It was a ceaseless ten-hour drive to the north. Marek allowed himself a brief nap as Jesop took the wheel for a flat, harmless stretch, but there wasn’t much difference between that and waking. Not when their entire world consisted of lifeless sand and baked cliffs and a heat shimmer that made everything seem more like a vague dream. Having another person next to him mitigated the familiar pull on his senses a bit, but it was still there. However much Marek tried to remain sharp and alert he couldn’t entirely resist the notion that he was dreaming, or in some other land more of the mind than anything else, and that losing momentum would leave him trapped in it.

It could all feel so unreal, that world outside his car, with its unbroken bleakness, shimmering and moving, and all passing by so very fast. Marek didn’t hear the thin fluting sound this time, but it would be waiting for him some other time, tempting him to walk into the waste to seek it out.

Not today.

Jesop drank greedily of their water and rubbed his temples. The hours around noon were hard on him, in spite of his temp-layer and the car’s air conditioning. The weight on one’s mind and flesh were familiar enough to Marek, and he popped a radiation pill and bore it.

“South White Valley,” he said to his partner after a long stretch of silence. “We’re here.”

“Ah,” Jesop exclaimed groggily. He’d halfway fallen asleep. “Do you think we made it in time?”

“I actually think we might have.”

Marek took a look through the binoculars. At the crest up ahead he saw two heavy vehicles and a turret weapon, on guard.

“Yes. Looks like we did.”

He took them down to an acceptable approach velocity. The guards didn’t bother stopping him; they just waved him on through, and so they were into South White Valley.

The name came from the chalk cliffs that ringed much of the large depression. The local pump could only support a minor community; even smaller than the water village. But the dozens of vehicles, ranging from huge tankers to bikes, temporarily multiplied the population.

“This is a rally spot,” Marek said. “People who want to cross dangerous territory gather in such places until they have a caravan big enough to risk it. It looks like they’re just about ready to go.”

“Do we buy our way in?”

“If we want to ride as cargo. Which we don’t.”

Jesop was silent for a few seconds as he observed through the binoculars.

“I see a familiar car,” he said with severity.

“Hm. So Hannoer did skip the hunting.”

Jesop’s hand moved absent-mindedly to his rifle.

“So what does this mean for us?”

“Eh, they won’t pull anything obvious,” Marek said. “Not in a caravan they don’t control.”

“So we stay alert for sneaky shit,” Jesop replied.

“Yeah. One of us will have to stay with the car at all times.”

He took them down towards the mass of vehicles. The main body was arranged in a big U-shape, and Marek went in between the two arms and to the bottom. They went past hastily-erected tents under which people gathered for repairs, trade, or simply social encounters. Most of the vehicles had weapon mounts of some sort, and the ones that didn’t were at least armoured or designed for agility and speed.

By the bottom of the U stood two flagpoles flying a yellow banner on either side of one of the largest vehicles: a heavily-armoured and armed behemoth of a cargo truck. Flanked by armed warriors was a raised chair placed up against the truck’s side. Marek slowed down to a crawl and spotted the greeter. The woman motioned him further in until she gave the signal to stop.

“So I stay with the car?” Jesop asked.

“They won’t pull anything in full view like this,” Marek told him. “We can afford to step a few metres away. Leave the rifle out of sight, though. Someone might try to steal it later.”

They stepped out, into the brutal shock of the sweltering heat, and Marek walked ahead to the raised chair.

Sitting on it was a woman clad in a suit much like Marek’s own, with a Desert Kissed face, and a huge mane that somehow managed to be magnificent despite being grey and unruly.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Diarisa,” Marek said and nodded in greeting.

“Marek,” the woman replied in a raspy voice. “What brings you here?”

“Just a quick job up north,” he said. “I need to cross the skull road to finish it in time. May I ride along?”

“Hm.”

The woman fixed her shrewd eyes on him, and patted her bone-handled pistol. He’d long since realised that it was a tick rather than a threat, and didn’t let it bother him.

“You’re not the first unexpected addition to come unannounced today,” she commented.

“I noticed, as I came in.”

“Hm.” She patted her weapon a second time, which was a bit less typical. “Solid circle, that is the rule of my caravans,” Diarisa said. “An unbroken ring against the waste, with no internal liabilities.”

“There’ll be no liabilities on my end,” Marek assured her. “You know me.”

“I know you,” she agreed. “You can fight, even if only for yourself. But who is that with you?”

“My name is Jesop,” Marek’s partner said, then after a moment’s hesitation he added: “Lady.”

“He is a sharpshooter,” Marek said. “I saw his eye in action on the way here, and I can vouch for it.”

Diarisa’s own eyes travelled to the radio on Jesop’s chest, and then its counterpart on Marek’s hip.

“Straight from Tower Town, I see,” she said.

She switched from patting her weapon to patting the armrests.

“Fine. You may both ride along. You can keep what you kill, but that is it. No other payment, since you will ride along anyway.”

“That is fair,” Marek admitted, though a little extra would have been nice.

“All who are expected have already come, and I have given enough time for opportunists to show up,” Diarisa announced. “Only final prep remains. We head north in two hours. Stragglers will be left behind.”

“Understood,” Marek said. “And thank you.”

“You are a fighter,” she said. “That is all.”

She wasn’t one for formalities, and he sensed he’d been dismissed. Marek turned and Jesop walked with him back to the car. Marek started the vehicle up and crawled it a polite distance away from Diarisa’s command area before stopping again.

“So we just wait?” Jesop asked.

“We wait. Then we head north with them until we’re east of Undian.” Marek looked around for trouble. “Then it’s just a drive uphill to the west, and then we’ll have made the delivery.”

“This Hannoer will have his chance when we separate,” Jesop pointed out.

“If he notices us,” Marek countered. “It’ll be a game of who’s more clever.”

He spotted a sale table beneath a fairly expansive tent. Someone, almost certainly a local, was taking the opportunity to sell greenhouse fruits. They’d evidently been at it long enough for the inevitable line to disperse.

“Guard the car for a minute or two,” Marek said. “If someone approaches it, yell at them. If they persist, confront them directly. I don’t want anything attached to the underside.”

“Well, neither do I.”

Marek got out, checked his weapons, and strode over to the table with his senses on high alert. There was a modest crowd spread out in three directions around the seller; a combination of other minor trade, services being offered on mats, and people chatting in groups.

The fruit seller saw Marek coming from a mile off, and had a big, juicy-looking gando on the table by the time he arrived.

“Hello!” the man said in a hideous local accent. “Fruit?”

“Do you take Zezka cr-”

“Credits, yes! Three!”

Marek fished the money out without looking at either it or the seller. His eyes were on a spot in the crowd. Standing between two separate chattering groups were Hannoer and one of his men. They simply stood there and looked his way across circa twenty metres, ready like the pair of predators that they were.

Marek took out his stained, dull-looking blade and put the fat gando up against the edge. He pushed it through, more slowly than he needed to, then licked the moisture off the blade before sheathing it. He took a satisfying bite out of one half, then broke eye contact and walked back.

“Here you go,” Marek said and handed Jesop the other half.

“Oh. Thank you.”

They each munched on the fruit for a few seconds.

“I saw that,” Jesop then commented. “The man in the crowd. That was him? The lean one, in the red-brown outfit?”

“That was him.”

“Hm. You know, when you turned back my way, he gave a meaningful look to those people over there. In the cream-coloured outfits.”

Marek looked, without being too obvious about it, and saw a three-person group in dirty, white-ish desert suits.

“Do you know them?” Jesop asked,

“I don’t know everyone,” Marek replied. “But the Rock Snakes have a fairly wide area. Obviously they are going to have acquaintances.”

He unholstered the Thunderer and gave it a little look-over as those three started walking away.

“What is that thing, anyway?” Jesop asked.

Marek broke the barrels open.

“Holds two shells,” he explained. “And I have two kinds: Plain pellets, which are easy enough to commission, and…”

He tapped the back of the left-side shell.

“Well, a little something for emergencies.”

“Now you’ve gotten me curious,” his partner said.

Though partially blocked by people milling about he did see the pursuit vehicle those three got into.

“You might have your curiosity sated,” Marek told him. “But let’s try to avoid it.”