to be, things to do, people to torment. If you have further questions, they’ll have to wait. Until next time, boys.” With a wave, the short, mysterious man turned and left us, walking east until the darkness swallowed him, stranding us in the unnamed, alien land.
We found a small pool of water and drank deeply from it, sinking our heads into the murky liquid, ignoring the many tiny eels and insects. Harkat’s grey skin looked like damp cardboard when he pulled up, having drunk his fill, but it swiftly regained its natural color as the water evaporated under the unforgiving sun.
“How far do you think we’ve come?” I groaned, stretching out in the shade of a prickly bush with small Purple flowers. This was the first sign of vegetation we’d encountered, but I was too exhausted to display any active interest.
“I have no idea,” Harkat said. “How long have we … been traveling?”
“Two weeks — I think.”
After the first hot day, we’d tried traveling by night, but the path was rocky and treacherous underfoot — not to mention hard on my bare feet! After stumbling many times, ripping our clothes, and cutting ourselves, we elected to brave the blistering sun. I wrapped my sweater around my head to ward off the worst of the rays — the sun didn’t affect Harkat’s grey skin, though he sweated a lot — but while that prevented sunstroke, it didn’t do much against sunburn. My upper body had been roasted all over, even through the material of my shirt. For a few days I’d been sore and irritable, but I’d recovered quickly — thanks to my healing abilities as a half-vampire — and the red had turned to a dark, protective brown. The soles of my feet had also hardened — I barely noticed the absence of shoes now.
“With all the climbing and backtracking we’ve … had to do, we can’t be making more than … a couple of miles an hour,” Harkat said. “Allowing for fourteen or fifteen hours of sunlight … per day, we probably cover twenty-five or thirty miles. Over two weeks that’s …” He frowned as he calculated. “Maybe four hundred in total.”
I nodded feebly. “Thank the gods we’re not human — we wouldn’t have lasted a week at this pace, in these conditions.”
Harkat sat up and tilted his head left, then right — the Little Person’s ears were stitched under the skin of his scalp, so he had to cock his head at a sharp angle to listen intently. Hearing nothing, he focused his green eyes on the land around us. After a brief study of the area, he turned toward me. “Has the smell altered?” he asked. He didn’t have a nose, so he relied on mine.
I sniffed the air. “Slightly. It doesn’t smell as tangy as it did before.”
“That’s because there’s less … dust,” he said, pointing to the hills around us. “We seem to be leaving the … desert behind. There are a few plants and patches … of dry grass.”
“About time,” I groaned. “Let’s hope there are animals too — I’ll crack up if I have to eat another lizard or bug.”
“What do you think those twelve-legged … insects were that we ate yesterday?” Harkat asked.
“I have no idea, but I won’t be touching them again — my stomach was in pieces all night!”
Harkat chuckled. “They didn’t bother me. Sometimes it helps to have no … taste buds, and a stomach capable of digesting … almost anything.”
Harkat pulled his mask up over his mouth and breathed through it in silence, studying the land ahead. Harkat had spent a lot of time testing the air, and didn’t think it was poisonous to him — it was slightly different to the air on Earth, more acidic — but he kept his mask on anyway, to be safe. I’d coughed a lot for the first few days, but I was OK now — my hardened lungs had adapted to the bitter air.
“Decided where we are yet?” I asked after a while. That was our favorite topic of conversation. We’d narrowed the possibilities down to four options. Mr. Tiny had
We found a small pool of water and drank deeply from it, sinking our heads into the murky liquid, ignoring the many tiny eels and insects. Harkat’s grey skin looked like damp cardboard when he pulled up, having drunk his fill, but it swiftly regained its natural color as the water evaporated under the unforgiving sun.
“How far do you think we’ve come?” I groaned, stretching out in the shade of a prickly bush with small Purple flowers. This was the first sign of vegetation we’d encountered, but I was too exhausted to display any active interest.
“I have no idea,” Harkat said. “How long have we … been traveling?”
“Two weeks — I think.”
After the first hot day, we’d tried traveling by night, but the path was rocky and treacherous underfoot — not to mention hard on my bare feet! After stumbling many times, ripping our clothes, and cutting ourselves, we elected to brave the blistering sun. I wrapped my sweater around my head to ward off the worst of the rays — the sun didn’t affect Harkat’s grey skin, though he sweated a lot — but while that prevented sunstroke, it didn’t do much against sunburn. My upper body had been roasted all over, even through the material of my shirt. For a few days I’d been sore and irritable, but I’d recovered quickly — thanks to my healing abilities as a half-vampire — and the red had turned to a dark, protective brown. The soles of my feet had also hardened — I barely noticed the absence of shoes now.
“With all the climbing and backtracking we’ve … had to do, we can’t be making more than … a couple of miles an hour,” Harkat said. “Allowing for fourteen or fifteen hours of sunlight … per day, we probably cover twenty-five or thirty miles. Over two weeks that’s …” He frowned as he calculated. “Maybe four hundred in total.”
I nodded feebly. “Thank the gods we’re not human — we wouldn’t have lasted a week at this pace, in these conditions.”
Harkat sat up and tilted his head left, then right — the Little Person’s ears were stitched under the skin of his scalp, so he had to cock his head at a sharp angle to listen intently. Hearing nothing, he focused his green eyes on the land around us. After a brief study of the area, he turned toward me. “Has the smell altered?” he asked. He didn’t have a nose, so he relied on mine.
I sniffed the air. “Slightly. It doesn’t smell as tangy as it did before.”
“That’s because there’s less … dust,” he said, pointing to the hills around us. “We seem to be leaving the … desert behind. There are a few plants and patches … of dry grass.”
“About time,” I groaned. “Let’s hope there are animals too — I’ll crack up if I have to eat another lizard or bug.”
“What do you think those twelve-legged … insects were that we ate yesterday?” Harkat asked.
“I have no idea, but I won’t be touching them again — my stomach was in pieces all night!”
Harkat chuckled. “They didn’t bother me. Sometimes it helps to have no … taste buds, and a stomach capable of digesting … almost anything.”
Harkat pulled his mask up over his mouth and breathed through it in silence, studying the land ahead. Harkat had spent a lot of time testing the air, and didn’t think it was poisonous to him — it was slightly different to the air on Earth, more acidic — but he kept his mask on anyway, to be safe. I’d coughed a lot for the first few days, but I was OK now — my hardened lungs had adapted to the bitter air.
“Decided where we are yet?” I asked after a while. That was our favorite topic of conversation. We’d narrowed the possibilities down to four options. Mr. Tiny had
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