Stealing Into Winter (Shadow in the Storm, Book 1) by Graeme K. Talboys

Author:Graeme K. Talboys
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780008103552
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2015-06-16T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seventeen

‘All I said was, “I don’t understand”.’

Alltud sighed. ‘It’s like being in a school. You don’t need to understand everything. Not all the time. I mean, if you need everything explaining like Trag—’

Jeniche spun and strode back toward Alltud and poked him hard in the chest with her forefinger. There was thunder in her face. ‘Trag is not stupid. Understand that? He might be slow, but he gets there. Every time.’

Stopped in his tracks, Alltud held up his hands in surrender and then felt the looming presence of Trag at his back.

‘Someone talk about me?’

Lowering his arms and rubbing the spot where Jeniche’s finger had hit his sternum, Alltud turned. ‘I was being rude about you. I am sorry.’

Trag looked at Alltud for an uncomfortably long time, his face impassive. Then he rubbed his nose with the knuckle of his left forefinger. ‘It all right. Too hot to talk sense.’

They walked on in bruised silence for a while, each trying to think their way round the sore spots and silently cursing the heat. Over one dome dune and down into the shallow dip beyond, climbing to the top of the next and then down to a scarred rocky surface. They had stayed with the camel train for three days until it turned west, headed for the deep desert, a place, it was said, of cities burned by war long before the Evanescence. It had shortened their journey by many miles, but it had taken them to the desert’s edge and the going now was harder. They were finding it difficult to settle back into their routine of walking.

In the end, curiosity got the better of Jeniche and she moved up to walk alongside Gyan Mi. ‘What don’t you understand?’

The young monk glanced over his shoulder to see where Alltud was. ‘We were talking about how cold it was last night. I said I couldn’t understand why that would be.’

‘Sand,’ said Jeniche. ‘It doesn’t hold the heat of the day like rock. That’s what I was told once. Back where we joined the caravan, we were still on rock and baked soil. It cooled down at night, but never really got cold.’

She could see he still didn’t understand. ‘Here.’ She picked up a rock the size of Trag’s fist and went off the trail, climbing part way up a small dune. Kneeling, she thrust her hand into the orange sand. ‘Push your hand in.’

Kneeling beside her, he pushed his hand into the sand and a smile lit his face. ‘It’s cool.’

‘Now feel the rock.’

‘Oh.’

‘The rock will stay warm for a lot longer than the sand. That’s why desert creatures live underground in the day.’

Gyan Mi looked at the dimple in the sand where he had pushed his hand in. ‘Like scorpions you mean?’

‘And snakes,’ she added with a broad grin.

‘My tutors would now expect me to draw some conclusion.’

‘Go on, then.’

‘That curiosity can be dangerous.’

‘Possibly. Or that understanding people and being sensitive to their moods is more important than learning.’

‘There would be long discussions about these notions.

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