They paused for a while partway down the hill, giving the horses a chance to drink from a gurgling spring, drinking from their own water bottles. Kosar’s throat was parched and scored by the dust of that dead place behind them, and he wondered if things would ever return to normal.

“There’s San,” he said, pointing into the distance. The village was a thin spread of buildings strung along the riverbank. From this far away it was little more than a smudge on the landscape, but he knew that there were quays in front of each building, small fishing boats tied to them, sprawled nets being repaired or untangled, the stench of fish permanently ingrained in the wood of the place. He had not spent any time there other than to eat and trade for some food, and that had been a long time ago, but he still remembered some of the people he had met. Hard people, their life filled and ruled by the fishing that kept them alive. Sometimes they would spend days traveling down the river, almost as far as Lake Denyah, and return home with nothing more than a few weedy slinks in their holds. Other times—rarer—they would haul in a full catch, and then the village would celebrate for a week. They lived day by day, bartering rather than selling their fish. They had seemed excited when he arrived, and pleased to see him go. Strangers had no place in San; they were just another mouth to feed.

“We need to go around,” A’Meer said. “We’ll go as far as those hillsides.” She shielded her eyes against the sun and pointed east. “We can work our way around behind the hills, down into the valley, find some way to cross the river and then head south.”

“Easy,” Hope said. “Piece of piss.”

“Easy,” Kosar agreed. Hope glanced at him and raised one eyebrow. Her tattoos twitched into something that could well have been the beginnings of a smile. “And then the River Cleur to cross,” he continued, “Cleur to bypass, then down to Mareton and into the Mol’Steria Desert, providing the Cataclysmic War hasn’t changed the landscape beyond all recognition. I’ve heard of places this far south where the air is frozen into glass.” They sat contemplating their journey, the horses splashed in the stream, he nodded. “Piece of piss.”

“We should get Trey to do his thing,” A’Meer said. “See if the way is clear.”

“Every second we sit here brings us closer to being caught,” Hope said. “We should move on, chance it. Even if he does look and see the plains between the rivers swarming with Monks, what choices do we have?”

“If that’s the case, we could always head east through the Widow’s Peaks,” Kosar said.

“And meet Ventgoria’s steam dragons? No thanks. I’ll take my chances with a handful of Red Monks any day.”