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The spirit of the desert screeched around the disjointed encampment. A sheet of buffeting sand filtered out all but the most immediate sights, and the stars above failed to shine through. The watchman in front of the caravan wagons had sheathed his scimitar, and wrapped his beard and mouth in a red handkerchief. A foul mood seethed beneath the bundled cloth, as he squinted into the sandstorm, unable to sleep nor daydream with the interfering bursts of wind. His fellows slept inside the wagons- even the dumb, droopy-eyed desert horses were led to a cave not far- yet he was left here to watch.
Was it Yvrik? The guardsman wondered as he tried to shake the sand from his leather armor. Cheeky whoreson, always looking to fuck me over. I’ll bet it was actually he who drew watch, but I’m the poor sap who has to pamper his royal arse. A large buffet of wind slammed a fine mix of white dust and yellow grains of sand into his eyes. Hell, what is that man trying to protect anyways? And a lot of good a damn watchman will do for it now. I can’t see more’n arm’s length away, and no one would be intruding during a storm like this.
Yet, as the man watched the folding tapestry of the sand, a black figure seemed to appear from the storm. It seemed like only a head, black and body-less, staggering forward and clutching a bundle of white cloth. As it approached, though, the body became clear- that of a bulky girl, covered in yellow and white cloth wrappings, with a distinct red slash across its chest. A billowing, black wool cloak flowed out behind her. She collapsed into the dusty ground. She didn’t move.
“Hey!” The watchman called out, his hand lying on the hilt of his scimitar. His voice was nearly lost to the sandstorm, but he was certain she should be able to hear him. “Who’re you, and why have you come here?” He paused a moment, but his only response was the roaring storm. “Are you hurt?” He regretted the idiocy of the question nearly immediately. What could she possibly do? He thought. Stop being a coward. The guardsman sheathed his curved blade, and pushed forwards into the sandstorm, against the wind, to kneel over the woman.
A large red slash lay across the wrappings on her chest. Her head wrappings were a black void, covering her face entirely and leaving only a slit for her eyes, which were inscrutable in the blinding sand. “Hey!” The guardsman shook her lightly. “Miss, get up. It’s dangerous out here.” How had she even gotten here?
“We know.” The voice seemed sourceless, and barely audible over the wind. Its Dunespeech was rough and grated through an unfamiliar accent.
The guardsman’s confusion turned to a sharp realization as he felt a cold line press against his throat, warm blood faintly falling to the side. He stood up slowly, realizing a short, curved sword pressed against his neck. The woman on the ground stood, brushing the dust from her wrappings, before unraveling her white bundle to reveal another blade, longer but in the similar, slightly curved style. The guardsman swore lightly, but raised his hands. Of course. He chastised himself. “What do you want?” He finally asked, careful not to speak too loudly.
The woman in front of him spoke as she approached, a slightly deeper tone in the same inscrutable accent. “Coin for one. Booze would be appreciated. Horses.” The black cover that shrouded her mouth fluttered open a moment, and the watchman could see a grin beneath. “I’m not one for jewels and gold, but you city-folk seem to enjoy it. Oh, and books.”
The watchman returned a blank stare. “You’re bandits? Just the two of you?” He felt a surge of relief for a moment, his superstitious side at first thinking they were desert hags or lost spirits. “Pity I don’t know any of that, except for the horses.” He jammed a thumb back towards the cavern that the horses were tied up in.
“Where is the Coralla man? We know he is here.” The first languid voice flowed from the wind, seemingly coming from the bandit who held him.
The guardsman then jerked his thumb back to a larger wagon a two dozen paces away from him, its large bulk only visible as a bulge in the convulsing sand. “Yvrik sleeps back there, if he is what you mean. Only Cor Lahn in the caravan, and acts like he owns us. Please, do rob him all you like.” He tried blinking the sand from his eyes, to no avail. An awkward moment passed. “Ach, I don’t know anything else, I swear.” He said again, a welling fear piling up inside him.
The guardsman felt something shift for a moment behind him, and the woman in front of the him nodded to the one over his shoulder. He tensed for a moment as the short sword by his neck moved, but it instead fell away from his throat and silently flowed behind him. The man let out a deep sigh of relief that he hadn’t realized he had been holding, and collapsed to his knees. “Thank you.” He said to the bandits through his heaving breaths. “Thank-” He saw an explosion of white briefly before the blunt pain pierced the back of his skull. He collapsed forwards, his vision reeling, and barely saw the heel of the woman’s black sandal as it slammed into his face, and he was lost in nothingness.
“Wasn’t that a little much? He seemed pretty scared.” Light and sharply annunciated words of Zanrush wafted through the sandstorm like buzzing flies. The bandit looked down impassively onto the body of the watchman. She sheathed her short sword with some trouble. After a curious pause, she prodded the still man with her foot. “Is he dead?”
The woman ahead of her shrugged indifferently, and stepped over the man’s unmoving body. Her desert wrappings were dusty and torn, and she inspected the ruddy rust she had powdered across her chest. “Damn this plan.” She lamented. “This’ll be impossible to get out.”
Her partner let out a small sigh, then adjusted her own desert wrappings slightly. She was shorter than her partner, but wore the same yellow-white wrappings with the vaikal head shroud. Her black hair was long enough to fall out the back of it, and whipped in the wind annoyingly. Unlike the other bandit, her black cloak was wrapped around her fully, in an effort to stifle the slight jingling sound that the padded pouches and vials strapped to her made when she walked. The outline of her bandolier was clearly pressing against the black coat in the harsh wind. “Come on, Ren.” She finally said. “His friends might be out soon.”
The two snuck off into the twisting cloud of sand, navigating through the camp with relative ease. The intensity of the sandstorm helped them stay out of sight, but also made progress painstakingly slow, and the sandy ground was filled with collapsed salt pillars and orange boulders that tripped up the thieves, until they finally found the hooded wagon. It was large, with a double lead that was poorly wrapped to its side. Light emanated from the inside, and the two thieves could hear swearing in a tongue unfamiliar to them- a speech of harsh words and languid grammar that had an ebb and pull of an ocean. They heard a crash of glass and splintering of wood, and smelled a foul mixture of old sweat and sour wine seeping from between the leather flaps.
“Sounds like a real charmer.” Ren muttered as she lowered her hands to her blade’s hilt. “A strong one, too. Any ideas, Mi?”
Mi blinked, astonished. “You’re actually asking for a plan? One that doesn’t begin ‘charge in, swords swinging’?” She placed a worried hand over the other’s forehead. “Are you sick?”
“Don’t make me regret it, sister.”
Mi smiled beneath her shroud, then surveyed the tarped wagon as they crouched down by its tracks. It was large for a caravan wagon, especially for the relatively humble and nomadic Cor Lahn. It had an eight wheel track that led behind the driver’s bench in two segments, all connected by a foldable joint of tan cloth. The entrance on the front and back all were easy to go through, but Mi could hear the light jingling of bells from here, thanks to the wind shaking the heavy flaps. The supports above were likely bone or foamstone, not strong enough to support her, and a hole opening up above would be suspicious. But below…
The younger bandit bent down onto her hands and looked into the underbelly of the wagon. The wagon had sunk so that its suspension reached roughly a half-yard above the ground, and it was dark, but the small pockets of miniature dunes told Mi exactly what she needed. “Give me a moment.” She said swiftly before fully diving under the slightly rocking caravan, crawling forwards using her elbows in a practiced, snake-like movement that made little sound. Ren protested slightly, but didn’t dare make enough noise so as to alert the man inside.
The suspension of the wagon was a mess of iron beams, hempen rope, and cracked stone braces. The floor above that was a layer of thick hide over dozens of stone bars, which thrust from one end of the underbelly to another. Mi crawled through the web, having to readjust her course on the part of a jagged spear of stone that jutted from the sand below, but eventually made her way to the front wagon’s miniature dune of sand. Feeling above with practiced hands, Mi eventually found the canvas trapdoor, which she knew these wagons used for disposing stray sand. As she pushed on it slightly, it gave a bit, and only a faint light came through the slight crack. The sounds of the man’s agitation seemed to grow slightly when she opened the trapdoor, but soon fell away into contempt mutterings.
The small bandit looked back down, and gestured to her sister to follow suit. Quietly, Ren dug herself into the dust to crawl through, not nearly as elegantly as Mi’s own lithe movement. She eventually made her way next to her sister. “What is it?” She muttered.
Mi poked open the trapdoor just an inch, a smile tugging at her shroud. “A way in.”
The younger woman propped the flap open enough to poke her head up, to see a room that was devoid of any furnishings apart from a few black, stone boxes and crates, a small cot of stretched hide, and a large piling of animal furs on the ground that made what Mi assumed was a bed. The chamber was blocked off from the other connected wagon by a thin sheet of purple cloth. On the ceiling, the head of a large beast, with six beady eyes dotting its chitinous flesh, wrapped around a nearly conical pattern and ended in a long, thin trunk that reached down to the side of the doorframe. Mi froze as she saw the head of the strange creature, which she had never seen nor heard of before, but then clambered into the wagon floor softly as a cat. The hide floor bent inwards slightly, but was thankfully silent. Ren also began her difficult squeeze through the small trap door, then dragged her blade through behind her.
Through the purple cloth to the other room, the two bandits could easily see the silhouettes of two figures in front of an unsteady orange torchlight. One was the rectangular form of a massive man, bald and wearing what appeared to be a type of skirt or loincloth. He was pacing about the room, growling and barking at the other figure, who stood to the left of the doorway. Their shadow set the two sisters’ blood boiling.
The other silhouette must have been a trick of the inconsistent light and rippling canvas it was projected on. It was scarcely humanoid, and stood a head taller than the man, who himself seemed to tower nearly up to two and a half yards. It was dreadfully thin, like a fishing pole, and gangly with its too-long limbs. It hunched over slightly, and where its head seemed to be a twisting mass of cloth or hair, drooping down and moving without wind. That silhouette didn’t speak, but the man seemed to be carrying an argument with it as if it were replying back in equally heated words. The only movements it made were long hand gestures, twisting their seemingly pointed fingers the wrong way, before returning to listen to the ranting of the furious Coralla. The two thieves crouched there for an eternity, hearing the man growl and bark, but mostly absorbing the alien presence his companion oozed. Eventually, the creature raised its pointed hand, stopping the man’s speaking nearly instantly, then walked past him. The bells jingled as the creature walked out of the front of the wagon, and the large man growled, and stalked towards what seemed to be a stool or chair, in the other room, seating himself onto it with such force that it shook both chambers.
The shaking also caused the sisters to snap out of their trance. Looking to each other with wide eyes, they wordlessly confirmed that they each had seen something just as insane as the other, and decided to push aside that terrifying idea- a mental exercise in which they were both very well-versed- until they had found what they had come for. With that silent agreement, they quickly, and with as little noise as possible, began to turn over the room. Mi set herself to poking through the crates, and found that most of them were unlocked, if a bit heavy, and filled with coins and valuables- sets of paper, stoppered flasks of liquor, perfumes and oils. Her eyes glittered through her mask, and Mi began to pick off the most interesting samples, stuffing them into the many pouches and pockets that dotted her bandolier. She was swiftly and predictably distracted.
Ren eyed her sister judgmentally, and decided to check around the massive pile of blankets that constituted the Cor Lahn man’s bed. Fingering through, she instantly regretted the decision- the stench of man and wine had seeped deeply into the lower furs. But, as she moved around the top layer- a white cloak of stitched wolf hide- her hand brushed against something warm, and she heard a muffled gasp from inside the bed. Ren’s hand quickly darted back and landed onto her blade, while Mi- balancing a fistful of black, Justic coins in one hand and an iron flask of whiskey in the other- looked towards the bed with an expression of dread bleeding through her shroud. The bottom of the bed squirmed slightly as something dug itself deeper into the mess of furs.
Ren slowly pulled her sword free from its scabbard, a well-oiled blade glistening in the flickers of dim torchlight that bled into this chamber. Laying her other hand on the side of the bed, she quickly threw the blanket to the side, leaping up onto the bed to catch the squeaking and squirming thing. She landed squarely atop a person, pressing her weight down on their chest and bringing her long blade to their throat. A gust roared through the hooded wagon, the torchlight dying to near darkness in the other room, then slowly catching back to light. Mi pocketed the coins, downed the booze, and only then began to draw her own short blade.
The older bandit looked at the woman beneath her with a mixture of confusion and surprise. Her captive squirmed only slightly beneath the bandit’s body, seemingly as careful as Ren was not to make too much noise. Her naked body was tinged a deep brown around mottled patches of white, and she seemed to sink into the white and grey patterns of the snow-bear fur she laid on. A plume of black hair was pinned beneath her, some strands escaping in long, tightly curled locks. This hair blended into the black, geometric tattoos inscribed all along her back and shoulders, which ran around in a webbed mantle along her collarbone and breasts. Her face was a smooth, calm mask of rounded curves, something beautiful, but holding two haunted, brown eyes that accused her attacker.
Ren sat atop the woman, blinking dumbly. She was about to speak before the woman quickly brought her hand up to her lips, covering it with her fingers. A shadow shifted and the wagon rocked, a chorus of swearing rumbling from the other room. Mi started and scurried away like a mouse, swiftly closing the pillaged boxes and ducking down beneath the trapdoor as meaty fingers pushed through the purple curtain, grasping the inside of the dividing curtain. Ren and the naked woman froze with simultaneous fear as the curtain began to part slowly, but it stopped as suddenly as it began to open, when outside the bells jingled, and a shorter man stepped in. He spoke a few words of the Coralla’s language to him, in a seemingly desperate tone, then stepped back out into the storm. Seething, Yvrik tossed the curtain closed, and clambered out of the wagon.
Moments passed in silence that seemed to last eons, as both of the women trembled with the thrill of fear. Eventually, Ren heard the trapdoor begin to squeak open again, and Mi’s head slowly poke itself back out. The storm lamented something loudly outside, and the wagon vibrated.
“Off.” Ren had to blink a few times before realizing that the whisper of a voice came from the woman beneath her. Her lips were barely moving. “Get off.” She spoke Dunespeech with a heavy, warped accent. It still trembled in fear.
“Oh. Oh!” Ren realized with a start as she pulled her blade away and rolled off of the woman clumsily, falling onto the foot of the bed. The woman instantly pulled the white fur over her. “It, uh, it’s alright! I swear we’re good, we won’t hurt you.”
“Mm-hm.” Mi nodded in agreement as she resumed her looting. “We’re the good guys.”
The woman bared her teeth in anger. “I scream you.” Her meaning was more whole than her words. “You go off. Now.”
“No, no- wait.” Ren let her sword fall into its scabbard by her hip, and began to unravel the desert wrappings that were tied around her shoulder. The woman narrowed her eyes, which then widened into surprise. “See?” Ren gestured to her exposed shoulder, her own skin marred with the same chain-like mantle of tattoos. “We’re the same.”
The woman looked to Ren, then back to Mi, with a dazed confusion. “You are someone’s, uh, person? Or- ah!- slave.” She instantly remembered the word, and spoke now in an apprehensive whisper. She leaned in closer towards the two veiled strangers. “Lost?”
Ren shook her head, her black shroud flipping around her head. “We’re exactly where we need to be.” The bandit said earnestly. “We are no longer slaves, but we still have a job to do. To free our friends back home, in the Coral Pact of Zandai.” She thought for a moment. “Will you help us?”
The woman frowned distrustfully, twisting her blanket around her in a defensive manner. “Why? It will hurt me.”
Something scraped across the hide floor, and they both turned to see Mi looking back up to them, very conspicuously trying to pry open another barrel. She ducked her head down at the accusatory stares of the slave and her sister. “What?” She asked in her light Zanrush.
“Not the fucking time, Spider.” Ren growled in her own Zanrush, but Mi only shrugged. Ren turned back to the woman, returning to their mutual Dunespeech. “It will be alright.” The older bandit tried to sound reassuring. “The sooner you help us, the sooner we are gone. Your master,” the word grated on Ren’s tongue, “will never know we were here.”
The slave woman thought to herself for a long moment, furrowing her brows and closing her eyes. When she opened them, they seemed full of a quiet courage that Ren did not see before. She sat forwards onto her knees, the white blanket falling carelessly away to her knees as she leaned forwards, her face and body coming uncomfortably close to Ren. “Take me.” The tremble of her voice had an exhilarated electricity coursing through it.
Ren immediately felt her breath quicken, and her heart pound in her ears. She tugged at the desert wraps by her neck. “I, uh…” Ren found her gaze drifting from the woman’s intense eyes to her lips, then, when she tried to look down to avoid her discomfort, only to be met with the equally distracting sights. Ren found the hide wall on her right immensely fascinating. “That’s a little forward.”
The woman blinked in confusion, then slapped her palm onto her forehead, dragging down the side of her face in exasperation. “No, no, not… No.” Annoyance crept into her tone, speaking as if to a particularly dense child. “You go. You go, and take me.”
Ren felt the room become much warmer as she realized her mistake, and she stepped off of the bed. “What, I, of course-” She stammered. Her annoyance magnified as she heard Mi poorly stifle an impish giggle. “Shut up!” She growled at her sister in their tongue.
“‘Not the fucking time’, Viper.” Mi chided back, but then yelped and dived behind a barrel as her older sister snatched up an empty bottle.
The now-rebelling slave seemed to immediately regret her decision, but waited patiently for the two bandits to calm down. When they did, the woman spoke first, “Yvrik goes shortly. Sees horse, but shortly back, er… ugh. Magnia moch-re, Yariza-cho.” She damned her poor Dunespeech in her native tongue- Sarean, Ren recognized- but knew she had no other way to communicate. “Your need?”
Ren’s memory shot back in time, to the night before last. She was drinking with a fangling she only knew as the Red Rat, in a seaside tavern in the Coin City of Dra’angel. The day had been windy, but not this kind of rough sandstorm, and there were dozens of foreign ships coming into port. The Red Rat, usually just ‘the Rat’, was on his third cup of the black, bitter-sweet mead the city-folk called raza; he told her that there was a Coralla making camp deep in the northwestern valleys, bordering the dragon barrens. He confided that the caravan had been entrusted with the care of a tome of records that would show her her way to the Adventurer Prince. He had also mentioned that the Coralla had taken hold of some ancient, enchanted object, but that was likely his indulgent exaggeration to get the bandit to buy him more drinks, and she discounted that as rumor.
Ren recalled the old drunkard’s description of the logbook…
“A thick red book.” Ren said. “Yellow thread wiring, probably locked away somewhere, the symbol of an island tree and a torch on its cover. Oh, and tree paper, not rawhide.”
“It would probably be taken out when you stop to trade.” Mi chimed in, carefully piling the barrels and crates back to the state they were in before. Ren noted that the bandolier on Mi’s chest seemed to now puff through her black cloak. “Written with cristagin.” Both Ren and the woman stared at Mi in confusion. “A grey ink.” Mi simplified. “Mixed with a blue warlock’s hair or skin, to prevent magical divining.” The explanation did nothing to alleviate the blank stares. “It’s-” Mi interrupted herself, remembering the camp outside, and the fading cover of the sandstorm. “It’s not important.” She decided. “Have you seen a book like it?”
The woman looked down, curling the blanket around her as she thought. “A book… by black chair? In a locked crate. Maybe.” She seemed to question it herself as she pointed towards the other room. She smiled apologetically. “I did not go off and see. Sorry.”
“Black chair, locked crate. Got it.” Mi was already ducking out of the purple doorway when the woman had stopped speaking. She wasn’t scared of Yvrik.
But that thing he’d been talking to? She sure as hell didn’t want to be here when it came back.