The group managed to find enough space on the sledge to spend the night; the hay was much more pleasant to lay on than the hard sandy floor Midas had slept on back in the left-behind water kingdom camp. An unpleasant memory, the boy felt ashamed of himself; whatever creature it may have been, it nearly ended their lives, easily dealing with him. He barely managed to survive out of sheer luck, not able to control his output, unable to tell if his quickly found solution to slaying that beast would even work.
He balled up in the same place he would always sit in, his eyes closed again to focus on his newly developed mana; whatever amount had flown in his veins, the more often he trained to shift it around, the more percise his feeling of the warmth running through his body was. Midas was busy herding his mana into his stomach area; his lower torso wasn't covered with the bandages that spun around his shoulders, neck, and the entirety of his right arm. The morning was much cooler than the ones he spent traversing the dunes, the altitude likely playing a part in the sudden drop of temperature.
The narrow way they traversed finally loosened up, the sky became easier to see, birds began to screech at them as the group passed by, and the sledge made its way between the dry, rocky path, cutting right into the tiny bits of grass that managed to sprout in between the rocks and rubble. A tiny, elongated plateau stretched out in front of them in the mass of steep cliffs and mountain fronts that towered up around them, the sun hulling the striped stone in various oranges and brown tones. The grass seemed more green; light splashes of water could be heard, silently flowing in hair-thin streams off the large cliffs that let down the even terrain.
As the sledge progressed through the center of the even land, Inaya managed to spot a slim river running off of the plateau, its source as well as the place in which it would run into not present. Like a giant snake, silently flowing from the crevice at the other side of the more even land, disappearing again as the water made its way off the cliff of the plateau, seemingly running off into the void. After Inaya shared her sight with the others, Graf began to explain, "The eastern half of this mountain range is at a much higher altitude than this region... Which, due to a flat space in between the many central peaks, has led to the formation of a glacier..."
"...And from there, as the ice making it up melts again, the water finds its way through the rough cliffs and lower mountains—until it ends up here... From there, it flows into the sea... at least I think so." It took Midas a quick while until he had noticed that this was the first time ever laying eyes on a river. Water was a free source now; no good one had to buy anymore, another signal he now would leave the desert behind, at least until he had to take care of the storm. Shortly after Midas had stretched his body out from the sledge to glance at the flowing water, another stone front quickly covered his sight of it.
The crevice tricked him into believing he had entered yet another narrow path; again, his eyes widened at the view once he passed through the crack. Waters found their way through rocks peeking out from the grassy ground, splashing down what seemed to be natural stairways of flat stones peeking out from underneath. The narrow was riddled with masses of water finding complex ways of drooping and gliding down the stone fronts at both sides of their path, forming slim waterfalls, the splashing and flowing of the masses, which bundled up into two distinctive rivers, was overtone by Hayas's excited shouts, pointing to nearly every waterfall emerging from the stone.
In between two streams of water, the rugged pathway stretched through the rift, a band of orangy brown in a canvas filled with yellowish greens of the grasses and mosses that thrived here and the light blue of the waters that ran right beside the pathway. Once Midas looked upwards, he laid eyes on a set of lightly curved horns, a beast on four legs hulled in grey fur, looking at the scenery with a dull expression. Midas was quick to ask and point to the animal, which held onto narrow cliffs, peeking out of the rough stone fronts with its hooves, its stance seemingly much more stable than it looked like.
"That's a Fahin; they get hunted here... You ate one of these things on our way here... This one is quite young—too tiny to be caught." A dim grin appeared on Graf's face as he stopped the ride to turn at the horned animal before returning to steering the ride again. "The people traversing these mountains say that spotting one on your way through the peaks brings good luck... And after all that had happened in the dunes, I wouldn't mind being granted some."
As the river became thinner, the grass disappeared; instead, a wall of stacked-up stones blocked their way, a wooden arch built right in the middle of it serving as a gate, patrolled by two men clothed in grey fur and leather, both of them sternly viewing the approaching sledge as it arrived at the entrance. Graf was quick to leave his seat, wandering towards the people hulled in furr, "Hello... We would like to enter through the village towards Puertagua..." The bald driver rubbed his hands against each other, trying his best to sound relaxed.
"That might be complicated, you see..." The broad body of one of the guards lightly tumbled as he took slow steps towards the driver, scanning his clothes before turning to the ride; his narrowed eyes glanced over Midas and the rest before facing the man in front of them. The flat wooden end of the spear he held tapped onto the dry ground with every waddling step he took. After taking a long sigh, he continued, "Some people... who resembled this masked person here are troubling many of our men, some even threatening our hunters..." He told, as he snorted lightly, close to the driver's ear.
"What...? She is a dune wanderer—Gihin... They don't come here, do they...?" With stern brows, Graf's head turned to the close-standing guard viewing his side, his eyes quickly darting back to the sledge as he spoke with a suppressed voice. The other guard remained in his place, sternly glancing back at Midas, as the boy, trying to muster the two. The other, who stood close to him, began to stroke his short black beard.
"You are from the water kingdom, right...? No, I know you... You always pass through here... This is the first time you took others with you, besides that woman who accompanied you nearly a Terna ago..." The dark brown pupil of the guard met Grafs stern view; both paused for a while until the other guard spoke up. "These don't match the description; they don't wear any black or red on them..." Nodding, he spoke to the other guard; Midas only then began to notice that these people were much shorter than Graf.
"What...? People blacked in cloth, you say...? Are they masked as well...?" With an alarmed expression, Graf turned back to the guard remaining at the wooden gate, his eyes glued onto the wide head that was covered by a grey pelt head.
Slowly nodding, he replied, "Indeed. Their description was masked, clothed in black cloth and hooded—hulled in roughed-up garments... wielding dull wooden weapons and marked with all kinds of red stripes plastered onto their masks and skin..." Using the fingers of his only free hand, he counted their distinctive qualities while the other made its way to the gate. "They appeared a few days after this storm hit the eastern edge of the mountains... Many of our people were slain by them; villages were plundered... They completely ran through our defenses until the army of the water kingdom marched in..."
After he was finished explaining with a dull, tired tone, both of them grasped metal rings held up by metal hinges, which were nailed into the wood that made up the gate; their hands, hulled in leather, began to tug at the rings as the doors began to open into the central part of the rift. "Don't worry, we still control the Shama rift... just be more cautious once you pass the narrow in between our territory and Puertagua." One of them ensured, as Graf muttered his thanks to them, finding his seat as their sledge passed through the arched gate.
"I honestly hoped not to deal with these bastards again... Jah'Gul was enough for me." The driver hissed silently once they steered towards a set of tents set up in between the large rock walls spanning the rift. Midas let his head sink; they were barely able to deal with one of them. He was sure the two guards spoke about multiple of the brawlers kind. Clinging to the luck a Fahin might bring you on your adventure might not work as well as Graf had hoped.