
Mina, Edvard, and Yuila encounter a village with a lost traveler.
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♫♪Suggested Music: from The Village on AudioNetwork
Travel the next day was done in increasingly uncomfortable temperatures. What had started out as a relatively warm morning turned progressively humid until they found themselves resting the horses as much as they rode. The skies were overcast and threatened rain, but never relented in the precipitation. Their clothes hung limp and hot, the air around them heavy with moisture.
By the time they had stopped for the fourth time that afternoon, Mina was actually dreading getting back on Neito's back. She knew she wasn't the only one. Edvard had grown increasingly restless during the afternoon, and whenever they stopped he spent long moments adjusting his shirt and fidgeting with the bandage beneath. He only shook his head when she had asked about the injury, but once back on the road, he relented.
"There's a village a few miles ahead," he said to her as a rumble of thunder echoed from the distant mountains. "It's looking like rain tonight, so we'll see if we can get lodging."
Mina blew a stray strand of hair out of her face, easing her hand away from his side. "It's bothering you."
He sighed. "You're not, but the bandage is." He glanced over to Yuila, who had been quiet most of the day, complaining only briefly in the morning and at lunch about a headache. She looked to them, brightening.
"I can smell the ocean. Are we close, Edvard?"
"No; that's the Salt River. It runs through the village up ahead." He continued before the girl could voice her next query. "Yes, I'm sure it has fish in it."
She pulled the mare closer to Neito, warming to the idea of fresh fish. "Can we fish?"
"We'll see what the village is like first. We may not be welcome."
Yuila pouted, frowning at the back of Sova's head.
"Are they hostile?" Mina asked.
"Not likely; But probably not accustomed to visitors, seeing they're not on the main trade road." He pulled at his shirt in the blazing sun, eyeing the darkening clouds over the mountains. "Even if they're not open to boarders, we'll have access to the river. We have to cross it farther on."
This had prompted Yuila into a twenty minute discourse on the qualities of salt water fish versus the fresh water variety. Mina listened patiently as the merciless heat pushed into them, and when the Crone was finished, she, too, slumped on the mare's back, wilted. The aspect of rain almost seemed desirable.
The promise of fish was enough to keep Yuila's spirits a notch above both Mina and Edvard. It took another two hours for the village to come into sight around a break in the olive and lemon trees. The small establishment was unlike any they had yet seen, and they approached with caution. Two dozen yurts formed a double circle around the main well in the center of the village within view of the secondary road Edvard and the girls had traveled. Two more of the dwellings were under construction in what was becoming a third circle, their bamboo ribs only partially covered with woven reed mats and leather hides. The young men and women in the outer stands of flax stopped working when the horses and mule came into view, and a few of the smaller children ran to the village to announce visitors.
By the time they had reached the first yurt, a group of older men came out to greet them. Edvard halted the horses and Makka, dismounting as one of the men stepped forward.
"Greetings," the man said, extending a hand. "Traveling long?"
"Since Sel Deuo." Edvard shook the man's hand, looking over the other men and women watching them. "Do you take lodgers?"
"Surely. Peaceful ones." The man nodded to Mina and Yuila, both who had covered their heads. He looked to the packs on the mule. "Are you trading?"
Mina moved into the saddle at Edvard's gesture, and half listened to him and the man as talk turned to wares and boarding. Some of the villagers wandered back into the flax field and vineyards, and others into yurts, but a few stayed to usher the newcomers. A couple of children milled around Makka, laughing and pointing to the animal's long ears. Mina didn't think much of it until they passed four donkeys tethered near a dwelling. The much smaller animals twitched their equally long ears at Makka's passing, one braying a warning.
Or a salutation, Mina thought. She and Yuila had both pulled on their hoods before taking the offshoot of a path from the main road that afternoon, but now the younger girl was tugging at hers.
One of the women had fallen into step near Neito, her observation bypassing Edvard and the men to watch the Crone. She looked to Mina, and in that brief moment Mina realized the woman was a Crone also.
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