Twinflame

"And who's the one of us having to do all the thinking through on this, huh? You thought you'd just knock me out and then throw me back in my tent and this would all go away?" K'ile crossed his arms. "Their Chahs are leaders. Ritualistic types. I can get a say in things. I don't get killed. Unless some idiot like you lets themselves get bullied by a Roh, and apparently not then either."

"Those are U-tribe." K'ile said, as though it were the best point anyone had ever made. "That wasn't going to happen to us. I'd made sure. Shan'Gai Chah is nobody's slave, and he was going to have the power to protect his family. From the Amal'jaa, from the desert, from the next Calamity."

K'aijeen and K'ile both looked at Thal like they didn't know what he was talking about. K'ile's expression resolved into frustration. "The Twelve can't help you, and not all problems have perfect solutions. That's why I'm here doing this. My solution doesn't end with violence and death. It ends with my family being well-fed and secure."

K'ile didn't bother to respond to that, just crossing his arms and scowling at the man. On the top of the rocks, K'aijeen remained silent for several seconds longer, burned tail shivering behind her, before she said with some fear, "They'll come again. Maybe soon."

"Versus letting them all die off?" K'ile gestured southward. "Used to be the Amal'jaa and Miqo'te tribes didn't have a problem with each other. It's only the past few years things have gone sideways, and if we can put that behind us, what's the problem?"

"What solution is that? Do you want me to go, what, convince a bunch of strangers to help a tribe in the desert? Our tribe is nobody to anyone, and hostile to outsiders, and it'll just make things more violent anyway, and you don't get to boss me around just because you gave me a headache." K'ile's tail whipped around behind him. "I'm not throwing anything away. I'm handling it. Or I was before you dragged me off."

"Sure, yeah, you go right up and tell them all about it." K'ile lifted his hands to put pressure on the bases of his ears, wincing, but it helped his headache a bit. "I just hope they hear you over the sound of their own screams once they see your tattered flesh hanging from your bones." The Tia scowled up at the girl on the rocks. "Thanks a lot for ruining my mental image of my brother, K'aijeen!" The dead girl's lips scowled beneath her veil. "I'll ruin your mental... head. I'll ruin your head."

"Well thanks to you the offer's probably off the table anyway!" K'ile gestured vaguely northward, then southward, then just spread his arms and didn't know where to gesture anymore. "At this point the best I can do is talk the tribe into surrendering. Or take all the weapons or something. But you're just going to beat me up again, so, hey, what are you going to do about it? Yell at me about, and nothing else!"

"I really don't know. How stupid can something sound to an idiot?" K'ile punched the rock and shook his head, wincing as pain radiated from his skull. "Augh, are we really going to argue about this? Again? I'm not dooming anyone. Except you, if I get the chance, but you've got Thal himself on your side or something."

K'ile rolled to get his balance under control, sliding down the rocky slope a few fulms before catching himself. "I'm doing this for them. You're probably not listening." "Stop letting him talk!" K'aijeen tried once more.

K'aijeen let out a long, low groan. "He's going to lie!" K'ile ignored the girl, pushing against Thal again. "The Amal'jaa know the tribe will fight back. The plan was to empower me so I could bring the tribe in willingly. Just because I go away or change my mind doesn't mean they won't move against the tribe anyway."

Grunting as Thal dragged him around, K'ile punched at the man's arm. "If the Amal'jaa try to take the tribe by force, it won't work! The tribe's too strong, they'll fight, but they'll be outnumbered and most of them will probably die. You think I want that?" "Don't try to talk to him!" K'aijeen shouted down at Thal. "He's going to try to lie to you! Remember what he said!" "Hey, butt out!" K'ile glared at Thal. "If you hadn't encouraged her so much when she was a kid we'd have all been a lot better off."

"I'm not holding them randsom, I'm telling you what will happen, regardless of what you or I do!" He kicked out again, trying to knock Thalen from the rocks.

"That's not going to do any good. They'll keep after me. Yeah, they'll only do it so long, but when they give up, they'll go somewhere else. And that somewhere isn't back to Zul'Farak." K'ile kicked at Thal meanly. "They'll go to the tribe."

"Twelve damned... stop it!" K'ile's ears pressed back on his head as he pushed against Thal. "And what are you going to do, huh? If you go walking me back to the tribe the Amal'jaa will just find me there, and then they'll just take whatever they want from the tribe without any say from any of us." K'aijeen hurried to the top of the rocks and spun to look around them. Feeling exposed, she dropped to her knees and made herself very small, watching the two men beneath her.

K'aijeen obeyed. She didn't want to stop running. She thought there might be Amal'jaa hidden in high places out of sight, armed and furious, with more vicious Sand Drakes held back and starved to the point of desperation. K'ile had said the Amal'jaa would chase them. He had said he would kill, and they would kill. And K'aijeen believed that. She wished for the anger that should have made her feel, for the will to push against it, but all she felt was afraid. When they arrived at the far rocks, as they climbed them, K'ile Tia took advantage of Thal's less steady footing and struggled against the man. "Put me down, damn it!"

The Sun Drakes only persisted as far as the corpses of their masters, where the smell of blood caught their attention and the glisten of vulnerable meat beckoned to them. Their death were much better at tearing past Amal'jaa scales than mere weapons would be, and they loudly converged to tear their way into gray gore and dark fluid. Ka'ijeen did stop running, though, clinging to Thal as she went. When she could no longer hear the sound of the tearing teeth, and when no more bolts seemed to be following them, she said, "I don't think they're chasing anymore."

K'aijeen would not run ahead of Thal. She would not run far behind him. She stayed close to him, but far from K'ile, too afraid to deviate more than a few fulms in any direction. In the direction that Thal ran, there had once been Amal'jaa beastmasters, carrying hooks and meat with which to command their Sun Drakes. Now, as Thal descended the robes, there were three abandoned black bodies, scales dully colored in the sun. There was very little blood to mark the demise of the Amal'jaa hunters, and very little sign that they had struggled. They were simply dead heaps. No more bolts fell. The shouts of the Sun Drakes still came, however.

K'aijeen ran out ahead of them and swung her branch at the ground, stirring up dust, but in ever-decreasing amounts, as though she had already blown it all away. "Why do you keep bringing him?" Her voice began to grate as the dirt in the air got in the wound, and she placed her hand over it. "He'll slow us down, get us killed!"

K'aijeen keened when Thal pulled away from her, stumbling with the suddenness of his movement and pulling her hands close to her veiled face when she found herself standing alone. Poor K'ile had been getting a lot of shit thrown his way lately. He was tired of getting pounced by Nunhs. There was no need to knock him unconscious, his former concussion renewed and flaring as he hit the hard ground beneath them. He lay stunned from that, limbs weak.

"They're trained, you... have always been so stupid!" K'ile turned his angry glare on K'aijeen. "Why couldn't you have brought him back smarter or something?" K'aijeen pressed her face against Thal's skin, her eyes closed, and made a small helpless sound. The dust around them had begun to disperse. More bolts thudded into the dirt around them. Fewer this time. K'aijeen flinched and tugged on Thal. K'ile backed away from them. "The longer you drag me around the longer they'll chase you. They've got plans that need me alive."

Once on the ground, K'aijeen had no idea what to do. Cover? Oh, he meant... She swung the branch and stirred up the dust around them. It was thinner in this place, though, the ground underneath them more rocky. K'aijeen kept one arm on Thal as she did this, and as soon as she was done, she clung tightly to his arm. The Tia, once pushed, spun around on Thal and glared at him weekly. One ear twitched. "I'm not going anywhere you tell me to. I'll fight you again."

"Doubtful. I would encourage you to wander south." The rush of dust consumed the vague figure, a shadow no longer cast, and as the dust began to disperse sunlight pierced the air where the Duskwight had been. "What?" K'aijeen, who hadn't seen the person Thal had been talking to, returned to the paused man in confusion. She tugged at his arm. "Where now? They'll find a way up!"

When K'aijeen hit the rock, she hit hard and took a moment to start climbing. Panic drove her on before she even had her balance, clawing with battered limbs. The Sun Drakes fared worse than this when they tried to follow their prey. The belly-dragging predators pressed their necks and chests to the rock to push themselves, but their elbows pointed out and up away from their bodies and their fingers were meant for cutting skin, not carrying great weight. They did not climb. They bellowed and snapped their teeth. Green light flaring around the stick in her hands, K'aijeen again summoned wind and through the dirt into a cloud around them. It was perhaps the simplest spell possible, easily cast without thought. The dirt spun around them well before any more bolts could see them, but they also couldn't see the Amal'jaa or the red-haired figure stumbling away from them. Almost completely obscured was the narrow, crooked figure that stood strangely straight on the slope immediately to one side of Thal. The figure's narrow, dusky armed lifted and pressed its hand to its face, its tired voice grating at a near-whisper. "Such incredible trouble you manage to find in the middle of nowhere."

Curling up close to Thal, letting herself hide her body against his, K'aijeen pulled her tail and her staff to her. "Then where will we go?" The Sand Drakes would not be outrun. Thal had barely begun to run before they were ripping through the tracks he left in the dirt, one getting distracted by the taste of his ichor on the bolt they'd abandoned. K'ile's red hair made him easy to follow. His quick sprint was already slowing as weakness and wounds pulled on him, and he ran low with his fingers dragging in the dirt.