The order to evacuate came in the middle of the night. It wasn’t exactly the kind of activity which Maanica wanted to participate in at that very moment, but at the same time she could not deny the necessity, or the logic, behind it. Over the last three days their archeological site changed through a strongpoint garrisoned by a pair of desperados into a fully fledged military camp, where every activity seemed to be geared towards war, not science. There was no reason for her and her husband to remain there.

Initially, all four of them settled that if the Novikovs would raid them again, they would evacuate the camp in its entirety. The second attack of course happened, however right after the fight Emkay changed his mind. Something must have happened during the duel with this southerner woman to prompt this, but neither she nor her husband had any convincing theories of what it might have been. Maanica had a feeling that the nord agent, Martina, knew exactly what happened and what the unspoken repercussions were, but any direct questions were met with a mysterious half smile followed by a puff of smoke from the pipe.

Also, there were other complications.

Niven’s leg wound turned out to be more serious than he was stubbornly willing to admit. Right after the shootout he put on a brave face, as usual, so much so that he convinced everyone it was but a scratch. Only when he was forced to lay down and Maanica had a chance to inspect the wound closely, the sheer scale of the mess became apparent. The ball hit the side of the thigh, fortunately missing the bone, and then fragmented. Part of it took a chunk of skin and muscle with it, the rest remained inside. Emkay had to physically restrain his assistant while she spent over two candles digging for shrapnel. All that time Martina kept pouring dose after dose of medicinal spirits down Niven's throat, ostensibly to help with the pain, results of which were… inconclusive.

After Niven, Maanica ordered Emkay to sit down and let himself be tended to. His injuries were of less concern, even though the wound on the shoulder looked serious. Fortunately the collarbone and the tendons were mostly intact, but the sword ripped through the skin and muscle alike, turning them into a mangled heap of meat. When Maanica expressed confusion at the state of the injury - since a regular hit with a regular sword would make a far cleaner cut - he waved it off, saying that this was normal for wounds inflicted with the technique Olga used. She knew he was lying, but decided not to inquire further, as he wouldn't divulge anything anyway. Which she also knew. After all these years working together, one thing she learned for certain was that Emkay always did his things for and with a purpose.

While she was working on his shoulder and then the bullet graze on his cheek, cleaning, suturing and sanhexing both wounds, the nord first entrusted Martina with a set of directives to be fulfilled - nothing out of the ordinary, go here, talk to this guy, go there - and then pulled out his ever-present mysterious journal and started making notes. She glanced several times at the pages, hoping to glean some new information about what was going on, but the writing seemed to only contain an abbreviated report on the fight. As soon as she finished, Emkay got up, took his horse and departed in the general direction of Tevros, but not before he ordered her to catalogue and securely pack every artefact the three of them dug out so far.

He also asked to divide them into two distinct piles, dependent on their perceived worth, and to prioritise cleaning and packing those of higher value. It wasn’t a difficult task - after all, they have been doing this for decades now - but certainly a laborious one. Even more so since they first needed to bury the corpses of the fallen brigands. Bivos would certainly dry them into a crisp over the following days, provided no animal would fancy them as a snack, but they were both a security risk and a health concern. To make matters worse, Niven was too injured for any manual labour and too drunk to do anything else. Martina had left even before Emkay did, and thus it fell to Maanica to do the digging, dragging and then cataloguing for the remainder of the day, how little of it remained.

The morning of the second day brought some more anxiety. On multiple occasions she noticed that the site was being watched. By whom, she couldn't tell, even with the help of her optics. In the steppe, one turbaned silhouette looked just like another turbaned silhouette, be it a friendly agent or an enemy spy. Her husband, thankfully in much better shape, saw people on the horizon as well. They both hoped that at least some of those were agents of the Web. But the situation seemed to deteriorate quickly and their spirits were mired in paranoia.

Thanks to her hexergy, Niven’s condition was quickly improving. After all she was a relatively powerful sanhexer, trained in the Spire. Except ‘quickly’ was a rather collusive term, as even two days after the clash most of what he could do was to awkwardly limp around the camp. Thus he tasked himself with cataloguing and ordering the finds, involving himself with manual labour only as a last resort.

Then, in the afternoon, a great cloud of dust appeared on the horizon soon followed by a large group of more or less uniformed soldiers. These were not mere brigands or a bloodthirsty mob, but a regular army. The archeologists quickly prepared for the worst. They manned their makeshift fort, but neither of them was hopeful. Provided the situation demanded it, Maanica could act as, admittedly bloody good, fire support, but she was not skilled in mêlée. Her husband, even in the best of times, could be called an ‘adequate’ fighter. Best of times didn’t include a barely functioning leg. Faced with such overwhelming odds the best they could hope for was to inflict as much damage as possible and go down in a blaze of glory.

As the contingent approached, one mounted figure, wearing a wide desert abaya and a turban no less, detached from the column and sped onwards towards the dig site. Maanica observed this man for a short while, then snatched Niven's long stelandian rifle and stood up.

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-"Not ah step closer ar mi will shoot!" - she yelled at the intruder.

The man stopped his horse and outstretched his empty palms towards her.

-"Reinforcements sen by missa McKeone." - replied he in a low, melodic voice. His spoken islandic had quite a hard accent - "Mi name de Khaleen."

-"Oh yeah? An o duh wi kno yu wan ah wi?".

The man sighed and made a face.

-"Bivos neva shines pan Broos." - he smiled and shrugged - "Mi bring orders."

When the initial chaos subsided, Khaleen took them aside and explained the situation, and what the orders actually were. Simply put: load one of the carts with the most valuable artefacts. Khaleen would then drive it away towards an undisclosed location. They were to remain on site, with the militia acting as the bulwark against the Novikov goons. What would follow afterwards was to be dependent on many other things.

Khaleen was almost apologetic when relaying all this information, spreading his hands in the gesture, which she interpreted as 'just doing my job'. As soon as the agent drove off into the night, they went to sleep exhausted and anxious but at least now they had a few more warm bodies to hide behind if the worst came to worst.

The next day went by almost in a blink of an eye, since there was an almost untold number of things happening simultaneously. The militia set up their own camp, not far away from the archeologists, but still, they kept interrupting Maanica and Niven's work, purportedly to make sure everything was fine and safe, 'in the interest of security'. But after several morning candles of such interruptions, and after they noticed a few trinkets were already missing, Niven had to stand guard, armed with a rifle and two pistols and quite literally hissed at every passing sorresian militiaman. Which left Maanica on her own to finish the job.

Then, somewhat about noon on the third day, the Stelander mercenaries arrived. They were accompanied by Martina, but apart from immediate details regarding the reinforcements, she didn't know, or more likely didn't want to say, about the plan going forward. She disappeared soon after, carrying out some of her work, and didn't return until it was well after dark.

As soon as the Stelanders noticed the duo of the archeologists, the festival of interruptions intensified. Between setting their tents, scavenging the area for fuel, cleaning and loading their weapons, every islander found a few triskols to pop by and say hello, mostly to Niven, who hailed from the 'Bih Nuss' tribe. Each one wanted to have a chat, about something or other, each one wanted to see the site and admire the man's rifle, soon bringing back one of their own weapons to compare its length, bore and decorations, in a typical islander male fashion.

All that disturbance had left Maanica fuming, but it was still nothing in comparison to the veritable feot which unleashed when the Stelanders figured out that Niven's wife is a witch, who can mend even the worst of the wounds. Soon, a disorderly ‘queue’ formed, with men wanting to see her, in hopes of finding a cure to their ailments. Nothing major of course, ulcers, haemorrhoids, inflamed gums. One man suffering from a bald patch, or another just wanting a girl to reciprocate his infatuation.

She intended to send them all to Divinul at first, but her nature and sense of duty quickly won. There was the sanhexer’s oath to uphold as well. In the end they had to set a large bonfire right next to the tent where she resided, so that her talents would last longer. When the Bivos set, and the pile of thank-you gifts was knee high, Maanica came out of her tent reeling from exhaustion.

Just when she was about to catch a little shut-eye, Khaleen came back and ordered them to load their cart with the remaining crates of low-grade artifacts and then evacuate due south as soon as they were done. In the middle of the night if necessary.

The timing was ironically perfect. After days of hard work they were both exhausted. Initially Maanica employed some of the Stelanders to help carry the crates, but when one of them very nearly dropped what he carried, she cursed him, his family and their small islander pigs to the tenth generation going forward and then categorically prohibited any of the mercenaries from even looking at their stuff. Which meant more work for her. Hard, strenuous, back-breaking work in the sweltering evening heat.

Niven helped as and when he could, stubbornly stacking the crates and making sure the load is secure, but he could only do so much, considering his injury. That last evening, when Khaleen was already long gone, and the last crate was loaded, he simply collapsed onto the pile of leftover filler hay in the cart, completely exhausted, but never uttering a word of complaint. Which in the end designated her to the role of a driver.

That was then.

And now… now they were slowly trundling southwards, in the darkness of the night, with just a faint lumehex light to keep them from straying from the road. Niven was sleeping off the hectic tension of the last few days, snoring loudly, and so it fell to her to keep the light on and steer the cart, and she was painfully feeling the strain of it all. Candles dragged like days. Listening to a monotonous repeated squeaking and creaking of the cart and having but two horses for company just made everything even more of an ordeal.

Thankfully, the night was as uneventful as one could hope for. Warmth and silence poured by the bucketful from the neverending vastness of the steppe. Once or twice she saw the glowing eyes of some predator, a startled bird flapped its wings or squeaked, making her reach for the gun, but apart from these - not that very unwelcome interruptions - the night passed slowly. Then, with a sigh of relief, Maanica noticed the orange morning glow in the east, slowly changing to the intense blue sky.

By now she was on the verge of collapsing only keeping herself, and the cart, straight with a sheer force of will. By her reckoning they'd need to travel for at least two more candles before reaching the meeting point. Then just the formalities of handing over the cart, and she'd finally be free to have some rest. Like, three days of it. At least that's what she hoped for.

Heavy footsteps sounded somewhere to the right.

-"Finally…" - she whispered with relief.