Chapter nine
The stars and the moon provided and amazing amount of light in the sparse rocky landscape, we walked at a comfortable pace while being careful to keep close to the caravan.
"How long are we going to walk?" Peter asked.
"Probably three or four hours, this is a very old route, there will be a place to stop at that's been there for hundreds of years."
"I have a bad knee... it'll start to ache in about an hour."
Peter had been an athlete in his youth, he had played a violent team game were the players beat each other with long wooden sticks while chasing a small rubber disk. It was a wonder it was just his knee that was bad.
I conjured up a small floating saddle for him to sit on, after he climbed onto it I positioned myself in such a way that I blocked the view of his now stationary legs from the men of the caravan.
I found the journey quite enjoyable, which surprised me, it had been years since I had walked a long distance. When I was a child everyone walked everywhere, the wheel had not been invented yet, but I did not remember being resentful about it.
I wondered if that was why it had taken so long for someone to think of the wheel.
After hours of walking we eventually stopped in front of the entrance of a large cave, someone had built rudimentary walls around it in order to make it more defensible. There was also a fenced in area for the camels, there was a long trough at one end which I assumed was for water.
The men of the caravan were soon busy unloading the animals, building a fire and hauling water from a deep well. Peter and I helped were we could, but mostly stayed out of the way.
We were soon all sitting around the fire eating a simple meal, thankfully it had been well cooked lessoning our chances of getting ill. I did not want to insult the men by refusing their food.
After the meal ended and we crawled into the cave to sleep on rough carpets covered by foul smelling blankets, I surreptitiously conjured up some pillows and foam rubber for me and Peter. The night was quite cool so we had no need of my air conditioned blanket.
We slept well into the morning, the men did as well, I noticed they had stationed a sentry at the cave's entrance during the night.
Watching for the scourge of every era, robbers, I thought to myself. I noticed all the men carried long curved swords and daggers.
Once we got up and walked outside the cave entrance I saw that there was a beehive of activity going on, the camels were being fed and watered, and they were closely examined for sores and injuries.
"What happens if a camel gets hurt?" I asked Heb who was standing nearby.
"It depends... we spread the load and have it walk unencumbered, or leave it and a man for the next caravan, or we have camel meat for a while."
The rest of the day was spent fixing up the area, the stone walls were repaired and added to, firewood was gathered and the well was examined.
At mid afternoon we crawled back into the cave and onto our carpets for a final snooze before we continued our journey.
The next night was similar to the first, excepting we walked for a longer time, almost five hours, we arrived at a small oasis complete with tree's and birds.
The routine was the same as the previous night except this time they set up a large tent that had been hidden in the desert previously.
We were soon eating our meal, the men seemed happier and more at ease.
"You seem to be relieved for some reason Heb," I said.
"The deeper we get into the desert the safer we are, robbers are a lazy bunch."
"When are we going to sneak away," Peter asked, he was sitting next to me.
"Tomorrow afternoon."
"Are we just going to run away?"
"Nope."
"What then?"
"You'll see."
I had concocted a special spell for our escape, one that would lead our companions to believe we had perished and one that would not show up as magical to an observer.