Guardian of Dawn by Rachel Devenish Ford

Author:Rachel Devenish Ford [Ford, Rachel Devenish]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Small Seed Press

Chapter 17

They rode hard through the night, because Isika didn't want to cross the desert during the scorching day. They needed to find shelter before morning, to be out of the sun when the heat was at its worst. She worried about water. She and Ben had filled up their flasks at the last stream, but that was nearly a full night's ride behind them. She hadn't seen water since.

The desert spread out to the horizon on either side. In the dark of night Isika couldn't see the landscape, but the stars told her where the sky began and the earth ended, flat on every side, hard, packed sand that was easy terrain for the horses. Their hooves fell with dull thuds as they walked and cantered, the only sound Isika heard in the quiet night.

Something seemed to be wrong with her eyes, but she rubbed them hard and the feeling persisted. After a moment she saw it was only the sky changing color before dawn. The sky slowly grew purple, then gray, and she realized that Keethior was flying high above them, just a speck in the great bowl of sky.

Keethior, she called to him. Come down. Lend me your eyes. Right away, she sensed his attention on her and then she saw herself from above, a strange feeling. She followed the thread of his sight until she spotted exactly what she needed: an old ruin of a building. The roof was broken, but it should still provide enough shade. She looked as far as she could in each direction from Keethior's perspective, but still she didn't see water anywhere.

"Up ahead," she yelled back to her brother. Benayeem looked exhausted, and she slowed so his horse could catch up with hers. She wondered if she looked anywhere near as terrible as he did, with shadows under his eyes and a pinched, gaunt face. "Shelter up ahead," she repeated. He nodded, just a quick jerk of the chin.

The horses sailed into a gallop, Wind's muscles bunching and smoothing underneath her. We'll stop soon, she told him.

Thirsty, he said. Isika gripped the reins until her hands hurt. How was she going to find water? The first blinding rays of the sun rushed over the earth from the horizon. They needed to get to shelter.

A little way longer she told her horse, though it felt like a lie, because she had no ideas, no way of finding them water. Her hands shook as desperation grew inside her. Had they come to the desert to die? Wind sped up, running with longer strides, eager to be done with the night's ride. Isika hadn't needed to calm either horse for some time. This part of the desert was as barren with poison as everything else.

Up ahead, a speck in the distance, and as the horses thundered toward it, the speck became a blob, then a square shape, and then a building. The roof was fallen half in, the walls made of the same sandstone as the houses in the Worker village.

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