Sun's Heart

Chapter 8.2 - Bahittsami

Gale hadn't expected the tribe's welcome to be warm, precisely, but she certainly didn't think it would teeter on the edge of outright hostility. They were civil, at least, when she didn't attempt to make conversation with them. After she asked if they were safe from gugiys, one man had nearly taken her head off with an acerbic retort. She didn't have to speak the language to know he'd said some unsavory things.

What is their deal? It was hard enough for her to speak her mind. Doubly so toward a person she didn't know who had viciously cut her down to size.

Dain received as harsh an answer when he also attempted to broker some peace. His expression was shocked, but he got over it quickly enough. Selias was no help, either. He told them to remain silent and wait, then barely spoke to them again. He did answer Dain's question, though, as to what their spear-like weapons were called: sasuri.

However unfriendly the Voran were to the two of them, they treated Wil as though he might break when dropped. They'd fashioned a stretcher of sorts from two of their sasuri and strips of cloth stretched between them, and they carried his unconscious form upon it with delicate care. A woman with a long hunting knife strode alongside the stretcher and murmured things to herself. The words were unfamiliar, but they had the peaceful weight of prayer. She also held her hands so the fingers circled together like she held a large, invisible cup.

One of the men had even dipped a small rag into his waterskin and draped it over Wil's face to cool him off. Meanwhile, Gale and Dain struggled to speak around their parched tongues and throats while their empty waterskins dangled uselessly at their waists.

It was baffling, and frustrating.

It didn't help that she constantly felt like she should be checking her pack to make sure everything is where it should be. She was far from suspicious about being robbed, especially with how far away the tribesmen insisted on staying, but she was still nagged by the sensation of something being missing. Forgotten.

She hadn't noticed anything earlier, but the moment she approached the men and women who rescued them, she'd felt a deeply insistent sense of missing something. It hovered within conscious thought, refusing to be pushed aside.

She frowned at the men and women ahead, leading them to the low-lying tents just visible amid the scattered boulders around one of the odd flat-topped mountains dotting the grasslands, shadowed by the formation's bulky overhang against the harsh glare of the sun. No people were visible. It wasn't yet midday, but the heat was unbearable.

She started at feeling Dain's breath on her ear. "I hope they won't be like this the entire time we're here."

She didn't answer, her frown hardening into an answering glare when one of the men scowled at them. Her heart beat painfully hard until he finally looked away.

"I've heard they didn't like strangers, but this is something else," he continued conversationally. "This job is going to be interesting."

"It's like they don't want us here."

He gave her an amused look and said, "Oh, whatever gave you that idea?" He straightened and moved away again. She scowled at his back, but she wasn't ready to get into an argument over an admittedly harmless comment.

The tents were achingly close, shade and shelter from the sun calling sweetly to her to quicken her steps with what little energy she had left. She stopped with the group, however, when a lone woman strode into the open from the tents and crossed her arms in front of her. Her clothing was no different from the grays and browns of the others, except jewelry marked her like it did Selias. She was different from the others, perhaps higher in status.