The streak of blood caught me in the eyes and I turned my head. I wiped it against my shoulder and blinked, the corpse of a liathel stood before me. A whiskered, giant cat, sat and bleeding underneath my heel. It breathed heavy, eyes rolling slow as it reared its head towards me. An impotent roar. Its whiskered moving brisk against a strong hot wind. Kal and I stood on top of an angled boulder, somewhere in the Melindral desert. Home to many cities, small and big. Home to Kaviria. Capitol of the world, of Xyra.

And here in the nameless sands we stood. I shook my clothes. The dust collected on my keffiyeh. The deserts were wide, a mountain range covered the eastern front. I hadn’t even realized when it propped up, somewhere in the days of travel it must have appeared, propped up overnight. A trail of blood lead back to our horses tied to a bent palm tree and the puddles it shaded underneath. I took my foot off the liathel. Yellow cat, brown spotted. My hands approached it, and it snapped its giant maw at me. Two fangs. With green plaque against its gums.

I reproached my arm and studied the hard breathing. Its intestines hung wrapped around its arm, one end hung by the edge of the boulder. I took a step and rolled a stone beneath my feet, losing balance for a moment. Then I squatted. Waited. Looked up to Kal, eyes strained against the sun beyond his large frame.

“You could have aimed a bit better.” I said.

Kal wiped his face and brought his blade hilt up against his shoulder and rolled his eyes. He sighed and drank from a canister and walked down the boulder, towards the horses.

“You kill it then.” He said. Waving with the water sack in grip.

I looked back down at the creature. Its soft imprint forming from the collected yellow sand.

“Sorry, buddy.” I took out my knife and raised it up.

We dragged the liathel on my horse. It’s body bent to the contour of my steeds spine, tied down by all its limbs underneath the belly of the horse. Defiled. Wrapped with palm leaves and some weak thread that bustled and ripped thread by thread as the horse took heavier steps towards the camp. By the time we were there, my steed was shaking. I removed the weight from its back and started carrying it before Kal interrupted and lifted it up over his shoulder. The horse sprung back up and a man grabbed it by the reigns and led it towards water. We walked through the heavy sands, digging up mountains with each step. Men worked by the side, lifting the sides of carts stuck in deep holes. Others were nailing fins to the bottom of the wheels, to dig out sand as the axle spun.

Some men shook their heads and stood chopping cactii, drinking the saliva coming off the paddles. Their eyes widened and their mouths puckered. I stopped at Vincent’s cart. His tent was lopsided to one side. One guard stood taller than the other, the dune had grown overnight and a layer of almost white sand had caked against his tent. Into a mount now.

“Is he busy?” I asked.

One guard nodded no. He lifted a flap. Half the desert came down like slush and I lowered my head to walk inside.

“Boy do I have something to tell you." I said.

Vincent stood, fingers pinching at his chin, he looked down at a map pinned onto a wooden table. Little wooden pieces weighted it down. Pieces that Vincent moved and pushed and adjusted. I closed the flaps and nodded to Kal.

He lowered the liathel onto the floor. It plopped and the two guards jumped up and away. Kal grabbed it by its front tooth and dragged it into the offices. Already bled all there was to bleed, the stiff corpse left a trail in the sand as we stepped into the tents.

“Vincent.” I said.

Vincent hunched over the table, eyes closed. He sniffed and drank and worked more pieces into the corner.

"Vincent.” I coughed.

He turned to me, eye lids dark and skin puffed and loose. Like a wax statue melting.

“Virgil.” He smiled. “Kal.”

He looked down to the liathel and scratched his head.

“I hope you don’t mind.” I said. “Ain’t like there’s much of a floor anyway.”

I kicked sand off my feet.

“I don’t mind. We’ll be moving soon.”

“Have you seen the carts outside?” I asked. “It’ll take us a day to adjust the wheels. Probably more.”

“Will it? Oh.” Vincent said. He grabbed his little figurines and propped them back down onto the map, setting teams.

“Vincent.”

“I’m listening.” He said.

Kal scratched his neck and looked at me, as if I knew what to say or do. I simply observed Vincent, watching him from the far side of the tent. Watching a crooked man play with his toys upon a map, unwell looking and unwell talking and unwell thinking.

“We thought it’d be a good idea to bring a gift to the king.” I said. “So I suggest we hunt for liathel. They’re natives. We can give Xanthus the pelts.”

He looked at me. Brief. Studied the dead animal with its mouth hanging, being clung to at the tooth.

“Okay.” Vincent turned and moved another piece. Dust piled onto papers in the corner of the room, a hammock swung, held together by two slanted metal rods in the sand. Some food in a sack. A few bottles of wine.

“You haven’t been well recently.”

“That soothsayer.” He shook his head. “Really soured the mood of the flock.”

“Yeah. I’m surprised you didn’t kill her.”

“I was about to until you-” His voice rose. “It would have been a moment of weakness. Thank you for stopping me.”

“I’m glad you see it that way, but I mean you haven’t been well for weeks now. Since we made it into the desert. It’s not like I don’t understand, you want to leave a good impression but-”

“But nothing.” He flicked a knight off the table. It plopped into the sand and sunk. “We live and die by my success. The burden is mine.”

“Not yours alone.”

“It is me Xanthus wants to see. It is me who will represent us.” He walked up to me, grabbing my arms and smiling. “Don’t worry friend. I’ve already accepted the anxiety of the meeting, and it won’t stop us. I promise.”

“I’m not worried about you stopping. I don’t think anyone is.” I said. “I’m worried about whats up here, you know?”

I pointed to his temple and poked his foreheaed. He walked away, still smiling, rubbing the spot on his head. Kal looked at me, sweating. His face strained.

Vincent turned around and rolled it and stood against the table, switching hands with the map.

“Maybe I could do for some sleep.” He sighed.

“A lot of sleep.” Kal said. We turned to him. He coughed, veins on his arm and forehead straining still.

“A pelt, huh. As a gift?” Vincent asked.

“Many, many pelts.” I said. “He’ll have a rug in every chamber.”

“Alright. Alright. I’ll leave it to you then.” Vincent said. “You have my authority. We’re a little stuck anyway, right?”

I saluted him. Put my arm to my chest and waved off. Vincent did not observe me as I did to him. As I looked at his disposition, still, crooked and burdened in a wooden chair somewhere in the corner of the tent. Around him were staffs and the puddles of wax where candles had burned. I waited for a while in salute, then retracted.

“You may leave.” Vincent took some papers and straightened them against the desk.

“Oh hells.” Kal raised his arm and propped the lion on his shoulder. His knees shook and buckled. He strained out of the tent, I followed.

“Why’d I have to carry this thing?” He asked.

“Because I’m too small. And you’re big and strong, right?”

“To hell with you Virgil.” Kal’s legs buckled as he wobbled down carts.

“To hell with all of us.” I said. “Get used to it. We’re going hunting tomorrow. All of the fourteenth.”

“Maybe I suggest we get a break?” Kal dropped the liathel. “I think all of us are a little worn.”

“You saw him in there, didn’t you? The man looks tortured. You know important this first impression is, right? It’s the king.”

“The king of what?”

“King Xanthus.” I said. “The king of…everything west as far as I know. I understand you’re tired.”

“We’re all tired.” Kal wiped the sweat from his forehead. “All of us, Virgil. We’re all tired and exhausted and none of us wants to so much as take another step in this desert. I haven’t had a full meal in a week.”

“You’d need a banquet for a full meal, buddy.” I said. Kal groaned and rolled his head.

“It’ll be quick. We’re all doing it. Hey, it might even be fun?”

Kal shook his head. Before the cart he dropped the liathel. It was the butchery, whose barred windows hid the sleeping figure of Old Chet. He snored. The liathel laid there. Dragged in sand. Dried blood blackened across its body, eyes bulging and poking out from their cavities. I scratched my head and bent and grabbed it by both saberteeth.

“Yeah. It’ll be fun.” I pulled and yelped. Old Chet woke up, dragging himself up to the window with blinking eyes.

“We under attack?” He asked.

I looked up, holding my lower back. My poor lower back. Yeah. It’d be fun alright.