The sun rose over far of Kosala, spreading across the Iranistani steppe to reveal two riders forging their way north towards the distant white capped daggers of the Ilbar Mountains. In the spring snow melt from those mountains would rush downwards in mighty torrents, wending its way towards the sea in a network of shallow creeks and rocky gullies that for most of the rest of the year ran at but a trickle. Like all steppe-land it was the preserve of nomadic headers rather than farmers, with herdsmen moving their flocks of goats or horned sheep from water source to watercourse with the season. Dawn had bought a few smuts of smoke from neglected cook-fires but from horizon to horizon no soul could be seen save for the two riders. That wasn't to say they weren't here of course. The steppe looked flat to a new comer, but deep gullies and short canyons could be concealed by the waving grass and a traveler might pass within bow shot and never know it until an arrow plucked them from the saddle.

The pair had set out from Kafir after midnight on fine roan horses which the Priest had purchased with coin which had impressed even Anya with its variety of denominations. The solution had been cleaner than her own plan of stealing the beasts, and as Abelard pointed out, lacked the problem of potential pursuit. As the Priest had said, the fact that Ibn-vakir had sent men to killed him argued for the veracity of his information, why else spend the hundred silver drachma to engage the Guild of Thieves to murder them? They had ridden as hard as they dared across such uncertain terrain, there was little doubt that news of the assassins failure would reach their paymasters in due time. They could hope it was carried by a horseman and not upon the wings of ravens or some other sorcery. Anya had made her name as a raider by riding hard and relentlessly and coming at her opponents unexpectedly. She saw little reason to change the habit of a lifetime now.  

They drove on towards the headwaters of the River Ashan where the faithless thief had bragged that he had seen the fable Opal, though hadn't dared risk its retrieval. How it had come to rest in such a land, so far from the northern glaciers of its birth was lost to the knowledge of men, though perhaps, not that of Gods. Of their purposes they spoke little. Anya was unsure of exactly why her companion sought the jewel, perhaps only as any man seeks a thing that is vaulable, and of her own quest she had spoken only evasively. The peace between them was yet uneasy.

"Smoke!" Anya called as they cantered across a low shale bedded creek, their horses kicking up shimmering spray in the early morning sun. She pointed to a low dome of haze beyond a small hill more or less along their path. It was too significant to be a single cookfire.