The next morning, they all woke up leisurely. Tara wiped away the fading nightmares of the night before. She had not slept well and her body ached, but the warm sunlight from the east did wonders for her attitude and soon she was up and stuffing her mosquito net back into her pack.
“We’re heading to the city today.” Aiman stated.
Acharya nodded, “Yeah, unless,” he turned towards Mary, “our Scout has gleaned anything from the heavens and the great unknown to show us the way to some Shape shifters?”
Mary slapped him playfully on the shoulder with a wide smile across her face, “I told you that’s not how it works.” She looked towards the city and sighed. “And, no I didn’t glean anything last night, no dreams, omens, or portents, in case you wanted to know.”
“Well, I guess we do this the old-fashioned way,” Malikah stated. “We’re just going to have to wait and watch, and if all else fails, hope we get very lucky.”
“Never give up, and good luck will find you, is that it?” Mary asked.
“Is that from The Neverending Story?” Acharya asked.
“Yes it is,” Mary said with a smile. “Unfortunately, I’m pretty sure we’re going to need a bit more than luck to find what we’re looking for. It’ll be like looking for a needle in a stack of needles.”
“Well before we defeat ourselves before we’ve even started,” Acharya said cheerfully, “let’s find out about the local population of Hyenas, where they are most concentrated. From there I guess we could always look up every blacksmith or metal worker in the city.”
“Do you want me to look for and question every Jewish family in the city as well?” Aiman asked dryly.
“Why Aiman, I do believe that you just told a joke,” Acharya said with a smile.
“I was being completely serious,” Aiman stated matter of factly.
Acharya heaved a heavy sigh and shook his head, “of course you were. And no, we don’t need you to question every Jewish family in the city.” Aiman nodded quietly. Acharya bent down and slung his back pack onto his shoulders. “Well, kids let’s get cracking.” The rest of his pack picked up their back packs and headed north, towards the city and whatever awaited them there.
They hiked just on the other side of the slight rise that bordered the river. It wasn’t high enough to hide them from the river, but it gave them a little bit of cover and having something between you and a possible attack was better than nothing.
As they walked, they saw a few fisherman on the river in their burned out canoes. They waved if the fishermen acknowledged them in any way, otherwise they kept their head down. They didn’t really know the customs here and Acharya was afraid that something as innocuous as a friendly hand wave, might be seen as a threat, or an insult.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
The sun was hot here. Before the sun reached its zenith he was openly sweating. But it was better than Agra had been. He soon was walking with his shirt hung over his pack and head as a sort of sun shade. He might look ridiculous but then he could always sight his amazing prophetic fashion sense. I mean if everyone wasn’t wearing things like this, they soon would be. Besides, it kept him cool.
The day passed slowly. Their back packs started to weigh heavily on all of them. They were all in shape, but hiking for ten or twelve hours straight with forty to fifty pounds of gear on their backs would wear down anyone. The city grew steadily on the horizon as they made their way north. The sounds became louder and the buildings just got more detailed and more impressive. Aiman had been right, just as the sun touched the far western horizon, they decided to stop and camp for the night, just a mile or two outside the city limits.
They had to walk a bit to find anyplace suitable. They wanted to stay away from the river and all the traffic and commerce that came to the city from that impressive waterway. They also wanted to be far away from any roads. They wanted to avoid being noticed at all if that was possible. Soon enough they would be in the city and for the right eyes and ears, their investigation and searching would attract attention.
To that end they didn’t light a fire. They had to contend themselves with cold canned food, which no one was particularly happy about. They slept under the stars again that night. There wasn’t any trees anywhere nearby, so they propped up their mosquito nets using pieces of wood they had picked up along the way.
The next morning, they woke quickly and gathered their gear. Their packs were on their backs and they were walking towards the city within ten minutes. The plan was they were going to pose as just a group of American college kids that had talked their parents into letting them back pack through Africa and they were passing through on their way to Egypt. They came here because they wanted to see Lake Chad before global warming completely dried it up and it was lost forever.
Mary found them a path that wound around and away from the major roads and let them walk into the city. The place was just as impressive inside as it was from the outside. The place had beautiful large parks and low level buildings in the outskirts of the city. It was like walking through any city back home, aside from the huge groups of people riding bicycles and women carrying jars and baskets on their head as they prepared for an outdoors market. The impressive skyline loomed in the distance.
The different people that congregated here was an impressive mix of several different tribes and peoples. Tara was pretty good with languages and she could identify at least three or four completely different languages that people spoke among themselves, and not just dialects, completely different languages. People spoke in French and Arabic and several other languages that she couldn’t identify, African tribal languages maybe?
It was hard to admit, but she found that she had been a little biased toward Africa in general and had no idea just how diverse the place was. As a Native American growing up on the Res and being mistaken for, and asked questions about, tribes that she in no way belonged to, had always irritated her that people would make those assumptions about her. She was Apache, and no, she didn’t know anything about the Cherokee Nation. Finding that same bias inside her, made her a little ashamed for her own short sightedness.
The group made their way deeper towards the heart of the city. They needed information and the best way to find that, would be the library. Hopefully they could find anything that was published in English or be able to get some things translated. Lucky for them, Aiman was fluent in Arabic, so that was something they hoped to rely upon.