The driven sand of kindness had struck the stone wall erected around Tarrin's heart, and it too had started its slow yet irresistable work.
Chapter 3
I was like moving through an alternate reality.
For the entire night, Tarrin and Sarraya slowly made their way through the howling sandstorm, the Faerie cowering within the safety of his hood as Tarrin stood against the fierce winds and blowing sand. The sand removed any ability to see much past his own nose, which caused him to rely on Sarraya's Druidic ability to detect north after they left the nameless city. That in itself had not been very easy, for the river stood in their way. There were no bridges, nor would any boat go out in the sandstorm to ferry them across. Tarrin had to rely on Sarraya to get across, as the Faerie used her magic to harden the water of the river in a narrow path, letting Tarrin walk across the water to get to the other side.
Wet feet dried quickly in the howling wind, which intensified after they got outside the protection of the city's thick stone walls, after they abandoned any cover that would slow the gale down. It was so strong that it nearly carried him off his feet several times, made him cower in his cloak and literally walk blindly as Sarraya called into his ear if he wandered off course. He could not see, he could not smell through the scarf. The wind howled, which was the only thing he could hear outside of Sarraya's shouting voice, which was itself barely comprehensible over the raging sound of the storm. The cloak protected him from the driving, stinging sand, but he felt the sting of it against his feet as he walked, sure that the fur on his feet had been scoured off by the grinding action of the blowing sand.
Time seemed to play tricks on him in the deprivation of the sandstorm. It seemed as if he'd been walking for days, then it felt like he'd only been walking for minutes. With no way to tell time, he was set adrift in a sea of his own speculation. He had no idea if it was night or morning, or even afternoon, because the heavy wind-driven sand blotted out all light. If there were any light to blot, anyway. He had already been tired before he started out, so his physical exhaustion was no marker on time. Fighting against the wind and the sand tired him even more, and his exhaustion added to his temporal vertigo. Tarrin could go as long as he wanted without sleeping, just as he could sleep any time he wanted for as long as he wanted. Because sleepiness never entered the equation, he had no stick by which to measure his exhaustion.
The deprivation of senses, other than the loud howl of the wind, left him in a curious state of reverie. Most of his thoughts focused on that girl in the inn back in the city, and the strange feelings she incited in him. It had been a very long time since he'd felt those things. It had been a long time since a complete stranger hadn't caused him to fear. It had been so long. He didn't quite know what to make of it, but he was relatively sure that it wouldn't be that easy. He figured that his tiredness and his long isolation had caused him to want company, even to the point of quelling his feral impulses. And the young girl was probably the only one who could have gotten that close, the one person in the inn that did not in any way present an openly intimidating or aggressive appearance. She was a young girl, and Tarrin's human memories told him that young human girls were very rarely dangerous in a physical sense. They may have a tongue like a razor, but a slap from one of them did little more than sting. Because she did not seem threatening, Tarrin had allowed her to get closer than he would have allowed anyone else.
Her getting close to him wasn't the core of his quandry, however. It was how she made him feel. When she handed him the scarf, he felt things that he hadn't felt in so long, he wasn't entirely sure what they were. His entire life was dominated by suspicion, fear, and anger now. Very few positive emotions managed to get through it, aside from his love for his family, friends, and his goddess. The girl had caused him to feel...wanted. That was the only way he could describe it. She had given him her scarf, but she had also given him her trust, and her smile, and her attention. It was something he didn't expect, nor did he expect to feel good about her attention. To his own shock, he hadn't reacted to her badly, though she was a complete stranger. That was the first time that had happened with someone other than a Were-cat since he left Suld.
He just couldn't explain it, he couldn't forget it, and he couldn't let it go. He played it over and over in his mind, his surprise when she handed him the scarf, the surge of impulse to fight or flee...then it just, went away. That was all. His defensive instincts just disappeared, washed away by the realization that she was being kind to him. That had to be the last thing he expected, that was why it took him so long to understand what she was doing.
Mist had changed. Could he change too? He doubted it, at least not so quickly. Part of him didn't want it. In this mad game he was playing, he needed his feral nature to help keep him alive. After all, there was nobody he could trust out here, nobody he would trust. Absolutely everyone out there would turn on him if they knew what he had. Maybe even that girl. Most likely, the combination of the long isolation and his weariness had subdued what he considered to be his normal reaction. The girl's smile and her gift had helped ease the lonely ache in his heart, an ache for his sisters and his friends. That had to be why he reacted to her in such a positive manner.
He did find hope in the exchange, hope that he could lose some of his harsh ferality. Despite needing it, it did cause him pain. It hurt to be afraid all the time, it hurt to drive away people that, for all he knew, wanted nothing but to say hello and chat a while. People that would probably make good friends, but for the fact that they were strangers, and that made them suspect in his mind. He accepted what he was, and he lived with it, but he did not like it. He did not like finding it so easy to kill, and have no regard for the lives of those around him. He did not like seeing the fear in the eyes of those that met his. It was why he had tried to change, at least before all the chaos in Dala Yar Arak ground his attempts to a screeching halt. He wanted to be more like Triana. He felt just a little hope that he could do just that, but it would have to be later, when he wasn't in so much danger.
When he finally noticed light coming through the sand, he stopped and tried to figure out if it was morning or afternoon. If they'd been walking for minutes, or hours, or maybe even days. He'd been lost in thought, only responding when Sarraya told him he was drifting off course. He noticed that the wind was starting to lessen. "Sarraya, we're coming out of the storm," he called to her over the lessening wind. It had gone from a ear-splitting shriek to merely a loud groan. "How long have we been out here?"
"I'm not sure," she shouted back to him. "At least several hours."
"That light means it's daytime, so it's been longer than that," he called back. "Maybe morning?"
"Like it matters," she shouted ruefully. "Are you feeling alright?"
"I think I have sand just about everywhere, but otherwise fine," he told her.
The going became noticably easier as he walked. The wind stopped trying to knock him over, and then walking against it became easier and easier as moments passed. He didn't have to hold on to the cloak anymore, letting it go and flexing a paw that ached from holding a tight grip for a very long time.
After some time of walking through the decreasing wind, he realized that it no longer howled. It was merely a gentle breeze, and the features of the land were beginning to become apparent to him as the dust and sand in the air thinned out. Most of it was caught up in the sandstorm, and he noticed curiously that it wasn't piled up all over the ground. The ground looked windswept to be sure, nothing but clumps of some short, wiry grass that kept the soil from being picked up, but there were wide swaths of bare ground, eaten away by the wind to form gentle bowls in the earth. Some of them were fifty spans across. He'd walked through a few of them, so he knew that the bottoms of them did tend to collect dirt, dust, and sand as the wind eddied within them. Visibility improved progressively moment by moment as the sandstorm's back edge passed over him, until the sun shone through the haze and he could see nearly half a longspan ahea
d. The breeze dropped to a whisper, and there was a curious silence under the ringing in his ears caused by hearing the ridiculously loud wind howl in his ears all night. He stopped, then turned around to see a black cloud of swirling shadows broiling behind him, moving away from them. He lowered the scarf from his face and took off the visor, sneezing once before letting out a relieved sigh.
"That's something I'll be sure to tell my children," Sarraya laughed as she came out from her hiding place in his hood. She sneezed a few times, then put a bit of her gossamer gown over her mouth. "I hope the dust settles," she complained. "It's getting into my eyes."
"It has to settle eventually," he told her. "I get the feeling it's going to be in the air for a while, though. Look how high up it goes." He pointed up into the murky sky, caused by the dust. It reduced the sun to a pale white disc that struggled to illuminate the ground beneath the cloud of dust. "Be glad for it, Sarraya, and don't hope it settles any time soon."
"Why?"
"Because nothing in the air can see us," he told her calmly. "If those flying things went around the storm, they could be very close to us. This way they can't get an exact idea of where we are if they did."
"Good point," Sarraya agreed. "How long has it been since you slept?"
"That doesn't matter," he said dismissively. "What matters is what I can find to eat around here. I'm getting hungry."
"Now that you've fleshed out again, I think you can make it on what fruit I can conjure til we get to a place more hunter friendly," she told him.
"I'm certainly not going to find anything in this," he grunted. "I can't even smell the ground. All I smell is this scarf and dust."
After stopping right where he stood and sitting down, he and Sarraya shared a meal of fruit and berries that the little Faerie conjured. All of it had a faint taste of dust, which was understandable considering the fog-like pall of dust that hung in the air, but after a night of movement it was exactly what he needed.
The wind began to pick up when they were done, when Tarrin stood up. It blew and billowed the dust as it reached them, tugging at Tarrin's cloak, and the Were-cat realized after looking up that the wind was pulling the dust out of the area, blowing it towards the back of the sandstorm. He cursed under his breath at the loss of their concealment, then reached under the cloak for his water skin. It was only half full, but that was no problem. Sarraya could conjure water as easily as she conjured fruit. She had been the one to fill the skin he had. She'd conjured the skin too.
"What's the matter?" she asked.
"The wind is pulling the dust out of the air," he told her, pointing up. The dust was getting thinner and thinner, blowing towards the back of the storm. "If those flyers went around, we're going to be exposed."
"I think that's not much of an issue, Tarrin," Sarraya told him. "I don't think the wind can completely get all the dust. Besides, if it worries you that much, I'll go up and look."
"That would make me feel better."
Sarraya rose up from her seat on the ground and darted straight up, quickly leaving his sight. Even the sound of her wings faded after a moment, leaving him to wait in relative silence for several moments. Then he heard her winds again, growing louder by the second, and she appeared in front of him, moving towards him quickly. "Nothing," she replied. "I can't see around the sandstorm, but there's nothing in any other direction."
"I guess that's a good thing. How long would it take them to get around that storm?"
"It would depend on how close they were when they started," she replied. "But even if they started early, if I can't see them now, then they can't be anywhere near close to us. We shouldn't be bothered all day by anything in the air."
"That's a relief," he sighed contentedly.
The wind did not get rid of all the dust, as Sarraya had predicted. It hung like a dirty fog for most of the day, concealing the Were-cat from anyone who may happen to be overhead. It was considerably challenging to run in the pall, Tarrin discovered, for his visibility was very poor, and many times he had to react with lightning speed to avoid running into the few obstacles the dusty plains could present. But visibility improved as the morning progressed, allowing him to see further and further, until they came across a road.
This baffled Tarrin, but only momentarily. After all, there were trading posts on the border of the desert, and those posts had to have some way to move their goods back and forth to the rest of the kingdom. Tarrin didn't see a road when he left the nameless city behind him, but that wasn't very much of a surprise, because he could barely see his own feet at that time. The road was little more than a clean patch of sand and dirt running through the low scrub grass, the road's level below the land around it, wide enough for three wagons to pass one another. The sandstorms had dug out the bare earth of the road and carried it away, leaving the road lower than the land around it by nearly a span. The road was covered by at least three fingers of loose dust and sand, shifting and parting for his feet as he stepped into it, telling him that any wagon or cart would find this road very slow going. It told him that he was on the right track, and it also told him that he was going to see some civilization before he crossed over into the desert.
He followed the road for the rest of the day, moving more confidently in the dust-filled air now that he didn't have to worry about tripping over a log or running into the shallow gorges that tended to present themselves at inopportune moments. The road's loose surface slowed him down a little, but not enough to make him feel as if he needed to abandon it for the scrubby grass. The road proved to make time pass more quickly, because now he didn't have to worry about his direction or running into or over something. He could simply follow the road and allow it to guide him. It made for easy running, and that made the time flow by quickly.
The dust had almost completely settled by sunset. There were no objects in the sky, as Sarraya had predicted, but the clearing air did reveal something on the ground. It was a wagon, a wagon with no animals to pull it, turned over on its top on the side of the road. It rested on the gentle slope running from the ground above down into the road's relatively level middle, and it was rather large for a wagon. It had curious wheels, made of some strange ivory-like substance which he couldn't identify, and they were about five times wider than standard wagon wheels. That made sense, given the loose nature of the road on which it travelled. The wide wheels would make it easier for the wagon to move. The dust had stripped away any scents in the area, and the dust and sand carried along by the evening winds forced him to put the scarf up to keep it out of his nose and mouth.
"Looks like someone didn't get to shelter," Sarraya said conversationally, zipping over the wagon. The sand and dust had piled up around it like a snowdrift on the side that would have been leeward of the storm.
"No tack or harness," Tarrin said. "Either it was left behind, or the animals broke free."
"You think there's anything in it?" Sarraya asked.
"I don't know, but it'll serve as shelter for a night's sleeping," he said, reaching up and unclasping the cloak. "It shouldn't be that hard to turn over."
Settling himself beside the wagon, Tarrin sank his claws into the side of it, then began to pull. As he suspected, the wagon wasn't very heavy--it had to be light, else it would sink into the road and be hard to move. He turned it on its side, then slid partially under it and heaved it over and above him.
The activity told him that he was stronger now. He held the wagon completely off the ground, a feat that five men could not easily accomplish. He turned towards the middle of the road and readied to set the wagon back down on its wheels--
--and a sudden shrill scream nearly startled him out of his fur.
Tarrin heaved the wagon aside, landing with a crash on its side beside him as he whirled around in the direction of the scream, claws out and eyes lit from within with their unholy greenish radiance. Whatever had made that sound was right there, close enough to attack, and he hadn't sensed it. Tarrin did not react well to su
rprise. He growled loudly in his throat and laid his ears back, primal threat displays to whatever it was attacking him, telling it that it wouldn't take him without a fight.
His surprise grew when he found himself looking down at a child of no more than eight years, screaming at the top of her lungs, pressing and shoving at a still form beneath her.
A child! All that nonsense over a human cub! Tarrin rose up from his slouching battle stance, looking down at the little girl with annoyance and relief. She was still screaming, trying to rouse another human beside her, an Arakite woman of youngish years. The woman was breathing, if only just, and she had blood clotted with dust on the side of her head. Around them were tattered canvas, broken shards of wood, and small bales of some grayish fiber. Wool? They must have been under the wagon, protected from the storm by the artificial cave in which they were trapped.
The little girl was still screaming, staring up at him in terror. All things considered, he could understand her fear, but she was starting to get on his nerves. The woman, that was another story. He approached them silently, ignoring the girl's increasing screams and the nearly hysterical look that had come into her eyes. She was absolutely terrified. He lowered his scarf and took off his visor to get a good look at the woman, ignoring the screaming cub as he knelt down by the woman's body. She was still alive, but she'd hit her head very hard. It was a nasty injury, explaining why she was unconscious.
Almost immediately, a confrontation arose within him. Part of him wanted to help the woman. She was injured, and the child would not survive without the woman. It would cost him very little to help the woman, and then he could send her and the child on their way with no trouble on his part. But the other part of him rejected that idea. The woman was a stranger, a potential enemy, and it did not want to aid an enemy. Her life, her survival, would do nothing for him. It meant nothing to him. To leave her here to die would not affect him in the slightest. To help her would mean getting close to her, exposing himself to her, and he did not want any part of that.
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