As we continued moving forward the air in the caverns grew dry enough to scrape the throat.
Fine red dust hung hovering in the light that filtered down through cracks in the stone ceiling high above our heads it was swirling with every step we took.
This town was surely different from the other two as it was more open and not as cavernous.
The sunlight could be seen streaming through in different areas high above. The desert stretched here in strange ways, inside the hardened earth, yet at the same time open enough to stretch out a long way before us.
The pillars of red sandstone rose like ancient guardians, their jagged shadows stretching long over the cracked ground.
"It's like walking through the Grand Canyon" I muttered.
"Hmm, what's the Grand Canyon?" A curious young voice sounded beside me. It was Abu. He was not the more inquisitive of the two, he was just more vocal about what he wanted to know.
His sister, Ayesha, was just as curious, as evident in her eyes, but she preferred to stay quiet.
"It is a place that I know of back home, it looks similar to this" I gestured ahead of us.
"Where is your home again?" He asked.
I was stumped for a moment on how to answer. Where was my home? The question I had been putting off had been brought up again but I had no clue where I really was, so how can I say where I'm from?
"Far away from here" I finally said. But as I glanced over at him I noted the dissatisfaction in his eyes, my answer wasn't enough.
"Oh okay," he said but I could hear in his voice the need to ask more. Ayesha reached over and smacked his head.
"Stop being a nuisance," she said and Abu whined before falling silent.
The twins trailed close beside me, their faces shielded from the drifting silt by their shawls, even I had to pull my shawl around, only leaving out my eyes.
I tucked the sheathed miniature sword at my hip inside the loop of my belt.
"Leave all the talking to me ok?" I said to them and watched as they both nodded.
We had left the last settlement in haste, the coppery taste of violence was still in the back of my mouth.
Those dead men could mean a lot of trouble for us, and trouble in these strange lands may travel faster than our footsteps could carry.
Only fifteen minutes had passed before the silhouettes of mud-brick houses appeared more solid ahead of us, mostly huddled against a rock wall where a thin visible stream seeped from the stone and fell to a pool made from stone.
The place was the size of both former towns combined.
Many more people were milling around going about their business, not missing a stranger with two children in tow.
'I guess that was because of the water source.' I thought as I looked at the stream again.
A lot of the houses were connected by canvas awnings that kept the sand off their stoops.
People moved slowly here, their faces covered with scarves to keep out the dust. So the twins and I fit right in.
I kept my head down to minimize people noticing that my eyes were different and would mark me as a foreigner.
I led the twins toward a stall shaded by a tattered canvas at the end of the street filled with other vendors.
An old woman sat cross-legged behind a table, her wares a few bundles of flatbread and clay jars with what looked like dried herbs.
Her skin was weathered like sun-cracked clay, but her eyes glittered with a sharp awareness.
I placed a few coins on the table that I had picked up from the Anilli settlement. "Three breads."
The old woman handed them over, her gaze lingering. "You carry a fighter's stance," she said in a rasp. "But your feet… they're new to this sand."
I hesitated, no clue where she saw anything that looked like a fighter on me.
"I'm looking for someone who can tell me about this world. The paths forward."
The woman's eyes narrowed slightly. "Information costs more than bread."
"I can pay," I replied, adding another coin. 'Greedy old coot'
The old woman didn't take it. Instead, she leaned forward, voice lowering until it was nearly lost in the whisper of wind through the rocks.
"If you want truths, seek the Elder of the Canyon in the City of Bones."
I frowned as I had no idea where to start with that one.
"Where?"
"East," the woman said as she pointed towards the other end.
"Beyond the hollow caverns. Two days if the sand is kind, longer if it is not. He is older than the Sands, older than the war that broke the land but, his city…" She glanced around as though the rocks might be listening. "…is not for the unprepared."
"What dangers?" Abu asked as he clung to my robes.
"Bone-harvesters," the woman said flatly. "Men and not-men, who strip the living for the magic in their marrow. Stay to the main path and pray that the wind hides your scent."
A gust stirred the red sand underfoot, and somewhere deeper in the caverns came the faint, hollow sound of shifting stone. I tightened the grip on my sword hilt I didn't even realize I had touched my waist.
"Thank you."
The woman's cracked lips curved and she muttered something between a warning and a farewell.
"Don't thank me. Just keep walking."
By the time the sun's light faded from the cavern ceiling, we were back on the trail to completely leave the caverns, well, if you could call it a trail that is.
The desert floor was a maze of wind-sculpted stone and narrow gullies. The heat of the day was gone, replaced by a creeping cold that bit through our clothes and skin alike.
Before we had left the settlement the twins grew up in I had the presence of mind to also take two blankets as I remembered from all my reading that it was always mentioned that desert nights were especially cold.
From what the old crone said, the City of Bones lay somewhere ahead, hidden in the dust and vast wilderness. And if the woman spoke true, so did the answers I needed, answers that might be bought with more than just coin.