Motion caught her attention. The dust of the road, shivering, and now she could hear a growing thunder, reverberating like earthen drums.
The track she was on was not a well-traversed one here on the Ugarat Odhan. It belonged to an age long past, when the caravans plied the scores of routes between the dozen or more great cities of which ancient Ugarat was the hub, and all those cities, barring Kayhum on the banks of the river and Ugarat itself, were dead a thousand years or more.
Still, a lone rider could as easily be one too many as her salvation, for she was a woman with ample womanly charms, and she was alone.
Sometimes, it was said, bandits and raiders used these mostly forgotten tracks as they made their way between caravan routes.
Bandits were notoriously ungenerous.
The hoofs approached, ever louder, then the creature slowed, and a moment later a sultry cloud of dust rolled over Samar Dev. The horse snorted, a strangely vicious sound, and there was a softer thud as the rider slipped down. Faint footfalls drew nearer.
What was this? A child? A woman?
A shadow slid into view beyond that cast by the wagon, and Samar Dev rolled her head, watching as the figure strode round the wagon and looked down on her.
No, neither child nor woman. Perhaps, she considered, not even a man.
An apparition, tattered white fur riding the impossibly broad shoulders. A sword of flaked flint strapped to his back, the grip wrapped in hide. She blinked hard, seeking more details, but the bright sky behind him defeated her. A giant of a man who walked quiet as a desert cat, a nightmare vision, a hallucination.
And then he spoke, but not, it was clear, to her. 'You shall have to wait for your meal, Havok. This one still lives.'
'Havok eats dead women?' Samar asked, her voice ragged. 'Who do you ride with?'
'Not with,' the giant replied. 'On.' He moved closer and crouched down beside her. There was something in his hands – a waterskin – but she found she could not pull her gaze from his face. Even, hard-edged features, broken and crazed by a tattoo of shattered glass, the mark of an escaped slave. 'I see your wagon,' he said, speaking the language of the desert tribes yet oddly accented, 'but where is the beast that pulled it?'
'In the bed,' she replied.
He set the skin at her side and straightened, walked over and leaned in for a look. 'There's a dead man in there.'
'Yes, that's him. He's broken down.'
'He was pulling this wagon? No wonder he's dead.'