Sun's Heart

Chapter 8.1 - Bahittsami

Foothills gave way to brownish green grasslands and odd trees with few leaves, blended in the distance with hills of sand-covered rocky formations. Flat-topped mountains peered over the horizon, gray with distance and rippling in heat waves. Uneven formations of layered rock stood balanced atop impossibly thin stilts of wind-worn earth like stone trees whose trunks were ready to buckle. Some slanted into the ground where the low-lying vegetation had long since invaded it.

Everything was bare, yet it was far from boring. A herd of animals hidden by the tall grass and kicking dust or the clouds seen hovering far away, with rainfall seeming dragged downward by an artist's patient brushstrokes over the sparse trees. How could there be rain in a place so hot? She didn't dwell on it long. She tucked the questions away for later so she could appreciate the strange beauty.

Hours grew longer as they hiked, and then plodded, over the bumpy land. Heat rose with the sun until it she was like clay left baking in a blazing furnace. According to Selias, it would only get hotter. He seemed intent on reaching their destination before the noontime heat could roast them alive, at least, but he shared little else with them.

"Open your mouth only when you must," he instructed Dain when asked for the hundredth time if he was sure he knew where they were going. "We are not yet to Bahittsami, and you will need the water in your body to remain there. Sip water, do not gulp."

Afterwards, he hardly acknowledged them except for one or two glances to make sure they followed. Gale and Dain limped from sore feet, but they obeyed. Complaints could wait.

It couldn't have been more than eight hours past midnight, but her eyes drooped tiredly until keeping them open took conscious effort. Shaking herself, she focused on the swishing of legs moving through grass and struggled to keep herself awake.

She sighed and looked to her left, where the dust cloud of a passing herd of animals rose several minutes ago. The dust had settled, but she thought she could hear faint hoofbeats against the hard ground. I wonder what type of animal they are, she thought idly.

Bugs of all shapes and sizes travelled and worked all around them. Animals darted between bushes and grass. Birds called from a distant tree. Life existed in surprising places—

Selias went motionless.

She frowned and looked at Dain, who seemed to be deep in thought with brow furrowed. The tribesman didn't move. Dain finally stopped upon seeing Gale halt her steps and looked at the tense lines of Selias' back. The shaman bent down slowly and settled Wil on the ground amidst the waist-high grass, then stood straight with equally slow movements. He was coiled like a spring a hair away from leaping into action.

Dain looked around them, squinting through the grass.

No shapes rose from the grass. No threats or greetings. Absolute silence.

Selias watched the grass, though. Then Gale saw it move. Where a faint whisper of wind brushed it aside, there was movement opposite the air's direction. Parting the blades in a weaving path for them.

"We are being hunted." Selias' words were quiet and soft, but they cut through the air. "Do not move until I tell you to."

"What—" Dain began.

"When I tell you to, you will go to Wil and cast a barrier all around you. Do you understand?"

Gale swallowed, her throat sticking to itself for need of water. "Y-yes." Dain's echoing answer wasn't far behind.

"Good." He lowered himself to his haunches and pressed the fingers of one hand to the ground in front of him. "Go!"

The word cracked like a whip, and Dain sprang into movement. Gale hesitated only a split second, surprised at the suddenness of the command, before diving to the ground beside the other boy and scrambling the last few feet to Wil. Her breath came out hoarse and dry, but she reached him on Dain's heels. Dain's magic erupted into action, forming a barrier around them. Something in the back of her mind, a primal whisper, prompted her to raise her eyes from Wil's supine form to the grass beside them.