The people of Xhaxhu wore simple, one-piece, short outfits in vibrant colors. There were pinks and bright blues, yellows and oranges, with fancy beadwork around the neck and sleeves. On my first trip here, everything had appeared bright and lively. But now that they didn’t have enough water to wash themselves, let alone their clothes, the bright colors had become muted and dingy. That pretty much described the city itself. Dingy. The lush, green palm trees that lined the streets now looked like a fence of dead poles. No music played. There was little conversation or socializing of any kind. The whole city, including its people, seemed as if it was drying up and turning into sand.
“What’s the deal?” I asked Loor. “Has it totally stopped raining?”
“That is part of it,” she answered. “But we do not rely on rain here in Xhaxhu. We are nourished by the underground rivers of Zadaa. That is where the true problem lies.”
“What’s happened to them?” I asked.
“That is the question.” Loor answered. “The only question that matters. The answer will determine the future of Xhaxhu, and of Zadaa.”
“And Halla?” I asked.
Loor shrugged. There still was no proof that Saint Dane had anything to do with any of this, but when you found a territory in trouble, with people suffering and ready for war, chances are Saint Dane was lurking around somewhere.
“So then why did this happen?” I asked. “I do not know,” Loor said. “That is what we must find out.”
We trotted to the outer border of Xhaxhu, where there was an immense, stone wall that circled the entire city. I’m talking huge. This wall must have been five or six stories high and made out of giant, truck-size boulders. I didn’t want to imagine how much backbreaking work had gone into building it.
“The wall is for protection against invasion,” Loor said, reading my mind. “The Batu and Rokador are not the only tribes of Zadaa, but we are the most civilized. There are many tribes in the desert who live like animals and feed on one another.”
“You mean they steal stuff from each other to survive?” I asked.
“No, I mean they feed on one another. Many of the tribes of Zadaa…are cannibals.” Oh. Nice.
“The Ghee are trained to protect Xhaxhu, which in turn protects the underground of the Rokador. This wall is our first line of defense. It is also protection against the elements. A windstorm could rise up with no warning and pelt the city with sand for hours.”
As we trotted through a break in the wall-there was no door-I saw that there were giant sand drifts rising up against the outside of the wall.
“How often does a storm come up?” I asked.
“Often enough,” Loor answered. “It can be devastating. I hate to think of how Xhaxhu would handle a storm now, when we are so weak.”
I briefly wondered if Saint Dane could possibly cook up a storm, but decided that as powerful as this guy was, he did have his limits. I didn’t think he could change the weather. At least, I hoped he couldn’t.
Loor led us a few hundred yards away from the walled city to another, smaller wall. It wasn’t as tall as the protective wall around Xhaxhu, but it was long. We were at a corner. The wall stretched out for what might have been a mile on either side.
“This is what I want to show you,” Loor said. “This is one of the farms where food is grown for the people of Xhaxhu.”
A minute later we trotted through an opening in the wall. What I saw inside made my heart sink. Xhaxhu was a big city, with a lot of mouths to feed. I expected to see rows of crops, like on the agriculture barge of Grallion on the territory of Cloral. Well, I didn’t. All I saw was sand. Lots of it. We walked our horses toward the middle of the field, their hooves kicking it up. The place looked more like an archeo-logical ruin in Egypt than a farm. The emptiness was eerie.
Loor must have been reading my thoughts, because she said, “The farmers have given up. Without water to irrigate the crops, there is no need to plant, or fertilize, or even to keep back the sand.”
“Okay, dumb question,” I said. “How important is this farm?”
“There are seven that feed Xhaxhu. The farmers have diverted what little water is still available to three of them. But the food grown on three farms is not even close to being enough. We are dipping deeply into grain reserves. We do not expect they will last long. Reality is that soon, very soon, we will starve.”
“I guess that counts as pretty important.”
That’s when something caught my attention. Several feet in front of us, the sand began to shift. Something was moving beneath it, hidden from sight. A moment later I saw more movement a few feet away. Whatever it was, there were two of them. I glanced at Loor. She didn’t look worried, but Loor never looked worried.
“What kind of beasties hang out here in the desert?” I asked nervously.
“You saw the quig-snakes at the gate?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I said, not liking where this was going.
“The desert is full of snakes,” she said calmly.
Snakes. Snakes are the worst. I was about to kick my horse into gear and get the heck out of there, when I heard something behind us. It sounded like a muffled thump. Innocent enough, but since a second ago there was nothing within a hundred yards of us, any sound could mean trouble…especially if there were snakes sneaking around beneath the sand. I whipped a look around, expecting to see a couple of slithering sand snakes about to strike. I was surprised to see that we were no longer alone.
Standing behind us were two white-robed figures. Their heads were completely covered, as if to protect them from the harsh desert sun. Both stood facing us, with their legs apart, each holding a short metal bar that was no doubt, a weapon. I shot a quick look in front again, to see if the snakes were getting any closer.
There were no snakes there, either. Instead I saw two more of these robed figures coming up out of the sand like swimmers rising from the water. These guys looked pretty much like the first two. They got to their feet and held out their weapons, ready.
“Uh,” I said to Loor. “Those aren’t snakes.”
“No,” Loor said. “They are Rokador.”
Rokador. The enemy of the Batu. Not good.
“They look like they know how to use those weapons,” I said.
“They do,” Loor answered without taking her eyes off them. “They are Tiggen guards. Like the Ghee, they are warriors.”
Oh. Getting worse by the second. These bad boys lived underground, but decided to come to the surface and spring a trap. On us. We were alone, with no chance of getting any help from the Ghee warriors back in Xhaxhu. Another battle was about to begin, only this time, it looked as if I was going to be in the middle of it.
JOURNAL #20
(CONTINUED)
ZADAA
Nobodymade a move. Not even Loor. I expected her to tense up, grab her wooden stave, and come out swinging. Instead we all stayed frozen in place. The white-robed figures stood silently, the slight wind snapping at their clothes. Eerie. They were in front of us, and behind. The word “surrounded” came to mind.
“Now what?” I whispered to Loor.
“Stay here,” she ordered, and slid off her horse. I didn’t know what to think. She wasn’t in attack mode. She didn’t even look tense. I had a brief thought that maybe there had to be some kind of ground rules set before they started beating up on us with their metal batons. All I could do was sit there and see what came next.
Loor walked boldly up to the two Rokador guys who were directly in front of us. Her weapon was still in its sheath across her back. I figured maybe she was throwing out the white flag, since we were outnumbered and all. But that wasn’t like Loor. She’d sooner go down fighting. What happened next wasn’t like Loor either. She walked up to one of the guys, threw her arms around him, and hugged him.