Dol simply shook his head.
“We’ve been out in this desert for almost three days and you haven’t tracked the sun once?” asked Petra with a shake of her head. “I doubt you even noticed the constellations are completely different.”
“What’s a constellation?” asked Brogus with a look of incomprehension on his face.
Petra looked at Milli with raised eyebrows but the Halfling girl’s face bore a puzzled expression as well. “The stars? Up there?” Milli said pointing up to the bright sky.
Brogus looked up and into the sun and then down the ground and began to blink rapidly, “Owww.”
“Don’t stare at it, you idiot. That’s the sun.” said Petra with a little snort of air. “I’m talking about at night. The little pinpoints of light. The stars. You’ve heard of them, right?”
“Ohhh,” said Brogus. “Yeah, those. Never gave them much thought. Are they different here than back home?”
“You really didn’t notice?”
Milli looked back and forth between Dol and Brogus and finally shook her head, “Do they change often?”
Petra just smiled. “It doesn’t matter. It means we’re a long way from where we were before. I pay attention to those sorts of things. Now, if this little compass at the top of the map means what I think it does, then we need to head in the direction of the setting sun to get to this other area. If this symbol means anything at all it means the territories of the Black Horsemen. Even if we get there alive I don’t know how we are going to talk to them. I know a bit of the trader tongue but I doubt that extends this far south.”
“We are in the south,” said Brogus as he took another glance up at the sky. “I never thought it could get this hot. Did it take us half a year to travel through the portal? It seemed like it happened right away but it was winter in Das’von.”
Everyone looked to Petra.
She shrugged, “I’m not sure about things like that. Maybe the seasons are different in the south. Maybe this is winter and it gets even hotter.”
“No!” said Milli and touched her sunburned skin gingerly. “It can’t get hotter than this. It’s always pretty much the same in Craggen Steep.”
“Unless you do deep mining,” said Brogus. “It’s sweaty down there all the time. Hundreds of miners working next to each other, hour after hour. I’ve seen apprentices keel over dead, I have.”
“Lovely thought,” said Milli with a tight little smile towards Brogus. “Be dear and try to say something to take my mind off the heat.”
“What do we do with him?” said Dol with a nod of his head to the prisoner.
“He’ll catch one of the horses and ride back to his friends as soon as we leave,” said Milli and put her hands on her hips and stomped her foot. “But, we are not going to just kill him in cold blood.”
“What then?” asked Brogus tilting his head to the side and looking at Milli.
“I might be able to cook something up that will knock him out for a bit,” said Petra. “The plants here are different than back home but I recognize some things and I’ve got some herbs I brought with me.”
“That’s the plan then,” said Milli with a nod of a her head and a firm smile. “We knock him out and then head towards the… what did you say about the sun?”
“Towards the setting sun,” replied Petra. “In a few hours it’ll start going down and we can just follow it to the horizon. I’m not sure what the measurement means in actual distance but it can’t be much different than we use back home. One tick mark means a thousand or so steps.”
“Maybe one tick mark means a thousand miles,” said Brogus.
“Maybe,” said Petra, “but I doubt it. People think the same way no matter what. You’ll find different people everywhere but they’re all the same in many ways. The way they think, the way the act, the way they can be tricked from their coin. You’d be surprised how much people are the same everywhere.”
“Wait,” said Brogus. “It is a few hours until the sun goes down. In Das’von the day was much shorter than that and the nights longer. The days are longer here. It must be summer.”
“That’s true,” said Milli with a bright smile. “So it can’t get hotter!”
“I’m going to brew something up in the cave,” said Petra. “Make sure he doesn’t get away.”
The morning sun filtered through the clouds four days later as they stared across the bleak landscape of never changing prickly scrub plants and dirty brown sand and dirt.
“Sun’s coming up,” said Brogus. “We should find another cave in the next couple of hours before it gets too hot. His skin was still red and burned but with the desert clothes and good water supply looted from the nomads he looked healthier than four days before and spoke with a stronger voice.
Petra went over to the one horse they managed to tame and petted it across its neck, “We’ve still got enough water for a few days but we might want to head towards one of these green splotches on the map. I’d guess that means water and we’ll need to get the horse more than we’ve been giving it or it will die. I don’t want to wait until we’re out of water again. It was pure luck those nomads came across our hiding spot or we’d be dead now.”
“What if we run into more of those nomads?” asked Milli looking in first in one direction and then in the other. “I think we should just keep heading to the place on the map that shows the black horse picture. That’s who we are here to find. If we find them then they’ll have water.”
“We’re here to kill Gazadum,” said Dol in a quiet voice as his hand went to the hammer at his side. He found himself touching it more frequently these days and luxuriating in the heat it emanated.
“Yes, Dol,” said Milli with a roll of her eyes at his now familiar refrain. “But we have to get out of this desert first and we don’t even know how far away the five volcanoes are from here.”
“South,” said Dol with a shrug. “We need to head south.”
“Further south?” said Brogus moping his brow. “How is that possible? It can’t get any hotter.”
“How do you know it’s south?” said Milli with a sideways glance at Dol through her yellow eyes. She fiddled with draw strings on the floppy hat that she wore.
“I know,” said Dol, his hand lingering on the handle of the hammer long enough that the heat started to permeate through his arm.
“That’s not an answer,” said Milli, “but I know you well enough to understand that’s all I’ll get.” She looked down at his hand which held the hammer and then turned her gaze to Petra. “How long can we make it with the water we have?”
“Another three days for us,” said the old witchy woman with a shrug of her shoulders as she continued to stroke the mane of the stallion. “I don’t know for the horse. If we give him our water that cuts into how much we have left.”
“Why not head for the water spots?” said Brogus and moped his brow yet again. “We have a better chance of finding people there anyway. Wouldn’t they gather near water?”
Milli looked at her friend and broke into a broad smile, “Actually, Brogus, you have a pretty good idea there. If we find water we’ll surely find these nomads. I’m still not sure how we’ll talk to them but at least it’s a start.”
“I had a good idea!” said Brogus as his smile threatened to leap completely off his face.
“Don’t let it go to your head,” said Milli but her smile widened as well.
“Too late,” said Petra with a shake of her head as a big grin appeared on her face as well.
“She’s right,” said Brogus and made a muscle with his right arm.
Milli rolled her eyes and shook her head, “Fine, fine. Let’s find a place to get out of the heat of the day. There are some low hills over that way,” she finished pointing towards a little rise in elevation to her right. “Is that in the right direction to the water?”
Petra pulled out the little map and nodded her head, “Generally, I think. It’s not easy to figure out exact directions like that. Those hills are opposite the sun this morning, so it’s as good a choice as any. I wish we could find one of the landmarks on this map because then we’ll know how far we’ve traveled.”
“You don’t even know where we were when we started,” said Brogus with a shake of his head. “I’m not much at map reading here in the open but underground I know my business. The mines of Craggen Steep go on for who knows how long all the way to the bottom of the mountain and beyond. You have to know where you start to be able to figure out where you are now.”
“Fine,” said Petra with a little downturn of her lips, “we need to find first one place on this map and then a second. Is that good enough?”
