Frozen Fire

A wonderful nomad

Aegon

"Who are you?"

"A nomad,"

He waited for a name but no other word had followed. "They will chase us and hunt us down." said Jon holding tightly onto her small waist.

"They will have to reach us first." she answered glancing back, checking how far behind they were and urging her horse to run faster. Then suddenly in a narrow pass between rocks she commanded her horse to slow down.

"What are you doing?

"Losing them... Here hold the reins."

"They are getting closer, they're going to catch us!"

"No, they won't." While he was holding the rains, swiftly she turned her entire body facing him and drew two daggers from her belt. "Head down." she ordered. Jon was perplexed but obeyed. She aimed and threw her knife at the horse closest in pursuit. Between the sound of the horse's snorts and hooves pounding against the ground, Jon heard the noise of something falling. Keeping his head down, he glanced back, saw the horse and his rider had fallen and other riders behind tumbled on them. Two managed to jump over their felled comrades and continued to follow them. Jon turned his eyes back to the path in front of them and kept his head low. She threw one more knife and he heard the familiar noise of horse and rider falling and smirked. The woman easily returned to a forward facing riding position and took the reins from his hands, urging the horse to gallop faster when Jon looked back he saw no one chasing them. "You've got some skills." he complimented, but no comment came from her, She was commanding her horse to keep the fastest speed and was heading west instead of east or north were the Boneway lied. We should not go this way thought Jon. "Why are we going deeper into the desert?"

The nomad didn't seem to pay attention to what he said but continued galloping the horse.

Now that now that the adrenaline from the combat was leaving his body, he started to feel the pain stronger, and realized his wounds were deeper than he initially thought and bleeding heavily. She leaned forward to gain even more speed, and Jon was struggling to keep himself seated on the horse, his head feeling heavy as he fought to remain conscious. "We have only stalled them for a little bit, they will be after us in no time. We must find a good place to hide until we lose them for good." she replied a while after he had asked. He must have remained very silent and still because she turned her had to check on him. "Hold on, a bit longer... You can lean on me if you have to." she added. Jon gratefully leaned his head on her neck, and hugged her small waist, linking his fingers together so that he would not fall.

They had come to a rocky area covered by sand, which from afar, would seem just like dunes. "Close here in the bottom of those boulders is a place we can hide until they're gone." She brought the horse very close to a shallow cave and dismounted quickly, helping Jon ease himself down to the ground. She removed the saddlebags from her horse and commanded it inside the small cave, the horse almost crawling toward the back of the rocky structure. Jon leaned against a rock to help support his standing position as he waited, and noticed something odd along the far horizon, getting bigger and closer by the minute.

"What is that?" he somehow managed to croak out.

She didn't turn her head to look, fiddling with the contents of the saddlebags. "A sandstorm, soon to be upon us."

Jon had heard about of how harsh and deadly they were to anything living, but he had never seen one nor was he eager to. We are dead he thought.

"Sit! We need to stop that bleeding." She commanded him, and he sat as she started to wrap pieces of cloth around the wounds on the legs. Not very long after she tied off the last of the bandages, the pair heard the thundering of hooves galloping above the cliff where they had taken shelter. They looked at each other, the nomad had gestured him to stay quiet pulled him to the back of the cave, before carefully covering the visible tracks so their would-be captors would not find them easily. The sandstorm approaching must have discouraged the people hunting them because not long after they arrived, the sounds of horses and man had disappeared. Sandy winds began to whip through their little shelter and the nomad pulled a folded tent from the saddle and opened it. His suspicion must have shown on his face because she explained, "I'm opening the tent inside because the cave is too shallow and won't fully protect us from the sand storm."