I told her we were moving east, and she said the boat they were on was sailing in the same direction. They had seen two separate groups of soldiers marching to the west, to where they had last been seen. They planned to sail and row all night, through the narrow passage from one lake to another.
*Won’t that be dangerous?* I asked.
*The old fisherman says it had never been guarded before, besides, all the soldiers are heading upriver. If we see any sign of trouble, we’ll move away from the passage and try going around on land. There will be other boats we can steal if we do that, Coffin said.*
I flashed the image of a freed bird to her as a way of ending the conversation. As I started to call to Kendra and relay the information, the image of a fish swimming past a net filled my mind. I chuckled at Anna’s humorous imagery. I used the freed bird for her, she used a netted fish. We looked at the same things differently.
The late afternoon had heated the rocks and sand, but as the sun sank, the air cooled. We rode steadily, always looking around to see what might be attacking next. We saw nobody and not a sign that anyone had ever ventured into the desert we crossed. They may have, but we saw no discarded items, abandoned huts or houses, no rings of rocks that had been firepits, no roads, and only a few trails that animals had used.
To the world, we were alone.
The horses carried us into the night, never faltering, slowing, or complaining. We rode through a darkness so clear and crisp that each star was visible. Our blankets were around our shoulders, and near the middle of the night, I placed mine over my head to warm my ears. Kendra was in the lead, never halting and seldom slowing.
She moved as if possessed. Or scared. Stopping gave our enemies time to find us or catch up. She wouldn’t allow that. The moon gave more light to navigate the rocky ground when it rose.
I wanted to find trees to shade us, and near dawn we did. The ground dipped, and a dark line told us where a river had once flowed. When we reached it, we found a thin trickle of brown so narrow we could step over it. But alongside the banks grew trees, many of them dead.
However, a few survived, and we found a small grove where five or six grew near each other. We let the horses drink water at the river, then staked them in the grove near where we intended to sleep.
There was little for them there, but staking horses makes them easy targets for wolves or other predators unless kept close. Keeping them near us might keep them hungry until dawn but would also keep them alive.
Anna came into my mind. *Can’t talk now, but we’re safely through the narrows and rowing to deep water.*
*We are also doing well.*
Her presence winked from my mind leaving me to feel awkwardly alone. That explains how ingrained and ordinary feeling our method of communications had become, and I felt sorry for anyone who couldn’t duplicate it. I told Kendra what she had said, and when I looked at her a last time, a smile was on her lips. I went to sleep happy.
We slept through the morning coolness and the first harsh rays of the sun. Near midmorning, I awoke sweating and sore from the all-night ride. We’d chosen our place to make camp well, with one major exception. The sun struck with brilliant sunlight. A shadow behind us indicated that as the sun rose higher, we’d be in the shade again.
I went to the horses and watered them, feeling guilty at providing only sluggish brown river water when I could make better. Then, to wash the mud from their mouths, I led them to a patch of green, knee-high grass. The horses didn’t hesitate to eat. Mine seemed to look at me in appreciation a few times as if we were old friends—or it may have been scared I’d pull them away from their first good meal in days. It’s hard to tell with horses.
I didn’t believe they would leave the lush grass for anything, so I climbed the bank with the intent of doing a little exploring. Unlike before when I’d searched the four directions, then the up at the sky, I had learned. I looked up first. There were no Wyverns.
I stood on a small hill, just tall enough to allow an unrestricted view all around. After looking in three directions, I turned to face north, where the chain of lakes and our friends were located somewhere over the far horizon. It was as empty and barren as the other three, until a tiny flash, a glint of sunlight off glass or metal, caught my attention, not once, but twice. It was no mistake.
The location held my attention for a time, but the flash didn’t repeat. I’d never seen or heard of such a thing in the natural world, except for sun on water, which was not what I’d seen. Sunlight reflections of the type I’d observed came from things made my man. Glass and metal, perhaps other things.
What was important was that I believed the maximum distance I could see a reflection like that would be less than a half day's travel, probably closer. It didn’t mean there were soldiers a half day from us . . . but it might. No matter what the cause, we needed to know.
A mental map of what I remembered of the area formed in my head. I knew we were a day’s travel south of the lakes, on a line below Kaon, and a full day’s travel east. Two more days to the coast. A day and a half to be directly south of Dagger. There had been nothing on the map to indicate a town, or the presence of enough water to support life. The Brownlands were stark and devoid of life because of the lack of water.
We had hoped to pass by Dagger without incident or sighting enemies—and that they didn’t sight us. However, we were getting low on food. We’d eaten the last of our meager store yesterday.
I’d heard all my life that a person can go thirty days without eating, but only two or three without water, and in the Brownlands, that time was cut in half. I’d heard that, and believed it was probably true, but didn’t mean that the person going thirty days without eating would be happy about it. I was hungry.
Worse, Kendra was a bear when hungry. She was a bear when a meal was served late. She took it out on anybody around her—and right now that was me. If the flash of sunlight meant people were nearby, they might have food to spare. If it was our enemies . . . well, we needed to know that too. Maybe we could steal their food.
I went back to the horses and pulled and tugged until getting them to leave the grass for the dried leaf-coated ground where we slept. Their protection was more important than more grass, and they could eat again after we woke. I tied them securely to a low branch and moved my blanket to the edge of the shade, all done as quietly as possible. Waking a tired, hungry, sister to tell her to move her bed didn’t appeal.
I fell right to sleep.
When I woke, Kendra was up. She had the horses at the patch of grass near the riverside and saw me stand. She returned to camp, leaving them to graze in the only grass in sight. She said, “You know how you always complain about how a true mage makes storms and such, and you’re so proud of yourself for making that little raincloud that barely got us wet?”
I nodded my agreement. What she said was not totally true, but she was heading somewhere by opening the conversation that way. Before responding, I needed to find out where the conversation was going so I could defend myself.
She continued, “Well, I was thinking. How small can you do it?”
“Small?” The question was completely different from what I’d expected, and she hadn’t complained about being hungry once.
She held out her water jug and pointed at the top.
“You’ve got to be joking.”
She shook her head. “I don’t want to get a rain-bath every time I want a drink. Instead of objecting so fast, just think about it. Like you did that time when you put the spot of water you placed on the crotch of a young royal, Lord Kent, who was being offensive to Princess Elizabeth at Crestfallen. Remember? Do the same, but with a little more water.”