Smoke puffed up from the sands, wreathing the kneeling Chosen. To the side Tuketu watched with a knowing smirk. Nobody moved. Dorian kept his hand held out, angling his palm to the light; sunlight glazed the pills in a golden halo.

Still nobody moved.

Dorian frowned. Had he miscalculated? There was a distinct strain of hesitancy as he surveyed the gathered Chosen. In theory he’d beaten them beyond the point of humiliation; he’d beaten them so absolutely it was like an avalanche, a natural disaster. A force it was futile to resist or resent.

So why would nobody take his olive branch?

Perhaps he’d overdone it. Perhaps he’d struck too fiercely.

Then, just as he opened his mouth to speak, a figure staggered up.

It was Muata. He was a picture of remorse. As he shambled up he held out a hand. His face warbled like a rippling pond. “This one has wronged you, Senior,” he said softly. “This one… has no grievance.”

“Then please accept this offering,” said Dorian with a smile. He pressed the pill to Muata’s palm and “All’s forgiven. We start anew, brother Muata.”

At this a few Chosen looked to each other hesitantly. Dorian kept up his earnest look. Muata had broken some invisible dam. A scrawny Chosen—one of the Elders’ sons, if Dorian recalled right—got to his feet with a gulp and walked over. To his right, another stood and ambled over.

“I have no grievance,” whispered the scrawny Chosen.

“Neither I.”

“I have eyes, but I can’t see the Sinkhole’s depths!”

“Forgive me, Senior!”

Dorian hid a smile. As expected—the rest toppled with ease. Bedraggled Chosen dragged themselves up, looking suitably Chastened, and he accepted them like a shepherd welcoming a lost flock. As he passed out pills and shook hands with the Chosen, he saw Tuketu out of the corner of his eye. The man made no comment.

Was he concerned for his son? But he made no move to help up Kuruk, who was now sorrily nursing the cuts on him. He looked at the Elixir Dorian had left him as though it were filled with viper venom.

Then Tuketu broke into a warm smile.

To Dorian he only said one thing.

“Congratulations, Chosen Io. For the promotion ceremony next week, you’ve earned your spot as the first Hunter.”

Not even Kuruk raised his voice. This time, there was not a word of protest.

***

“Where’d you learn to do that?” Kaya was incredulous all the way back.

“All those moves?” Dorian blinked. “Picked it up in training! Weren’t you there?”

“No, not those. I knew you could do those. The speech. How you played it.”

“Huh?” Crap.

“That was actually cool,” she said, frowning. “How’s that possible? You aren’t cool. I’m cool.”

Dorian gave her a side-eyed look.

He was saved from replying by a loud, low, rumbling noise. He and Kaya both stilled to listen; it seemed to rattle the whole Tribe, blanketing it in sound. Dorian felt it in his bones.

A horn had blown. But not the high-alert horn. This one was of less urgency, but no less important. It called for a mandatory Tribe meeting. Now.

Kaya frowned. “What’s it this time?”

Dorian shrugged. He knew, of course. Or at least he was nearly certain. But he feigned ignorance as they diverted from their paths, heading now for the Tribe’s center. All around, heads poked out of tents and Tribesmen dropped their tasks, looking up to the source of the sound.

By the time they reached the center more than half the Tribe was there, looking anxious. The last time this had happened, a quarter of their number had perished, after all, but this time the aura was different.

Chief Rust stood flanked by a dozen Elders, looking very serious. His robes were light and clean, functional as ever, but possessed of an understated elegance: it was unnaturally smooth and unwrinkled, catching the light at odd angles. As he surveyed the crowd his aura trickled out, dampening conversation, drawing eyes to him. To his side Tuketu inspected his fingernails, unfazed.

Soon the bulk of the Tribe had arrived, shuffling about in uneasy silence. Rust could’ve been forged of stone for how much he moved.

Suddenly Kaya looked a little shifty.

“What dya think it’s about?” She whispered.

“Dunno.”

“Could it be about all the stealing?” She looked a little guilty. “Maybe he found out?”

“He’s not assembling the whole tribe to punish you for lifting some meat,” said Dorian.

“Well… er…” Now she looked really guilty. “It wasn’t just some meat…”

“What?”

“Hey,” she said evasively, tugging at her arm. “It’s not my fault people leave things lying around! What do they expect—that someone won’t take it?”

She bit her lips nervously.

“Kaya…”

“What’s Elder Juzan gotta do with her wedding ring anyway?” She mumbled. She’d moved to twirling her hair absently. “Her husband’s been dead three decades and she’s got a face like a deformed raisin! ‘Least this way, one of us can look good wearing it…”

Rust spoke up before he could respond.

“Tomorrow at dawn, we migrate,” he said. His voice carried effortless as a calm breeze over the crowd. His daggerlike gaze swept each of them. “It is our first migration in six months. It will cover the course of one month.”

A slight groan went over the crowd. It wasn’t unexpected, just painful; uprooting themselves once every while was the way of the Tribe, after all. There was a window of calm in between the Spirit Beast migratory patterns in which Rust Tribe, and the rest of the human Tribes, staked their ground. They had perhaps two more months before Sphynx and Endspider migrations forced migration anyways.

There was no doubt that Ugoc maneuvers had significantly sped up the timeline. The only question was—where to? And on what route?

“First, we restock at a nearby Sinkhole,” said the Chief. “This is the most dangerous part of the journey—necessary for replenishing our stores, but it will, for an hours-long period, put us into Spirit Beast territory.”

He paused. “I have timed the breach precisely. We should face no issues. The Hunters and Chosen shall protect the rest. It is the basic responsibility of each Tribesman to gather a Spirit herb and a jug’s full of Spirit Water; gatherers and healers shall receive more specific instructions.”

At this Dorian tapped his cheek, eyes narrowing. Spirit herbs, eh? No doubt this is a useful chance.

“Then, we march for the Midsummer Festival.”

A few gasps and intakes of breath. From all around came a smattering of whispers; the Chief let them simmer.

Dorian nodded. It was as he’d expected; Hu had all but named it a week prior. The Midsummer Festival, an annual event where all the local tribes gathered for a day of drunken revelries—and a night of sober reckonings. He frowned. His memories turned a little fuzzy here, but something odd happened on the night of Midsummer, when the two moons, white and red, eclipsed one another…

“The Ugoc situation has forced us to accelerate our timelines.” Chief Rust lowered his voice. “At the Festival we meet up with a cadre of allies. We shall form a caravan and make for the Azcan Oasis. The Oases at the fringes of the Desert are already under Siege. Only united—tribes and Oases all—can we vanquish the Ugoc with certainty.”

He raised a hand in a high gesture. “Remember that we are, above all, one tribe! If we are to live we do it together.”

Dorian nearly snorted. He’d been part of Tribes with close-knit bonds—Rust Tribe was not one of them. Chief Rust made no effort at communal outreach nor did he spend any time on a cult of personality; he seldom showed his face in public at all. He was Chief for his power and precision, not his person.

In good times—or, as good as things got around here—he made for an efficient leader. In times like these, his words rang half-hollow.

He likely knew it, too. “We are done here. Pack. Prepare. We leave at daybreak.”

That was that. He turned, nodded to his elders, and walked away, leaving the rest of the Tribe in a panicked clamor.

***

He spent the rest of the day brewing with Hu, helping him fill the ranks of his stock potions and brewing up obscure and exotic recipes.

“Rust Tribe’s well poor, apprentice, well poor!” chortled Hu as he took a bite of fruit. He reclined on a massive bag of fluff as Dorian sprinkled in a dash of saltpeter to his brew. “A bunch of these other Elders aren’t really from here. They’re like me.”

What Dorian thought was, they’re three years short of a heart attack?

What Dorian said was, “They’re Oasis expats?”

“Precisely!” Hu sat up. “Lots of ‘em are loaded—much more than I. Lots of ‘em got kicked out because they’re loaded. They’ll buy all sorts of outlandish nonsense.”

He squinted at a recipe. “Like this—tear-jerker’s Pill. Perfect! Let me assure you, boy, they don’t have far to cultivate at their age. They’d rather spend their ill-gotten gains on curiosities. Things that tickle ‘em. That’s where we come in.”

“Hm.” Dorian thought for a second as he stirred. Now, he supposed, was a natural time to shoo in some covert investigation.

“So. The Oases seem kinda cool. How do you join one of them, anyway?” he said casually.

“Eh?” Hu said. Then he snorted. One snort turned to three, then a full-belly chuckle.

“What’s funny?”

“You? Join? Heh! Apprentice, apprentice. Your head’s by the moons! Don’t you worry your pretty little noggin about that. Stir.”

“Well, they’re just big ol’ fortresses around a Sinkhole, aren’t they?” said Dorian. “Seems like they got a lot of room. Can’t they fit more people?”

Hu treated Dorian to a smug smile. “Oh, apprentice. Your silliness is adorable.”

He took another bite. “Alright—I’ll explain this once.”

Leaning forward, he wiped some juice from his mouth. “Only a twentieth of the people in the desert live in Oases. Wanna know why? Each Sinkhole can only support so many people, true, but that’s not the main thing.”

His eyes glinted in the weak afternoon light. “The main thing is the Beasts. They can feel the Sinkhole’s pull, see. Its treasures. And they want bites of them. Living in the Oasis means fending off attacks year-round. So each person there is critical. Can’t just sneak into one, you know. They keep exact records. And it’s futile besides.”

“Why?”

“What’re you, Origin… Five? Six?” said Hu, eyeballing him. “Permanent Oasis residents must be in the Marrow stage of the [Vigor] Realm. Some are higher! In our whole tribe, only the Chief, Tuketu, and I qualify.”

“If we were Oasis members, we’d each need rotate shifts to defend the Oasis—it’s mandatory, even for us Alchemists. They don’t give a whit about our tender sensitivities!” Hu scowled. “Each citizen’s drawn from the best of the Desert. It’s cutthroat as hells, boy. Even if you’re born in an Oasis, you’re kicked if you can’t make Marrow by eighteen!”

Hu swallowed the rest of the fruit and wagged a stern finger at Dorian. “You want no part of it—trust me. What you should want is to stay here, brewing for—err, that is, with—me!”

Dorian feigned surprise and returned to his stirring. But inside, plots started to bubble up once more.

So—an upper-class of elites. If there’s any group that loves to hoard their treasures, it’s them. Tuketu claimed he’d traded for the Bone and the Silver Heart pills from them, didn’t he?

As Dorian finished the brew and started filling flasks with Elixir, his mind was still elsewhere.

He needed a worthy bloodline, didn’t he? He now had a place to search. To aim for.

For now, though, he’d quietly amass his wealth and his resources. He finished bottling up, bade Hu goodnight, and set back off for his tent, humming a tune.

As he scanned the Tribe’s tents they seemed smaller than ever. Things were moving fast; soon they’d be moving fast literally, but he was moving faster still.

With this latest piece falling into place, his future seemed cleared of fog, brighter than ever. He allowed himself an animal grin. In the near future and far, Sinkholes, festivals, gatherings, tournaments…he was almost drowning in opportunities. If he played things right, soon—perhaps sooner than even he’d anticipated—this Tribe would be nothing more than a stepping stone.

Time Elapsed: 1 week, 1 day