FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Morning came all too soon, the sun's harsh rays replacing the moon's gentle gaze through the uncovered window. Reluctantly, Nadirah opened her eyes, blinking a few times to adjust to the new light. Without looking over to where the ghoul had rested before, she already knew that the rest of the bed was empty save for a few coils of rope.

Shrugging, she sat up and yawned deeply, her arms slowly rising above her head as she stretched dormant muscles. She was surprised when her forearm bumped into a piece of parchment that had been speared onto the tip of her right horn. Before she could grasp it, the paper came loose and fluttered down into her lap. Curious, she lifted the note, smirking a bit as she began to read it.

You strange cow. Given a thousand more years I don't know if I will ever understand what you were thinking. Sleeping on the job with a thief around. Really.

You're lucky I consider myself an honest thief, if such a thing can actually exist. You asked my name before but I never told you, so I'll tell you now. It's Alfred Rex. Carve it on my grave marker if I'm ever worth one.

I'm sorry I wasn't able to replace your horse, I don't have the coin needed right now, but I promise that if you come to the Ruined City, you will find me there waiting for you with reigns in hand.

I look forward to that day, should it ever come to pass.

Rex

Nadirah read the note once more and gave a soft laugh, then carefully folded it into a small square, setting it aside as she got dressed. She then tucked the note safely away in a small pocket of her pack.

The Ruined City was a far distance away and would take her several weeks to reach on horseback, even longer on foot. She would need a lot of provisions for such a journey, more than she could acquire in such a small trader camp, but it would also take her far from tarous lands. Which was exactly where she wanted to be. With such thoughts swimming through her mind, she packed up her few remaining belongings and left the rented room, ignoring the broken glass that continued to crunch harmlessly under her large hooves.

As she left the stairway to enter the impromptu inn, Nadirah paused a moment, feeling the weight of stares from the others occupying the room, all of them regulars who showed up to spend their coin on the weak drinks available in the tavern. Most of those present were traders, covered in skins and small trophies from their various kills. The young warrior spared them no more than a brief, hostile glance, not daring to show her discomfort until she was well out of their sight.

The twin suns were already bright and mercilessly hot as they climbed their way to the top of the sky. Nadirah gave an unhappy snort and looked out through the town's open gate. It was a long way to cross the Badlands, made even longer with the loss of her mount. It would be wise to wait until nightfall before she began, using the day instead to gather together what she could with the money she had left from the false dragon pelt.

The sudden and unexpected presence she felt behind her made the doe flick back her ears, her tail slashing the air to show her irritation. Turning slowly, she saw the ork trapper leaning against the frame of the inn's doorway, keeping himself in the shade as he stared at her with small, hard eyes. He looked like a predator sizing up his prey, taking his time before pouncing. "What?" Nadirah snapped irritably, suppressing a shiver of disgust.

The ork trapper calmly pulled back his lips to expose his pointed teeth, the bottom canines overgrown into tusks that jutted upward before curling slightly at the tips. In his hand was a sliver of bone which he raised to pick his teeth lazily for a moment while his small eyes looked her over. Finally, he tossed the bone sliver away and grinned menacingly. "Aren't you the one who came in here with that dead fellow?" He asked, dark eyes again traveling down Nadirah's body and making her skin crawl.

"Yeah. Was he someone you know?" She replied with impatience, shifting her feet uncomfortably.

"You were naked, werentcha?" The ork responded with a slight sneer.

"Yeah." Nadirah spoke coldly, fingers inching toward her sword. "And?"

The ork shrugged, meeting her eyes with his for the first time. "Just wonderin." He replied with a smirk. "See you 'round." With that he turned and disappeared back into the building.

"I hope that's not a promise." She muttered softly to herself, gripping the hilt of her sword as she walked away from the doorway. She started toward one of the scattered merchants, his wares kept in woven baskets spread out before him, but as she approached, the merchant stopped barking and glared sullenly at her. The doe paused, confused by his behavior. Of the many merchants she had known, she had never seen one behave so negatively to the approach of a potential customer. Deciding to avoid the sour faced brun, she walked away, pondering his behavior as she approached another of the street traders.

The bruha she approached next, however, was no more welcoming, baring her teeth in an angry sneer as the tarin walked closer. Ignoring the ork's radiating anger, Nadirah reached down and picked up a fold of cloth. "How much is this?" She asked the merchant.

"Too much for you!" The bruha snapped, snatching it out of the doe's grasp.

Nadirah snorted in surprise, taken aback by the merchant's behavior. Confused, she left the bruha and walked to the town gate, looking for the bull she had sold the false dragon skin to. He refused to meet her eye as she approached, finding excuses to busy himself as she walked up to him. "Hey." She called out as she reached the piebald bull, refusing to be ignored. "What the hell is going on around here?"

The bull glanced at her nervously before looking away again. "Leave us. Please." He pleaded. "We don't have anything for you here." He bowed his head shamefully as he turned away again, beginning to work the very hide she had sold to him the day before.

Confused and no closer to answers, she began to look around the small trading camp, feeling the growing weight of angry and frightened stares, she spun in a slow circle, noticing that almost every occupant of the camp was staring at her. The weight of their gazes began to feel like a physical force, driving her out of the camp.

With a renewed sense of unease, Nadirah set out from the camp, heading out into the Badlands with no care to her direction except away from where she had come. With no shade nor shelter, her short fur was quickly soaked with sweat. With no water or drink, dehydration began slowing her down, her hooves nearly dragging across the ground with every step.

The sun never seemed to leave it's high perch as she walked, head hanging low, time seeming to catch the tired tarin in an endless loop of misery. When the sound of approaching hoof beats first reached her folded ears, she ignored them, thinking it was nothing but a heat-related hallucination. But as the sound continued to get louder, she finally paused, straining to lift her heavy head and bringing up a hand to block the suns as she looked around.

The approaching shadow was completely unlike anything she had seen before. It writhed and shifted in impossible ways in the distorting lines of heat-curdled air. "What the hell kind of monstrosity is that?" She muttered to herself as she squinted, other hand already reaching for her sword.

The sound of hoof beats continued to rise steadily as the shadow grew larger in it's approach. Tired as she was, the warrior turned to face the coming threat, pulling out her sword and gripping it in a shaking arm as the blade slowly sank to the ground. Her head rose high and she squared her shoulders, preparing herself as best she could in her condition. She wasn't about to go down without a fight, even if it killed her.

Her confusion only worsened as the silhouette began to take form. It appeared to be a monstrous beast with two heads, one of a horse and another of a horned wolf. The creature's long, slim legs tore angrily at the ground as it ran, its strangely malformed body pulsing with every step.

"Whoa! WHOA!" A voice cried out as the creature came closer, disappearing briefly in a cloud of dust kicked up by the malformed creature's split hooves. As the dust settled again, Nadirah blinked several times, realizing that what she saw was not some hideous monster but a horse and rider. The rider was wearing a hyolf-headed cloak with horns jutting out from the ears.

The horse shifted nervously several feet away as it tilted it's long head to look at her. "Hey there." Called the hooded rider. "You must be that idiot I saw earlier, crossing the Badlands in the middle of the day. Damn fool you are. Did your old nag of a plow horse die from heat exhaustion?"

Nadirah snorted in annoyance and strained to pull up her sword again, pointing it at the rider. "Something like that. If you're after what little I have left, I'm not about to make it easy for you." Her hand shook with exhaustion and once again the sword blade began to sink, despite her best effort to keep it aloft.

The hooded rider gave a soft laugh and the horse took a nervous step closer, legs beginning to shiver as if it planned to turn and flee at any moment. "Relax. You have nothing I want, you crazy idiot. If you did, I'd just wait until you collapsed and clean your carcass before the buzzards found it." Sides heaving, the horse took yet another step closer, beginning to roll its eyes. "But I'm here to save you, not kill you."

Nadirah continued to stare at the stranger suspiciously, lacking the strength to lift her sword again. "I don't need saving." She said angrily, feeling light-headed and struggling to keep herself from swaying on her feet. "I'm doing fine. Just... fine."

"Sure you are." Came the disbelieving reply. "Doing great in fact, right? Just out for a bit of a stroll through the badlands? I suppose you think that I'm as stupid as you are. You're already half dead on your hooves, and another hour out in this sun will send the other half following."

The stranger was right. Nadirah already felt dizzy and her limbs were ignoring her need for them to move. She tried to lick her lips, but her tongue was swiftly becoming a lump of useless meat, the gumminess of her dried saliva gluing it to the bottom of her jaw. "How do I know I can trust you?" She called out with as much of her remaining strength as she could spare.

"I've been out here for quite a while, you know." The other replied calmly. "I've gotten pretty good at reading the signs. In another couple of seconds, you're going to fall over and pass out. Then I'm going to load you onto my dredey, carry you're stupid ass to the next watering hole and dump you in the shade until night. If you live, then we'll talk about trust. Ah, good, you're going to fall now and make this easy on both of us."

Her body weakening by the second, the doe could hardly keep herself upright. Despite her struggle, she fell to one knee, shivering violently as if with cold. She was swallowed by the encroaching blackness before she struck the ground.

Nadirah snapped awake, jerking upright with a gasp. She felt a slap to her face and it took her several seconds to figure out that it was a leaf from a nearby plant. The leaf was large and flat with a thick spongy rib going through the middle. Without thinking, the young warrior grabbed the offending frond in her teeth and tore it from the plant with a sharp jerk of her head that brought on a wave of dizziness that nearly overwhelmed her.

"Goodness, you really are crazy." Came a familiar voice from behind her. "Didn't catch the foam-mouth disease, did you?"

Spitting out the leaf, Nadirah ignored the fading dizziness and rose to unsteady feet, turning as she did to face the stranger. A small campfire held back the darkness, but did little to illuminate its tender. "Who the hell are you?" Nadirah snarled suspiciously, reaching for her sword and further angered to find it missing.

"No need to thank me, that look of gratitude on your face is enough." The other replied. "I figured you'd make it. You're about as headstrong as a kordox bull in his first rut."

"Where's my sword?" Nadirah demanded, taking a step closer and almost losing her balance. Her legs could barely support her and the dizziness was returning, turning her eyesight hazy. "What did you do with it?"

"I took it off so you wouldn't do exactly what you're doing now and end up falling on it or something." The stranger replied, poking at the fire with a long stick. "Now sit back down before you hurt yourself. I'll give it back to you when you're well enough to hold it. Shouldn't take more than an hour or so. Less if you drink what I give you."

Nadirah was indecisive for several long seconds before she finally decided to trust the stranger, at least to a small extent. Carefully, she resettled herself on the blanket that had been stretched out across the ground for her, and rested her aching head in her hands. "Who are you?" She asked with a muffled voice, thick fingers massaging her temples. "And why are you helping me?"

The shadowed figure shifted to look at the stricken tarin and laughed softly. "Crazy fool. You came from the valley didn't you? Yeah, I know you did. That's where just about all the tarous out here come from. Valley villages. And then you idiots come out here, completely unprepared, travel in the middle of the day when everything other than the false dragons is hiding and waiting for it to cool down. The falsies are too stupid to get out of the sun. I suspect that they fry their own brains with that fire they breathe. Makes them as stupid as valley travelers."

"You're not much of one for answering questions, are you." Nadirah snapped irritably, giving a disdainful snort at the shadowed figure.

"You haven't asked me a question worth answering." The stranger replied with another laugh. "I'm Terresya, but you can call me Terr, because you will any way, regardless of how I feel about it. As for why I picked you up before the scavengers did, well," Terresya paused, poking at the fire again with her long stick. "I suppose if us tarous don't look out for each other, no one else will. My people may be stupid, but we're still one people."

"You're a tarin?" Nadirah asked in surprise, turning her head to look at the stranger. The figure let out a soft, throaty laugh and nodded, offering nothing more. "Then what the hell are you doing out here?"

"You're still tired." Terresya replied, turning back to the fire. "Rest. Heal. We'll talk in the morning. Nothing better to do until night falls again."

As if the words had been a magical command, Nadirah suddenly felt the exhaustion that had previously gone ignored. With an annoyed grunt, she laid back down and allowed sleep to claim her, assured that there would be more time for questions when she awoke.

The sun had already begun to warm the badlands when the young warrior opened her eyes again. The scent of fresh blood was heavy in the air, nearly choking her. By habit, she reached for her sword and cursed aloud as she once again found it missing.

Expecting the worst, Nadirah rose swiftly to a crouch and looked around for any immediate threat, seeing a pair of corpses on the ground near the ruins of the fire. One was a mostly featherless buzzard and the other was a large boar. A nude tarin doe was kneeling beside the boar, gutting the carcass with a large hunting knife. Nadirah assumed it was Terresya, the stranger who'd rescued her the day before. "Caught breakfast have you?" She called out, settling back onto her blanket.

Terresya looked up and grinned. Her face was covered in blood, as was most of her front. "Actually, yes." She replied with a soft giggle before turning her attention back to the boar. "But not for us. I plan to steal a raptrix egg and I need something to distract the nest guardian. Don't want to kill her if I can avoid it."

Nadirah yawned and reached for her flask and was once again irked to find one of her possessions missing. "Are we having raptrix eggs for breakfast? I think I'd rather have the pig. They're supposed to taste like human."

Terresya snorted and shook her head, finally rising to her feet and wiping her hands across her hips, smearing more blood into her fur. "I don't plan to eat it. I want to hatch it."

"You'd save yourself the trouble if you just cut your own gut open." Nadirah snorted in disgust, eying the boar corpse.

"Nonsense!" The Terresya said, gathering together her bait. "They're pack animals, therefore they make excellent and loyal pets if you can get one freshly hatched. Soon as they imprint on an adult, however, they're useless to me."

"A pet?" Nadirah replied in surprise. "Then... you're a beast lord then? I've heard that beast lords run off with their animals and forget themselves, becoming more beast than lord."

"Worse rumors have been spread." Terresya shrugged. "Truth is, most of us simply don't like civilization to begin with. Anyway, wait here until I get back. Then we'll talk more." Without waiting, the doe turned and disappeared into the vegetation surrounding the oasis, dragging the two corpses behind her.

Nadirah briefly considered trying to follow her, but quickly discarded the idea. Such types were notoriously hard to track unless they wanted to be followed, often seeming to somehow disappear without a trace, or making their tracks so twisted and confusing that only another beast lord could possibly ever make sense of it.

She tried laying back down and closing her eyes, but she found no rest. Finally she grew tired of doing nothing and rose again to her feet, ignoring the pain of her weary body. Once more longing for her lost flask, Nadirah stretched and looked around her, searching for some task or other to occupy her until her new-found companion returned.

The plants surrounding her blocked out most of the sun, with broad leaves that stretched up and wove together, all competing for the same light in the small area surrounding a tiny pool of water. The cave-like darkness it created was broken by small slivers of sun that brought tiny wisps of heat along with them. Nadirah had little doubt that the oasis became shelter to most of the creatures that inhabited the barren wastes and she decided to see if she could find anything useful.

A warning hiss sounded almost the moment she stepped free of the small clearing she had been inhabiting and she turned her head in the direction it was coming from, catching sight of a pair of glowing green eyes. "Shoo." She said in annoyance, waving her hand dismissively. "No one invited you to this party." The hissing grew louder as she continued, but the creature making the sound did not attack, so she ignored it and continued on. The scent of fresh water drifting to her nostrils began to incite her thirst.

No other creatures challenged her as she walked, although the ground quickly became soft with the saturation of water and she found it harder and harder to walk as the hard packed savannah soil turned to soft mud. Every step caused it to suck at her hooves and tangle her legs in nets of fibrous roots.

When she finally reached the water itself, she was disappointed to find that it was just a small pool that formed around a large boulder, small rivulets of water sliding down its moss-covered sides like lines of tears. "A weeping rock in the middle of the badlands. Now I have seen everything." Shrugging, Nadirah ignored the thick mud that sucked greedily at her legs and knelt at the pool. She lowered her head to drink, but paused as she suddenly felt like she was being watched.

Lifting her head suddenly, her eyes furiously scanned her surroundings. "Terr?" She called out cautiously, her hand habitually moving the the empty space that usually contained her sword. "That had better be you."

Her query met with no response except the angry hiss of a disturbed turtle. Her thirst momentarily forgotten, Nadirah's lips curled back into an angry snarl as she readied herself to charge into the surrounding plants to find her unwelcome watcher.

"Terr!" she yelled angrily, ears flattening against her broad skull as she turned in the direction of the hissing turtle. "If you're here, you'd better speak up now, because I'm losing my patience!" Once more there was no reply. Nadirah was just about to rise to her her feet and charge when the sensation of being watched finally went away, leaving her alone again. Perking her ears, Nadirah listened intently, but heard nothing. Who or whatever had been spying on her had managed to silently slip away. "And STAY gone!" she called out,turning her attention back to the water. "Filthy bastage, whoever it was."

Once her thirst was finally quenched, Nadirah made her return trek back to the camp without incident, using the tough fronds of a palm plant to scrape the caked mud from her legs and hooves. Terresya was still gone and the suns were still making their slow journey across the middle of the sky when she returned to the small clearing, but she was relieved to see her sword resting across the stretched out blanket. Eagerly, Nadirah snatched it up and strapped it around her waist, immediately feeling herself relax with the familiar weight of the weapon on her hip.

Once returned to its rightful place, the young warrior grabbed the hilt of her sword and pulled the blade free of its scabbard to inspect it, looking over it closely. The tempered blade shimmered brightly, even in the muted light that filtered into the clearing through the tightly woven canopy. A pack of wolves ran freely across the long, slender blade, their mouths open and ears pulled forward eagerly as they hunted some unseen prey. The metal held not one single spot of tarnish or rust, as if it would never allow itself to suffer such an indignity.

Satisfied with her inspection, Nadirah returned the sword to its sheath and lifted her head, surprised to see Terresya standing only a few feet away, watching her intently. Cradled in the beast lord's arms was a large pink egg, speckled with pale blue. A raptrix egg.

"Welcome back." Nadirah said calmly, hiding her surprise without conscious thought. The suppression of her emotions was already an old habit. "Find what you were looking for?"

"Indeed." Terresya replied and smiled, her hood giving her face the illusion of a grinning hyolf. "The nest guardian got a nice lunch and I got a nice egg. She'll never even notice it missing. I'd say things went well."

"Wonderful." Nadirah replied unenthusiastically. "Although I still think that pig would have been better off in our bellies than in that of a feathered lizard."

"You complain too much." Terresya retorted with a snort of annoyance. "I have some flat bread and berries in my pack. Let me put this egg where it will be safe and I'll get them for you."

"Flat bread and berries?!" Nadirah scoffed. "You're a hunter standing in the middle of an oasis packed with life, and you want to give me stale bread and a handful of berries?!"

The beast lord looked back at the other tarin a moment, pausing in the process of wrapping the precious egg in a soft blanket. Hher expression was unreadable and mostly hidden by the skin hood she wore. A long silence passed as the two stared back at each other, neither quite willing to be the first to look away. "Yup." Terresya finally said, turning her attention back to wrapping up the stolen egg and tucking it away safely in a leather saddlebag. "I don't know why you're upset. It's standard tarous fare."

"I'm not a standard tarin." Nadirah snarled angrily. She then turned her back on the beast lord, hand falling to her sword. "Never mind. Keep your bread. I'll just make a meal of that fancy pony of yours."

"Desrali will never let you approach her." Terresya replied calmly, watching the warrior stalk out of the clearing. "Where are you going? You know you'll never get out of here on foot, don't you? We'll need that dredey to cross the badlands." Nadirah refused to answer, continuing to make her way through the undergrowth. The beast lord finally sighed and called her back. "Fine. Have it your way." She conceded wearily. I'll find you something else to eat, you crazy idiot."

The air crackled as the two stared at each other, tension thick and the aggression near the surface. Finally Nadirah turned away and went back into the high weeds. "You don't need to bother, I'll do it myself."

"Fine. You do that." Terresya grumbled irritably. "But if you touch my dredey, I'll kill you."

"You're welcome to try." The warrior shouted over her shoulder as she disappeared from view.

Night seemed to take forever to fall for the bored warrior. Neither she nor the beast lord had spoken since their altercation and the weight of it hung in the air between them. When Nadirah had left to hunt, the beast lord had made a fire. The large ground bird Nadirah had brought back to camp had been cleaned, cooked and consumed in silence.

Terresya was the first to finally break silence. "Come." She said, beginning to pack her belongings as the sun finally began to fade. "I'll get you to the edge of the badlands, then you're on your own." Nadirah did not reply as she folded the blanket that had served as her bed, handing it to Terresya before the two of them left the clearing.

The dreydey was waiting for them as they stepped clear of the oasis, grazing idly on the tender green shoots at the edge of the fertile zone. It seemed to keep a close watch on Nadirah, but did not flinch when Terresya reached out and patted it's shoulder. "Don't worry," She said over her shoulder to the waiting warrior as she tied on the fur saddle and bags. "She'll carry you. She won't like it, but she'll do it."

"Understood." Nadirah replied simply. She was just about to approach the beast when she felt the unwelcome weight of an intense gaze watching her from behind. She turned around, peering into the heavy foliage, but she saw nothing. Her watcher remained hidden.

"Forget something back at camp?" The beast lord asked, already sitting astride her mount.

"Possibly." Nadirah replied absently, searching the growing darkness a few more seconds before finally giving up. "But I guess I'll have to leave it behind... for now." Finally she turned back to the waiting dreydey and climbed up onto it's back. "Let's go. The night won't last forever."

The pair rode in silence, although Nadirah looked back frequently. She kept expecting to catch sight of the mysterious follower, but they never materialized. The first sun was just cresting the horizon when they returned to the heavily overgrown horizon.

"Why did we come back here again?" Nadirah asked incredulously. "I thought we were heading for the border."

"Do you hear this, Dezrali?" Terresya said to the dreydey. "This idiot thinks we made a big loop. I can't tell if she's naturally this stupid or if the sun boiled her brains like those damn falsies." The beast lord climbed down from the animal's back and patted it's neck affectionately. "Did you learn _nothing_about this place before coming here?"

"Are you asking me or your pony?" Nadirah growled irritably.

"You, of course." She snapped back before removing the saddle bags. "Dezrali Namba was born here. But you... Did you ever think to look at a map, maybe? Ask a guide? Look at the very ground, maybe? No, of course not. Tourists never do."

"You're beginning to annoy me." Nadirah warned, narrowing her eyes at the beast lord.

Terresya sighed and shook her head, dropping the supplies to the ground. "Ok, let me try this. Deep under the ground is a river. It was discovered long before my time, even before the gate was opened and the humans came, in fact. The mages then used whatever magic they do to create the water holes that are scattered around the badlands. The only safe way to cross is to go from one to another at night and wait for the sun to set. And we're stopping _here_because it's the last place we _can_stop. From this point begins the salt marsh, which means three straight days across open ground with no shelter, no stopping, and all while riding an overburdened dreydey. There's no more water holes out there, so drink deep tonight."

"Have you ever made this journey before?" Nadirah asked sternly. "Have you ever made it to the other side?"

"You ungrateful wretch!" Terresya snapped angrily. "I should just leave you right here! Just hand you a water flask and wish you the best. I save you, take you safely across the badlands, and you act like an ungrateful b-"

"You haven't, have you." Nadirah interrupted, her tone cool and factual.

Terresya sighed deeply and turned to face the other tarin, raising her hand to point accusingly at the warrior. "I... I..." Slowly the hand fell and she sighed wearily. "have not, no. Never needed nor wanted to. Usually I'd just take you back to one of the trader camps at the borders."

Nadirah reached down and picked up the dropped saddle bags before she spoke again. "And what's different now?" She prompted when Terresya showed no sign of continuing.

"We're being followed." The beast lord answered honestly. "Whoever it is, they don't want to be found and they're better at hiding their tracks than I am at finding them, which says a lot." She looked away and sighed again as if unable to meet the warrior's eyes. "Never thought I'd see the day when someone could hide from me. This would never have happened if that stupid ogre hadn't killed my-"

"So you're hoping to lose them in the salt flats." Nadirah interrupted. "And take me with you."

"Yeah. I think I know who it is, although I can't prove it. If it is him, he'll never follow us through the salt flats. Maybe I can get him off our tail for a while. Not many people are crazy enough to try crossing the flats, and if he goes around it will take him several weeks. It will take us just a few days to go across. By the time he picks our trail up again, we'll be long gone."

Nadirah was silent for a while, staring at the beast lord as she pondered what she had been told. Terresya fidgeted anxiously. Around them were the sounds of life; rustling leaves, high quick chirps, lazy buzzing, the echoing cry of a faraway animal. Terresya heard all of them as she waited, her mind identifying every sound without thought, deciding that none were a threat nor required her attention.

"And who do you think it is?" She finally asked, never turning her eyes from those of the beast lord. "What makes him such a problem?"

Terresya chewed her bottom lip a moment and lowered her head. "His name is Rotuk. He's a nasty creature, even for an ork. Last time we met, I broke one of his tusks. And he is a problem because he's a trapper. But he doesn't just trap and sell animals, that bastage also traps other people for gold. Pay him enough and he'd sell his own hyolf into bondage. Sick felk." The beast lords growing rage began to radiate off of her in near-tangible waves.

"And now he's after us." Nadirah stated, not quite asking.

"Yes." Terresya replied, calming slightly as she returned her gaze to the warrior's own eyes. "He's after us now."

"Understood." Nadirah said calmly. "Let's get set up then. May as well rest while we can."

Terresya sighed in relief and turned her attention back to unpacking her supplies from the Dreydey. "Good idea." She replied. "May as well enjoy that bedroll for the last time, too. We're going to be leaving it behind, along with almost everything else but the water skins. Dezrali is going to be overloaded as is, carrying the both of us. I'll get you a faldrag skin to protect you from the sun, but we need to minimize our weight as much as we can. That means you'll need to lose that fancy sword of yours."

"No." Nadirah replied simply, her voice cold with apathy.

Terresya snorted in annoyance and looked over her shoulder at the stubborn warrior. "What do you mean 'no'?" She snapped irritably. "Are you always this stupid or was it trained into you?"

"I meant exactly what I said." Nadirah replied calmly, offering nothing more.

"Ugh, I really should just leave you here, ungrateful wretch." Terresya grumbled, slapping the dreydey's rump to shoo the animal away before turning to face the other tarin. "Do you really value that stupid thing more than your life? Do you? Because when we step foot on the salt flats, every single ounce is going to count against us and that's just dead weight. You can't use it out there, nothing survives in the flats and you'll be too weak even if we do bump into something! We'll just hide it somewhere around here and once Gorlag is taken care of-"

"Don't make me repeat myself." Nadirah said softly, turning her eyes to look at the watercolor sky as the sun rose over the barren horizon.

"Idiot." Terresya grumbled before turning away to gather up her things. "Crazy damn idiot. I don't know why I'm bothering to do what I do. I should just hand you a water skin and let you go off on your own again. Already saw how well you did without me."

"I suggest you save that energy." Nadirah said calmly. "From what you say, neither one of us is going to have much of it for the next few days."