XV
Ehomba halted before the stark yet beautiful panorama. They had been walking for many days without a change of terrain, and it was unreasonable to think that it would not eventually give way to a different landscape. It was just that he had not expected the shift to be so abrupt, or so harsh.
“By Gowancare’s jennies.” A somber-voiced Simna stood next to him, contemplating the identical vista. “Surely we’re not going to have to cross that?”
“I am afraid we must.” As usual, the herdsman’s voice betrayed no tightness, no unusual emotion. Raising an arm, he used the point of his spear to indicate the far horizon. “See those distant peaks? If all we have been told is true, those should be the outermost ramparts of the Curridgian Range. Beyond lies Ehl-Larimar. Once we cross over, we are near the end of my journey.”
“First we have to reach them,” Simna observed, noting the sun-blasted desolation that lay between. His water bag was full, but already it felt perilously inadequate against his back.
Before them lay a land of weathered promontories devoid of vegetation. Predominantly beige and white, some of the hills were shot through with streaks of carmine and yellow. Where intermittent flash floods had carved more deeply into the eroded sandstone, layers of black and brown were visible. Stunted trees and battered brush huddled together in the deepest gullies, seeking protection from the unrelenting sun.
Beyond the hills and fronting the base of the mountains, the light gleamed brutally off a strip of perfectly flat whiteness. Ehomba recognized it from his deepest forays into the interior of Naumkib country.