21st of Saun 720
"Do you know how many we lost to the wolves?!" Demda demanded of Khorog, as they rode along, onward through the saun heat and blasted sands. "How many children, how many women and men?"
Khorog shook his head, "They know what they do." He intoned, swaying with the gait of his camel as it rode on toward the south east. She kept pace beside him, and had to raise her voice above the sounds of their feet against hte hardening landscape.
"Does he always act this way? Does he have no regard for life?"
Khorog gave her a strange look, tilting his head to the side, "What you mean? Living is with us. Dead are nothing." He said in that infuriating circular argument. That was the end of their discussion, if it could've been called that at all. Demda decided that maybe Khorog was every bit as bad as Dimza. Perhaps a bit more proud, and less honest about it, was all.
They came in on the dusty road from the Northwest, treading over the blasted sands. Half of their animals had died, yet none of those included Demda's own. She had cared well for them in her time, and made sure they had water. Possibly more than she did, even. The journey had been long, taking them through lands like Yaralon, Volanta, Rharne and Korlasir and the Eternal Empire to the North. It'd been a perilous and storied journey, worthy of the distance they had traveled.
The path had not been kind to them, they lost about half of the passengers along the way. Dimza was a unscrupulous man, and had sacrificed human life for the sake of profit. Surely Chamadarst would smile upon him, but Demda did not. She thought he was selfish and untrustworthy. Not the kind of leader that would command confidence from his fellows. He very much relied on his gold to do much of the leading for him, and so it was, people following him had gold on the mind.
The Towers of Nashaki rose above the horizon, as the caravansary made its slow plodding way toward the glass jeweled city of the East. As they approached the city from the north western route, the walls began rising ever so gradually with every step they made toward the large city. In time, even the gleaming oasis beneath it came clear into view, with birds flying above, signalling, along with the appearance of the walls and towers, that this was not another mirage.
"Alt ba taitgaral" Dimza gave her a fond smile, and a pat on the shoulder as he passed her by on his personal camel, a black-furred beast with a shiny coat. The saying was an old salutation in Vorkelian. "Gold and Comfort to you. We get paid and watered today!"
He led them all along, toward the sacred oasis, where they would pay and be acknowledged for their service in bringing commerce to the city, by being allowed an allotment of water. Within a break, they were in the orbit of that great, vast, and clear pool of clean water.
Dimza slapped Demda on the shoulder again, and left the scout alone on the outskirts of the Oasis, her camels lapping up at the troughs near the sacred pool. Idly, as she stared at the dyed cloak on his back, Demda wondered if she'd ever get a chance to settle the score she had for him, that he’d earned in the Northern Hotlands.
"Süüder ba us" She whispered, ironically, recalling the words he'd taught her of old Vorkelian. An old well-wishing from one traveler to another. One wishing for the two most vital life-lines that could exist in the desert. "Shade and Water, traveler."
Khorog strode up alongside Demda, and watched, still as a statue as the trader walked off toward the walls of Nashaki. A moment after the trader faded from view, he turned his head and spat, harumphing, "khagas ni khagas" He said in Vorkelian. 'Half in, half out.' she'd learned his epitaph for the trader along the journey, and committed it to memory. Once their animals had drank their fill, she fell in beside Khorog's stride, as he made his way away from the Oasis.
There they stood, she on her thorned horse, and he on his camel. They faced each other a last time, he looking askance at her, as if to request that she follow him. She shook her head, giving him a small but sad smile. She picked up the reins of her horse, and turned it aside, away from the path he treated before speaking.
”Odoo bish.” She said in Vorkelian. ”Not now.”
He turned his camel on its head, and shrugged, striding off slowly into the Hotlands, where the rest of his tribe awaited. He’d shared some information with her, paths and corridors that would take her to the southward craggy terrain of the Southern Hotlands, where there were more oases, settlements, and places free of influence of the Nashaki. But she had more business here that had yet to be finished. Loose ends that needed straightening, and despite how she felt about him, there was more she needed to learn from Dimza, if she could ever hope to survive her desert home.
She strode alongside him as he made away from the Oasis, having settled his accounts there with the keepers. He held a hefty pouch of coin, which he threw her way. She caught it, somewhat clumsily in her side, gathering it up and looking into the pouch. There was a small stipend of silver in there, with a few gold besides. Not great pay, but good considering the caravansary saw to most of her needs along the way. Despite the dangers, she thought it was worthwhile to keep on with them.
Perhaps if she stuck with them, their paths would cross that of Khorog and his clan. In fact, it was near certain, as they were often enough taken on as guards and tag-alongs. Yet Dimza himself was not quite a part of the tribe. ‘Half in half out’ as Khorog had asserted. And it was true. He had one foot in the gates of Nashaki, and the other ready to run out to the Hotlands as soon as his dealings went sour within the city, giving himself just enough time for the heat to die down, and to make up his debts.
”So, you and me eh?” Dimza said, his eyebrows lifting as he looked over at her. He slapped his hands together, rubbing them eagerly. ”So much to teach you, child. So much. You will be my apprentice, yes it is decided. Find your way to the Trade Academy, they will pair you with me and it will be most profitable. Trust me.”
She suppressed a snort at the word ‘trust’. Yet he spoke true enough of her intentions. She did need to learn more from him still. She was sure it’d profit him to find an apprentice foisted upon him by the Academy, and that he would be well reimbursed for taking her and however many others on. A new racket opened up for the unscrupulous sand-crawler, in the form of fleecing the youth of the city, selling them the dream of running their own caravan.
Demda at least had the edge, for knowing how that went. Traveling the paths through alien landscapes, fraught with danger, despair, and a master who didn’t care if they lived or died, so long as he was with his coin. Demda at least would be there to warn them of the ordinary pitfalls, having survived them once. Yet not everyone was fortunate enough to have pilfered a reasonably affluent lover’s savings, to fund their new lifestyle. Some of them would be in the rear carts, rickety carts that were laden only with things that would draw in the wolves and distract them from the train full of treasure.
"So... yes. You and me, Dimza. You will teach me what you know, or else?" She chuckled to herself.
Dimza turned to wink at her, swaying side to side atop his beautifully caparisoned camel, "You know, I could teach you much, and more." He drifted a little closer to her own horse, his hand trailing over to graze a whorl of hair that stuck out from her headdress. "Much I could teach you, with the proper inducement...?"
"Hmph, keep talking like that, and you'll be the one learning..." So saying, Demda kicked her heels into the sides of the thorned horse, and rode ahead. She could hear Dimza Nil whistling from behind her, although his camel kept the same pace.
She rode along her own path, making her way through the outskirts and toward the Southern District. That was where she would arrange a stay, and find a way forward.
