“But that doesn’t mean that I wish my friend success in his endeavor. By the Great Turtle, I want to go to the Empire, not to perish for the sake of other people’s weird fantasies.”
Hadjar looked at the bald man walking next to him.
“Then why are you still here?”
“As you said,” Einen’s lips trembled slightly, “I’m still here because my friend is still here.”
Sometimes, Einen’s logic seemed as unyielding as his staff to Hadjar.
When they reached the camels, they split up. Einen went over to Glen to discuss how exactly they would share the snake’s core. It turned out that the islander needed everything related to snakes to cultivate some kind of Technique. So, the Baliumian bargained for two imperial coins and the promise that, after their next encounter, Glen, regardless of the circumstances, would get to pay for the core which he would then keep for himself.
After petting and calming his camel down (although it was unclear which one of them should’ve been more nervous about the prospect of another camelback ride), Hadjar climbed into his saddle.
“I guess I must be crazy,” Ramukhan began casually, once everyone had gotten back in their saddles and the squad was once again ready to head out, “but I’ve decided to trust the northerner’s instincts once again.”
“Instincts that have just let us down so far,” Tilis interjected.
Ramukhan deliberately paused, letting the hunters feel the moment stretch out, and then continued:
“We’re going to the Stone Trees oasis. That’s quite far from here. It’ll take us at least a week, but I hope the trip will prove beneficial to our common cause.”
Right... Hadjar figured that at least three of the eight people present didn’t have a common cause.
Karissa sent out another fire sparrow, and the hunters set off toward the northwest. The journey, which was supposed to take a week, dragged on for ten days.
Along the way, they encountered all sorts of animals and monsters. They even saw a shadow that made Hadjar think it was a Lord of the Heavens flying over them once. Einen and Hadjar weren’t even the first to fall to the ground and take cover, but Ramukhan and Tilis, who’d noticed the shadow as well. Fortunately, the shadow passed by them. Hadjar didn’t know whether it had been a relative of the deceased dragon or not. He was glad that he didn’t get a chance to find out.
The practitioners — Hadjar, Einen, and Glen — had to cross blades with fangs, horns, and claws three more times over the course of their journey. Once, Hadjar overestimated his capabilities and fought against a monster at the peak of the King Stage on his own.
As a result, a white bandage was now wrapped around his chest. He now had another scar, but this time, only his own stupidity was to blame. Nevertheless, the creature, which had looked like a mixture of a beetle, rhino, and a meatball, had moved on to the fields of eternal hunting or wherever the animals of the Sea of Sand went after their death.
The Stone Trees oasis came into view on the eleventh day after their encounter with the Immortal. Given that their camels could cover a distance of two thousand miles in ten hours with ease, the distance they’d travelled was terrifying to imagine.
The oasis itself, or rather, the contrast when they transitioned to it from the black desert, was amazing. Once again, Hadjar realized just how many more miracles he had yet to witness in this vast world.
Behind the nearest crest of a dune was a small fragment of Paradise — a gorge filled with the murmur of streams and the sound of falling water. It was turquoise, beckoning the hunters with the promise of longed-for coolness. Their bodies had gotten covered in a layer of dust and solidified sweat during their journey. The trees provided shade for the green meadows, and their rustle awakened Hadjar’s distant memories of the years he’d lived in Lidus.
“I can feel a native wind,” Glen breathed in deeply.
For him, this was indeed a replica of his homeland: mountains, waterfalls, and forests. What else did a man from Balium need from life? Only a bit of snow and some strong brew.
As for the mountains, Hadjar would’ve rather called the oasis Stone Fingers, not the Stone Trees. However, no one had asked for his opinion.
Dozens, even hundreds of rocky peaks pierced endless streams and lakes, stretching toward the sky, which had a familiar azure hue here. The oasis stood beneath a funnel of black clouds, but the sun was managing to break through in the center, surrounded by fluffy, serene white clouds.
“Let’s dismount here,” Ramukhan commanded.
Chapter 362
They decided to camp near the edge of a waterfall that had an ancient wooden arch over it. Unknown hieroglyphs flashed across the connecting beam of the arch.
Ramukhan went to join Tilis and Karissa in studying it at first, but then he left them to it. His duties as the head of the squad (a title he’d given himself) demanded that he help with the planning and with setting up the camp, which meant he couldn’t rush over to study the unknown hieroglyphs.
“These symbols are no less than half a million years old,” Karissa said admiringly.
It became abundantly clear that the witches would be busy researching the wooden arch for a while. Salif’s boy was already cooking something, the old man was mumbling something to himself (he always did that when delving into his bottomless memory), and Einen and Glen were tying the camels down. The animals looked very strange in the oasis, like alien intruders almost.
“Northerner.” Ramukhan went over to Hadjar and sat down next to him on the grass.
“Yeah?”
Hadjar, having cut off the branch of a tree with his sword, was now stripping off its wet fibers. He was wearing a wide-brimmed hat. Ramukhan looked at this with slight surprise and contempt. Apparently, doing this sort of work wasn’t considered honorable in Underworld City. Only servants did that sort of thing.
“What else did you hear from old Rahaim?”
Hadjar noticed the man’s hesitation and glanced at him. He tried to avert his eyes, but didn’t succeed. There was no doubt that he...
“You knew Rahaim,” Hadjar didn’t ask, but stated.
“Many people knew him,” the sorcerer nodded. “He was one of the few people who did honest work, never deceiving anyone... Well, no more than the customs of our people demanded. He brought everyone who paid him to the Empire safe and sound, whenever he could.”
“What does that have to do with you?”
Hadjar deliberately emphasized the last word, making it clear that he was referring to Underworld City.
“Do you think, barbarian, that Underworld City doesn’t have any of its own people in the Empire?” Ramukhan grunted and smugly scratched his plump belly. “Otherwise, we would’ve grown stagnant long ago and disappeared.”
Well, this explained how Underworld City had knowledge and artifacts that couldn’t be found by hunters. They traded with Darnassus. It was quite clever.
“Besides,” Ramukhan continued, “It’s hard not to know the former sultan of the Pearl of the Sands.”
Hadjar almost cut himself with his dagger. Even he’d heard about the Pearl of the Sands in the first week of his journey through the territories bordering the Sea of Sand. They said that the Pearl was the largest city in the Sea of Sand. Surrounded by huge dunes, it boasted seven million inhabitants and was considered to be the capital of the desert. And if that was the case, then Hadjar had traveled in the caravan of the former king of the Sea of Sand for almost half a year. That was also why the sheikh of Kurkhadan and Sankesh knew Rahaim and why everyone had respected the old man so much.