Abelard reined in his roan, the beast whinnying lightly in the crisp morning air. Anya and he had been riding through the night with barely a word passing between them once they had mounted the horses. He found he believed her story and her virtue, however. Her manner against her assassins and they way she moved had a surety to it that spoke of honesty. Perhaps it was the soldier in him, or the still very earthly mind of his that led him to trust her motives. But he knew, somehow, Asura had not spoken of her. 

Her vision was correct, he saw a large pillar of smoke rising into the sky. It stood as a black line against the newly risen sun. Abelard dismounted, advising it was best they left their horses here tethered to what roots they could find. The two did so and drew their blades, creeping out of the creek-bed towards the signs of what Abelard knew to be their quarry, even if it were not what they truly sought. Advancing swiftly, they found a small rise that spoke of a sheer drop just before them. The two crouched and almost crawled toward the edge what seemed to be a large, dried waterway. Beneath them more than a score of men spoke and drank and ate a hearty breakfast, devouring the ribs of a great boar they had slaughtered likely the day before. 

Iranistanian Horse nomads with their scalemail cuirasses and their strange spiked helms wrapped in cloth, sallow skinned and stout builds grunting in their rugged tongue. They looked armed for war, their horses tied to a small copse of trees within earshot. The nomads had made two cookfires separate from Ibn-vakir and four Stygian giants. Head and shoulders taller than any nomad, the giants were armed with iron tipped spears and shields made of wood and bronze. Queer torques of Set lay on their bare chests, splattered with the grog they drank greedily beside their fire. Their belts were inlaid with gold and Ibn-vakir wore a similar belt and torque atop his rogueish garb. Abelard nearly surged upwards to curse Ibn-vakir to the Gods, but he held himself for what he saw next.

Past the dried inlet was a structure, swept in style as the cloth atop the horsemen's helms. The opening was alien in design. Nearly perpendicular but many layered in stone, like the opening of a flower or the folds of a woman that so drove men mad. Abelard had seen sketches of such structures before in his studies that bespoke it a remnant of the Acheron Empire. It looked to have been rebuilt in an Iranistanian style and then buried in sand from some wild storm, only to have finally been revealed again. 

"We cannot take rash action," Abelard whispered to his fellow traveler. He spoke to himself just as much as the Northern woman. The priest likely seemed a coward to the fierce warrior, but his only goal was to keep the Opal out of wicked hands.