Thread: Daughter Of Dune (Ursus Peregrinus & darkangel76)

Marid Angry with himself, but doing his best to conceal it, Marid finished shifting the heaviest items into his pack. Bundling his maker hooks, he collapsed them and added those as well. May the ancestors walk with you this night, then. He said grudgingly as he fastened his hood, nose and mouth filters. Opening the stilltent, he removed their gear and began to collapse it, rolling it as soon as Hersilia stepped out. Handing her the lighter pack, lightened further now that he had moved some of the heavier essentials to his own heavy load, he shouldered his burden and nodded for her to follow. The concentration of moving across the desert helped to distract him from his weakness and Marid began to relax as they moved, the setting sun soon leaving them in twilight. Everywhere about them tonight were subtle signs of the changing desert. Small scrubby creosote bushes or low, twisted smoke trees clung here and there to rockier patches where their roots could find anchor. Once, the two of them passed by a half dozen low saguaro and he turned to watch her. Be mindful of your robe as you move, he advised in a whisper. Brush against a rock or plant and you might leave a thread to mark our passage. The pace he set for them was not as brutal as the previous night, but it was exhausting all the same. Crossing a field of gravel and pea sand was a kindness, granting a firmer step than the softer sand and dust they had been trudging through. They paused to rest beneath a rocky promontory that looked out across rolling grey dunes and Marid set about continuing her education. That patch there, he pointed. Drum sand. Know it by the subtle striations in its surface, it forms most often in the hollows of dunes, where there is bedrock not more than ten or fifteen meters beneath. Step upon it and the compaction of the sand will call a Maker as surely as a thumper. Stretching to loosen muscles grown tight from the march, Marid looked up and touched Hersilia's shoulder. There, do you hear? He fell silent again, and the faint sounds of movement came to their ears. Shh, you are the stones, the sand. A moment later, a large eared fennec fox came into sight, carrying something in its mouth. A kangaroo mouse, slower than its fellows, dangled from the little fox's jaws. The fox watched them warily for a long moment, then picked its way down the rock slope, worming its way into a narrow crack in the rock with its dinner. A rare sight, even now. The fox lives as the Fremen once did, hidden beneath the earth and emerging only to hunt. I'll wager that mother has a litter of cubs to feed. Standing, Marid checked his robe and pointed out across the dunes. There, in the distance, you see ridge that is shaped like broken teeth? Our destination this night. We make good time. He looked at her. You are ready to continue? The dry air was growing faintly heavy with static, and Marid could feel a storm coming on. It was distant now, but it might arrive by morning. He wished he had thought to bring weather poles that he could pole the sand to predict the coming weather. Taking the oil-lens binoculars from their case on his pack, he adjusted their focus and raised them to his eyes, scanning the far horizon slowly in all directions. There was no wall of sand visible downwind. They should have time to reach Fanged Ridge before the weather turned. tag