The Heart of the Sands, Book 3 of The Gods Within Read Free Page A

me?”
    “Late
yesterday.”
    Morgin ran his fingers
through his hair. “I feel much better than I think I should.”
    Harriok held up the
creature he’d cleaned. “A few more hours and this
cratl and his fellows would have started picking at your flesh. But you weren’t
bad off. A little too much heat, not enough water, both easily remedied.”
    Harriok finished
gutting the cratl. “Speaking of water,” Harriok said.
“You’ve put me a day behind schedule, and you’ve used water I hadn’t
counted on. As soon as the sun sets we’ll pack up and leave.”
    “Where
are we going?”
    “To join
the tribe. I was scouting our northern flank when I came across you lying in
the sand. But now that I’ve wasted a day here they’re probably well ahead of
us. It won’t be easy catching up. In fact we may not be able to
join them until Aelldie.”
    “What’s
Aelldie?” Morgin asked.
    “It’s
the largest oasis in the Munjarro, and the last oasis before we leave the sands
for the summer.”
    “You’re
leaving the sands?”
    “Of
course we’re leaving the sands. We always leave the sands in
summer. It gets too hot to survive so we go to the Lake of Sorrows. And you’re
asking too many questions.”
    Morgin nodded meekly
and said, “Yes, Lord Harriok.” He smiled inwardly,
for though Harriok complained, he clearly enjoyed having someone to talk with.
    Harriok cut the cratl
meat into strips and gave half of them to Morgin with a small ration of water. “Raw
cratl meat,” Harriok said, holding up a strip. “A
good source of water.”
    They dined on raw
cratl and hard brown journeycake. Near dusk the temperature dropped and he took Morgin out onto the sand. It was
then that Morgin first saw the other, larger lean-to in which Harriok’s
horse rested quietly on its haunches in the shade.
    Morgin helped him
clear several traps that had snagged other reptilian creatures like the cratl
and a few small rodents. Harriok snapped each creature’s neck then
tossed it in a sack.
    “Aren’t
we going to clean them?” Morgin asked.
    Harriok shook his
head. “Not now.” He looked up at the darkening sky. “Now
we travel. We’ll stop when the sand starts to heat up at sunrise. There’ll
be plenty of time for that then.”
    Both lean-tos folded
up into an impressively compact bundle. Harriok gave Morgin a knee length
hooded robe like his own, adding, “I have to take care of my property,”
and they were on their way.
    Harriok rode while
Morgin walked close behind him, and by the stars he could tell they headed due
west. A three-quarter moon lit the yellow dunes beautifully, though there was
really nothing to see but an endless ocean of sand. It was not easy walking on
the sand. It shifted and slid beneath his feet, and it often required two steps
just to travel the length of one. Harriok rode a special breed of horse Morgin
had heard of but never seen. It had large, broad hooves that didn’t
sink far into the sand, with a lean, compact body that didn’t
require excessive water or feed. Mounted, Harriok could have pushed Morgin to
travel much faster, but instead set a reasonable pace that Morgin maintained
without difficulty.
    He trudged along in
silence for a good while, was concentrating on keeping his footing in the loose
sand when Harriok surprised him. “What’s your name?”
    “Morgin,”
he answered, then realized he should have lied. A wanted man shouldn’t
use a name others might recognize.
    “What
were you doing out on the sands?”
    Morgin knew the Benesh’ere
hated the Decouixs, so he decided a common enemy might put him in a better
light with this young warrior. “I ran afoul of some Decouixs, and
it was either the sands, or get my throat cut.”
    “Are you
a clansman?”
    “No. Just
a wandering swordsman.”
    “Well,
you can’t have wandered all your life. You must have come from
somewhere.”
    It would be wise to
stay as close to the truth as possible, so Morgin made up a life for himself
not