“We’ll keep up through the northward swells until we find a good path westward,” Peary said. “That’ll make our trail look right in case anyone is following us.”
“They’re following us,” the Poet said. “Sure enough they are.”
After so many days on the sand, they were getting used to the Poet’s dark comments. Marisa swallowed some berries and caught the Poet’s eyes. “You’re a pessimist.”
“I’m a realist. Been on this sand long enough to know what’s what, too.”
Peary didn’t speak, but he walked back up the southern dune and looked out as far as he could, something he’d done at every stop over the past few days. He didn’t make out any sails moving their way, but that didn’t mean they weren’t out there. Walking back down the dune, he indicated with his hand that they needed to load up. “We need to keep moving,” he said. “Maybe the Poet is right. Maybe he’s wrong. But sitting in one place too long isn’t a great idea.”
“When do we split the loot?” Reggie said with a laugh.
“We’ll wait to see if you live, sandal hop,” Peary said. Marisa had told him that Reggie’s temperature had started to climb over the last few days, and she was worried that infection might be setting in. “Splitting it now would be like dumping it in the sand. You have nowhere and no way to go, so we’re stuck with you.”
“Yeah, but if we split it now, I can die rich.”
“Or I can leave you here and you can die sand-poor.”
“That’s the thanks I get for saving your lady?” Reggie was still laughing. His voice was weak, but he was always in good spirits.
Against his will, Peary was beginning to like Reggie. In a way the sandal hop was like a benevolent version of Cord, just passing the time. Reggie seemed to Peary to be mostly harmless. Still hard to tell, but mostly.
“I thanked you already when I didn’t shoot you before,” Peary said.
“If not dying is the same as being rich, then I’ve been rich all my life,” Reggie said in a mock-serious tone.
“We’re moving now,” Peary said. “Do you want to stay here or go on with us?”
“What? Stay? And let you all split the coin? Nah. I’ll go with.” He looked at each of them in turn. “You three are the only family I have.”
Peary looked at Marisa and nodded at Reggie. “How’s he doing?”
“Still too early to tell,” Marisa said. “I’m not happy that he seems to be running a fever. But if he can beat the infection, he’ll do all right.”
“You know,” Peary said with a slight grin, “by saving his life, you’ve cut our wealth down substantially.” He meant it as a joke, but Marisa didn’t seem to be in the mood for jests.
“He saved my life,” she said. “And I’ve never cared about the money. I care about you.”
Another three hours northward and the first graying hints of darkness were starting to touch the eastern horizon. Around them, the dunes began to be mottled with lengthening shadows streaked by bands of fading light. They’d passed by two fairly large tent towns on their route northward, and in both they’d stopped to take on water and ask around about Danvar. The latter was in order to assuage any suspicion from the migrant tent folk. Peary knew that if his group came across as just another band of Danvar searchers, they’d fit right in and not attract too much attention.
All anyone in the trading towns wanted to talk about was Springston though, and no one had any new information about Danvar—although it was very unlikely that anyone who knew something about the search for the lost city would reveal anything of substance about it. Still, from the people’s demeanor, Peary got the impression that no one knew anything at all. After refilling their canteens and loading up their water skins, they’d pressed on northward, trying their best to look like sad latecomers to the frenzied search for buried riches.
Peary raised his hand as they pulled up near a sandcross—the natural intersection of valleys between swells of dunes. The conflicting winds here had made a clean route through the highest dunes to the west.
“Here’s where we turn left,” Peary said. This valley is our pathway toward the mountains… and whatever lies beyond them.”
As Marisa put together a light meal, cooking it in a pyrinte ring to keep the smoke to a minimum. Peary hiked back to the south to spy out any tails they might have picked up.
Peary was still a young man, full of life and vigor, but the stress and pressure of the last few weeks had taken a toll on him. Climbing up the huge dune to the south of the sandcross was a chore after a long day of sailing. He struggled against the shifting footing as he climbed the dune, pushing with his hands against his knees with every step, feeling the sand give way under his boots as he strained upward. Unsteady earth, he thought, unfit for any foundation at all.
Maybe it was the weariness of a life lived in the endless wastes, or maybe it was the hope that in a few days—or maybe a week at most—they’d break free from the gravitational pull of the dunes and reach the foothills of the mountains to the west. Altogether, he’d had enough of this old life, and if there was a way to just blink and carry himself and Marisa to a newer and better world, he’d do it. He’d do it and never look back.
The dune got particularly steep near the crest, and he had to lean forward and steady himself with his hands. The sand fought his desire to gain purchase. His fingers dug into the grit, pulling against this land that gave way with every grasp. Like life itself, the world was a wisp that was never solid enough to hold tightly.
He rested for a moment, realizing he needed to make a dash for the top. Sometimes forward momentum was all a man had to push himself that last dozen meters. He took a deep breath, lowered himself, and lurched forward and upward, pushing hard against the sand despite its insistence on fading away beneath his feet. When he had a meter left to go, he dove forward and crawled the last bit.
Winded, he rolled over on his back and looked up into the darkening blue of the evening sky, sucking air through his ker like he’d just surfaced from a dive. Again, he saw a sand hawk circling lazily overhead. He had to turn on his side to watch the bird float down and alight on the very tip of his sarfer’s mast.
When he’d caught his breath, Peary rolled over onto his chest and pushed himself to his feet. He stood tall and stretched himself, still weak from the climb.
And that’s when he saw them. They were in the far distance, almost over the horizon, but he saw them: just the tips of sails moving northward through the valley. Dozens of them, it seemed, racing one another through the wastes. Miles away still, but closing quickly, sheets billowed out against a rear-wind, some of them red, but not all.
The realization of what he was seeing flowed over Peary like the sand. A mixed salvage crew. Some from the Low-Pub Legion, others from another crew, or maybe they were freelance pirates, chasing riches and heading his way.
“Cord,” he said under his breath. “And Joel, too.” No crew would be this far west and south looking for Danvar right now. No. These were brigands, outlaws, looking for Peary, his coin, and probably a guide to take them to Danvar.
So much for blood being thicker than water.