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He finished folding up the tent and shoved it into the carrying sacks. Then he stroked the camel's side, not looking at me, just petting the camel like it was a cat.
"Why does it matter?" he finally said.
I frowned. "I want to know."
I was sure he wasn't going to answer, but after a few seconds, he dropped his hand to his side. "It did, a little, but I caught you before you injured yourself, so it was nothing especially painful. And we had the camel, so…" He turned toward me. His face wasn't covered, and it was like looking at him naked. I wondered what it would be like to touch his scar. "That isn't something you need to worry about."
"I don't worry about it," I said. "I was just curious." Although that wasn't entirely true.
That morning's walk came much easier, because of the rest on the camel's back and the couple of extra hours of sleep I got in. Naji had me ride the camel in the evenings, and we carried on like that for the rest of the trip. He didn't seem to need the rest. I figured it was some trick from blood magic. He didn't offer an explanation, and I didn't ask for one.
The days bled together out there, the way they do at sea, turning into one long day, one long night. Eventually the landscape starting changing. The desert trees disappeared and the sand turned coarser. Our path was littered with little round stones and tufts of bristly brown-green plants.
"We're close," Naji said.
"Close to what?" I was hoping he'd trip up and give me some kind of hint as to where we were headed.
"The canyon."
"And what's in the canyon?"
"A river."
I didn't even care that he was weaseling out of telling me anything important. "A river?" I said. "Water?"
"Water generally comprises a river, yes."
"Oh, thank Kaol and E'mko both!" I closed my eyes and all the dusty dryness fell away, and I imagined diving into clean hard river water, sloughing off all the grime and filth of travel, a proper bath and not a useless sandscrub–
"We're not there yet."
I opened my eyes. Naji was looking at me with little lines creasing the strip of his face, his own eyes bright and sparkling.
"Are you laughing at me?"
"Never."
I lunged at him with an imaginary sword, and this time he really did laugh, all throaty and raspy, and I wondered what I could do to get him to laugh more.
The travel was easier, now that I knew our destination included a river. I didn't even need to hop on the camel that evening. Naji didn't push it, neither, which I appreciated. As we walked, I started telling him jokes, trying to get him to laugh again. Which he didn't do.
The next day started same as all the others, except I launched into my joke-telling straight away. I was building up to my best one, about a whore and a court magician, and I knew it'd get a laugh out of Naji for sure.
I never got to tell it, though, because the sky began to change.
Naji spotted it first, but he didn't say nothing about it, just stopped the camel and pulled his armor out of the pack. I went on walking a little ways before I noticed – I was trying to work out the best way to tell my joke – but then I realized I didn't hear the whisper-soft footsteps, and I turned around and saw Naji suiting up like he was about to go into battle.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
"Nothing you need to concern yourself with."
"Bullshit!" I stalked up to him, spraying sand and stones, building up a bank of all the best cusses I'd heard in my lifetime, when I saw it. This weird cloud on the horizon, snaky and dark, like ink dropped into water.
"What's that?" I stopped a few feet away from Naji, staring past him, out at the desert. The thing crawled across the sky, long thin strands like a ghoul's fingers. "Don't you dare tell me I don't need to concern myself with it!"
"It's a sandstorm."
"No, it ain't."
"And how would you know?" His eyes gazed at me from the top of his mask. "Do you see a lot of sandstorms out on the ocean?"
"I ain't never seen a sandstorm, but you wouldn't be suiting up if it were."
His eyes dropped away from me.
"Give me your sword."
He slapped the camel's thigh to get it moving again.
"Absolutely not."
Naji walked beside the camel, and I followed behind Naji.
"Then give me that knife of yours. I want to be able to fight, it comes to that."
"You have a knife." He paused. "You stabbed me in the thigh with it, if I recall correctly."
"That knife ain't worth a damn. I want yours."
He sighed. "You realize things are easier for me if you don't fight. If you don't…" He tilted his head, like he was searching for the right words. "If you don't put yourself in danger. Besides, it might not be anything troublesome. A fellow Jadorr'a passing through."
"The hell is that?"
"An assassin, Ana
"Oh yeah?" I shot back, though I did feel kind of bad about not knowing what a Jadorr'a was. "You usually leave a trail big enough to see from Qilar when you're passing through?"
He didn't say nothing. I patted the dress sash I had tied around my waist, where my knife was tucked away, to reassure myself.
Naji was walking quicker than he had earlier – not ru
"We gotta stop," I said.
"Ana
"What? We do."
He looked over at me, all eyes and mask. I hated that mask.