Artefact Hunters: Draikfang

     The sun dipped down and the air cooled to something almost pleasant, and Hanso and the crew began to follow the river west. The ground was firmer and easier once they approached the riverbank, where the sand became packed with moisture and small shrubs and grasses found purchase. They passed by desert nomads and other travellers on occasion, but as Sakhmet and Qasala receded behind them and the hour grew late, they found themselves alone for longer and longer stretches at a time.

     “At the risk of sounding like an impatient kid on holiday,” Hanso called out to Gamal, “how much longer till we get there?”

     Gamal took a moment to study his surroundings for landmarks. “At our pace, it should be about a day or two. How long exactly will depend on whether we run into any trouble.”

     “So, two days minimum then?” Rallon said dryly.

     Gamal let out a low snort. “The whole point of doing the expedition this way was to avoid running into any trouble… But most likely, yes.”

     Hanso chuckled wryly at that, and then he took a moment to pull his robe a little tighter around himself. He thought he could still feel some heat radiating up at him from the sands below, but now that it was nighttime, the air was actually starting to get cold. Deserts were weird.

     They continued on like this, stopping when they finally succumbed to the need for sleep that night and again the next day to rest and avoid the worst of the midday heat. They didn’t talk as much in the dry desert air, and when they did it was mostly to hear Gamal’s histories of the ancient kings and queens and other assorted dignitaries who had found their final rest in the same great graveyard as King Heru.

     “Do you think Jazan’s gonna get a fancy tomb like that?” Hanso asked at one point.

     “Hanso!” Brynn hissed at him.

     “What? It’s a legitimate question. I mean, we’re all gonna croak one of these days – except maybe Fyora – and I know I would appreciate a fancy gravesite when the time comes. It’s supposed to be like a final honour for great monarchs or whatever, right?”

     Brynn just sighed and shook her head, but Gamal was too preoccupied with something in the distance to answer Hanso’s perfectly reasonable and inoffensive inquiry.

     “Do you see that bend in the river up ahead?” the Moehog asked, pointing it out. “That marks where it starts to approach Khamtef. We’re getting close to the Mentu Empire, so mind what you say from here on out.”

     The others murmured their agreement. Hanso figured it shouldn’t be hard – as it was, they’d kept talk of Draikfang to a minimum since leaving the Qasalan palace. And Gamal certainly knew enough about the region’s history to play the part of the eager scholar.

     It wasn’t long before they started running into more people again, though not to the same extent as they had around Sakhmet and Qasala. They didn’t really speak with the other travellers except for the occasional pleasantries. It felt like there was a strange sort of tension in the air, and Hanso couldn’t tell if it was his own anticipation or if the Mentu region made all its passers-through wary.

     As the sun started to approach the horizon again, one cluster of airborne pets soared low over the river and straight for them. At the front of the pack was a pale Orange Elephante astride the biggest Uni Hanso had ever seen. He was flanked by a Red Tonu also riding Uniback and a Desert Scorchio flying under her own power. Hanso couldn’t even tell the colours of the Unis under the protective caparisons they wore, and the other three were armed and armoured.

     “Well, look who we have here,” the Elephante said as he and his fellows landed right in front of the crew. “I didn’t expect such esteemed personages to be visiting this region so soon after winning Queen Fyora’s favour. Allow me to introduce myself: I am General Magdi, noble protector of the city of Khamtef.”

     The way he eyed Hanso and Brynn as he spoke made the fur on the back of Hanso’s neck prickle. Somebody must have recognized them and reported their presence to this bigwig guard and his cronies. So much for the foreign adventurers not drawing attention.

     Hanso put on his best Neopoker face and eyed Magdi right back, but internally he was scrambling to figure out just how much these guards knew.

     “I’m afraid you’re a bit off,” Gamal replied, keeping his voice light. “My friends here have simply taken an interest in local faerie history, so we’re on a trip to visit Nuria’s monument near the Seven Tombs.”

     That was their cover story. The Seven Tombs was the rather unoriginal name given to the ruins where Draikfang was hidden, and the monument honouring the faerie Nuria was close enough for anyone who might be suspicious of their presence to buy that it was their real destination.

     Assuming they shook any potential followers before reaching Heru’s tomb, at least.

     Magdi raised an eyebrow. “The Seven Tombs? I thought our friends out east had a temple with a thousand that had been dedicated to Nuria,” he said with a little chuckle.

     “Already been,” Hanso responded, weaving the lie casually. “Nice place. Needs a better map, though. And the gift shop does leave something to be desired.”

     He put on the most obnoxiously rakish grin he could muster. “Of course, if you think the ruins in the Mentu region aren’t worth visiting…”

     Magdi bristled, wide Elephante ears stiffening with wounded pride. “That’s not what I meant,” he said just a little too harshly. “I just wanted to be sure you weren’t coming all this way without a proper understanding of Nuria’s history in the Lost Desert. Of course her monument here will be important to that.”

     Hanso nodded. “Good, then we’re in agreement.”

     A silent nudge signalled Laelia to start trotting around the Khamtef guards. Hanso held his breath and hoped against hope that this would be enough.

     “Of course, you’ll be wanting an escort.”

     Yeah, he hadn’t really expected this to be enough.

     “That’s why I’m with them,” Gamal pointed out.

     “As a guide, maybe,” Magdi continued, pulling his Uni around to cut Hanso and Laelia off. Behind him, the other guards shifted position, ready for a confrontation.

     Hanso kept his posture loose and made a show of rolling his eyes. If there was any chance that running his mouth and poking at this guy’s ego would get Magdi off their tails, then by Fyora he was going to enter his mouth in a marathon.

     (And he meant the “by Fyora” part literally. She was the one paying for this, after all.)

     “And here I thought a big fancy general had better things to do than play babysitter,” he drawled. “What, is Emperor Heksas too high and mighty to give you the good assignments or something?”

     Magdi’s eyes narrowed. “Not when an infamous thief is involved. I think His Imperial Majesty would appreciate knowing I’m keeping a watchful eye on you, international hero or no.”

     Uh-oh. Back it up, back it up…

     Before he could find a suitably disarming response, Brynn cut in. “General, Master Hanso is a respected champion of Queen Fyora herself,” she said curtly. “And even if he wasn’t, I can assure you that I am more than capable of keeping him in line. I suggest you leave us to our studies before the faeries take offence to your insinuations.”

     Magdi’s wings twitched. “I am insinuating nothing, just exercising my authority to protect Khamtef from criminals.”

     He drew his sword and gestured with it toward Hanso. “I don’t suppose you would be willing to answer a few questions about your past travels here, hmm?”

     The sheer brazenness of the accusation took Hanso aback, and he lowered his horns defensively. “Hey, I’ve never even been to Mentu!”

     “Oh, haven’t you?” Magdi challenged back while the other two guards retrieved their spears and their Unis pawed threateningly at the ground.

     The low hiss of another sword unsheathing drew Hanso’s gaze away from the now three weapons all but pointed at him, and he saw that Brynn had drawn her own blade. Her eyes were narrowed, her posture tense, and her tail lashed dangerously as Rallon cantered forward to bring her between Hanso and the guards.

     “That’s enough, sir,” she snapped.

     Magdi turned too, taking a moment to eye her while his underlings awaited orders. Hanso’s gut twisted as he realised the Elephante seemed almost pleased with this turn of events.

     “Guards,” Magdi barked, levelling his sword at Brynn. “Arrest her.”

     An outcry erupted from the artefact team. Brynn glared at the two guards now moving to flank her and demanded, “On what grounds?!”

     Magdi fixed her with a triumphant sneer. “Why else? Assaulting the General-Protector of Khamtef and disrupting his investigation, of course.”

     “What investigation?” Rallon countered, turning his head to watch the guards coming up on either side of him with a low snort. “We aren’t even in Khamtef, and have no intention of going there. You were the one harassing and threatening a Faerieland citizen under her protection!”

     Hanso wasn’t a hundred percent sure he actually counted as a Faerieland citizen yet, but he wasn’t about to argue the point. Magdi, unfortunately but not unexpectedly, did not seem to care either way.

     “Well, if the court agrees with you then she won’t have a problem,” he said. “I’ll leave it for them to decide.”

     With a nasty little smirk, he added, “...Unless, of course, you all want to tell me what you’re really looking for all the way out here. Treasure? Powerful blessings?”

     He directed that last comment at Brynn, as if daring her to fight back. She met his glare with an even look, eyes narrowed but showing no other signs of her thoughts.

     “We already told you,” she said. “We’re just seeking out some faerie history in a place that isn’t even part of the Mentu Empire’s territory.”

     With a frustrated twitch of her tail, she sheathed her sword and slipped down from Rallon’s saddle. “But if you don’t want to listen, then fine. You can deal with the backlash after Aethia and Queen Fyora find out about this.”

     She unbuckled her sword’s baldric in a gesture of compliance, but the Scorchio guard snatched it from her before she could hand it off to anyone else. Hanso and the others could only watch helplessly as she was herded away. Hanso managed to catch her gaze at one point, but she dissuaded his burgeoning half-baked plans to somehow grab her and run with a barely perceptible shake of the head.

     When the Mentuan guards had bundled Brynn onto one of the Unis and taken off, Laelia let out a low whistle. “Did… Did that actually happen just now?” she asked.

     Rallon, now riderless, shuffled his hooves uneasily in the desert sand. “That general knows we must have a special reason to be here, and he’s determined to sniff out anything he could gain from it,” he said. “If he couldn’t find anyone to arrest and interrogate, he would have followed us until we were out of the Mentu region instead. In some ways, this was actually the better outcome.”

     Gamal absently stroked the neck of his Apis for some level of comfort. He looked to Hanso, as did Rallon, and Laelia tilted her head and turned her ears back toward him.

     “So, what do we do now?” Gamal asked. “Do we finish the job while he’s distracted and trust Faerieland to fix this mess? That seemed to be Captain Brynn’s intention.”

     Hanso’s gaze had never left the retreating forms that were whisking his partner away. “Nah,” he finally said, eyes narrow.

     “If there’s one thing General High-and-Mighty got right, it’s that hero or no hero, I’ve got a pretty impressive criminal background. Has anyone mentioned to you guys that my official title under Queen Fyora is literally ‘Master Thief?’”

     He broke into a wicked smirk that had very little to do with how he was actually feeling. “We’re finding a good place to make camp, and then I need to head out. It looks like I’m going to Khamtef after all.”

     Three days into her first artefact retrieval mission, and Captain Brynn, prodigy of the Brightvale guard, heroine of Faerieland, had already gone and gotten herself arrested.

     It was on trumped-up charges spun by a corrupt general who’d been looking for trouble, but that didn’t make her feel much better. How could she have let him provoke her into drawing her weapon?

     Brynn let out a low groan and leaned her head back against the wall of her holding cell, kneading her forehead with one paw and wondering not for the first time what she was even doing on this mission. She’d been stripped of everything save the basics of her desert clothing, including her communication gem and of course her sword. She trusted that the few people connected to her gem knew better than to try calling her in the middle of this kind of mission. But she still felt uneasy without either item.

     At least Magdi hadn’t had her questioned yet – obviously the real reason he was putting up this charade in the first place. He must have wanted to let her stew overnight first. She just hoped that Hanso and the others would make it to Heru’s tomb while he was preoccupied with her and hadn’t yet sent anyone to follow them.

     “Geeze, and I thought Brightvale’s dungeons were kind of draughty. What is it with desert nights anyway?”

     Brynn had let her eyes drift closed as she thought, but now they snapped open. She looked over to see none other than Hanso standing just outside her cell door, wearing a dark brown hooded cloak that he definitely hadn’t had before.

     “Hanso!” she whisper-hissed, scrambling up to the door. “What in Fyora’s name are you doing here?!”

     Hanso raised an eyebrow, his lockpicking tools already in hand. “Uh, breaking you out, duh.”

     With a shrug, he added, “Sorry it took me so long, by the way. Most of Magdi’s underlings are as corrupt as he is, but they’re efficient when they want to be. It took me a while to find a weakness in this place’s patrol route and I still] had to bribe one of the wardens to look the other way.”

     Brynn buried her face in a paw. “Hanso, this situation is bad enough without you giving Magdi an actual crime to work with. As much as I appreciate the thought, you should really be using this time to get to Heru’s tomb.”

     Hanso scoffed. “Please, sweetheart, as if someone like Magdi or his precious emperor cares about ‘actual crime.’ I’d hardly even qualify this as a crime. I think most of the people here are political prisoners and guys who ticked off the higher-ups, so it’s more an ‘act of rebellion’ than anything. Really, it’s a shame we don’t have time to bust more people out.”

     Brynn frowned doubtfully. “Maybe, but this is only going to make them more suspicious and Magdi already knows most of where we’re going.”

     Hanso shrugged and started picking at the lock to the door. “Good thing he doesn’t knowexactly where we’re going, then. The crew’s found a nice little hidey-hole to camp in for the night, so I’m sure we’ll be fine as long as we get moving. Bottom line is, you are a solid half of Fyora’s artefact retrieval force, I need you, and Faerieland needs its Wraithslayer.”

     The sheer matter-of-factness with which he said that took Brynn aback, and she felt herself flush a little as she stopped to process his argument. But before she could think of anything else to say, one word in particular stuck out at her.

     “‘Wraithslayer?’”

     Hanso paused briefly in his work to grin up at her. “You didn’t think you’d earn a spot in the Gallery of Heroes without people giving you a cool nickname, did you?”

     Brynn dropped her gaze, suddenly feeling honoured and embarrassed and undeserving all at once. “I mean, a lot of good people stood against the wraiths…”

     “And you stood the best against them. Just because there’s more than one Master Thief doesn’t mean I’m not the best, either.”

     Dryly, Brynn replied, “Your modesty truly astounds me.”

     “I know,” Hanso said, grinning again. “And, case in point…”

     The lock came undone with a soft click, and he swung the cell door open with a quiet hand. Now that Brynn had a better look at him, she could see that he already had her sword in its scabbard slung over one shoulder and a knapsack he’d doubtlessly stuffed with the rest of her confiscated goods on the other.

     “Now,” he whispered, undoing the sword’s baldric and offering it to her. “Are you going to stay here and play good little prisoner, or are we gonna go get us a faerie artefact?”

     Brynn only hesitated a moment more before accepting the proffered weapon and securing it around her own back. “Okay, but you’re returning that cloak to wherever you found it.”

     “Of course, Brynn. I’m a master thief, not a criminal.”

     Hanso ducked low and led her quietly through the dungeon chamber. They only passed one guard, who was busy pretending to be asleep at his post. Brynn couldn’t help but wonder if Hanso had ever managed to bribe his way out of Brightvale’s dungeons, but she didn’t let herself dwell on it.

     The two of them slipped through a small window after Hanso had checked to make sure the nearest patrol had already passed. Brynn followed close behind him as he slipped from cover to cover, pausing once to hide when another pair of guards made their way past before moving on to the next carefully chosen blind spot. She’d learned some stealth while travelling with him and Xandra through the wraith-infested Haunted Woods – what little she could manage in full armour, at least – and now she did her best to mimic his smooth and silent movements. She hardly dared breathe until they had a solid building between them and the dungeon.

     “Okay,” Hanso finally said, looking one last time behind them before standing up. “That should do it for staying completely out of sight. Now we just have to blend in.”

     Right. Two Neopians very much in the public eye, not to mention entirely too much under the “general-protector’s” focus, blending in while trying to escape a city under the proverbial thumb of a hostile would-be overlord. Brynn could tell Hanso was thinking the same thing, from the way his ears twitched and he pulled the hood of his borrowed cloak around to better hide his face.

     All of a sudden, the upcoming trek into Heru’s tomb didn’t look nearly so daunting compared to simply getting out of Khamtef.

To be continued…