Jabari rolled his belongings into his pack and tightened the ties. He muttered a few words over the fire to douse it, and looked around. Their group was big and clumsy and he knew he should have separated them before now, especially since they really needed to find Aria and Gavi. He knew the reason he hadn’t was because of Isika, and he didn’t even really feel that badly about it, but they needed to make good time today. He swung his pack onto his shoulders, wrapped his ser around his head to protect it from the sun, and with a nod at the others, began to walk down the nearby path.
They were still in the fields of Maween, not yet having reached the scrubby landscape that came before the desert. They would follow the river to the Hadem, and then head northeast into the great desert.
The p
