"Why?"

"Because nothing in the air can see us," he told her calmly. "If those flying things went around the storm, they could be very close to us. This way they can't get an exact idea of where we are if they did."

"Good point," Sarraya agreed. "How long has it been since you slept?"

"That doesn't matter," he said dismissively. "What matters is what I can find to eat around here. I'm getting hungry."

"Now that you've fleshed out again, I think you can make it on what fruit I can conjure til we get to a place more hunter friendly," she told him.

"I'm certainly not going to find anything in this," he grunted. "I can't even smell the ground. All I smell is this scarf and dust."

After stopping right where he stood and sitting down, he and Sarraya shared a meal of fruit and berries that the little Faerie conjured. All of it had a faint taste of dust, which was understandable considering the fog-like pall of dust that hung in the air, but after a night of movement it was exactly what he needed.

The wind began to pick up when they were done, when Tarrin stood up. It blew and billowed the dust as it reached them, tugging at Tarrin's cloak, and the Were-cat realized after looking up that the wind was pulling the dust out of the area, blowing it towards the back of the sandstorm. He cursed under his breath at the loss of their concealment, then reached under the cloak for his water skin. It was only half full, but that was no problem. Sarraya could conjure water as easily as she conjured fruit. She had been the one to fill the skin he had. She'd conjured the skin too.

"What's the matter?" she asked.

"The wind is pulling the dust out of the air," he told her, pointing up. The dust was getting thinner and thinner, blowing towards the back of the storm. "If those flyers went around, we're going to be exposed."

"I think that's not much of an issue, Tarrin," Sarraya told him. "I don't think the wind can completely get all the dust. Besides, if it worries you that much, I'll go up and look."

"That would make me feel better."

Sarraya rose up from her seat on the ground and darted straight up, quickly leaving his sight. Even the sound of her wings faded after a moment, leaving him to wait in relative silence for several moments. Then he heard her winds again, growing louder by the second, and she appeared in front of him, moving towards him quickly. "Nothing," she replied. "I can't see around the sandstorm, but there's nothing in any other direction."

"I guess that's a good thing. How long would it take them to get around that storm?"

"It would depend on how close they were when they started," she replied. "But even if they started early, if I can't see them now, then they can't be anywhere near close to us. We shouldn't be bothered all day by anything in the air."

"That's a relief," he sighed contentedly.

The wind did not get rid of all the dust, as Sarraya had predicted. It hung like a dirty fog for most of the day, concealing the Were-cat from anyone who may happen to be overhead. It was considerably challenging to run in the pall, Tarrin discovered, for his visibility was very poor, and many times he had to react with lightning speed to avoid running into the few obstacles the dusty plains could present. But visibility improved as the morning progressed, allowing him to see further and further, until they came across a road.

This baffled Tarrin, but only momentarily. After all, there were trading posts on the border of the desert, and those posts had to have some way to move their goods back and forth to the rest of the kingdom. Tarrin didn't see a road when he left the nameless city behind him, but that wasn't very much of a surprise, because he could barely see his own feet at that time. The road was little more than a clean patch of sand and dirt running through the low scrub grass, the road's level below the land around it, wide enough for three wagons to pass one another. The sandstorms had dug out the bare earth of the road and carried it away, leaving the road lower than the land around it by nearly a span. The road was covered by at least three fingers of loose dust and sand, shifting and parting for his feet as he stepped into it, telling him that any wagon or cart would find this road very slow going. It told him that he was on the right track, and it also told him that he was going to see some civilization before he crossed over into the desert.

He followed the road for the rest of the day, moving more confidently in the dust-filled air now that he didn't have to worry about tripping over a log or running into the shallow gorges that tended to present themselves at inopportune moments. The road's loose surface slowed him down a little, but not enough to make him feel as if he needed to abandon it for the scrubby grass. The road proved to make time pass more quickly, because now he didn't have to worry about his direction or running into or over something. He could simply follow the road and allow it to guide him. It made for easy running, and that made the time flow by quickly.

The dust had almost completely settled by sunset. There were no objects in the sky, as Sarraya had predicted, but the clearing air did reveal something on the ground. It was a wagon, a wagon with no animals to pull it, turned over on its top on the side of the road. It rested on the gentle slope running from the ground above down into the road's relatively level middle, and it was rather large for a wagon. It had curious wheels, made of some strange ivory-like substance which he couldn't identify, and they were about five times wider than standard wagon wheels. That made sense, given the loose nature of the road on which it travelled. The wide wheels would make it easier for the wagon to move. The dust had stripped away any scents in the area, and the dust and sand carried along by the evening winds forced him to put the scarf up to keep it out of his nose and mouth.

"Looks like someone didn't get to shelter," Sarraya said conversationally, zipping over the wagon. The sand and dust had piled up around it like a snowdrift on the side that would have been leeward of the storm.

"No tack or harness," Tarrin said. "Either it was left behind, or the animals broke free."

"You think there's anything in it?" Sarraya asked.

"I don't know, but it'll serve as shelter for a night's sleeping," he said, reaching up and unclasping the cloak. "It shouldn't be that hard to turn over."

Settling himself beside the wagon, Tarrin sank his claws into the side of it, then began to pull. As he suspected, the wagon wasn't very heavy-it had to be light, else it would sink into the road and be hard to move. He turned it on its side, then slid partially under it and heaved it over and above him.

The activity told him that he was stronger now. He held the wagon completely off the ground, a feat that five men could not easily accomplish. He turned towards the middle of the road and readied to set the wagon back down on its wheels-

– -and a sudden shrill scream nearly startled him out of his fur.

Tarrin heaved the wagon aside, landing with a crash on its side beside him as he whirled around in the direction of the scream, claws out and eyes lit from within with their unholy greenish radiance. Whatever had made that sound was right there, close enough to attack, and he hadn't sensed it. Tarrin did not react well to surprise. He growled loudly in his throat and laid his ears back, primal threat displays to whatever it was attacking him, telling it that it wouldn't take him without a fight.

His surprise grew when he found himself looking down at a child of no more than eight years, screaming at the top of her lungs, pressing and shoving at a still form beneath her.

A child! All that nonsense over a human cub! Tarrin rose up from his slouching battle stance, looking down at the little girl with annoyance and relief. She was still screaming, trying to rouse another human beside her, an Arakite woman of youngish years. The woman was breathing, if only just, and she had blood clotted with dust on the side of her head. Around them were tattered canvas, broken shards of wood, and small bales of some grayish fiber. Wool? They must have been under the wagon, protected from the storm by the artificial cave in which they were trapped.