“Hey, we're almost-  Oh my god, really?”

I glanced up to see Rune, head poking through the curtain that hung between the passenger section of the cart and the central aisle.  What I could see of her expression was partway between shocked and disgusted.

Shadow Stalker's reaction was more significant.  She flung herself off me and spun around, grabbing her mask, putting it on, and taking a seat on the bench as far from me as possible, all in one motion.

“Seriously?” Rune asked, glancing between us.  “Since when?”

“Day after we fought the kut ku,” I said.

“Don't fucking tell her!” Shadow Stalker said, aiming a punch at me.  It was a more cautious strike than usual.  My new armor was spiky, and tough enough that she'd hurt her fist once before.

“Why not?” I asked, ignoring the punch.

“Okay, don't care,” Rune said, pulling back and letting the curtain fall into place.  She spoke again, from the other side.  “We're almost at the New York station.  So... yeah.”

She left, her footsteps hurriedly receding toward the front of the cart.

“Think she'll tell Rifle?” Shadow Stalker asked, once she was gone.

I looked at her.  She was still sitting on the far end of the bench, hands held in her lap.  With her mask back on, I couldn't read her expression.  I gave her a shrug.  “I don't really care,” I told her.  “Were we trying to keep this a secret?”

She gave me a look, straightening up on her seat.  I could imagine the sort of twisted half-frown, the way her eyebrows were lowering threateningly.  I grinned at her, and she tossed her head, then flipped up her hood, stuffing her ponytail down the back.

“I just don't want to hear any bullshit lectures about it,” she said.  “How it's 'not professional', or whatever.”

“To be fair to him, Rifle hasn't really done that,” I said.  “He thinks it, I'm pretty sure, but he doesn't say it.”

“Whatever,” she said, waving a hand to brush aside the distinction.  “Just as bad.”

“Well, we could hit him with a dung bomb,” I said, fishing in my pouch and holding one up.  “Preemptive revenge.”

She chuckled – she'd have stabbed me if I called it a giggle – and shook her head.  “No.  Tempting, but then we'd have to smell it too.  Also, why are you carrying a literal ball of shit with you?”

“They're apparently useful,” I said, putting it away again.  “And it's in a bomb casing.  Trust me, I'd know if it were leaking.”

“Guess you would,” she said.  “Fuck, whatever.  As long as it's you suffering, I don't care.  We should get ready.”

“Baby, I'm always ready,” I told her, gesturing randomly.  She laughed, and threw another punch at me that I barely felt.

“C'mon, idiot,” she said, standing up and straightening her costume.  “I want to see the portal station from this side.”

The last time I'd ridden a monster-drawn cart through the other side, it had been one meant for shipping goods.  Various non-electronic commodities sealed in containers made of other-side materials, much as the cart itself was, to keep the monsters away.  Stuff where the benefits of shipping something across the country – or the world – in under an hour outweighed the risks of it getting lost or destroyed, and the costs associated with that.

Cart drivers, I'd heard, could make an absolute fortune in a pretty short time.  More than Protectorate capes, even, if they were willing to make multiple runs a day.

They took similar losses, too.

This trip was made in a cart designed to transport passengers.  People who were willing to take the same risks – and pay for – the reward of ultra-fast cross-continental travel.  As we walked up toward the front of the cart we passed several dozen cabins like the one we'd been so pleasantly occupying.  Simple wooden rooms, small, with few amenities, sectioned off by simple curtains from the hallway that ran down the middle of the cart.  It was pretty bare-bones, considering the cost of a trip, but given that most were well under an hour that probably wasn't considered much of a factor.

Rifle and Rune were already sitting with the driver as we reached the front, and I could tell by the looks they gave me that Rune had already told Rifle what she'd seen.  She refused to look at us, and the stare Rifle traced over us was flatly disapproving.  More than normal, even.

“Hunter, you've got some...” Rifle said, gesturing to my face.

“What?” I said, brushing my gauntlet-covered fingers over the area he'd indicated.  They came away slightly stained.  “Oh!  Lipstick.”  I turned to Shadow Stalker.  “I didn't even notice.  I'm flattered.”

“Asshole,” she muttered, glancing away from me.  She was standing a bit back from where I'd stopped, shrouded in her cloak, and though she rode the rocking motion of the cart as easily as I did, I thought she looked a bit defensive.

I debated pushing things a bit further, but decided against it.  Needling her was fun, and I enjoyed the reaction, but there was a difference between playful anger and actually being pissed off.

Granted I enjoyed both, but I was well aware that most people didn't.

“So, portal station?” I asked, instead.

Rifle cleared his throat.  “Right.  Since we're Protectorate, we're allowed to be up here with the driver,” he said.

“Appreciate the support, by the way,” the driver said.  He looked different from the previous one, swathed in a cloak as obscuring as Shadow Stalker's, made of rough-knit fibers, holding reins of the same material, though they were connected to an aptonoth that was visually indistinguishable from Ella.  An obvious attempt to stay out of sight of monsters, though the box of bombs sitting at his feet was evidence that hiding was only a first line of defense.

“Of course,” Rifle said, nodding to him.  He turned to me.  “The Protectorate posts notices whenever a team is going to be on a cart,” he said.  “It's why we travel free.  It lets them increase the price of transport, because there's someone around to fight monsters if they show up.  Drivers make more money that way, though some of the fees also goes back to the Protectorate.”

“Neat,” I replied.

“Anyway,” he continued.  “Another advantage of being up here is that we're allowed to disembark first, and skip the line.  I want to get to the desert portal as quickly as possible.”

“What's the hurry?” I asked.

“No hurry,” he said.  “Professionalism.  If possible, always do a job as quickly as you can.  There's less trouble that way, and you can get to the next job sooner.”

I nodded, withholding the obvious comment that it seemed more like a thief-thing than a hero-thing.

We were quiet after that, and I imagined there was some awkwardness for the others.  Rune kept her eyes fixed firmly ahead, and Rifle fiddled with his gear.  Shadow Stalker stood at the top of the stairs rather than taking a seat, so still and silent that I could almost forget she was there.

I, for my part, stared at the approaching portal station.  I'd seen the inside before, when I'd boarded, and I'd seen the Philadelphia portal from both sides.  But this was different.

It was still a blocky building of rough-cut stone and wood, of course.  It had to be.  Those were the only easily-sourced materials on this side, and even getting enough of them was hard.  You couldn't just set up a quarry, after all.  Even if it had been possible, transporting the stone would still have been a huge bottleneck.  No trucks, no rail-lines, no GPS.  No radios or phones, even.

The fact that there was a station at all, let alone one at every open portal, was impressive in its own right.  The fact that this one was huge just added to that.  Sprawling, five or six stories high, with multiple layers of walls, battlements, and crenelations, as well as what looked like siege weapons poking out of every hole.  It wasn't just a station.  It was a fortress.

A gate creaked open as we neared, a rusted portcullis slowly raising along with it.  The cart passed through, and inside I saw that the station wasn't just active on the Earth Bet side.  There were people here, too, working at all the sorts of jobs I'd have expected of a medieval castle town.  There were pens with local, monstrous animals in them – aptonoths, kelbi, those fuzzy local pigs, and more – as well as tended fields of local plants, forges, blacksmiths, and lots of stuff I didn't even recognize.  Whole industries.

“I wonder if the Philadelphia station will be like this, eventually?” I mused.

“Probably,” Rifle said.  “Especially if more portals start opening in the city.”

“Um,” Rune said, glancing around, her eyes quickly flicking away from my face, making me realize that I still hadn't cleaned off the lipstick.  I pulled out a cloth and got to work.  “So, maybe I'm an idiot, but how do the portals work, exactly?  I've only taken the one from Boston to Philly, and, you know, gone through to fight.”

“Do you mean the mechanics?” Rifle asked.  “The science behind them?  Because if so, nobody knows.”

“No, like... how they link up, where they go,” she said.

“Ah, well that's easier,” he replied.  “When a portal opens up, it connects a given space on this side to a given space on our Earth.  They tend to cluster, opening up within ten or fifteen miles of each other, so you get nexuses on both sides, though portals to the same place rarely open within a hundred miles.  So there's only one portal here that goes to New York, and one in Boston, and one in Philadelphia, etc.”

“Okay, I get that,” Rune said.  “I mean, like, other portals.  We're going through from here to New York, then from there to the desert.  But there's other portals there, so we could go to like, Detroit or-”

“There's no Detroit portal in the desert,” Rifle said.  “The desert portals cluster closely on that side, but they link to areas that are far apart on this side.  I think there's only three in North America, and the others are on other continents.  But-”

“Okay,” Rune said over him, her voice a bit angry.  “So we could go through one of them, wherever it comes out, then go through a portal on this side back to the forest and hills, then from there back to Philly, right?”

Rifle nodded.  “More or less.  It can get sticky with legality, since portals exist in something like thirty counties, and they've opened in far more.  But many nations prefer to close portals as soon as possible rather than exploit them.  It takes a lot of money, and a lot of capes.  There's other risks, too.”

“How many places do most portals link to?” I asked, then paused.  “Okay, that sounded dumb.  Rephrase.  How many portals does a nexus usually have?”

“On our side, New York is the biggest, with seven portals,” Rifle said.  “Most places that have one have at least two or three, though.  Like I said, portals tend to cluster.  On the other side, or rather this side at the moment, the number is higher.  Most other-side biomes have a least a dozen portals, and portals to fresh biomes are rare.  One every two or three years, usually.”

“If we're doing Q&A, I've got one,” Shadow Stalker said, and I almost jumped.  She'd been that quiet.  “How big are portals?  The ones I've been through seemed pretty small, like hallway sized, but monsters can get pretty huge.  So how does that work?”

“Well, the portals are largely filled up,” Rifle said.  “That's how they stop them from expanding.”

Everyone was silent, and he looked around, then sighed and ran his hand through his hair.

“I know you do that when you're annoyed,” I told him.  “It's pretty obvious.”

He snatched his hand out of his hair and held it in his lap.

“Okay,” he said, a bit loudly.  “I thought this was common knowledge, but apparently not.  Portals are two-dimensional, and they expand.  They open small, then get bigger at a set rate.  The rate is different from portal to portal, and it's linear by area.  So the diameter increases quickly at first, slowing down over time.  But they don't expand through solid matter, including the ground.  Normally growth that's stopped in one direction just means they spread faster in others, since the rate of expansion stays constant.  It can lead to some pretty unusual shapes, even though all portals start as perfect circles.  But if a portal is bounded by solid matter on all sides, the growth stops entirely.  It's a big part of why the stations are build like they are, solidly, on both sides.  To stop the expansion.”

“FYI,” the driver said.  “That is common knowledge.  Even heard it on TV.”  He glanced at us over his shoulder.  “But I guess y'all are kids.”

“They are that,” Rifle muttered.

“Hey!” Rune said, then snapped her mouth shut, glaring at me.

“Honestly, I was gonna say it, but now you ruined it,” I told her.

“Good,” she said, turning back to look at the street the cart was still rumbling through.  I followed her gaze, staring at the solid stone buildings we were passing.  They were built in blocks, their walls forming supporting sections of the fortress, and where there were doors and windows, they were higher up, leaving the bottom fifteen or twenty feet of each building blank, almost brutal-looking stone.

“In case you also weren't aware,” Rifle said.  “Portals are closed by removing all life on both sides, down to even plants and bacteria, with the exclusion zone increasing in size with the portal.  It doesn't have to be complete, but the vast majority of living matter does need to be moved or destroyed before the growth turns to shrinking, and even then it takes some time to totally close.  Hours or days.  Some people actually theorize that a kind of life-force powers the portals, explaining the difference in expansion rate from one to the next.  But it's never been proven, and the data isn't very consistent.”

“Huh,” I said.  “Never thought about that.  Neat.”

“Hate to interrupt your classroom time, but we're here,” the driver said.

I looked up from Rifle to see that we were approaching the center of the fortress.  There was another blocky stone building there, a fortress within a fortress, almost.  We passed through walls even thicker than the exterior ones, broken only by a handful of huge metal-bound wooden gates, leading into a dark interior space, lit by chemical lanterns high up the walls.  Inside, the building was largely open, nearly a shell, separated by lower walls that created channels, leading to a number of bays where carts were being loaded or unloaded by teamsters in the same blue-and-brown uniforms of most non-cape Protectorate employees.  Those same channels, I guessed, could be used to herd monsters that made it this far.

I got a feeling, and looked around.  There were some blocky constructions near the cart bays, which I figured were probably what bound the portal itself, similar to the Philadelphia station.  The center of the center of the center, although they weren't actually in the middle of the fortress.  Closer to what I'd call a back wall, opposite the doors that were still slowly closing behind us.  They had crenelations on top of them, and above those were mounted weapons I could only call ballistas, and a few old-timey-looking cannon.  From their positions, they'd have a line-of-fire into all the channels, letting them rain down attacks on invading monsters.

“Okay, this place is kind of awesome,” I said.

“It's well designed,” Rifle agreed.  “Never been breached since the fortifications were finished, though it hasn't been hit by an elder dragon yet.”

I nodded, and neither Shadow Stalker nor Rune reacted, but the driver hunched his shoulders slightly and crossed himself.

Getting the cart docked was something of an ordeal, given the size, the primitive materials, and the fact that it was driven by an only more-or-less trained monster.  Pulling straight ahead or backing in would be basically impossible, so instead the driver maneuvered the cart into a channel that curved to the side, ending up broadside to the unloading platform.  As soon as it had stopped, he hauled up on a huge wooden level – the brakes, I assumed – and stood up, heading down the stairs into the passenger compartment, giving each of us a quick nod as he went.  On the platform, a few teamsters stood up from where they'd been lounging around and hurried to swing a bridge made of wood and ropes into place at the rear of the cart.

“Alright, let's go,” Rifle said, standing up and glancing toward the platform.  Instead of waiting for the bridge to be in place, he took a few quick steps and then jumped the six-foot gap to land on the platform directly.  I followed, and Shadow Stalker used her power to do much the same.  Rune was a bit behind us, floating down on a crate she'd used her power on.

“Ah, right,” Rifle said, snapping his finger and turning to me and Shadow Stalker.  “I talked to Rune, and we'll be bringing more significant supplies this time.”

“Good plan,” I said, eying the crate.  It was easily five feet to a side, and moved heavily.  “Brought a lot, though.”

“The Protectorate is covering the cost,” he said, walking forward, head tracking to find the right door to exit through.  “Chevalier already cleared it all with administration.”

“Thrilling,” Shadow Stalker said, deadpan.  Rifle just sighed and kept walking.

We left the station much the way I'd entered it, more than a week ago, though instead of the crowded civilian section, we left through the nearly empty Protectorate section.  Despite New York boasting almost fifty hunting teams, we only saw one, made up of three guys and a girl around our age.  I only recognized one.  Jouster, who'd been in the junior Protectorate since before I'd even come to the city.  I gave him a jaunty wave as we passed, and he looked me up and down, then nodded carefully.

“I wonder if our reputation precedes us?” I asked, after we'd turned a corner.

“Probably,” Rifle said.  “The initiative that brought us in isn't universally popular.  Some people think it's too risky, or not cost-effective, and others think it betrays what it means to be a hero.  I think that's mostly hold-over from a time before the portals, though.”

I nodded, but didn't say anything.  I mostly agreed with him.

After leaving the portal station, we descended below street level, to the subways.  Unlike in Philadelphia, they were directly connected to the stations.  A consequence of the nexus.  Seven portals, spread out over a third of the city, on several different islands as well as the mainland, made having a quick, effective connection between them a big deal.  There was even a Protectorate-only line.

“Think you two can control yourselves, this time?” Rune asked, glancing at Shadow Stalker as we boarded the otherwise empty subway car.  “I mean, it's gonna be a whole five minutes until we get to the next station.”

“Go fuck yourself off a cliff,” Shadow Stalker said, grabbing my collar and dragging me with her, toward the far end of the car.  It wasn't exactly private, but I wasn't about to complain.

She pushed me down into the seat, then straddled me, pulling her mask off and hooking it onto her belt.  I slid my arms around her back, under her cloak, and drew her closer, grinning.

“If I knew that spiting Rune would get this kind of reaction, I'd have done it days ago,” I told her.

She leaned in, her lips right by my ear.  “If I knew it would piss her off this much, I'd have invited you back to her room, instead of mine,” she whispered, close enough that I could feel her breath.

“Kinky,” I said, then grunted as she punched me in the gut.  “Are those brass knuckles?”

“I was saving them for a special occasion,” she said, pulling her arm back.  “Consider it an honor.”

She leaned in to kiss me before I could say anything else, and the rest of the ride passed in a blur.

When we disembarked at the desert station, halfway across the city, Rune was scowling, Shadow Stalker was almost certainly smirking under her mask, and I couldn't help but smile.  I'd have been smiling anyway, of course, but still.

“This way,” Rifle said, raising his voice to cut off anything anyone else might have said.  “We'll be taking a cart out to the last known location of the target, and going from there on foot.”

“What are we hunting this time?” I asked.  “And before you complain, consider this.  Why would I read the mission briefing when I've got you around?”

“Your trust is flattering,” Rifle said.  “Irritating, but flattering, and it would be more irritating if I hadn't been expecting it.”

“You know me so well,” I said.

“You don't hide much,” he said, pointing the way, then leading us through the desert portal station.  It was more or less the same as the one leading to the forest and hills, with the exception of actual doors in the halls leading to the portal, and more obvious air-conditioning.  “In any case, we won't be fighting a wyvern this time.  We're being tasked to go after a daimyo hermitaur.  A carapaceon monster, the alpha variant of the common hermitaur.”

“Sounds Japanese,” I said.

He nodded.  “Most carapaceons made their initial appearances in Asia,” he said.  “Primarily Japan.  Most of their names come from there, or China.  Anyway, a hermitaur is like an enormous, four-hundred-pound crab.  Very tough shell, very sharp claws.  They burrow easily, and can surprise you if you're not expecting it.  Not very bright, though.  About the intelligence of an Earth-crab, which is to say basically zero.”

“And the daimyo one is, what?  Bigger?  Smarter?” I asked.

“Bigger,” he said.  “Much, much bigger.  A normal hermitaur comes up to here, maybe,” he said, holding his hand up at shoulder height.  “A daimyo can reach upwards of twenty feet high, and thirty long.  Some have weighed in at over ten tons, including the shell.  Hopefully our target won't be one of them.”

“So, we're expecting something tough, then,” I said, tapping my finger against my lip.  “Shell, claws, carapace, et-cet-er-a.  Any weaknesses?”

“The underbelly,” he said.  “It's where the legs, claws, and tail join the body.  The tail, by the way, is much like a hermit crab's, thus the name.  An environmental object they pick up and use.”

“Good to know,” I said.

“Apparently the tail is fairly vulnerable as well,” he added.  “Thinner, weaker chitin.  But the shell can be virtually anything, so it's random chance whether we'll be able to hit it.”

I turned to Shadow Stalker.  “Phase your bolts through?”

She shrugged.  “Maybe.  We'll see.”

We quickly passed through the Protectorate-only waiting room, which was much bigger than the one in Philadelphia.  More of a suite, with a dozen couches and doors leading to a bathroom and a full kitchen.  There were two teams lounging there, and we got nods and waves, which Rifle returned with a serious expression.  Nobody said anything, though, and we didn't stop to chat.

The other side of the portal was notably hotter, and the stone of the fortress wasn't the gray I was familiar with, but a lighter color, almost tan.  It was cut smoother too, and the walls were thicker.  But other than that, the design of the place was similar.  We emerged from the corridors off to the side of the civilian bays, in an area cordoned off with thick ropes and warning signs.

“There's our ride,” Rifle said, nodding to one of three carts that sat ready in their own section.  They were smaller, still drawn by aptonoths, though these ones had huge blankets draped over them.

We made our way to the cart, and Rifle stepped over to talk to the driver, who was swathed in a robe of the same color as the aptonoth's blanket.  I ignored them, hopping in to examine the cart itself.  It was wood and metal, unsurprisingly, and the interior was split into two sections.  The forward one was fairly spacious, with four seats.  For us, obviously.  The rear section was empty, with a number of wooden posts and leather straps, clearly meant to hold cargo.  Rune deposited our crate of supplies there, strapping it down for the trip.  It looked a bit pathetic, sitting there alone.

“I can't help but feel we're going in a bit under-equipped,” I said, glancing around the almost-empty space.

“Well, we're going to be close to the station,” Shadow Stalker said.  “Some hunts are pretty far away, and some can take days.  Or longer, I hear.  Dunno if that's true.”

I glanced up, but Rifle was still talking to the driver and hadn't heard us.

“Guess we'll never know,” I said, and she snorted out a quick laugh.  Rune just finished her work, then silently joined Rifle, standing close to him and not looking at us.

“Such a child,” Shadow Stalker murmured, staring after her with her hands on her hips.  Rune flipped her the bird.

“A thought,” I said, looking around.  “Do we have water?”

“I think so,” Shadow Stalker said, walking over to the back of the cart and looking out.  “Yeah, there,” she said, pointing to some huge wooden barrels.  “Lots, I guess.  If those are full, anyway.”

“Normally I'd leave this to Rifle, but I kinda don't want to die of thirst,” I said, walking over to stand beside her.  The barrels were connected to the cart with woven straps, and they had spiggots on the ends.  I leaned out and pushed at one.  It made a sloshing sound, and I nodded in satisfaction.

“Alright, get ready!” Rifle shouted to us.  “We're heading out!”

“Cool!” I shouted back.

“Are you two going to join us, this time?!” Rifle called out, moving to take a seat in the passenger section.  “We should probably discuss strategy!”

“What do you think!?” Shadow Stalker said, raising her voice over the creaking of wood and leather as the cart started to move.

“Never-” Rifle said, then paused as Shadow Stalker pulled at a knot, letting a curtain fall between the two compartments.  “-mind,” he finished.

- - - - - - - - - -

We hopped off the cart a few highly-enjoyable hours later, as it pulled into a small, stone canyon.  The heat had risen during the trip, in more ways than one, and I'd removed most of my armor, leaving me with just my helmet and pants, my chest bare.  Shadow Stalker had ditched her cloak during the ride, but she was already wearing it again, giving no sign of whether the heat was affecting her or not.

I chose to put off getting my gear on again, leaving it slung over my shoulder, wrapped in the under-shirt and tied into a bundle with the belt sash.  I looked around, taking in our location.  The stone of the canyon walls was the same tan color as the fortress had been, but smoother, as if carved by a river some time in the past.  There were a few ragged tents off to the side, looking to be made out of huge bones and stretched, yellow hide.  A dusty well sat in the middle of some dead, blackened trees, and I walked over to it.  I tossed a stone down.  It rattled against the walls, then hit the bottom with a clatter, rather than a splash.

“God, it's hot,” Rune complained, fanning herself with her hand.  Sweat was dripping off her, as it was me, and Rifle.  She pulled out a water bottle and took a long drink, then stowed it in her robe.

“It'll be worse when we get out into the actual desert,” Rifle said.  “At least we're in the shade, here.”

“Couldn't we have done this at night?” Shadow Stalker complained.  She'd been pacing around like I was, examining the area, and now she stood in the shadow of the cart, hands on hips.

“Night's just as bad, but in the other direction,” Rifle said.  “It can hit ten below zero, easily, and the wind is brutal.”

“That might be easier, for me,” I said.  “Cold doesn't hit me that hard, with my power.”

“Well it hits me,” Rifle countered.  “This is a matter of choosing between two evils, but they're each just as bad as the other, so I chose the one that would get us here and done quicker.”

“Can't argue with that,” Shadow Stalker said.  “So, in the interests of getting the fuck out of this shit-hole as fast as possible, let's get moving.”

Rifle gestured off to the side, toward the end of the canyon.  I could see more light there, coming from the open desert.  “After you,” he said.

Shadow Stalker walked off, and the rest of us followed.  Fairly quickly the walls of the canyon came together, then lowered, and eventually gave way to a huge, flat expanse of sand.  The sun was high, though not quite directly overhead, and as soon as I left the shadow of the canyon walls it hit me like an avalanche of heat, right to the top of my head.

“Jesus' sweaty dick, it's hot here!” I said, wiping at my face, where sweat was already streaming down my chin.  I could feel it on my forehead and scalp, too, under my helmet.  Something that could become a problem, potentially.  I hadn't even put my armor back on yet.

“There's cooler areas,” Rifle said.  “Caves, other canyons, some waterways.  It's all on the map.”

“Is our target likely to be near those, though?” I asked.

“It is, actually,” he confirmed.  “It's a crab.  It likes to be near water.”

“Thank fuck,” Shadow Stalker said.  “I'm fucking dying here.”

We set off, and I soon realized we had more problems than just the heat.  The sand slid under my shoes, constantly shifting, and a heat-haze hid everything more than thirty feet away.  It was only a few minutes before the entrance to the canyon was an indistinct blur behind us.  Without Rifle, we would have been screwed.  He consulted the map constantly, holding it out flat with a compass on top of it, and he surveyed the horizon from the top of every dune.  I had no idea what his enhanced vision made of the mess of wavering haze all around us, and I didn't ask.  But he seemed confident, leading us without any hesitation.

Shadow Stalker started out by using her power to range out around our line of advance, as she had before, but quickly gave it up, joining back up with us and taking steady drinks from her water bottle.  Rune started out hovering along on the crate of supplies, skimming just above the sand, but gave it up within minutes to walk along beside Rifle, the crate above their heads to give them some shade.

Of all of us, I was doing the best, and even for me it was hell.  I carried my armor over my shoulder for a while, but after we saw movement on what could potentially be called the horizon, I started putting it back on.  Whatever it was didn't come any closer, but I had no interest in being caught with my pants down.

“This place...” Shadow Stalker said, her voice hoarse, then broke off in a cough.  She took her bottle out, took a pull off it.  “Fuuuuuck, it's hot.  This place is dead.  How does anything live here?”

“Nothing does, at least not in the open desert,” Rifle said.  His voice was even hoarser, and he hadn't been drinking as much.  His face, what I could see of it below his goggles, was red, and sweat dripped constantly from his chin.  “Some monsters come to the desert to sleep or to avoid predators, but they hunt in the canyons.”

I was about to comment, but something caught my eye.  “Hang on,” I said.

“What?” Rifle asked, glaring at me and holding up his water bottle.  “In case you didn't notice, we're on a timer, here.”

“Just wait,” I said, sliding down a dune, into a little hollow.  I knelt down, staring at the sandy ground.  A cluster of plants grew there, and I'd seen them before.  Fat, green leaves growing from a lumpy stalk, mostly buried in the sand.  I leaned in to sniff them.  Distinctive scent, though I couldn't quite describe it.  I pulled out my knife, carefully digging up a stem, severing the roots, my power doing most of the work in telling me what to cut.

I trotted back up the dune, plant in-hand, and held it out toward Rifle.  “I saw these before, in the forest,” I told him.  “Any idea what it is?”

He leaned in, squinting slightly behind his goggles.  “It's... some kind of medicinal herb,” he said.  “The name escapes me.  The juices can act as coagulants, and a strong anti-inflammatory.  The stem contains analgesic chemicals.  In its natural state it's all too concentrated, though.  Toxic.  Even eating one leaf can kill you.  Makes your blood thicker, while also opening up the blood vessels and increasing your heart rate, leading to near-instant clotting, heart attack, or embolism.”

I looked down at it.  Some of the juices were already running down my gauntlet.  My eyes traced them as they ran over the spiky carapace and dripped onto the sand.  “My power's poking at me,” I told him.  “I'm gonna keep it.”

“Do as you please,” he told me, turning away and continuing his march.  “Just be careful.”

I nodded, thumbing open a pouch and stashing the plant, then followed him.

We continued through the desert for over an hour, Rifle leading the way, all of us stuck in miserable silence.  Rune ran through her first water bottle quickly, and tossed it onto the sand rather than carry the extra weight.  Rifle passed her another, and she just nodded, too drained to even thank him.

When more of the yellow, striated rocks came into sight in front of us, I nearly burst into song, and if Rifle hadn't keep to the same plodding, deliberate pace, I would have raced for them.  But it was nearly fifteen more minutes of walking before I could make out the entrance to another canyon, and even longer before we finally found ourselves once again in the shade.

As soon as we were out of the sun, Shadow Stalker collapsed in a heap, half-leaning against a rocky outcrop.  She pulled out a water bottle and drained the entire thing, then fell back, panting.

“Fuck shitting fuckedy fuck,” she said.  “I never want to do that again, I swear to fucking god.”

“Did you make the whole trip without drinking?” Rifle asked.

“She drank a bit,” I said.

“I kinda like that you noticed,” she said, pointing the empty bottle toward me.

“Do not start making out in the middle of the desert,” Rifle grit out.  “If you do, I'll fucking-”

“Don't worry about it,” Shadow Stalker said, waving away his concern.  “Even if Hunter was up for it-”

“I am,” I said.

“-I'm not,” she finished.  She forced herself to her feet, leaving a damp imprint of her body against the rock.  “I want this done as quick as possible, so we can get back to Philly and I can take a fucking shower.  Alone,” she added, pointing at me before I could even open my mouth.  “Don't push it.  We're not there yet.”

“I can accept that sentiment,” he said, glancing around.  “The shower part, at least.  Are we ready to continue?”

“I'm fine,” I said, flexing an arm in his direction.  “I could keep this up all day.  Not even tired.”

“Noted,” he said, frowning at me.  “Very much noted.  You might regret telling me that, soon enough.  How do you feel about scouting?”

“I'm up for it, but I'm not sure it's necessary.  You said the damned hermit crab-”

“Daimyo hermitaur,” he corrected.  “I'm in no mood to joke.”

“Fine,” I said.  “Sorry.  Anyway, you said it likes water, right?  Because I'm smelling some.”  I pointed down the canyon.  “That'a'way.”

He let out a quick breath through his nose.  “Good.  Great.  Lead on.”

I did, setting off down the canyon, and the others followed.  Rune was almost stumbling, but both Rifle and Shadow Stalker seemed fresh enough.  From the way Rifle was acting, though, I wasn't sure that it wasn't just a front.  The way he'd reacted to the mention of water, he'd been relieved, and not just a bit.

The canyon itself was narrow, though it opened up wider a few times, and it seemed to only go one way.  No branching paths.  As we went, I pulled the herb I'd picked out of my pouch, looking it over.  There was something about it, something I couldn't quite put my finger on...

It reminded me of the feeling I'd had when Gunner had given me the materials for that impossible teleportation bomb.  How obvious it had been what to do with them.  I was on the verge of that now, and it was like having a word stuck on the tip of my tongue.  It was irritating as hell, but thrilling too.  An element of my power I hadn't known about until now, if I could just figure it out.

As we went, the smell of water got stronger, and I put the herb away again, quickening the pace.  Rune had gone back to flying on top of the supply crate, and both Rifle and Shadow Stalker were showing more energy now, so close to our goal.

The canyon ended in an open area, surrounded by high cliffs, and the heat wasn't nearly as oppressive as it had been in the open desert, even beyond the shadow of the walls.  I could see clear across to the other side, where the cliffs were pierced by more canyons, and maybe a cave entrance.  What interested me more, though, was off to the side.  A huge rent in the cliff-wall that led to what looked like a river, cutting deep into the terrain, and whatever had knocked down the cliff had created something of an inlet, a pool of water that was calmer than the river it branched off from.

It was, I had to admit, almost ludicrously enticing.  The brutal sun glittered off the pool as if it were made of diamonds, and I'd rarely wanted anything in my life more than I wanted it.

I started off toward the water, feet crunching on ground, dodging around cacti and pillars of stone that stood up out of the sand, but both Rune and Shadow Stalker were faster, using their powers to advance on the glittering prize as quickly as they could.

They arrived at the pool in a dead heat, Rune landing her crate and stumbling off it, Shadow Stalker phasing back into solidity just feet away from the pool.

I barely noticed the ground start to rumble.

“Stalker!” I shouted at the top of my lungs, speeding up, pulling my sword free.

She reacted instantly, diving to the side, tackling Rune and pushing her away just as a bone-white spear thrust up out of the ground where she'd been, towering fifteen feet into the sky.  A fraction of a second later, and Rune would have been dead.

It still wasn't enough.  Whatever was down there, it didn't stop with just the jagged pillar.  The ground shook harder and sand billowed upward, something underground coming up with violent force, sending both of them flying.  They both tumbled through the air, hitting the sand hard almost ten feet away, in different directions.  Rune rolled to a stop and sprung up, sprinting to put more distance between herself and whatever it was.  Shadow Stalker was slower.  She sat up and put a hand to her head, shaking it, and didn't stand.

Then, as the sand began to clear, I saw what we were up against.  The spear was an enormous horn, straight, thinning out down its length toward a wicked tip.  Ahead of it was a beak, and behind it, up the nose, past the deep, shadowed eyes, was a wide, frilled shield of bone-like armor.

It was a head.  A twenty-foot-long head.

“Oh god,” Rifle whispered, stumbling to a stop beside me, eyes wide.  His voice rose.  “It's a monoblos!  We have to run!”

“No, look!” I said, pointing at it as it continued to rise.  The eye sockets were empty, there was no lower jaw, and the frill wasn't bone-like.  It was bone.  “It's dead!  It's just a skull!”

“What-  Oh!” Rifle said, slinging his gun into his hands, inserting shells.

He didn't continue, but I realized the same thing in the next second as segmented legs folded out from under the skull, scrabbling at the sand, filling in the hole it created even as it rose up.  Claws followed, and feelers poked up from behind the skull.

The daimyo hermitaur spun around to face us, putting its monoblos-skull home behind it.  It waved huge red-and-white-banded claws in the air, mandibles working, feelers waving.  Despite the attack it had just performed, it didn't seem to be able to see us.

“Get Shadow Stalker,” Rifle said, pumping his gun and chambering a shell.  “I'll hold its attention.”

“Got it,” I said, crouching down for a moment, judging the distance.

Rifle fired his first shot just as I burst into motion, and the monster screamed.  Chittering, clacking its mandibles, it advanced, huge legs pounding against the sand, rushing us.

We were two people down before landing the first attack, we were exhausted, drained from the desert, and we'd been hit by surprise.  But it didn't matter.  The fight was on.