulin made no comment. The news of the draconians did not surprise him. He knew bands of draconians, goblins, ogres, brigands, and exiles roamed the desert. Some were in the service of Malys and patrolled her extensive holdings. The more desperate ones were out for their own survival and attacked likely caravans or travelers at every opportunity. The caravan guards had seen indications of some of the marauders before, but this was the first time Akkar-bin decided to stop the caravan before sunset. Not that Ulin faulted him. He knew from experience that draconians-the foul, sentient spawn that were hatched years ago from corrupted eggs of good dragons-were ferocious fighters. The caravan would need to prepare.
Behind the caravan the brassy sun dropped slowly toward the blurred horizon where the desert faded into a sunburned sky. There was no wind, so the dust stirred up by the wagon wheels and oxen hooves hung like smoke over their heads. In three hours time it would be dark. If the draconians were out there, they would probably attack after nightfall.
Ulin scanned the desert. The land all about was drab: faded browns, tans, reds, and shades of sand. Seen from afar the desert looked like a wide, featureless plain, but in fact it rolled and rippled in solid waves, a tidal pattern engraved into the land by the wind. Here and there, tumbled, twisted ridges of rock broke through the sand and provided meager shade for the stunted, scanty shrubs that struggled to grow. It was a land that required determination to survive.
As Ulin studied the line of far hills to the east, he noticed a hint of green where late spring rains on the coast encouraged grasses and low trees to grow. They were so close to Flotsam, he fancied he could smell the sea breeze, yet he knew their proximity was part of their danger. The caravan was barely twenty miles from Blood Bay, which was close enough to the coast for marauders to find shelter but too far for travelers to expect help. If only the caravan could just keep moving until they reached the streets of Flotsam. Ulin was more than ready for this journey to be over.
Ulin raised his gaze to the vast darkening sky and studied it like a man hungry for something he cannot find. There was no sign of Malys. The monstrous red was probably in her volcanic lair in the midst of her Desolation to the southeast of Flotsam. But Ulin was not looking for her. He searched for another dragon: a gold named Sunrise who had become his friend, his soul mate, and his partner in magic. Sunrise had helped him years before in a confrontation with Malys and had saved his life more than once, but when magic began to fail, something happened to the young gold. For no discernible reason, Sunrise vanished without a trace. Ulin was still puzzling over the missing gold when his young wife and their two children died in a terrible plague, leaving the young mage empty, aching, and reeling from his losses. Even then Fate was not finished with the son of Palin Majere. A year later the forces of the green dragon, Beryl, destroyed the Academy of Sorcery-with some inadvertent help from Ulin-and captured Palin. Only Lucy with her strong heart and her shining, green eyes had held him back from the abyss of despair. Although he was forced to accept the painful truth that his wife was gone, Ulin could not quite believe or accept that Sunrise was dead. Somewhere, sometime, Ulin hoped he would look up and see the dragon’s golden form winging toward him.