Sand & Steel

Chapter 4 - Why have we come here?

"I wonder how long have we been walking? Solon mumbled, raising his arm to shield his eyes from sun while looking at the horizon and the endless sea of sand that stretched underneath it.

"Pretty long. You can't even see the temple anymore." Sheela replied, looking back at the direction from which they came. She hopped across the sand, slightly gliding above its searing hot surface between each step.

"Think we are going to find anything anytime soon?" The mercenary asked.

"No clue. All I see are dunes. This place used to have lush oases and bustling villages, back when I reigned supreme." The woman grinned and spun around, watching as her makeshift dress fluttered.

Solon did not grace her with a response, merely waving her off with his right hand, choosing to conserve this words and energy.

The sun had already slowly begun to set, as the two wandered the desert. Sheela, though not openly admitting it, was mildly impressed by the soldiers durability. The man hadn't lost his posture nor stride, despite an entire day of walking under the merciless sun.

A good distance away from the pair, a slow moving caravan moved across the dunes, raiding a cloud of sand as it went. Solon crouched down, closing his right eye, allowing his prosthetic left one to focus in on the caravan.

"They got big wagons and sheets, don't seem like bandits. The sheets seem marked with some sort of wiggly line or something, like a double loop."

"Ugh. Beast folk slavers." Sheela spat onto the ground, at least tried to, as her mouth had gotten as dry as the sand around her.

"Also, you can see that far from here?"

"Yeah. The other eye can see thermal, night vision and also be used as a scope. It not just to fill the hole in my skull where the read eye used to be." The man replied.

"So, they clearly have information on where a village might be. They're heading to one or coming from one, either way works for us." He continued.

"How do we go about this? I can act like I had captured you or."

"I would rather choke to death eating this sand here, than have anyone ever think YOU enslaved ME." She scoffed at his proposition, cutting him off mid sentence.

"If anything, you are the one with a pet name here, so you act like the captured one. With your mangy appearance and lack of arms, you fit the role perfectly."

"Up yours bitch." Solon grimaced and flipped the former genie off with his metal arm, before turning into the direction of fast approaching caravan. Clearly whoever had been steering the convoy had noticed the pair and had now changed direction, heading straight towards them.

"Guess they spotted us." Sheela said.

"If what you said is true, they won't bother us much, as we are not beast folk."

"What's a beast folk?" The mercenary stood up, watching as the cloud of sand got closer and closer.

"You'll see soon enough." She responded nonchalantly.

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"Helloooo there! What brings a lovely pair such as yourselves this deep in the desert? And on foot no less!"

The cheerful leader of the caravan, a elder looking man of short stature shouted to them, as the caravan came to a halt.

Solon flashed a smile back to the man while making a mental count of all the guards and their weapons. Surprisingly, the caravan didn't seem nearly as big as he thought at first, and was lightly guarded. No more than 4 guards, no bigger than the old man himself, armed with spears, daggers and dressed in thin cloth armor. Their heads, necks, arms and legs were entirely unprotected, which surprised the soldier, as he expected a slaver caravan to be much better equipped.