Serpents of the Night (The Darvel Exploratory Systems #5)

Chapter 32

Lori thought the sun would never sink. Although Jathella and Buosoa left early in the morning while she was setting up her makeshift bed in the tent, the day had stretched on forever with their absence. It was strange to be so alone. Ever since falling into the depths of the Aglatha cave system, Lori always had someone nearby, whether it was Slengral or, later, Daskh and Kehtal. Hell, even before that, Eddie and Vi were around to keep her company if she didn’t want to spend her time in her quarters. Now, suddenly, she was entirely alone. Even Payeri remained coiled in her hole the entire time, only moving just enough to shift the sand over her so that she could sleep comfortably while the sun moved overhead.

Groaning, she sat up on her pallet and drew her legs up in front of her.

She missed her mates. She missed Hashal’s sweet little face. And she missed Vi. Even if Lori had been separated from her mates and nestling, her friend would have joined her in misery, being camped out in the small tent in the sweltering desert. She would have even made some crass jokes when the rain came later in the morning, making the entire tent grow humid and steamy like a sauna. Lori’s lips twitched as she imagined her friend’s reaction to the shinara and now the maiden’s trial. Vi was tough and easily a match for any female in the Aglatha shinara. She probably would never have ended up being forced to endure the trial.

She sagged against her knees as she wearily scraped a hand over her eyes. Even with the bedding supplies, she was pretty much sitting on the ground with minimal give in the sand and tent beneath her or padding of her improvised sleeping pallet. She rubbed her eyes with her fisted hand. There was no putting it off. She could hear movement outside of the tent, indicating that Payeri was already up and about.

Lori pulled a face. She wasn’t looking forward to being alone with the other female. What would they have in common to talk about? Would Payeri even deign to speak to her at all? Most of the Seshanamitesh either seemed to be inclined to ignore her or eye her like an unusual bug. Although Payeri had been polite enough before, Lori was still anticipating several uncomfortable days ahead of her.

Sighing, she nervously brushed her palms against the legs of her pants covering her TRS and stood. The tent was small enough that it only took a few steps to get to the entrance before she threw it open and stepped out into the early evening air. The heat smacked Lori in the face, searing her lungs with each deep breath. She tugged the protective fold over her mouth and nose again and scanned the campsite.

Payeri had vacated her dug hole but was waiting not too far from it, her wings stretching widely as she peered distractedly down at the sand, her tail curling and collecting it before releasing it in a fine stream as she lifted it a short distance in the air. Her gavo twitched and rose slightly, and her ears fanned mere seconds before her yellow gaze swung to Lori.

Lori gave her a tentative smile as she deactivated the tent and packed it inside the case. Payeri watched her every move, but Lori did her best to ignore it as she packed it back into her bag and shouldered it. Her bedding was going to be a mess to straighten out once she unpacked it again, but it was simply quicker to deal with everything this way. Plastering a more enthusiastic smile on her face as if camping was something she actually went out of her way to do and enjoyed, and as if hiking across the desert was her idea of an adventure, she headed for the female.

“Did you rest well?” she called in greeting.

Payeri’s gavo snapped down and smoothed as the corners of her mouth lifted. “It was tolerable enough. Sand is annoying against my scales, but I might as well become accustomed to it if we are going to be stuck on the ground.”

Lori grimaced guiltily. “You don’t have to remain on the ground for my sake,” she offered, but the other female chin bobbed in the negative as she cast Lori a speculative look.

“And do you imagine that your human limbs can keep up with my flying? How will I look after you if you cannot keep up.” She sighed, the air expelling in a soft hiss. “No. I must remain on the ground with you. A maiden at hand does not leave during the maiden trial until their duty to the trial is completed. I will simply have to abide the sand.”

“Oh. Right,” Lor murmured as her cheeks burned hotter, suddenly feeling a little foolish.

As much as she would rather not have a witness while she was panting and slowly wishing she was dead while she dragged her carcass across the desert, Payeri had a point. Payeri was there to keep her in one piece for as long as she was undergoing the trial. She wouldn’t be able to do that with miles separating them. She squinted across the sand as she slowly turned. The mountains were immediately to her west and larger than life, letting her know just how close she was abandoned near them. Upon closer scrutiny appeared to extend slightly northward. That was at least helpful for orientation so long as they were visible.

The entire time, she was uncomfortably aware of Payeri’s flat stare as the female watched her without any expression that Lori was familiar with. She gave Payeri another nervous smile in another attempt to break the ice, but the female didn’t so much as twitch in reaction. She was simply waiting in complete, unnerving silence for Lori to make a decision.

Settling on a direction that looked good, Lori pointed ahead and grinned sheepishly at Payeri over her shoulder. “This way, I think.”

The female cocked her head. “You think,” she echoed in a flat voice but her ears feathered and expanded before slandering back out again in a delicate shrug. “Lead the way, human maiden.”

The ironic inflection with which Payeri called her a maiden wasn’t lost upon Lori. She had the distinct feeling that she was being laughed at. Perhaps it was a little ridiculous for a grown, mated woman to be doing an exercise meant for young Seshanamitesh females, but she couldn’t help but to feel like it was just silly amusement but a hint of scorn behind that single word.

Whatever. She wasn’t going to let it bother her. It was clear that they weren’t going to turn into best friends on this trek across the desert. She’d pretty much expected that, anyway. She’d hoped for something marginally companionable, but that turned out to be hoping for too much as well, it seemed.

“Let’s go,” Lori sighed and set out across the sand, her feet sliding in areas where it was less packed than in others, kicking up and scattering the fine sand even as she became uncomfortable aware of the small dust cloud she was creating.

Payeri wrinkled her nose at it but kept several lengths of distance between them as she followed behind, her wings folded gracefully behind her back. Every so often, she extended a long wing over her head to give her some relief from the late sun as it sank. Lori was frankly a little jealous of that move, but she said nothing and barely glanced in the Seshanamitesh’s direction as she plodded forward, her thighs burning as the weight of the sand pulled at her feet even as the hot sand baked everything from the ankle down whenever it slid over the top of her feet or pooled over her ankles and heels.

It was hell, and one that barely seemed to let up when the primary sun finally sank behind the mountains. Nighttime out in the desert was just an entirely different kind of hell. Unlike the unending silence that followed them like a specter of death during the remaining daylight hours, the night burst with life as the night-blooming flowers opened, and insects, including what had to be barlisks, hummed as wildlife skittered over the sand. She didn’t see most of the latter, and she wasn’t complaining even if it was unnerving and caught her by surprise more than once when a sound rose abruptly nearby her, but there was a significant part of her that insisted that she was better of not knowing what extended beyond the limit of the crystal lantern she liberated from her pack.

At least Jathella had been kind enough to make sure she had it. She was almost certain with the way Payeri’s mouth pinched as she regarded it, that the female would have been content to watch her fumble blindly in the dark.

No doubt it would have been a hilarious story to be shared around the shinara.

Lori shook her head at the dismal direction of her thoughts. She was starting to become as suspicious as Slengral. She wondered how he was doing. Was Daskh awake yet? Kehtal was no doubt fussing with everything, his wings rattling anxiously with the way he tended to worry. She licked her lips wincing at the sting of her saliva against the dry skin. Halfway into the night and they felt painfully dry. They hadn’t started to crack yet, but it wouldn’t take long. Even the water pellets weren’t doing much for her even if the nutritional paste was keeping her stomach reasonably full, even if it was still as disgusting as she remembered. She had tried to offer some to Payeri in an attempt to share her resources, but the female had looked at disdainfully and quietly refused it. She didn’t bother to approach at all, actually, unless it was to sing to the crystal to recharge it periodically.

Glancing down at the crystal growing in the heart of her lamp, Lori frowned at it. Was it starting to look weaker already? She could have sworn that it hadn’t been that long since Payeri charged it.

Something shrieked just ahead, startling Lori from her thoughts. She stumbled to a halt and warily lifted the lamp in front of her, the weak light illuminating the sand just a short distance ahead. Whatever it was, it sounded close.

Payeri hissed with laughter from behind her. “Do not tell me you are afraid already? And of something so tiny as a voosheth.”

A voosheth? That was a Voosheth? Lori blinked in surprise, and some of the tension bled from her as something hummed past her on large insectoid wings. She instinctively ducked and lifted her lamp higher, catching only a glimmer of brilliant colors before it disappeared. Swallowing thickly, she straightened and glanced back at her companion.

“That was a pretty big voosheth,” she pointed out.

The female fanned her ears dismissively. “What do you expect when we are so close to the mountains? We have smaller species in the cave whereas these are from the Vehal. Be glad that you will see little that comes from there.”

Lori nodded mutely as she struck out once mor across the sand. If everything was bigger in the mountains, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to encounter any other wildlife, though she understood that a lot of the meat Kehtal and Daskh had fetched recently had been due to herd animals coming down from the mountains for the wet season. Good eating or not, from what she recalled the gashthans were pretty large creatures as well. All the more reason to make as much distance as possible before daybreak. Where there was large prey, large predators were likely to abound.

Despite the heat, Lori shivered but immediately gritted her teeth in annoyance. She absolutely would not freak herself out. All the same, she couldn’t help but jump just a little at every sound that followed her through the night. Every shift of sand sounded sinister as if something were stalking her.

Being dumped on the surface was looking less merciful by the minute.