The winds begin with the dawn of a new day, gaining slowly in intensity as the ground begins to warm. I adjust my veil to protect my face from the driving sand; it wouldn't do to have my skin scoured off.
I am on an extended hunt... for the elusive Morduska. I have seen signs of many small Morduska in the area but I seek a larger one, a real trophy. I want the fangs and the hide, and the bigger they are the more they will bring me in trade. Anything smaller than twelve feet from side to side I'm not even considering, and I have killed three that were about this size, their skins are in the stretching frames back at my campsite, cured and drying in a smoking pit I constructed.
There are a half dozen selshis skins and one yierka hide undergoing the same process. The meat from the yierka is also smoking in the same pit. The bounty from everything I killed, with the exception of some of the morduska and the yierka, I ate within a day or two of killing it. The leftover morduska meat has all been dried and cached under stone cairns, placed along the trail I've blazed, to be used or collected on my return trip, just in case the hunting is poor, or left in the cairns for anyone in need to find and make use of.
I have been alone in the desert for a little over three weeks now and I find the peace and solitude of so large a space oddly reassuring, it is like being with an old friend, comforting and relaxing. My second-parents are never overly happy when I go on one of these extended excursions, but they only wish me luck and a safe return. It is the way of it; I am Tehir.
I climb to the top of a rocky outcrop, being careful of the cracks and splits between the rocks, they are prime places for selshis to lay up during the cool of the night, and to be bitten by one because of carelessness would be the end of me. It would not be a pleasant way to die, I've seen people go out that way and it wasn't pretty.
I reach the top without incident and scan the surrounding area. I see nothing out of the ordinary, which is not surprising. Climbing back down, taking the same care I did on the ascent, I proceed to my small campsite. I have situated myself in the lee of a sand dune, protected from the worst of the winds, although the sand does tend to collect in the depression, meaning I have to take care to keep all my belongings from being buried in the sand.
I am a little less than a days walk from a small oasis, more of a small spring really, and I prepare to break camp to travel there. I have seen signs of larger prey in that area before and I will probably camp there for at least a week, perhaps as long as a month, depending on the amount of game.
I open the pit containing the curing meats and skins. The skins will need to be scraped again to stretch and soften them and make them pliable. I've decided I will place another cairn here and most of the meat goes into it. I want to keep my load as light as possible, but I also don't want to short myself on supplies. It's an important balance to maintain.
I kept the stomach and bladder from the yierka, cleaning them, inside and out, rigorously. Both make excellent water-skins and can even be used to boil water, as long as they are kept out of direct flame and the contents are not allowed to boil down too low.
I have used a couple of the vertebrae from the spine of the yierka, trimming off all the sharp projections and carving a grooved ring into the outside of them. I will use these to create a spout for each water-bag, placing the vertebrae into the small opening of the bags, creating a seal as the water-skin is pulled into the groove I carved when I cinch it tight with a wet leather thong, which will shrink as it dries, making the seal even tighter. I will then make a stopper out of a chunk of knotted leather to stuff into the hollow center of the vertebrae. Put this inside some sort of hide bag with a shoulder strap and just like that, I have a perfect water container.
I break camp and load up everything I'm taking with me. It's a fairly heavy load but the oasis is close enough that I shouldn't be over-burdened. Besides, I'm in no hurry, that oasis isn't going anywhere. The heat is oppressive but this is the Sea of Fire, after all, and I am Tehir, born to this life.
I make it to the oasis without incident and set up my new campsite; it's much better than my last, since I am in the lee of a decent sized rock wall that offers protection from both the sun and the wind as well as a good lookout point. This is now home, for however long I deem it to be.
I set up my rudimentary camel hide tent and place my sleeping mat and furs inside and begin the arduous task of carving out a livable area in this desolate place. Comfortable is a relative term anywhere, but more-so in the Sea of Fire than almost anywhere else I can think of. I have shelter, water, and food; that means I am comfortable, anything else is a luxury.
I spend the remainder of the day working my cured hides, scraping them, over and over, in every direction. I want these skins to be buttery soft so they fetch the best price when the traders come. I also boil the teeth, fangs, and claws of my kills, to prevent any sort of infection or poisoning should I happen to accidentally break my skin on one of them. Darkness is soon upon me so, after a hasty meal of dried meat and tea, I bank my small fire and head into my tent to get some sleep.
I awaken early, not at all unusual for me. Today I want to set some snares to see if I can catch some of the population of rodents and smaller mammals that inhabit the Sea of Fire. Most are very good to eat, some even considered a delicacy; the more fresh meat I can get the less I'll have to dig into my dried food stores and the longer I can stay. Trapping, of any kind, allows me more time to do other things; once the trap is set it does all the work for me. However, there is an element of luck involved, sometimes even the best laid trap line comes up empty. I spend the entire morning setting up my network of snares; they will be checked at sunrise and sunset each day that I am here. Normally the morning run of the trap line is the most productive, since a majority of desert animals are more active at night.
I have seen no sign of Morduska for days and I am beginning to give up hope of finding a nice one. That is not to say that my excursion has not been successful; I have the hides from my earlier successes as well as a fair collection of "odds and ends" like Selshis fangs, and the yierka. I have also gathered some Ridgeweaver silk that I found throughout the area around "my" oasis; it's not a lot, but it may have some value to someone. I even found two snakestones, not large ones, but valuable nonetheless. My trap lines have also had some success; enough to fill my belly each night anyway. All in all, not a bad outing.
I think that I am ready to go home though, so tomorrow I'll break camp and head back; besides, next week will mark my fourteenth summer since being born to the sands and I am sure my second-mother will want me there. She always likes to have a small celebration of some sort to commemorate the event. Maybe she'll invite Haszour and his daughter, Najmah; I think she likes me, and she has beautiful, dark eyes. She isn't the woman who has always haunted my dreams though... that one has long black hair and eyes the color of the blue stone known as turquoise.
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