<<< PREV | FIRST | NEXT >>>

HaHA! A TWOFER! Weren't expecting THAT, were you?!
And finally, some decent art again.

Chapter 14 / 1 – Without an Oasis

I’m going to try to explain to you what love means to me. It’s simple enough for some people, as obvious as stating their name or telling you what season they were born in. For me, it’s always been more complicated. But I’m going to try.

There’s always been two separate kinds of love, as far as my experience has taught me. And they are, without a doubt, very distinctly different. I’m not sure if there’s a different word for each that I’m simply not aware of, but as best as I can describe, it breaks down into consensual, and circumstantial. Circumstantial love is the kind you can’t avoid. The kind you’re born with, that your mind, or your instincts, or whatever it is that makes us feel things we never asked to feel, forces on us. It’s the sort of love you have for your parents, or your siblings, that persists even in the face of being hurt, or betrayed . . . to a point. It’s the sort of love you can’t help, that isn’t really earned. It’s just there because of circumstance. And it’s hard to let go of, but everyone has their limits. There comes a point when even that kind of love can fade, or fall away.

Sometimes that kind of love is mutual, and rewarded. I loved my mother because she was my mother, and though I became frustrated over time, watching her accept my father’s abuse and cruelty, it was never enough that I stopped loving her. I understood, to a certain extent, the fear that kept her from standing up to him. Even if that fear meant I went unprotected from his rages, too. I never stopped loving her.

I stopped loving my father long before the day I killed him. I can’t date it to one specific moment, but I knew by the time that I’d reached adulthood that any love we’d had between us was gone. I never stopped to ask if he still loved me. If he did, he had a shitty way of showing it.

I can’t really say I’d ever truly loved my wife. We had too little in common to even be friends. Making a child together, while bonding us in some way, hadn’t made me love her. And she certainly didn’t love me. But we both loved our son.

I think the love you have for your child is in some ways a love you can’t help, too. They’re literally a part of you, so even if you’re a selfish person, you’ll always feel some urge to protect them and love them. But as my own father proved, it’s no less fragile. If mistreated, if neglected . . . it can fade. I’d hoped to earn Amon’s love over time, by being the kind of father mine had failed to be. I still do. As impossible as it seems now, not even knowing where he is in the world, I still hope to find him some day. He was young when his mother took him away from me, so he may not even remember me. Which means we’ll be starting with a blank slate. I will have to earn his trust and affection.

Which brings me to the second kind, a form of love I’m only now beginning to experience. Mind you this might all sound rambling, because I’m pretty uncertain of what I’m feeling and where it fits into my suddenly far more chaotic life. But it feels . . . right. That’s the best way I can describe how I know it.

There’s a person, another man in my life, whom I care for a great deal. I haven’t told him, or at least haven’t used the word ‘love’, and I won’t until I’m certain. We came together over the course of a few very difficult months, and I’m more than aware that tragedy and hard living can make you cling to the nearest good thing for dear life. I don’t want to say something to him that could seem like a false promise. Especially not to him. He’s dealt with enough betrayal from the people he loved, already.

But I worry for him, I want to keep him safe, and more than anything . . . I just want to be with him. A few years ago I would never have seen myself feeling this way about another man, but considering all the crisis I’ve overcome this year, shaking off the barriers of gender barely seems worth worrying over. At this point I’m a criminal first, an escaped slave second, and somewhere beneath five or six other things that’ll get me hanged, I’m a man in love with another man. And they only hang you for that in certain communities, in my country.

What makes it feel all the more certain is that this time, I chose him. And he chose me. And if I’m in love, I chose to be. Consensual love.

It’s odd to think that a feeling that should be nothing but positive can be forced on you, and that breaking away from it can be so painful. It’s equally odd to think that I’ve found the right sort of feeling with what would have seemed a year ago to be the least likely other person. A man. A slave. A hyena!

The Gods weave our lives in ways that must surely be intended for their own amusement. Where mine goes from here, I can’t say. But for the first time since I set out to look for my lost family and was tricked into selling myself into servitude, I am free again. And I don’t intend to waste whatever time I have left.




The desert is as cruel a place as any in the world, but in many ways, it’s also the most fair. The unbearable heat of the incessant sun, the frigid nights, the unquenchable thirst it summons in you without offering a drop of water. . . but in the end, it’s the great equalizer. No man or woman, or living thing, whether humble as a slave or mighty as a warrior king with a thousand-man army is immune to its dangers. We are all at its mercy and brought to our knees by the reality of its uncaring. You can’t barter or bribe the dangers out here, you can’t fight them or overcome them. The desert simply is, and makes no apologies.

The Great Dunes of Mataa span vast regions of territory across both the Hyena Clans’ Provinces and the Lion Prides. We’d had to cross a long stretch to find Dela Eden’s Oasis, a rare sanctuary for injured and unwanted women, only to bring our pursuers from the Sura clan down on their heads. The ensuing battle had cost Dela’s Pride dearly, in the form of several of her lioness’s lives. Dela herself had been injured, and so had I.

Ultimately, she’d asked us to leave, and I couldn’t say I blamed her. Ahsan, Raja and I were escaped slaves, (or ‘indentured servants’, as the hyenas prefer to call it, although it’s as good as slavery to a laborer who can’t read their own contract) from a plantation far to the southwest of here. The revolt that had given us a chance to escape had devastated the Sura Clan’s Estate, and embarrassed them. Ahsan had even killed the Matron of the Estate, a bitter old hyena who’d raised him like some kind of twisted stepchild, and treated him like a doll. A toy she’d apparently grown tired of as he’d aged, at which point she’d started selling him as a dancer and ‘entertainer’. I try not to think about the years he spent being sold off by a woman he still sometimes referred to as his ‘mother’. Some days I feel like I’m more disturbed by it than he is.

But then I remember the near-feral glaze over his eyes when he finally attacked her and ended her life, and the frenzied animal he became for a few moments in time. The Priestess who travels with us now thinks he is channeling the power of some angry, berserk hyena God, apparently one of the lesser-known deities in their pantheon. She’s a zealot, and I take most of her religious talk with a grain of salt, but there is definitely something brewing inside of Ahsan that boiled over that day, and transformed the soft-hearted hyena I know.

We parted ways with Dela five nights ago, and we’ve been wandering west since. She’d given us enough provisions to last at least a week, more than enough to make it out of the dunes, if we wanted to. But each time we neared a watering hole or a small town on the outskirts, we dipped our toes only to retreat back into the desert soon after. The pinpricks of civilization around the desert’s edge were bristling with hyenas from merchant caravans and plantations selling their wares, and we’re not sure how known we are to each of the clans, but we know there are hunters looking for us, and that’s reason enough to be cautious.

“We can string the food out another three days,” Anala says as she puts away the bundle of dried meat, wrapping it tight to keep out the sand. “Water won’t last us that long, though. We need to visit a well.”

“We’re already eating less than we were as slaves,” Raja mutters from where he rests against the crumbled remains of an old stone wall. We’re taking refuge in one of the many old ruins speckling this stretch of desert, a half-buried city from a time long past. It’s only on some of the maps of the area, Anala’s assured us, so it’s a decent enough place to take refuge for a day or so while we figure out what to do.

Raja’s tone speaks to his frustration, with just an edge of exhaustion creeping in. We’re all feeling it, he’s just unashamed about voicing it. The air in our little camp is dismal, tinged with uncertainty and a loss of purpose. When we left Dela’s oasis, our spirits were higher, riding the tail of a hard-fought battle. I can’t speak to what the others were thinking of the future ahead of us, but I know Anala at least was quite literally on the warpath, and hoping to bring us along with her. Raja absolutely loathes traveling with her, but even he was won over by the idea of finding this Liberator she seems to know the location of, and getting his collar cut off his neck.

Lavanya hasn’t been with us long, but I think she’s become a permanent part of our strange little group at this point purely by circumstance. She brought us to Dela, it’s clear the two had a pre-existing relationship from some time ago, but even she wasn’t welcome at the oasis after the attack. She is, after all, also an escaped Sura slave, which means she’s got the same bounty on her head we do.

Ahsan’s been quiet. He’s been attentive to me, and helping me treat and re-dress my wound, but I’m not sure of his feelings on our future. It’s clear he’s had a lot on his mind, and I’ve been meaning to talk to him, but survival alone has been taking up most of our time.

The fact is, we’re fugitives now. And it’s never felt so real as it has these last few days. The Sura clan sent hunters, some of their own and even hired foreign mercenaries, to track us down. Normal escaped servants run enough risk being re-captured and taken back to the clans that ‘own’ them. Our collars are stamped with the clan symbol of whomever holds our contract, making it very easy to collect a bounty for finding you if you try to run. But we’re beyond that, now. We’re not just a lost acquisition. We attacked their estate, killed a clan leader, then attacked another of their businesses and freed even more of their servants. And we killed a lot of their soldiers in the process.

When they sent that group of mercenaries after us, they couldn’t have known we’d sheltered ourselves with a group of militant lionesses. They hired enough men that it would be overkill, if they’d found us alone. This isn’t just about a bounty now, it’s. . . personal. The Sura want us dead, not reclaimed. If they take us alive it will only be to make examples of us.

It’s possible that it’s even more personal than we know. Anala was part of the Sura expedition that set out to find us, and she’s told us the man in charge is the Sura Clan’s Spymaster, a hyena who once tried to purchase Ahsan. He clearly intends to have him, one way or another.

No one is really leading our little band, but I feel responsible for us because I’ve always had one of the calmer heads here, and many of the decisions we’ve made in the past have been mine. But the fact is, I just don’t know what to do right now. We can’t just hide in the desert forever, but we’ve tried sending Anala (the only one of us without a collar, which is another reason I’m grateful to have her around) into some of the small settlements on the outskirts and even she’s said the number of clan guards and hunters on the roads is unsettling. And if that woman’s nervous, I’m nervous.

So while it does us no good, I can’t fault Raja for pointing out our dire circumstances. Our rations will run out soon and forays into settlements are out of the question, and there’s nothing to be had in the desert, obviously. We need to move on and make our way as far from the Sura plantation as we can so that we can find settlements where we aren’t known, but we can’t do that without rations, which brings us right back around to the problem.

And beyond our current crisis, we have no real direction for the long term either, save a vague location Anala knows where this Liberator might be taking up residence. And the Sura compound she’s told us about is at least a week to the west from here, through much more populated clan territory. True, most of those clans won’t be the Sura, but that doesn’t mean they won’t be on alert for us or hungry to pick up a bounty. Hyenas make alliances along trade roads, the Sura have many friends, and most of those friends also have hunters. Reclaiming escaped servants is big business.

“You complain like a cub,” Lavanya says from where she’s stretched out near the fire. “We’re all used to empty bellies now and again. You’ve survived it before, clearly. You’ll survive it now.”

Raja curls a lip but says nothing. Oddly, though Lavanya seems to challenge him more than anyone else in our group, he rarely argues with her. There’s definitely something matronly about the lioness. She approaches almost everything, even in the way she speaks, with a matter-of-fact calmness. There’s a bitterness there, most certainly, but it never sounds like she’s trying to insult or be condescending. It’s just that most of what she chooses to say, on the rare occasions that she speaks, is . . . accurate. Bleak, but then our reality is bleak. I think Raja doesn’t fight her because at this point, we’ve all accepted that Lavanya is usually just stating the facts. Even if what she’s saying is hard to accept.

The cheetah has also put on a completely different face since we escaped captivity. The imperious dictator he acted the part of when we were on the plantation, he slowly let slip away to reveal a far less confident, frustrated, and often immature young man. Hardly surprising, given he was raised from a young age with a collar. Slavery is no place to shape a man, and when he’s not overcompensating, his weakness of character shows through.

It’s strangely endearing, though. He may not even realize it himself, but I think the reason we see this side of him is because he’s become comfortable enough with us to be himself. And really, he was a dick before. So it’s almost an improvement.

“I’m going to check my maps again,” Anala announces as she stands, wiping the sand off her knees, and the leather under-padding she’s wearing. Her full suit of leather armor is heavy, she hasn’t worn it at all while we’ve been traveling. “I’ll find us a less-populated travel route, and this time we’ll all go, come hell or high water.”

She heads off towards her pack in her own crumbled corner of the ancient stone building. It’s really more of a stone foundation now, or what’s left of it. Our only roof is the canopy of stars above, stretched around us and the world like a distant poppy field. I can’t help but stare, as I lie back in the sand.

A presence settles beside me, and I know without looking that it’s Ahsan. It’s not just his smell, he has a way of moving that’s unique to him. Quiet, but not predatory like a cat, more like he’s trying to take up as little space as possible, and not impose on anyone else’s. It comes from a lifetime of being taught to be beneath notice, until he’s called on to be a spectacle. It unnerves me sometimes how even his most pleasing mannerisms are all due to his twisted upbringing.

Over the last few months he’s managed to cling on to something resembling his own will, and stood his ground to escape the life he was sold into. He’s even stood up to me a time or two, and I’m a stubborn fool, so that’s saying something. It’s been good watching him come into his own, but I’m not sure he’ll ever leave his past behind. Not entirely.

But then none of us will. Things have happened to me in my years as a servant . . . slave. . . that can never be undone. Never forgotten.

As has been our custom these last few nights, Ahsan and I sit in silence for a time. I can feel his fingers in the sand beside mine, a silent invitation, so I reach over and take them in my own.

Now would probably be a good time to talk to him, I think. I should ask what his thoughts are on our situation. At least ask how he’s feeling. I don’t know why it’s been so hard for me to talk to him since we left the oasis.

“Did you want to take a walk?” He interrupts my reverie, his question shocking me slightly in how well he seems to have anticipated me.

“Y-yes,” I say after barely a moment’s consideration, gripping his hand a little tighter. “I’d like that.”

That’s how we find ourselves wandering between aging foundations and shifting, shallow dunes. The winds here are not as severe as they can be further inland, so the sands don’t shift quite so much. There are even spots of vegetation here and there, remnants of the grasslands we came from. There aren’t many insects out here like there were there, but every now and then I catch a distant trilling, or the soft scrape of something moving through the sound. If I was so inclined, we could probably hunt scorpions. . . but we’re not that hungry, yet.

“Is she letting you keep his sword?” He asks quietly, glancing down at the falchion on my hip. Anala had given it to me, but it had once belonged to Lochan, a man whose impact on my life was eclipsed only by his impact on Ahsan’s.

I gave a dismissive snuff. “I’m not giving her a choice in the matter. It belonged to him, and I’m pretty certain he’d rather we have it than she.

“Kadar, she could kill every last one of us if she wanted to.”

I sigh. “Not without a fight, and there’s something to be said for outnumbering someone four to one.”

“I think she’d just see that as a challenge,” the hyena says with a glance.

“You’re probably right,” I agree, trying to sound reassuring, “but that’s all the more reason to keep her around. If we’re found by hunters again, odds are, they’ll outnumber us. She’s worth three or four of us in a fight. I know it’s hard. . . to shake off what she did Ahsan, but-“

“No,” he snaps quietly. “No. ‘Hard’ has been convincing myself every night not to knife her in her sleep. Traveling with her is painful. I can’t see her without seeing. . .” he pauses, taking a slow breath, “. . . what happened. . . to him.”

“I know,” I murmur, reaching for his paw and taking it in mine again, squeezing it gently. “And I’m not going to tell you how to feel about that-“

“Angry,” he interrupts me, a growl in the back of his throat. I pause mid-step, concern taking over for a moment. I’d known Anala’s presence was a sore spot for him, but all this time I’d been assuming that he’d accepted it by now. If he hadn’t, if he couldn’t, then I had a major decision to make. Anala, for all our bad blood, had quickly become a member of our traveling party that I’d begun to inadvertently count on. Looking back on it, I suppose I did accept her a bit quickly, considering our history.

But she had no collar. She was a hyena. A female hyena at that, who not only knew how to fit into clan society but knew the lay of the land better than any of us and knew much more about the Sura than we’d be able to learn from anyone else willingly. What’s more, she’d sworn they were her enemy now, which as far as I was concerned, made her an ally. And a powerful, militant, well-trained and equipped ally, at that.

She’d also probably saved all of our lives at the oasis, but that I wouldn’t dare say out loud. I’d been there, I’d seen the battle first-hand and how dire things had seemed before she showed up. It’s possible we may have won the day without her, but unlikely, in my estimation. And we certainly would have lost a lot more lives.

But if Ahsan was drawing a line in the sand, I’d have to choose between the seeming security of traveling with her, and the hyena I cared for. And that was no choice at all, as far as I was concerned. It would just make my life even harder from now on.

“I know she wasn’t the one who ultimately killed him,” he says, his eyes moving back to the horizon. “I remember. Even the hazy bits. . . I remember enough. It was the gunshot that took him. I’ve thought about it a lot since we left the oasis, and you’re right. There’s nothing we could have done for him past that.”

I follow his gaze towards the cloud of stars that seems to move its way up the sky in a band. The lions call that band of stars the Road of the Gods, and it’s only visible this time of year. It’s supposed to lead the dead home, to the overworld. To become one with the Gods themselves. Whether or not it truly is a celestial road, I can’t say, but right now it’s pointing towards the West, like it’s beckoning me to the sea.

My thoughts drift to my son again. I can’t help but feel that I know where he is, as unrealistic as that sounds. He was headed west with my wife towards the sea, or at least that’s where she seemed intent on going. What if he’s there now?
What if he needs my help?

“I also don’t think she had any real loyalty to the Sura,” he continues, oblivious to my inner thoughts. “So I believe her now when she says she wants revenge against them for denying her the. . . ‘perfect battle’, or whatever it is she zealously rants about.”

“I’m confused, then,” I blink a few times, looking over at him. “If you don’t blame her for his death, and you don’t believe she’ll turn on us, why don’t you want-“

“Doesn’t it bother you, Kadar?” He asks insistently. “That she has no morals? That all she cares about is fighting? She might not have killed Lochan, but she would have if he hadn’t been shot. And she would’ve enjoyed it.”

I can feel his disdain, and more than that, his disgust at saying that. I understand how he feels, but it’s hard for me to judge as quickly. I can’t say I enjoy fighting, I’d almost always rather not have to, but I also can’t say that some part of me didn’t enjoy taking down the Sura, and fighting back against the people who were enslaving us. I got no joy out of it in the moment, but in retrospect, it was good to win. Given the sort of time, training and experience Anala has, I think I could come to enjoy a good fight, too. Not nearly as much as her. . . but then, she’s a fanatic. And not knowing much about the Order she hails from, I can’t even say that’s entirely her fault.

“She probably doesn’t even care if she dies,” he presses. “She all but said as much when she was talking about her fight with him. She would’ve been just as thrilled to lose. She just wants to fight, for no one but herself and her Goddess, and even if she’s on our ‘side’ now, she’s just as likely to get us deeper in danger just to chase the epic melee she yearns for.”

“She knows the territory though,” I sigh. “More than that, she knows the Sura. She has some idea what roads their hunters will use, how they’ll deploy them and how they’ll hunt us. What’s more, they must know she’s a turncoat by now, she has every reason to avoid them as we do.”

“That woman doesn’t avoid danger, Kadar,” he states.

“She’s the one who said we shouldn’t go into the settlements because too many hunters were out,” I point out. “What’s that if not avoiding unwanted trouble?”

“I have a theory about that,” he murmurs.

I go quiet, wanting to argue this further, but I learned at the oasis to hear out Ahsan’s theories. He was right about Anala being on our tail to begin with.

“These ruins are a good place for us to hide,” he says, looking around. “But that also makes them a good place for anyone trying to escape clan law to hide. Like raiders. Lion prides. Maybe even foreign legions.”

“The war’s long over,” I say. “I think you’re overthinking this. You think she lied about what she saw in the settlements just so we’d be forced to stay here? So. . . what? So that we’d run into trouble with a group of raiders? Ahsan, that’s a little mad, even for her.”

“I don’t think she lied,” he says. “I don’t think she’s very good at lying. But I think the only reason we’re here in these ruins is because she wants us to be. She’s leading us now, whether you realize it or not.”

“Better her than me,” I sigh. “I barely left the community I grew up in until I was sold as a servant, Ahsan. I hardly even know where we are right now.”

“I don’t know what I want out of our freedom,” he says, “but I know I don’t want to follow that woman’s path. She’s marching towards death.”

“Ahsan, we aren’t free yet,” I point out, tapping the collar around my neck with a claw. I see his expression fall slightly, and I feel awful for being the cause of it, but I think it bears saying. “And,” I sigh, “we are going to have to fight again. To keep our freedom, we’ll spend our entire lives fighting. Or we’ll have to get the hell out of this country, and go somewhere no one knows the Sura, or what these collars mean.”

I’d said it in the way one might talk about leaping in the air and flying to the stars, but when I looked back at him, his eyes were alight and he was staring at me with the most amount of hope I’d seen on his face in some time.

“We should do that,” he says in a voice barely above a whisper. Then, before I can reply, he’s turned and is wrapping his hands around my biceps, his eyes still locked on mine. “Kadar, let’s leave Mataa. Forever.”

“Ahsan, we can’t.” I let out a breath.

“We’ll find a way out of Sura territory,” he insists, “and then we can . . . we can just head for the sea. We can find a ship, and go . . .anywhere. Anywhere but here. I don’t care if it’s cold, if no one speaks our language, I don’t care if the land is on fire-“

“The sea isn’t an escape from everything,” I insist quietly, trying not to compare this moment to the conversation I once had with my wife. The argument that had destroyed our family.

“We fought our way out of the plantation,” he presses. “I thought it was impossible, but you made me believe. I know the ports are hard for servants to escape from, I know they check for collars. But we could . . .get money, somehow. Pay a foreign Captain. Or sneak on board a ship-“

“Ahsan,” I cut him off in a firmer tone. “I am not leaving this country. I’m sorry.”

His ears tip back, his whole figure deflating, and his hands fall away from my arms. It feels awful watching the man who I told so many times to ‘stand up straight’, falling back into his weak posture because of something I said. Because for a brief moment he was hopeful, and I shot his dreams down. And he isn’t even wrong about everything he said. We probably could find a way to leave Mataa if we wanted it enough. It would be hard, possibly even deadly, but not impossible.

But I can’t.

“My son is still here somewhere,” I say quietly, taking his hands in mine and lifting them back up, this time to my hips. “At the very least, I have to stay here until I know for certain that he’s. . . .”

I can’t complete that thought, but Ahsan is nothing if not empathetic, and even with crushed dreams, he always puts his concern for others over himself. He slowly tugs in a little closer to me, then all at once, buries his muzzle against my clavicle.

“I know, and I’m sorry,” he murmurs into my fur.

“You don’t have to-“

“I’m staying with you,” he says stubbornly. “We’ll find him together. And once we do, we’ll talk about this again.”

“If I find my son, I am getting him the hell out of here,” I assure him. “I have no love for this country, Ahsan.” I run my paw over his rough mane, down from the crown of his head to his shoulders. “If I can find Amon, we can go wherever you want. Collars be-damned.”

We stand like that for a time, enjoying the warmth of one another’s bodies in the cooling desert air. I imagine the peace I feel when I’m touching so much of him is the way I was always meant to feel with a wife. It’s as though every point of contact makes me feel good in a different way. Comfortable, wanted, needed. The ‘comfort’ in particular is something I’ve never really felt with anyone, before. Not even my parents. Maybe when I was a cub, before I knew who they really were as people. . . but I can’t remember a time when I felt as safe with them as I do with Ahsan.

We shouldn’t feel safe. Nothing about our current situation is safe. But, if it’s a false feeling of security, I’m willing to bask in it for a few moments in time.

“What. . . ?” He lifts his head from my shoulder suddenly, his muzzle poking over it. I feel his body go rigid, so I release him and turn around, my hand going to my falchion’s hilt.

Whatever caught his attention is escaping mine, so eventually I glance back at him to see where he’s staring. His features are frozen, ears cupped straight up and twitching, as is his muzzle.

“Raiders?” I ask worriedly. “What do you hear?”

“Smell,” he corrects me quietly. “And . . . I don’t know. I thought it might just be our fire, but . . . .”

I wait another few quiet moments, before insisting, “What?”

“I smell,” his nose twitches, “coffee.”





“Coffee?” Anala queries, her muzzle scrunching up. “Are you certain?”

“Yeah, you’d better be sure, ‘yena,” Raja says in an uncertain enough tone that I’m pretty sure he’s bluffing that he even knows what Ahsan is talking about. As it is, the hyena had to explain it to me.

Lavanya gives Raja an annoyed glance, then speaks up. “Well I’m willing to admit ignorance,” she states bluntly. “What is coffee, and why does it matter?”

“It’s a very expensive, vile-tasting concoction only the clans and other rich folks drink,” Ahsan explains. “I’ve had it a few times and I never understood the appeal. But that doesn’t matter. What matters is-“

“Raiders, hunters, vagabonds,” Anala says, “none of them would have it. It’s an import. So either a caravan of rich men is making their way across these ruins, or it’s a group of merchants. My bet would be on the latter. This is just the sort of place a bold merchant might see as a good short cut to get his product to market faster. I doubt they intended to overnight here in the ruins, but-“

“The sand storms,” Raja says with dawning realization, and then slowly, a fanged smile.

“They took a gamble and lost,” Anala finishes. “That would be my guess.”

Raja stands, his spine popping as he straightens to his full, impressive height with a languid stretch. “Gambled and lost,” he says.

“Wait, what are we saying here, exactly?” I interject. “Ahsan and I just figured we should move the camp a little further south, avoid running into them.”

“The Gods have given us an opportunity,” Anala says, beginning to kick sand over our fire. “We must not waste it.”

Aghast, and unable to think what else to do, I shove my foot between hers and the remnants of the fire she hasn’t yet doused. The woman’s dark red eyes settle on mine, perhaps with the vaguest hint of irritation, but all of her emotions seem quiet outside of combat.

“We are not raiders!” I snap.

“Raiders are just men and women whose desperation and hunger has outgrown their morals,” she states matter-of-factly. “I would not put yourself so high above them. We are hungry, and need coin if we’re to bribe our way through Sura territory.”

“There’s another way,” I say through grit teeth. “We just haven’t found it yet.”

“Stop being so sanctimonious,” Raja says through a toothy yawn. “I was there when you cut your way through a plantation full of guards, remember.” He glances around camp. “Most of us were. We’ve already stolen our freedom. What’s a caravan’s rations to that?”

“The plantation was different,” I insist. “We had to fight, our lives were at stake.”

“Our lives are at stake now,” Anala points out, her muzzle suddenly inches from mine, her voice sharper and more commanding. I find myself taking a step back. The woman’s intimidating mostly because I know what she’s capable of, but she’s also got a presence about her when she decides to use it. “You’re all the biggest bounty in this region right now, and I’ve tethered my fate to your own. I am not willing to die to the desert. The Goddess has greater plans for me,” she looks between Ahsan and I, “and the two of you. Assess your priorities, jackal. Remember, you are not simply making decisions for yourself.”

I know her implication there is that Ahsan will follow wherever I lead, and to some extent, she’s right. The conversation we had only a short while ago in the desert is proof of that. The hyena has begun to think for himself, and he’s argued with me now and again, but he still leaves the biggest decisions to me.

I shut my muzzle for a few moments, mulling over Anala’s words. Raja seems to be of the same mind, and that doesn’t surprise me, and Ahsan just looks uncertain. I glance briefly to Lavanya, whose eyes catch my own.

“Don’t look to me for some kind of moral ally,” she says in her usual blasé tone. “I’m with the Priestess, and the brat cheetah. We need to eat, we need water, and if we’re going to get out of this desert, we’ll either do so by bribing hyenas, or killing them. Which would you prefer?”

I sigh. “I just never saw myself as a man that would prey on innocent travelers.”

“Innocent?” Lavanya says as she stands, leveling her fierce gaze at me. “We don’t know that. Do you know how many merchants spent their coin overnighting at my brothel?”

“A lot of men visit brothels, it doesn’t mean they deserve to be robbed,” I try to insist, before I realize how privileged that sounds.

“Said like a man who’s never had to bend over for anyone,” she bites back bitterly, picking up her pack and spear.

I don’t bother telling her she’s wrong.