Sea of Death (30 page)

"It is time for the gwahasti to hunt, Zehaab," Dohojar said with an expressionless face. "Was not the Zehaab aware of that, perhaps?"

"No, confound you! Is that why the blasted lizard stopped and pitched me off?"

Somehow, for once, the Changa managed to keep his face absolutely bland. "Before we set out last night, I told all the others that as the sun reached its zenith, and the scales of the gwahasti grew silvery, then they must be prepared for the beasts to halt. But you, Gord Zehaab, told me that you had heard all you needed to know, so I did not disturb you by sharing knowledge that you already had."

Gord squinted at the fellow, but there wasn't a hint of mirth in the plain, brown face. Still, it was very difficult to tell if the little man was actually being serious, for he customarily made very earnest statements while grinning from ear to ear. Gord was confused and more than a little embarrassed. If he had been the object of a prank, then so be it. Let them have their fun now, for things would certainly get worse before they got better.

"It appears, Dohojar, that what I had heard about these lizards was not complete or accurate," Gord lied. "So tell me, what do we do during this rest period?"

The Changa's face broke out in a big smile again; now they had each had their little joke. "It is not all rest, oh no, Zehaab," he said. "The gwahasti must be allowed to run free and hunt. When they have fed, they will come back and sleep for a time. Then we ride on."

The others were already busy pitching a sort of tent, a lean-to affair set so that it kept the wind from them. The fabric was of the same lizard skin as their garments, and it gleamed with a silvery light now as the stuff reflected the rays of the burning sun. Were there observers within miles, Gord thought, their garments and tents would be beacons. But observers were most unlikely – at least ones able to reason. Gord assumed it quite unlikely that there would be creatures who sought the giant lizards as prey, not with the beasts' speed and teeth. Not even the biggest of dustfish would care to tangle with a pack of gwahasti, although the reptiles might hunt the dustfish.

"What do the gwahasti eat, Dohojar?"

"Anything they can catch," the Changa replied with his white-toothed smile. "The beasts like big insects, though, like the ants and beetles of this place. No matter what they find, they come back afterwards to get the salty water we have for them. That's why they return quickly."

"Would they eat us?"

"Never, Zehaab – as long as we wear these lizard garments, anyway. If we had no such clothing on, the stupid things would then think us to be food, and we would be in trouble."

Gord had been about to strip off the very garb Dohojar spoke of and relax in the shade of the tent. At hearing the Changa's words, he decided a bit of discomfort was acceptable after all. It was hot even in the shade of the tent, but it was better than being in the sun. After about an hour the giant reptiles came racing back, all ten in a pack. Dohojar greeted the lizards with a skin of salted water, giving each of the creatures in turn, largest to smallest, a squirt of the stuff from the container. Immediately thereafter, the gwahasti settled into the dust with much scattering of the stuff into the air. When they were done with their work, only their backs and noses were visible. The group of travelers managed to doze too in the meantime, resting for about three hours. In mid-afternoon the lizards erupted to life, and the noise of their hissing and mock fighting with each other roused the group.

"I'll be fried!" Gord muttered as he helped to load one of the pack beasts.

"What is it. Gord Zehaab?" Dohojar asked in a concerned tone.

"I just realized that the wind has been blowing from the west since we set out!"

All of them were surprised at that, especially Barrel. "Will you ram me if that ain't so, cap'n," the burly fellow exclaimed. "I been a seafarer a bit in my time, I'll tell you, and I should have noticed that for sure. The wind most always comes easterly in this forsaken waste, don't it?"

Gord nodded, puzzled. "You know it. Besides its direction, the force of it is pretty strange, too. It's been nothing more than a gentle breeze, with nary a gust above that. I wonder what caused the shift."

The dwarf spoke up at that. "It's a gift, whatever the reason. Having the damned dust at our backs is a whole lot better man th' other way round."

The group mounted and moved on again. Shade brought up the rear, with Post seeing to the three pack lizards that bore the two tents, food, and extra water on their backs. All except Gord were armed with the pygmy arbalests and a miscellany of other weapons. Of course, each one also held one of the sharp prods used to control the gwahasti. Dohojar mentioned to Gord that he was a terrible shot with the little crossbow and suggested that 'Gord Zehaab' might wish to take his, for the Changa felt he could never hit anything with it anyway. That gave the young thief an idea.

"You say you studied magic once, Dohojar?"

"Very true, Zehaab, very true. For many years I was the apprentice of a wise and powerful worker of Illusions and spells. But that was a time ago, Gord Zehaab. I have forgotten much, and I have no books or the stuff with which to try even a simple cantrip – if that is what the Zehaab was suggesting…"

Gord shook his head. "No, that isn't what I was thinking, Dohojar. But I do have an idea. I'll take the arbalest. Even though I'm not much with such a weapon myself, I have used crossbows a few times in my days sailing with the Rhennee on the Nyr Dyv."

"I've used this thing with fair success," he continued, drawing forth his wand from beneath his robe, "but I'm not as comfortable with it in hand as I am with a normal weapon. You take it in place of the arbalest. Perhaps you'll be able to employ it better than I."

"You are most gracious and generous, Zehaab! Use this I can! Now I begin to feel much, much more better."

Smiling at the small fellow from behind his mask, Gord managed to keep his tone neutral. "I expect you to be ready for action with it from now on then, Dohojar. You're hereby appointed to remain in the lead – except after dark, when Shade or I will have to take the point."

Thank you, captain. It is honorable duty I will not fail in," the fellow replied with obvious pride.

By a couple of hours after sunset the lizards had slowed to walking speed again. Then they slowed even more. It was time for another of their sleep periods. The party got about six hours of rest this time, arising about two hours before sunrise to begin their journey once again. The reptiles would have preferred to sleep until the sun came up, but Dohojar got them awake and moving, despite their dreadful hissing and snapping at the prospect of having to work again. He explained that by pushing the gwahasti they could travel twenty leagues or more a day, while if they allowed the lizards to go at their own pace, fifteen or so would be the best distance they would make.

Whatever had caused the wind to blow from the west hadn't kept it there today. Around sunup the breeze shifted to a northerly one, sending the powdery stuff of the Ashen Desert dancing and swirling off to their right, still a little ahead. Barrel said he reckoned this to be a slow shift from west-northwest to north-northwest by sunset, and he thought perhaps a storm was brewing. Dohojar didn't agree with this, for the lizards weren't behaving strangely. Just before the usual hunting time, however, the lizards did begin to act up. The party was near the place where the high plateaus of the central portion of the Ashen Desert plunged down in a stark line. The Changa managed to get the reptiles in line sufficiently for them to make the descent, but thereafter the beasts would not move. Instead of hunting, the gwahasti found shelter and buried themselves as if for sleep. That was sufficient warning – time enough for the seven travelers to also dig in and wait.

The storm came less than an hour later and struck from almost due north. What it would have been like to be exposed to its full fury was unthinkable. The force of the winds was terrible, and visibility was no more than a foot or two. But the whole group was at the base of the cliff where the plateau rose suddenly from the wastes, and with an arm of that high table of land sheltering them from the north, men and lizards suffered little – except perhaps mentally, as the humans, the half-elf, and the dwarf reflected on what would have happened to them had they not chanced to be here at the time the storm brought its fury upon the dusty wastes around, them.

"I think it is weather magic, Zehaab," Dohojar shouted to Gord between howling blasts of wind.

"If so, Dohojar, I don't want to confront the one who worked it up!" Gord called back.

At one point, a drift avalanched down the cliff, entirely burying the dwarf and the young thief. Post pulled Gord free from the suffocating stuff, for the young adventurer had been stunned by a rock that fell amid the dust and was unable to save himself. Delver, calling upon his dwarvish talents, managed to burrow out single-handedly. The others were more fortunate, happening to be in places where their heads and faces did not get covered by the whirling, falling dust and ash.

Within minutes after this near-calamity, the wind began to die, and the seven dug out their equipment and took stock of things. One of the lizards had been killed, its head crushed by a large boulder that accompanied the dust slide, but the nine remaining reptiles were unharmed and in good shape. Gord thought it disgusting, but the creatures devoured their dead comrade without hesitation, using their saw-edged teeth to bite through its tough hide and get at the pale flesh beneath.

"It is cannibalism, Gord Zehaab, I know," Doho-jar said to the young man as he stood watching the fight between the lizards for the next mouthful of their dead kin. "Still, we are very, very fortunate because of it, too. The beasts are now rested, you know, and with this feeding they will not need to hunt. In an hour we can be riding again!"

Because there were still occasional blasts of wind from the north, the travelers headed southwest, keeping the plateau between themselves and the dying storm. Near sundown they discovered a partially buried oasis. Its spring still sent water forth, and the clean liquid was cutting a new channel to the half-filled pool. They all took time to bathe, even the lizards. After being unloaded of their gear, the gwahasti went into the ashy places to soak in the near-mud, while men, half-elf, and dwarf rinsed themselves off in the clear jet and got rid of the fine dust that covered every portion of their bodies. Waterskins were emptied, rinsed, and refilled with much splashing and squirting of one another. Everyone drank until they could hold no more. While the gwahasti browsed on knife cacti and bed-of-nails plants, with an occasional nip from a young rolling-spikes bush still too immature to tumble freely, Dohojar caught snake weeds for the party to eat.

The Changa held up one of the thin, writhing plants proudly. They were a vegetable imitation of a worm more than a snake, although their mottled skin and their tapered shape suggested the latter. The plants moved quite quickly, slithering along beneath the top few inches of dust and ash to feed on other vegetation, ash worms, and anything else small enough for them to ingest. Dohojar told Gord that they were found near moisture only, and were always around an oasis. They were poisonous, and the rootlets near the mouthlike openings on their front ends oozed the nasty stuff heavily. The Changa had simply caught them, shaved the rootlets off with his dagger, and then showed the others how the remainder of the thing could be cleaned and eaten without fear of harm. The flesh, which Gord eventually consented to try, was firm and rich, and tasted a little like crabmeat. Somehow he managed to eat quite a bit of the stuff thereafter. Full and refreshed, the party mounted up and headed eastward again into a desert of ash that was, for the moment, absolutely calm.

A hundred miles to the southeast, Eclavdra was cursing and threatening her remaining servitors. The sudden storm had blown her fishlike vehicle before it, despite all efforts to keep that from happening. Finally, to keep from being overturned, the crew had been forced to allow the vehicle to run before the gale. Now the craft was lodged among rocks, stuck fast in the outcropping stone. It would take a long time to free it, if they could. The drow high priestess was in a fury, but that couldn't change the situation.

About the same distance away from Gord's group to the northeast, Obmi was in a similar state. His sailing ship of the desert was motionless, the masts broken and sails torn to shreds. It would be a difficult task to clear the pile of fine dust and ash that had drifted against it so the thing could move again. There were spare sails, of course, and a new mast could be raised. Now the favorable wind was gone, though, so at best his progress would be slow… perhaps too slow.

"Where is the filthy bitch?" the dwarf growled to his companion, who was intently staring out across the desolation.

"I sense her location to be about three hundred miles south, Obmi, and she is getting neither farther from us nor closer to us."

The dwarf grinned in satisfaction. "She is not moving either. Is she dead?"

"If she were dead, I would not be able to perceive her location as I do, and I would have other ways of discerning her lifeless condition, too – believe me. She is stationary, but alive – of that I am very sure."

"You had better be, Leda, or else I'll make you-"

The dark elf whirled toward Obmi, an icy glare fixed on her face. "Don't bother threatening me in any way, dwarf. I joined you willingly, and I serve you in the same fashion. Our bargain stands – you get the Final Key, I kill Eclavdra. If you seek trouble, look no farther than here. I have only one desire, and I will see it realized – with you or without you."

At that Obmi laughed, reached out, and slapped Leda on her round bottom. "You're cool-headed and tough, drow. That I admire!"

"Give the gwahasti their heads," Dohojar suggested. "These old dust runners know where water can be found. They can smell it for miles." The men were thirstier than the lizards, for when it came to a choice, the water was salted and given to the mounts and the men went dry – or with scant ration, more accurately. It was more than seven days now since they had bathed and drank at the oasis near the plateau. Since that time, they had plunged east into the desert of dust and ash and had seen no sight of even a damp spot. Dohojar's suggestion brought no better result either, at least as far as they could tell. The big reptiles just continued going in the direction they were headed anyway, directly toward the morning sun.