Aurix the Bold

“Wake up, whelp.” Shlee nudged Aurix with a boot.

Aurix groaned. He hurt all over, and moving just made it worse. He wanted to curl up into a protective ball, but Shlee’s toe would inevitably find another bruise. “Gods! Fine. I’m up.” He forced himself to sit and stretched, wincing at aches too numerous to count.

Shlee cackled. “A little sore this morning, eh? I suppose your father was never quite so hard on you.”

Aurix glared at the old man with a scowl.

“Tis the price you pay for arrogance,” he said with a shrug. “Still, you are better than some I’ve taught. Not many, but it’s good to know you’re not entirely inept with a blade.”

“Could have fooled me,” Aurix griped. He rose and walked stiffly to the rucks and grabbed some meat, giving Nyx and Aoni a pat on the muzzles along the way.

“Odds are you’ll never have to fight anyone better than me,” Shlee said. “If that happens, I’d strongly suggest you run.”

“What about Xu’ul?”

“What about him?”

“Is he better than you?”

“How should I know? I’ve never dueled him.”

Aurix rolled his eyes and chewed on a piece of meat. “And yet you expect me to face him?”

Shlee laughed so hard, he nearly fell over. “Boy, if it comes down to blades, you’re doomed. He has Rhexis’ Sword, remember? Still, there are other ways.”

“Like?”

“Flux. Trickery. Espionage. Surprise. A healthy dose of luck. And, of course, the people.”

“What do you mean?”

“A Ra is only Ra because people follow them.”

“But they follow Xu’ul only out of fear.”

“Fear is a powerful motivator. And in this case, the people have plenty of reason to be afraid. But there are few things more powerful than a reign supported by the people.”

“It didn’t help Addix.”

“No. It didn’t,” Shlee said with a frown.

“What will happen when I defeat Xu’ul?”

Shlee’s frown turned into a smile. “Such confidence. I suppose anything you wish. You’ll be Ra.”

Aurix shook his head. “I have no desire to be Ra.”

Shlee shrugged. “We don’t always get to choose what we are, whelp. Who we are and what we make of what we are is what matters.”

“Well, I’m no Ra.”

“Why are you challenging Xu’ul, Aurix? Anger? Vengeance?”

“Does it matter?”

“It may. Very much so.”

Aurix thought carefully about his answer. “There is some of that, I guess. But he’s a dangerous tyrant. He doesn’t care about the people of Valeria. Tens of thousands died for nothing in The Cleaving, they deserve to have someone stand for them.”

“That’s justice, Aurix. There’s nothing better by which to rule.”

“I told you, I don’t want to rule. Maybe you should do it.”

“Heehee! Maybe I shall. Valeria could do worse.”

Aurix looked at him dubiously. “Valeria could do better, too, old man.”

Shlee cackled until he was breathless. When he recovered, he said, “We’ll soon be in Nulla territory. What do you know about them?”

“They’re savages. Mean. Pointed teeth. That’s really all.”

“There’s more to them than that. People avoid this place at all costs if they can. They’re lethal little slags, the Nulla. Small in stature, but no less ferocious for it. Most would rather eat you than let you pass. They’ll be watching the road. When they see movement they’ll converge on us, and try to cut us off. We probably won’t be able to avoid them.”

“Then we’ll have to kill them?”

“Possibly, but I hope not. They’re not terribly bright—they can be tricked. Their minds are addled from seclusion and sunslight. Fortunately, they should be limited in number. Many are being used in Glynn as slaves, and thousands more were killed in The Cleaving.”

“So what do we do?”

“Change riding speeds often. Follow my lead. Stick to the road unless I guide you from it. If they catch us, we’ll try to talk our way out of it. Some may listen to reason, or be bribed to let us pass. If not, be ready to use some of that swordplay I showed you last night. If it comes down to it, try to remain on Nyx, or they’ll overtake you quickly. They do not know fear and exist only to feed the whole, so they’ll sacrifice themselves for the many—falling on your sword so that the others can subdue you.”

“Great.”

“Let’s just hope we don’t have to deal with a swarm. They’ve been known to chew through a caple’s legs to bring down a rider.”

Behind them, Nyx snorted nervously and stamped her hooves.

“Even better,” Aurix said. “What about tonight?”

“The Nulla have very small pupils from centuries in the bright, open desert. They don’t see well in the darkness, provided there is no light. There will be no fires tonight, and probably tomorrow night, either. They can spot the movement of a single flame a hundred miles distant.”

“Would it be smarter to ride at night then?”

“Their hearing is quite acute. And I’d personally rather see death coming for me, wouldn’t you?”

“You’re not making this out to be a good time, Shlee.”

The old man laughed. “Tell that to the Nulla.”

“I don’t suppose we can go around?”

“We’d lose several days, and those are days we almost certainly don’t have.”

Aurix chewed at his lip and nodded. “Well, I guess we do what we have to. It’s only two days.”

“I suppose we’ll have to put your training on hold until we’re clear.”

Aurix brightened and stretched his stiff and aching muscles. “You won’t hear me complaining. Where did you learn to handle a sword like that, anyway?”

“Here and there. Let’s move, whelp. We still need to stop to fill our skins. The sooner we begin, the sooner we’ll be out of danger.”

After a few arcs of normal riding, Shlee began to change his mare’s pace every few minutes. They’d gallop, then walk, then canter, then trot, then walk, then gallop, then walk. If Shlee was keeping any kind of pattern, Aurix couldn’t figure it out.

Aurix scanned the horizons nervously. The day was bright, and he was warmer than he had been for the entire trip to that point. He longed to shed his leather armor, but didn’t dare with the threat of Nulla swarms out in the vast arid desert. In the distance, dust devils whirled and twisted into the sky, looking—in Shura’s yellow glow—like tornadoes set ablaze.

Aurix wasn’t sure how they were supposed to water the caples, but he’d come to expect and accept that Shlee already had it figured out.

By mid-afternoon, Aurix had been lulled into a near trance both by boredom and the constantly shifting pace they kept. Nyx followed Aoni’s lead without need of prompting, so there was nothing for Aurix to do aside from scan the seemingly endless desert. Before long, he’d have been just as observant sleeping.

Sometime after Nova had begun to tinge the sky with orange, Shlee slowed Aoni and Nyx cantered up alongside them.

“You see that, whelp?”

Aurix was silent, his eyes unfocused.

Shlee smacked him on the back with the flat of his sword.

“Ow!” Aurix griped. “What in Amezduleq was that for?”

“Look alive.” He nodded to the desert front of them. “See that?”

Aurix gave himself a little shake and looked off into the distance. He squinted and shook his head. “See what?”

Shlee sighed. “Dust. On the road. A few miles off yet.”

Aurix looked again, and again saw nothing. “Your eyes are either like a hawk’s, or you’re imagining it. I don’t see a thing.”

“No. It’s there. Someone is riding this way. You’ll see it soon enough. Keep your eyes open. Maybe, if we’re lucky the Nulla will be too occupied with them to care that we’re passing. Then again, they may swarm as we converge with the other riders. Biggest gain for the least effort.”

“What am I looking for?”

“Dark shapes moving toward the road. Trust me, you’ll know. No more sleeping on the job, boy.”

Aurix dismounted and nodded as he stretched. “Sorry. It’s just so desolate.”

“It is,” Shlee agreed. “Nothing for it, though. Inattention out here can be deadly.”

“What about watering Nyx and Aoni?” Aurix asked.

“There are places, but they too may be dangerous. The Nulla lay traps. Just be ready. And keep an eye out behind us, aye?”

Aurix sighed, and remounted Nyx. “Fine. I get it.”

“Good, now let’s go.” Shlee led them off at a gallop.

Aurix nervously checked behind them every few minutes, but saw nothing. Ahead of them, it was another five minutes before he could make out the plume of dust that signified the riders. Shlee’s vision bordered on superhuman.

“I see them. How long?”

“God’s boy. You’re as blind as a gree. Within the arc. Some of it depends on—” he trailed off and squinted into the distance. “Fex.”

Aurix checked behind them again. He didn’t see anything, but he was afraid he might be missing something. As he was turning back to Shlee he saw it to the west. At first, he thought there was a black viper undulating across the desert floor, but after a second of watching the unusual way it broke apart and fell inward on itself, he realized it was instead many moving as one.

“Um, Shlee. To your right.”

“Fex!” Shlee repeated and pulled up quickly. Both Aoni and Nyx stopped cold. The direction of the Nulla didn’t change. Shlee exhaled a relieved sigh. “They’re after the other riders, not us.”

“So?”

“They’re distracted. If we time it right, we might be able to pass while they’re occupied with the others.”

Aurix watched the odd serpentine motion of the Nulla swarm moving southeast toward the road. “No.”

“What do you mean, no?”

“We can’t let them be overrun just so we can pass.”

“You don’t even know who it is, whelp! It may be Xu’ul’s men. I have no intention of being fodder for the Nulla today, if I can avoid it.” He pointed further down the road. “There’s another group moving in on them from the south.”

Aurix shook his head in disgust at Shlee’s lack of compassion. “You said that they could be bribed, passage bought?”

“Do they look like they’re interested in dyne? They’re feeding, Aurix. Crossing the Oose is dangerous. Riders know this and do so at their own risk. It’s their misfortune and their battle, not ours.”

Aurix gave the old man a look of unconcealed disappointment. “Well, now it’s mine as well. Stay and cower if you wish.” He gave Nyx a firm heel to the side. “Yah!”

She didn’t move, and instead tossed her head and neighed.

“Your mount isn’t even that stupid, whelp.”

Aurix leapt down off of Nyx and began to run toward the converging clouds of dust.

“It’ll be long over by the time you get there!” Shlee shouted after him.

He didn’t make it very far before Nyx caught up to him and put herself in his path. “Out of my way!” Aurix tried to maneuver around her, but she wouldn’t allow it. “Damn it, Nyx. Move!”

The mare tossed her head again. It looked like she was telling him to get back on.

A hundred yards back, Shlee watched from Aoni’s back, the look on his face unreadable.

Nyx neighed and snorted. She then lowered herself to her front knees in front of Aurix.

He sighed and climbed back on, defeated.

Then Nyx bolted south, leaving Shlee behind.

“Good girl,” Aurix said and gave her neck a pat. The breeze from their gallop cut through the dry desert heat. Aurix watched the slither of the Nulla snakes curling toward their prey, and rode Nyx harder.

He could just make out four riders in the distance. They’d obviously noticed the swarms and were riding at full gallop toward him. Aurix took a second to judge the angles of the encroaching Nulla attack and knew they’d never make it. After another few seconds, he could hear them yelling instructions at one another. A few more and he could hear the caple’s hooves pounding the dirt. Behind it all, he heard a terrifying chorus of laughter and a strange clicking. Aurix soon realized with a shiver that it was the sound of the Nulla’s teeth coming together.

“You’re not going to make it!” Aurix screamed and drew his sword. He wasn’t sure at first if they heard him, and thought they might just blow past and leave him to fend off the swarm on his own. He suddenly realized the folly of his mistake.

Nyx huffed nervously as the swarm converged. It looked as if all of them would come together at the same point on the road—riders, Nulla, Nyx and Aurix alike. They were now seconds from battle.

One of the male riders was shrieking. His voice was the pitch of a terrified woman and carried over the narrowing distance between them. “Keep going! Go, go!”

The only female in the group shouted, “Are you crazy? Whoa!” She pulled at the reigns of her caple. “Come about. We have to fight!”

The two other men reined their mounts in, but the third kept going, still screaming as he rode, high in his stirrups. In his blind panic he veered off of the road.

A small group broke away from the Nulla horde coming from the west side of the road and moved to intercept him. Aurix just had time to see the Nulla hurl themselves at the screaming man’s caple, knocking him out of his saddle. The man’s screams changed in pitch as they shifted from fear to pain, and then the remaining Nulla were upon them.

Nyx reared and flailed, knocking a leaping savage out of the air with a hoof to the skull. Aurix held on for dear life with his feet and swung his sword at the savages attacking Nyx’s rear legs, trying to bring her down. The air rang with the sounds of sword and spear and mace crashing into bone, accompanied by the relentless clicking of hundreds of teeth snapping together.

The four caples pranced in a rough circle, their rumps almost touching and their riders all swinging their weapons wildly from side to side trying to keep the swarms away from the vulnerable legs of their steeds.

Nyx stepped high and ferociously thrust her hooves back down, crushing countless Nulla bones beneath them. The other mounts didn’t seem to have her spirit and whinnied and whickered in fear while their riders did most of the work.

Aurix’s blade found the face of one of the savages as it leapt at him, opening its cheek and cleaving off the lower half of its jaw. There might have been a sinking in the pit of his stomach as the Nulla fell, but if so, there was no time for him to register or acknowledge it. Between them, they had brought down nearly a dozen of the diminutive clan, but there were still too many. And the pack that had taken down the lone rider was on their way to rejoin the swarm, covered in the man’s blood.

One of the caples shrieked and began to buckle. Aurix turned and saw it start to go down. It was the lone female rider’s steed. A look of terror was painted on her face as she collapsed into the roiling sea of white eyes and teeth. She screamed as some of those teeth closed on her leg.

With his free arm, Aurix reached for her. She grabbed his wrist and leaped off of her caple before it was fully buried under the mass of bodies. Somehow she managed to pull herself up onto Nyx behind Aurix. She never stopped swinging her mace, and between her and Aurix’s blows, they were able to keep most of the Nulla away from Nyx’s legs.

The swarm had them surrounded, and pressed ever inward. Some at the back crawled over the bodies of those closer, trying for a better vantage. One leapt onto the sword of one of the other riders, running itself through in the process, but was still able to grab the man’s arm and bury its razor sharp teeth into his shoulder. Other Nulla grabbed onto their comrade and pulled.

Aurix could only watch as the man slipped in his saddle and began to fall. Behind him, the woman screamed, “Bradek!”

The man twisted and looked at her as he fell into the horde. He managed to find a smile for her, but his eyes were filled with remorse.

“No! N—”

The light was blinding, the noise deafening. Aurix felt a powerful concussion in his chest, and knew he would be pulled down quickly. His ears rang. Better that than the damned clicking of their teeth, he thought, and then he lost the sensation of Nyx beneath him. He was weightless. Falling.

Aurix tried to blink away his blindness and braced for the pain of sharp teeth penetrating his skin. It never came. Over a period of what seemed like several minutes, orange light and black shadows began to bleed back into his field of vision. The ground beneath him seemed to wriggle and writhe. Movement. The ringing in his ears faded to a hum. Over it, he heard the neighs and snorts of the caples. And Shlee yelling at him.

“Get up, Aurix! Get up!”

Dizzy and disoriented, Aurix tried to push himself into a sitting position. He planted his hand in the face of a Nulla.

It grunted, only just coming around.

“Wha—”

“Get up, Aurix. Hurry.”

A hand grasped his and pulled him to his feet. He promptly fell back down onto the road. He tried to crawl away and ended up on his face. It took nearly another minute to stagger back to his feet, spitting dirt from his mouth.

Aurix looked around. The three riders looked dazed, but were already up, and swinging their weapons haphazardly into the confusion around them. If the caples had fallen, they had since regained their hooves and bolted away from the danger. They stood a fair distance away dancing nervously. Aoni stood with them. Nyx was the lone exception; she reared and stamped at the savages lying on the ground on the way back down. Shlee stood among them, his sword spilling great gouts of Nulla blood into the dirt. As soon as one would rise, a gleaming sweep of steel would fell it again.

The Nulla had been reduced to less than half their number and a heap of broken and bloody bodies. Most were dazed and disoriented and were no longer putting up any kind of real resistance or mounting any type of assault. A few managed to stumble away before Shlee could dispatch them.

“Stop,” Aurix said. His voice was weak and was all but drowned out by the screams of wounded Nulla and metal shattering their crude bone armor.

The three riders had stumbled out of the melee and had regrouped. The two men’s eyes were still heavy-lidded, and caked in blood and dirt. The woman had a nasty welt under her eye that was oozing blood. None of their swings carried much power. It was only survival instinct that had even driven them back to their feet.

“Stop!” Aurix shouted. “Enough!”

Shlee’s sword stopped mid-swing, inches from separating a Nulla head from its body.

The riders didn’t need another invitation. All three of them collapsed back into the dirt. The man called Bradek crawled over to the woman, and gently inspected the wound on her cheek with a thumb. Then he kissed her dirty forehead and pulled her into an embrace.

Some of the Nulla sat in stunned silence. A few more used the opportunity to escape. The one standing in front of Shlee stoically awaited his fate. He was equal in height to Aurix, taller than the rest. Wiry muscles rippled beneath his dark, leathery skin. His chest rose and fell rapidly. A bone and tooth necklace hung from his neck. Aurix guessed he was the leader.

“Raka,” the Nulla chief said. Aurix had no idea what it meant, but the rest of the Nulla calmed their struggles at once.

Shlee never took his eyes off of the Nulla. “They will kill again if we let them live.”

“And we will be no better than savages ourselves if we kill them. They’re beaten.” Aurix sheathed his sword and turned to face the chief. “Let us pass.”

The small man’s eyes darted to Aurix and then back to the old man holding the sword soaked with the blood of his tribe. He nodded once. “Go.”

“Thank you,” Aurix said and brought his right fist to his left shoulder, saluting him.

The Nulla chief narrowed his eyes at Aurix, then turned his attention back to Shlee, who was still holding his sword at the ready.

“Put it away,” Aurix told him. “This is done.”

Shlee hesitated a moment, then took a few steps back from the pile of dead bodies and those still scrabbling to rise from it. He sheathed his own sword.

At another word from the leader, the Nulla began to disperse. Some carried off their dead, a few were left behind, destined to eventually feed the buzzards.

The chief grunted at Shlee and pointed to the fallen caple and rider. Words were exchanged in the language of the savages. Aurix found he wasn’t at all surprised to learn that Shlee spoke Nullan. There weren’t many things about the old man that did surprise him anymore.

After a time, both nodded and walked away from one another.

Aurix went to Shlee. “What?”

Shlee shook his head and hobbled to the group of riders that had since gathered around their fallen friend. There were no lingering signs of the spry swordsman he was just moments before—he was now just hunched and looked weary. Aurix followed with Nyx close behind.

The group looked up at their approach. The woman smiled at Aurix sadly.

“Are you alright?” Aurix asked them, looking at each in turn.

“Far better than we’d be if not for your valiance,” the woman said. She saluted him. “Thank you.”

The two men also brought their fists to their left shoulders in appreciation.

She nodded to the man on the left. “My husband, Bradek.” She turned her head slightly. “His brother Cort. I am Mika.”

“I’m sorry about your friend,” Aurix said.

“Our guide. And a damned foon to boot,” Cort said.

“They will take his caple,” Shlee said. “You can do what you wish with your companion’s body.”

“I presume he’ll be eaten if we leave him?” Bradek asked, his voice gentler than his brother’s.

“Probably so,” Shlee said, still watching the horizon. “Food is scarce on the Oose, they scavenge whatever is available.” He looked north and gave a whistle. Aoni began to trot toward them. After a minute, the other three caples cautiously made the trek back as well.

“That was some nice swordplay, whitemane,” Cort said. “Can’t say I’ve seen much better.”

Shlee ignored the compliment. “They’ve agreed to let us all pass, but who knows how much they can be trusted. In any event, you’ll reach the desert’s end before darkfall.”

“You still have two full days of it to the southeast,” Mika told them, a warning in her tone. She reached out and stroked Nyx’s muzzle. “And the Jag beyond isn’t much more forgiving.”

Shlee nodded but said nothing to disavow her of the idea that they were headed in that direction so Aurix kept his mouth shut as well.

Cort led his gelding to what remained of the guide’s bloody body and stripped him of any gear that might have value, tossing it into the pack strapped to the caple. “Do we leave him?”

Mika sighed. “He’ll only slow us. He’s food one way or another, be it for worms or buzzards or savages.”

“All things return to the earth eventually,” Shlee agreed.

She nodded but didn’t look comfortable with her decision.

“Then we should be on our way,” Bradek said, and retrieved the reins to his own mount. “Thank you again. I wish we might repay your courage, but we’ve really nothing worthy of your valor.”

Aurix’s cheeks flushed. “It’s what anyone would have done.”

“No,” Mika said, looking hard at Shlee. “It isn’t.” She held out her hand to Aurix.

He gripped her wrist and she did the same with his. It was the most formal of all gestures of friendship. He noticed something hard pressing into his skin—she had an object in her hand.

When she withdrew from the clutch, she slipped the item into his palm. She never took her eyes from his, and nodded at him once. “Well met, noble one.”

“Well met, Mika. And it’s Aurix.”

“Aurix then.” She smiled.

The group exchanged goodbyes, retrieved their mounts and then rode north at a gallop, checking the east and west horizons for any other serpentine Nulla assaults.

Aurix opened his hand. In it was a small, blood-colored pebble.

“Ah, that will come in handy,” Shlee told him.

“What is it?”

“A glimstone.”

“And what is that?”

“You’ll see.”

“Can’t you ever just answer a simple question?”

“There are rarely simple questions, Aurix. And fewer still with simple answers.”

Aurix sighed and shook his head.

As hot as the desert was during the day, a chill still crept silently through the night. They’d managed to get through the rest of the day without incident. An arc before darkfall, they’d come upon a small lake where they refilled their skins and let the caples drink until their bellies sloshed.

They made camp about a mile further on.

“Why didn’t we stay nearer the water?” Aurix asked.

“The Nulla use the lakes too. And they serve as a most effective trap. They know anyone passing through the Oose will have to stop there. If they’re hungry, they just watch and wait. They figure out how big the party is, what direction they’re going and send out a swarm large enough to bring them down further up the road.”

“So that’s what happened this afternoon?”

“Yes. The Nulla would have brought down all four of them easily, had we not been riding the other way and had you not gotten involved.”

The darkness was nearly complete. Aurix could only see a faint shine in Shlee’s eyes now. He wished they could light a fire—both for the warmth, and to push back the pitch in which anything at all might be hiding.

“Where did you put your glimstone?” Shlee asked.

“It’s in my pocket.”

“Take it out.”

Aurix retrieved it and gasped. A deep red glow lit the area around them for several yards. “What about the Nulla?” he asked.

“They can’t see it. In winter, when Nova is the only sunlight, it casts a red glow like this across Valeria. It’s known as the glim. And until Shura reunites with the sky, the Nulla hibernate in their huts and caves and catacombs. They’re blind on the surface during the glim.”

Aurix turned the small stone in his hand, watching the shadows around them shift.

“It’s quite a gift,” Shlee said. “Glimstones are exceptionally rare.”

Aurix thought about Mika and found his stomach turning with anger. He tried to quell it with a hunk of bread and meat. “Why didn’t you want to help them? I didn’t think you to be a coward.”

Shlee sighed and dropped his head. Aurix was surprised to realize the old man was humiliated. “I should have. What you did was both brave and stupid, Aurix. If you’d have died, all of this would have been for nothing.”

“If I had done nothing, none of this would have made a difference anyway.”

Shlee looked at him. His eyes gleamed in the red glim. “What do you mean?”

“I can’t just let others die so I might succeed. That would make me no better than Xu’ul.”

“Sometimes terrible things must happen for better things to be, Aurix. Remember?”

“And how is allowing terrible things to happen really any better, Shlee?”

The old man was silent for a full minute. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I thought I was trying to protect you, but in doing so made the wrong decision.”

Aurix was shocked and a bit unnerved to see a tear trickle down the old man’s cheek. “But you came for us. I owe you for that.”

“I came for you. Had I not, all would have been lost.”

“Someone else would have taken my place.”

“No, I’m not sure that’s true at all. Or even possible.”

Aurix was embarrassed by the compliment and changed the subject. “What was that explosion before you showed up?”

“Flux, I’d guess.”

“It wasn’t you?”

“Nope.”

Aurix gave the old man a doubtful stare.

“What?” Shlee held his hands out. “One of them must have been fluxen. It wasn’t me.”

“Sure. Right,” Aurix said.

His dreams were teeming with flux. Shlee threw white, concussive bolts from his fists, while Mika and Bradek held hands and called fire upon a circle of snakes who screeched and curled, their pointed teeth clacking together as they burned. They left behind a mound of molten, molted skin, which Cort picked up with his bare hands and crushed into a tiny stone that glowed red.

Partway through the following day, the mountains came into view. They first appeared as tiny, sharp teeth jutting from the horizon, and grew a little bit with every arc that passed. Aurix had never seen mountains before, and gaped in wonder at them as they slowly started to rise into the sky.

“The Jaw.” Shlee said. “Just wait. You can hardly tell it now, but they are massive. Far bigger than those in Fennoril.” He’d been unusually quiet since they’d set out that morning, but he seemed amused by Aurix’s excitement.

“My aunt and uncle are probably sick with worry by now,” Aurix said.

“I’m sure they’re concerned, but I suspect they always knew you’d leave them sooner or later.”

“Why’s that?”

“Nyx. Black braka don’t just show up on your doorstep. And if they knew she was a Shapebreaker, then they knew—or suspected—far more than they ever told you.”

Aurix recalled his uncle’s insistence that he and Shlee take Nyx on their trip and wondered if Brill did know more than he’d let on. And if so, what exactly was it that he knew? Because Aurix still had no idea himself.

“Why would Nyx show up?”

“I don’t know, Aurix. You can ask the Helm when we find it.”

“Why did you show up?”

“You can ask the Helm that, too.”

“I’m asking you.”

Shlee shook his head. “It’s not time. I’m sorry.”

“How will you know when it’s time?”

“When I know the answer myself.”

“Maybe I can help you figure it out.”

Shlee laughed. It morphed into a long fit of coughing. When he got himself under control again, he said, “You already are, boy. You already are.”

They bathed and watered the caples at the next pond. The cool water felt delightful as it cut through the grime of their long, dusty ride. Dirty brown clouds rolled off of them like thunderheads in a stormy sky.

“Do you think they’re going to come for us again?” Aurix asked, warily eyeing the desert in all directions as he washed up.

“It’s hard to say. The Nulla aren’t exactly known for their integrity. And there are many tribes. Many chiefs. They have no obligation to one another, and a pact made with one doesn’t necessarily hold with the others.”

“Do they communicate with one another?”

Shlee nodded. “Word gets around.”

“How?” Aurix asked.

“Sound travels quite well through earth. Better than aboveground, in fact. I’m quite sure that they’ll pass on the warning to the others.”

Aurix raised his eyebrows. “Warning? What warning?”

“Flux. I might have suggested that it came from you.”

“What?” Aurix shouted. “You told them that I caused the explosion?”

“And the earthquake.”

He rolled his eyes. “Oh, Gods! Why would—“

“To gain passage. Why else?”

“So now they think I’m a fluxen?”

“A bit of fear might be all that gets us across the Oose, Aurix. They’re aligned with Xu’ul, remember. They only thing the Nulla respect is power.”

Aurix dried quickly in the desert sun and heat, and donned his clothes and armor. He was getting better at managing the leather mail himself. He thought he might be getting worse at managing Shlee.

Nova had reached her peak in the sky when Aurix saw them again, rolling over the desert terrain in their strange rippling manner. His heart leapt into his throat. “Shlee.”

“I see them. I’ve seen them for some time, gree.”

“What do we do?”

“There’s nothing we can do. Just keep riding.”

Chills sheared their way up Aurix’s spine, sharper than any knife. He was terrified. If anything, their numbers were greater than they’d been the day before, and instead of six mounted riders, they were but two. They would have no chance whatsoever.

“Be calm, Aurix. I will not leave you,” Shlee said, watching the impossibly fast approach of the Nulla.

The thought didn’t much settle Aurix’s mind. He fought a tremendous urge to break from their easy trot and run Nyx as fast as she would go.

As if she could read his thoughts, Nyx nickered and snorted as the savages advanced on them.

“We’re going to die here,” Aurix said. He managed to keep his voice from shaking with significant effort. “We should run.”

“No. Trust me, Aurix. If they mean to kill us, we will not outrun them.”

Aurix could hear the clicking of their teeth now. It was not the sound he wanted to accompany him to his grave. He put his hand on the hilt of his sword.

“Leave it,” Shlee cautioned. He kept his head forward, though Aurix could see his eyes darting toward the converging hordes.

They would be on them in a few seconds at most. Nyx tossed her head, eyes wild. Aoni neighed, the sound frantic. Shlee held her steady. Aurix held his breath.

And then the Nulla stopped, leaving a cloud of desert dust in the air. They lined up a few yards from the sides of the road and watched as Shlee and Aurix passed.

The corner of Shlee’s mouth turned up in a vague smile.

Aurix was too stunned to speak. He couldn’t have—even had he wanted to—through the massive lump stuck in his throat. Instead he brought his right fist up to his left shoulder as they passed the swarms gathered on both sides of them. He maintained the salute until they reached the end of the corridor of diminutive beings.

A chieftain stood at the head of the lines on either side of the road. Aurix gave both a nod.

When they returned his salute, Aurix remembered to breathe again and tried not to puke in the dirt.