Trek For Survival

"Why is that?" asked Vonn, sitting with Gia and her parents under the shade of the trees.

"There are many venomous snakes in the gra.s.s that would kill you humans quickly if you were to get bitten. The traders travel in the skeletons of great dead elephants, that keep them high above the strike range of the snakes," explained their former escort. "The traders will be here by tomorrow, as they were seen earlier today from the watchtowers. It would be best if you consider what you could trade with them for pa.s.sage, as they will not accept you for free."

"I suppose that is a good idea," said Tom, glancing around. "They are traders after all. Do you know how far they travel across the gra.s.slands?"

"They will only go as far as the great tribes of the Orcs. The halflings do not care for them, because of their modes of transport."

"I suppose it would be grisly to see elephant skeletons walking about," said Carla. "How big are elephants? Are they larger than horses?"

"You will see when they arrive," said Slovak. "I am leaving now, as I have completed my task for the leaders."

Gia watched the lizard disappear into the trees, and listened as the birds around them started singing shortly after.

"Gia, if you can find some good chunks of wood, I can carve some small trinkets that might work to pay for our pa.s.sage," said Tom pulling out his carving tools from his bag. "It"s about the only thing we really have to pay for pa.s.sage."

"We have coins from the dwarves," said Gia with a frown.

"If these traders only deal with lizardmen and orcs, then we probably don"t want them knowing we have actual coins," said Vonn, standing up. "I"ll help you look, and it will help pa.s.s the time."

"Alright, as long as we don"t get lost like last time," she agreed with a laugh. "We don"t have Slovak to chase off the hungry lizardmen that might rescue us."

"Can I come?" asked Mikey hopefully.

"Sure, why not? It will keep you away from the snakes in the tall gra.s.s," said Gia with a nod.

"Be careful," said Carla with a slightly worried look. "Now that we don"t have our lizard escort, we don"t need any trouble!"

"Don"t worry, we"re blessed, remember?" said Vonn with a smile, tapping the amulet under his shirt.

Returning shortly with their arms full, Gia heard Carla gasp and ran the last couple of feet to see what was wrong. Approaching, out of the distance, were 4 large bone constructs, driven by rough looking men in the breast cavity of the beasts. They spotted their group standing by the trees and turned the skeletons to walk towards them. As they got closer, Gia could see that the men were dirty, wearing long cloaks adorned with bits of bone and metal.

"Are the bone monsters wearing armor?" asked Mikey, tilting his head to the side as they got closer.

Gia cleared her throat as her words got stuck in her throat and finally managed, "I believe it appears to be armor, yes. And I don"t think those are just skeletons, some of that appears to be dried… flesh."

"Oh dear," whispered Carla, clutching her shirt. "I don"t think I can stand to travel inside that thing!"

"Do we have a choice?" asked Tom, quietly. "I don"t want any of us to get bitten by snakes as we travel, and those things appear to be moving much faster than we can walk."

"We don"t have a choice," said Vonn unhappily. "We could never carry enough water and food to get across the gra.s.slands and I believe part of it might be wasteland, even."

"We could try and hunt some?" suggested Mikey, looking back at Vonn.

"Even if we were protected from the snakes with these amulets, and managed to hunt enough to stay fed, we would still not have enough water to make it across," said Gia carefully. Swallowing her bile as the grisly sight before her drew ever closer, she turned to her father and set her bundle of wood down. "I hope you can carve quickly, because they will be here very soon!"

Tom nodded, turning his gaze away from the approaching traders and started rummaging through the wood that they were all setting in front of him. He s.n.a.t.c.hed one chunk up, and after a quick look, started carving fiercely.

"Hail!" cried one of the traders when they arrived several minutes later. "Are you looking to trade?"

"We would," nodded Vonn, stepping forward to greet them.

"What are you interested in?" asked another of the traders, looking over their group carefully. "We don"t normally run into humans on this side of the bowl."

"Bowl?" asked Gia, looking at Vonn in confusion.

"There are mountains that run all the way around this great gra.s.sland," explained the second trader. "The very middle, where the orcs live, is more wasteland because of how little rain they get there. We call this area the bowl, because of the mountains."

"It"s a long story on how we ended up here, but we"re trying to get back to the human kingdom," said Vonn. "What would you want in exchange for travel fare?"

"Well, that depends on what you have to offer," said the third in the group with a chuckle. "I doubt you would have much to offer the lizards, but the orcs are pretty easy to please. We only travel as far as the orcs, so if you want all the way to the human lands, you"ll have to find your own way."

"You are all human," said Gia. "Why do you stay away from the human lands?"

"Well, sweet thing, we"re considered outcasts because of our nice mounts here," explained the fourth and last in the group. He looked far more sinister than the other three, and Gia instinctively wanted nothing to do with him.

"I am a skilled woodcarver," said Tom, standing to bring them the simple carving he had managed to start.

The trader in front reached down from the elephant"s empty cavity he sat in and examined the carving carefully.

"This isn"t bad, and you"ve only been working on it for a few minutes?" he asked, surprised.

"That"s right," nodded Tom. "Just since I saw you appear on the horizon a few minutes ago."

"Could you carve bone?" he asked, turning and grabbing something behind him, handing it down with the carving of wood.

"I"ve never had a large enough bone to try," said Tom, examining the chunk of bone carefully.

"If you can carve bone, I will carry you and your family across to the orcs," said the trader thoughtfully. "The orc love carved bones, but only if you make it into something they would recognize, like snakes and rats."

"I can definitely try," nodded Tom again, closing his eyes to run his fingers over the bone in more detail.

"Do the lizards know you lot are here?" asked the fourth guy, scratching his neck.

"Yes, they are the ones who escorted us through the cleft," said Gia, glaring at the guy.

"I"m surprised," said the second trader, looking off towards the south. "They normally eat humans that stumble this far West. You must be something of a special case. I"m going to head to the normal trading spot to see if any are waiting for us."

"Go ahead, you know they are. When have they not spotted us?" said the first. "I"ll catch up in a bit. You know I"m running low on trades anyway, after that run in with the elephant herd."

"It"s a good thing you had those pepper pouches, or we would have been goners," said the third, moving his ride to go around the first and follow the second.

The fourth guy sat there for a moment, staring at them, as if he was debating on whether to ask something or not, before the first guy turned to look at him.

"Something wrong, Geth?" asked the first, raising an eyebrow.

"I was just thinking, Sudar. I hate to miss out on a trade, you know."

"Do you want to take them back to the orcs for his carvings?" asked Sudar in surprise. "I would have thought you didn"t have the s.p.a.ce after that landfall of cactus fruit a week ago."

"The lizards will probably take most of it," mused Geth, eyeing Gia.

"Probably, but they are also bound to have a lot of those pelts you make a killing on with the orcs. If he carves enough during the trip, you can always trade with him on the way," suggested Sudar, turning back to them.

"You are right. I can always get what I want later," said Geth, moving off to join the others.

Gia glanced at Vonn and was relieved to see he didn"t like Geth any more than she had.