James Wyatt - In the Claws of the Tiger

“Won’t we have to deal with them at some point?” Auftane said. “Whether it’s here or at Mel-Aqat, sooner or later we’ll have to face them, won’t we?”

“No doubt,” Janik said, his face breaking into a grin. “But the later we do it, the more likely the hazards of the journey will whittle their numbers down.”

“I don’t like the sound of that,” Auftane said. “What if the journey whittles our numbers down?”

“So far, we’re four bodies up on them,” Janik pointed out. “And as much as I hate having them ahead of us, they’ll be more likely to stumble into danger than we will.”

Mathas broke his silence. “I’d rather have them ahead of us than behind us. They won’t have any qualms about attacking our camp.”

“You’re right, Mathas,” Janik said. “So we’ll keep traveling until dark. But if we see their camp, we back off, keep our distance. And we won’t try to pass them.”

“Again, a plan,” Dania said.

The sun followed its westward course as Janik led the way east. By the time the sky turned red, they still had not seen any sign of a camp. Janik began to worry that Krael had found some way for his soldiers to carry him on their march during daylight, as Mathas and Dania had speculated. The red light faded from the sky and darkness crept up the riverbed to cover them. They made their way slowly along the riverbed a little longer, until two of the larger moons rose up before them in the sky, just past full, large and bright enough to cast faint shadows on the ground.

Janik pushed them a little farther, but by the time the moons had fully cleared the horizon, his friends were lagging.

“Be kind to an old man, Janik,” Mathas groaned at last. “We’ve had well more than a full day of travel. I need rest.”

“But elves don’t sleep, Mathas,” Janik said.

Mathas didn’t respond, but stopped walking. Glancing around, he set down his pack in a smooth, clear area of the riverbed and rummaged in his pouches.

“What is he doing?” Auftane asked Janik.

“Setting up camp.”

“Camp? What’s he going to do, conjure us a campfire?”

Janik grinned. “You have to understand, Auftane. You described yourself as a child of the city-well, you’re a wild animal next to Mathas.”

Mathas had begun gesturing and chanting, and unseen forces began to move around them.

“Coming to Xen’drik is like being thrown in prison for Mathas,” Janik continued. “But he tries to make the best of a bad deal.”

“I’ll gather some fuel for a fire,” Dania said, smiling at the look of bewilderment on the dwarf’s face.

“So he’s not conjuring a campfire?”

“No, we’ll make that ourselves,” Janik said. “But ‘campfire’ never seems like the right word.”

Dania climbed the bank to gather woody brush, while Janik and Auftane watched Mathas cast his long spell. Janik continued to smile at Auftane’s open-mouthed wonderment.

A short time later, a large, sturdy cottage made of sod stood before Mathas. He pushed the door open and invited his friends inside.

Seeing Auftane’s face, he said, “What’s the matter? Haven’t you ever seen a magical shelter before?”

Auftane shook his head.

“Strange,” Mathas said, frowning. “Your knowledge of magic is otherwise quite impressive.”

“Oh, I’ve heard of the spell,” Auftane said, “and I’ve read about it, but I’ve never actually seen one. Not much call for them in the city, is there?”

“Maybe not,” Janik said, “but House Ghallanda makes them even in the middle of Sharn once in a while. They tend to blend in with the towers.”

Auftane shook his head and stepped inside the cottage. Eight bunks lined the side walls, eight stools surrounded a trestle table, and a small writing desk stood near the door. Opposite the door, a fireplace stood empty, but Dania squeezed in past Auftane to set a load of branches in it, then started working on setting it alight.

Mathas groaned as he settled himself into one of the bunks. “Miserable, as always,” he said. “Someday, we’ll really camp in style. We’ll walk through a shimmering portal into an extradimensional space appointed like a mansion.”

“So do you conjure food for us as well?” Auftane asked, clearly impressed.

“What do you think is in that pack on your back?” Mathas said. “No, for cooking, I rely on-” he broke off.

“Hmm?”

“Oh.” Mathas looked uncomfortable. “Well, you see, Maija was quite a cook. I confess I hadn’t even thought about preparing our food.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Janik said, but Mathas looked pained.

“I don’t suppose you cook, Auftane?”

“Oh, I’ve had dwarf cooking,” Janik groaned. “Let me handle it.”

“Actually, I’m quite a good cook,” Auftane protested. “We’ll do it together, Janik. You can steer me away from anything that doesn’t appeal to you.”

Mathas caught Auftane’s eye and whispered, “Don’t listen to him!” The look on his face made his opinion of Janik’s cooking skills quite clear.

Dania had a fire raging, and she stepped toward the door again. “I’ll see if I can get us some fresh meat.”

“Careful out there, Dania,” Janik called after her.

An hour later, they had devoured a pair of scrawny rabbits and were asleep in the hard bunks. Mathas assured them that the magic of the shelter would alert him if anyone tried to enter, but they all slept fitfully, waking at any sound outside. A few times, Dania rolled quietly out of her bunk and stepped to the door, sword in hand. One time she caught sight of a large, crouching form-a plains lion, she guessed-clearly silhouetted against the moonlit sky, but it stalked quickly away from the cottage. She never saw any sign of Krael or his soldiers.

Janik roused them all early to start the day’s travel, eating jerky and dried fruit as they walked. With a wave of Mathas’s hand, the sod hut melted into the earth behind them. As the morning mist burned off, Janik led them up the side of the riverbed to look around and get their bearings.

He pointed to a small range of mountains far in the southeast, purple and white against the clear blue sky. “Those are the Sun Pillars,” he said. “East of them are the Fangs of Angarak-the main mountain range at the eastern edge of the desert. So that’s our gateway-we’ll go past the Sun Pillars on the north, then turn south between the mountain ranges and enter Menechtarun.”

Dania shaded her eyes against the morning sun to gaze across the plain before them. “Do you think we can just follow this riverbed all the way?”

“Probably,” Janik said. “I expect that most of the rain falls on the mountains and flows down this way. As long as it doesn’t rain now-and it shouldn’t, since it’s not the season for it-this should be as good as a road.”

“And a good thing, too,” Auftane commented, surveying the nearby plain. “I wouldn’t want to cut our way through all these brambles.”

“Right,” Janik said, leading them down into the riverbed.

As the day went by, Janik stopped frequently to kneel on the ground and look for tracks, and his curses grew increasingly vitriolic with each passing hour.

“They’re getting farther and farther ahead of us,” he said around midday. “I haven’t seen any sign of a camp-it looks like they marched through the night and all day yesterday as well.”

“What’s Krael going to do, march them to death?” Auftane said.

“Quite possibly,” Dania said grimly.

Janik urged them to keep walking after the sun had set and the moons had risen in the sky, but he held little hope of catching up to Krael. Exhausted, they repeated the previous night’s routine, collapsing into the hard bunks after a simple meal.