Yamara

Sandala smiled lightly. "Brina tells me you have enough gold and steel on you to buy a city. Is it so common where you come from?"

Sighing, I nodded, "Steel is easy to come by, we have smiths in every town able to produce the simplest things with it. Gold is not so common, but it is the currency with which most things are bought. Silver and copper is used as well, but gold is worth more, so I carry it instead of the lesser coins."

"Yes, we have silver coins here as well, and it is worth less then gold coins. But less then that are ceramic pieces, which can be split into 10 bits. The bit is the most common currency here, but a single gold coin is worth 1000 bits."

My eyes widened. I stumbled over the math in my head and quickly realized that in gold alone, I had a fortune if that was the case. "Then it appears I am indeed a wealthy woman," I said to her, my voice low. "But wealth can be a prison, for those who have it are plagued by those who want it."

Sandala smiled again, "You are wise, that will serve you well. None of us will trouble you for it, but you can be certain that others will not be so friendly."

"Where I come from, the company I often find myself in would as soon put a dagger in my back for a few silver. My thanks to you for your kindness, it is a rarity to find in any world, and from what I have heard, even more so here."

The elf nodded to me. "Brina probably didn't tell you, but our last adventure netted us quite a bit of gold as well, more then anyone should expect to see in a lifetime."

I chuckled, Brina was gaining more respect in my mind the longer I knew her. "Brina's not the excited little girl she acts like, is she?" I asked wryly.

Sandala laughed at that. "Nay, far from it. Our Brina is a rather exceptional thief. She's not bad in a fight I suppose, but she really earns her keep whenever we need to visit a town."

I nodded, that had been my assumption from the beginning, but it was nice to hear it confirmed. "And what of you and the others? I can't imagine Arktan being a thief, he's to big. Kryl seems to surly and reluctant to part with his weapons. Where I come from, most elves live in forests and wield magic as well as more common weapons of war."

Sandala raised an eyebrow at hearing that. "What is an elf? If you mean me, I am a pudarin. My lineage can be traced all the way back to the great Tarolla herself. My people are nomads, herders, and raiders. We wander the wastelands making our living as best we can in tribes usually numbering over a hundred. I am a warrior and a tracker myself, with an affinity for the wilderness."

"And what of your friends?" I asked, changing the topic to something less personal for her lest I say or do something she might misinterpret.

Sandala smiled, she obviously knew what I was doing as well. "Arktan is a warrior, if that's not obvious. He spent some time as a mercenary lending out his strength and skill before we met up with him. Being a caravan guard is a lousy job, and when his caravan was overrun by an pudarin tribe raiding it, he switched sides with us and gladly helped us escape. He looks and acts different and simple, but be warned, he's far smarter then you might think. Brina used to try and pull tricks on him, but the joke usually ended up being on her when he turned them around on her."

I nodded and took that information to heart. "The Acathian?"

"Kryl? He's a gladiator. A priest in Borik saw him when he was a young child and took him from his parents. Ever since, he was trained to fight in the pits for the amusement of the nobles, priests, and even the sorcerer king of Borik himself. He was one of the slaves in the caravan with Arktan and I when it was overrun by pudarin." Sandala said.

"Okay, so why were you a slave?" I asked, trying to learn as much as I could about them in case I needed it later.

"I was an pudarin in Borik at the wrong place at the wrong time," She replied, sneering slightly. "A thief had just stolen something from a priest and I happened to be nearby. Given the distrust of pudarin most people have, it was only logical that I be accused of it. Never mind that I didn't have what was stolen, I was captured and sold into slavery to line the priest's pockets."

Not really interested, but trying to keep the story going, I asked, "Did they ever catch the thief?"

She laughed at that. "No, they didn't. But Kryl, Arktan and I did after we'd escaped the caravan and returned to Borik to provision ourselves."

"Rather foolish to return to the same city you had just been captured in, wasn't it?" I asked, surprised that someone who seemed as intelligent and quick witted as Sandala did would attempt something like that.

"Our moment of fame was over before it began, fortunately," she explained. "Thievery and corruption is so common here that nobody remembered me, less then a week after it had begun. Kryl was a different story, for he was a favored gladiator, but my contacts within the city allowed us to remain hidden while we supplied ourselves."

"You said you caught the thief, did you turn him in to prove your innocence or just kill him to avenge yourself?" I asked, surprised at the chaotic nature of things that I was learning.

"Neither," She said mysteriously.

"Then what did you do?" My curiosity, I had to admit, was growing.

"Asked her to join us."

I made the connection quickly and started laughing. I glanced over at where the campsite for the night was being set up by Kryl and Brina while Arktan was caring for the animals. Brina was where my gaze ended up. I was learning all sorts of surprising things about her.

It was more cooked silk crawler for dinner, then some mild conversation as we tried to get a feel for one another a bit more. I showed them my weapons and saw Kryl appraise them expertly. When he handed them back to me, I saw respect in his eyes, perhaps not for me, but for the smiths of Halador. We doubled up on taking watch that night. I spent the first watch with Kryl, to his apparent disgust, then Brina and Arktan spent the next one together. Sandala picked up the third one on her own. The next day saw us in the same riding arrangement as the day before. I was no more used to the heat, but I was used to feeling it at least, so it came as less of a shock to me.

Chapter 4

True to Brina's word, we reached the ruins of the ancient city of Guthmoor two days later. I had gotten to know all of them a little better, though I was far from placing my trust in them. Brina continued to treat me as a legendary hero that she idolized, though as our familiarity grew, she tempered it down a bit so that I felt that she considered me a treasured companion more important then the others. Trusting my own instincts about her, I kept my reservations about her, but responded to her warmly on the surface.

Arktan struck me as truly the strong but silent type. He possessed strength unlike anything I had ever seen before, and went about his tasks silently. I studied him carefully as best I could and came to learn that as Sandala had told me, he was not a dullard. The way in which he did things and even his lack of conversation at times showed signs of a keen mind. Occasionally I would catch him looking back at me, but when I caught him he would make an expression that reminded me of a snake trying to smile and then quickly move to do something else.

Kryl appeared exactly as he had been from the beginning. Arrogant, surly, and unpleasant. He reminded me of the dwarves I had met on Halador, always something to complain about. Unlike them, however, he showed no signs of ever enjoying life unless he had a task ahead of him that required all of his concentration. In fact, the longer we went the more unpleasant he became. Brina confided in me at one point that Kryl gets ornery when he doesn't have anything to fight for a long time. I did not consider 4 days a long time, but I was not from the same world as them, so what did I know?

I had learned about priests as well when I asked about the Gods of the world. There were no known Gods, but instead the priests of Acathia worshipped either one of the four elements or, in the case of priest, the sorcerer king of a city. That surprised me, to learn that the tyrants that controlled the cities were so powerful that beings could worship them and be granted spells. There was another type of priest on Acathia, a nature priest. They were called druids and reminded me much of the druids of Halador, save that these druids worshipped the nature spirit of a place and were granted their powers from that spirit, whom they were sworn to protect. Magic was non-existent in Acathia, from the looks I received when I asked of it. Sorcerer kings were not the sorcerers I was used to, instead they were powerful psionicists.

A psionicist, I learned, was someone with a powerful mind. Someone that could use their mind to affect others and in some instances, even the very world around them. Sounded like magic to me, just by a different name.

My head was abuzz with all the information I had learned in the past several days. I had begun to get accustomed to the heat, though by no means did that mean that I was able to claim immunity to it, simply that I could endure the 150 degree weather in silent misery. It was a moment of this misery that had me squinting through the shimmering heated air that rose off the ground when we reached Guthmoor.

I caught my first glimpse of the Sea of Lost Souls then too. Brina had finally explained to me what is was. It was sand, rock, and other bits of the world ground so finely as to be individually no larger then a spec of dust. The winds had blown these specks together in depressions across Acathia, leaving behind lakes and seas of this dust that was so fine that anything foolish enough to walk in it quickly was sucked under. Apparently at a depth of around 15 to 20 feet it was compressed enough by the weight of the dust that it became solid enough to walk on. However, only giants could reach that depth, and apparently Acathia did not possess any of them. To be sucked into the silt, I was told, is a painful and quick death of suffocation. Now that I saw it, I likened it to quicksand, for it looked harmless enough on the surface.

"So this is a city of the ancients?" I asked Brina of Guthmoor as we approached it.

She grinned and said, "Yeah, isn't it exciting? I've seen ruins before but never any this big. Look at how they fit the stones together, can you imagine how much skill that would have taken?"

I chuckled and surveyed the city. It was a good size one, I had to admit, but the walls were scarred and broken by the harsh climate. Many of the buildings we could see were equally broken down, and in many places the sand had been blown by the wind and covered up entire sections of it. If I had any doubt to the nature of the Sea of Lost Souls, it was erased when I saw the crumbling walls descending into the dust where once they had stood on solid ground.

The wagon stopped and I hopped out of it. Immediately the sun attacked my already burnt skin, making me grit my teeth against the pain. I knew that eventually I would tan down, but it felt like the sun would just burn me to the bone before that happened. I glanced about, squinting even more now that I had no cover, and noticed an occasional eddy of wind would blow up the fine silt and carry it far into the air before letting it drop so slowly I was further convinced of its dangerous nature.

"What now?" I asked, not sure of how they planned on exploring the ancient ruins. I knew how I would go about it, but they had their mounts and Brina's wagon to be concerned with.

"Well, usually Sandala and I head in to do a little scouting because we aren't as big and noisy as Arktan and Kryl are. Hey, do you want to come with us?" Brina asked me, a smile on her face as the idea hit her.

I knew damn well why she wanted me to go with them, she wanted to see if I was any good at what I did. Still, without a reason to stay behind, and with my own curiosity to see these ruins, I felt I might as well go along.

The others joined us in a few moments and Brina happily opened her mouth and said, "Yamara wants to come with us when we scout it, Sandala! Can she?"

Sandala looked at me with an amused expression, to which I rolled my eyes slightly. She hid a chuckle behind her hand and said, "Certainly, Yamara. From what we've heard, this place is abandoned mostly, so there should be little risk."

"Then let us be off," I said, loosening my sword in its scabbard and turning towards the ruins. A little surprised, the other two women quickly fell into step beside me.

We approached the ruins straight on, me angling towards the closest breach in the wall. The closer we got, the quieter we became. I noticed that we all slowed down a bit and began to choose our steps more carefully. By the time we reached the hole in the wall, I would not have known we were there if I had not seen us, so silent were we.

It was then that I felt something tickling the back of my head. I glanced behind me quickly, wondering what was happening. Nothing was back there save my two companions, and they only looked at me curiously. Shrugging it off, I stepped through the breach and glanced around as the tickle turned into a buzz. Several feet away from the wall were buildings, or at least the remnants of buildings. Broken down and in many places missing entire fronts, they nevertheless stretched away for several hundred feet.

Finally the buzzing resolved itself into a voice in my head that said, "Go back, you are in danger!" Then the feeling of something contacting my mind vanished, leaving me confused and wondering what had happened.

I spun around quickly and stared at Sandala suspiciously. I suspected her to be one of these psionicists I had learned of and I knew of no other way to speak in someone's mind then through magic, though they claimed no such thing existed. She looked back at me, wondering why I would stop in the middle of what was once an ancient road. I opened my mouth to say something when I heard a faint noise behind me, towards the ruined buildings.

I spun around in time to catch a small rock in the shoulder. It knocked me off balance it flew so quickly. It hurt as well, but it was not life threatening. Other rocks came flying at us too, seeming to jump from the very ground and attack us without anyone throwing them. Brina and Sandala both grunted as well as they were struck. More wary now, I dodged the others that came at me and looked for the source of the unnatural attack.

I found it a moment later. 10 spindly legged creatures came charging at us suddenly, emerging from behind broken walls and ruined buildings. Gaunt and lanky, they appeared to be the height of a man and ran on two legs, but they were bent over and grotesque looking. They wielded spears with heads made of sharpened obsidian, and had what looked like plates of larassu shell strapped on them for armor. I quickly drew my shortsword and my dagger, preparing for combat. Brina did likewise, but Sandala took enough time to knock an arrow and turn and fire it back towards where Arktan and Kryl waited outside the city. Unseen to all of us, it arced high into the air and fell only a few inches from Kryl's foot, sticking into the ground.

Battle was joined then, and I found that while the larassu shell armor the creatures wore was too thick and tough to easily penetrate, their skin was not. I had one disabled with a slash of my sword and thrust of my dagger, his blood being soaked up by the dry ground as quickly as it pumped out of his wounds. Nearby Brina had produced two throwing daggers and had thrown both to good effect, wounding one of the creatures rushing her badly enough so that when it reached her she could slip inside the swing of its spear and dispatch it with her saber. I was concerned about Sandala for she had no time to draw her bastard sword before 4 of the creatures were on her.

My fears were unfounded, however. I caught a glimpse of her briefly and saw her moving in a fluid dance like motion, her arms and feet striking out at the creatures to drive them back and give her room enough to draw her weapon. By the time she had acquired that room, one of them lay on the ground struggling to breath from a crushed windpipe and one of the others was cradling a broken arm.

Confident my companions could take care of themselves, I returned my attention fully to the other ones attacking me. More were emerging from the buildings to advance on us, and I quickly grew worried that there would be no end to them. My dagger took another of the things in the throat after my sword had parried its spear, but another took its place and then I faced two of them.

Fortunately for me, these creatures were not trained to fight together, and after a few blocks and parries, I managed to trick one of them into thrusting his spear at me while the other slashed with his. They ended up tangling each other up, and my shortsword thrust into the side of the one on the right, parting his ribs and cutting through his lungs and heart. I shoved him off my blade into the other creature, giving myself a moment to recover from the strike.

A roar from behind me somewhere distracted me though, and I did not move quickly enough to dodge another approaching creature. I expected them to use their spears as piercing weapons, but the large obsidian head they had on them they apparently felt was designed more for slashing. I barely managed to lean out of the way of the slash, and even then my success was not complete. The tip of the spear cut and tore the skin under my left breast, my ribs keeping it from sinking deeper. It came up and across, tearing the halter top I had borrowed from Brina into a useless rag and cutting a groove between my breasts and across my upper right one. It stung like hell too, but I had long since learned to ignore pain.

The roar, it turned out, was Kryl charging into combat. He swung a bastard sword around as though it weighed as much as my short sword. His strength and skill was impressive, I had to admit, for with each swing it seemed an adversary fell.

Arktan was a demon of battle as well, using his great size to benefit. Wielding a two handed sword, he literally cut his first opponent in half. In spite of the number of creatures growing to 23, I was certain they were going to deal with them now that Arktan and Kryl had arrived.

That required me to beat the things attacking me though, at least as far as I was concerned. After the spear slashed across my chest, I jumped forward inside the reach of it and plunged my dagger into the soft underside of the creatures chin, killing it instantly. The other one that I had managed to keep off balance and tied up so far was now ready to deal with me. He came at me with deadly intent, slashing overhead with his spear at me. I jumped to the side, pushing off the dying creature I had just stabbed, and felt the spear head snag on my borrowed cloak, but otherwise miss me. That tripped me up though and caused me to fall. With the wind knocked out of me, I saw the creature recover from his attack and turn to come at me again.

Behind me, Sandala was nursing a wounded arm and used her bastard sword in her other good arm. She had already claimed three of the humanoids that attacked us, and had wounded the remaining one that faced her. Brina had slain two herself, but two others had her slowly retreating as she tried desperately to keep them from wounding her any worse then the scratch on her thigh she had already taken. Kryl had slain four of them himself and, as I was busy raising my dagger and throwing it at the creature stalking me, he dispatched a fifth one. Arktan had a similar number of dead or dying humanoids around him, though it was hard to tell the exact number as his great strength meant that quite often only pieces remained.