After the first day Asta, who had been completely supported by Luna and Odek up to this point, said that she felt like she could walk again. That would have been a big help crossing the Red Water, a sluggish, muddy river that they had had to go through because the only bridge was half a day’s additional walking. She had floated on her back, pulled along by Luna using another strip torn from Odek’s discarded robe (he was back to just shorts) as a rope.
They had made camp in the midst of a rock formation that rose up on all sides of them but for a narrow pass that opened out into a circular space.
“Does this look strange to you?” said Luna to Asta, who was lying on her back on what was left of Vil-Odek’s robe to keep dirt out of her wound. “Look at these grooves. They look intentional, too evenly-spaced to be rainwater. Maybe people used to live here.” The channels were weather-worn but still distinct, lining the edge of the formation. It was a black rock that it was made from, unlike anything they had seen yet.
“Maybe it was some kind of meeting place. If it was a house there would be more.”
“Oh, the old ‘ritual purposes’ standby?” said Luna, who knew that ‘some kind of meeting place’ and ‘haven’t a clue’ were basically synonymous. “Or maybe it was a rubbish tip. Maybe we’re sleeping in the filth of an ancient civilisation.”
Asta groaned. Luna loved ruins. She decided to change the subject. “What are we going to do when we get to the ship? It didn’t look like it’d be in any shape to fly again when we left it.”
“She’s a tough beast,” said Luna. “She’ll fly.” Asta saw the sunk cost in her shadowy eyes and knew that there was no persuading her.

Day two started with Vil-Odek swinging an enormous black bat onto the sand. “Hell!” said Luna. “Where did that come from?”
“They live underground. Eat small animals,” he said. “Tasty.” He quickly lit the fire by striking a stone on his knife and began carving the thing up. It eventually yielded enough meat that was stringy if, yes, tasty, to feed all three of them. Luna quietly considered that if it wasn’t for him, they would have died probably ten times each.
“Thank you,” she said between bites. “For everything.”

On day three, Vil-Odek said “We’re being watched. Mountain Scouts,” and then carried on walking. Asta was almost totally unsupported by now, but limping heavily.
“Are they friendly to outsiders?” asked Luna. Odek shrugged.
“Never got close enough to find out.”
Over the course of the day, every so often, one of the party would catch sight of the scouts. They were always standing dead still, always watching, and always closer than the last time they had been spotted.
“Unarmed!” shouted Luna when she saw them around lunchtime (edible roots, slightly spicy) and waved her hands above her head to demonstrate. “No weapons!” A thought occurred to her, and she quickly asked Vil-Odek if the Mountain people spoke Tond.
“Your friend Shten did, and you said he used to be one of them,” the giant said. “The question is how long ago was that?”
“Only one way to find out, I guess,” said Luna.
It was briefly decided that she was going to be the representative of the group, striking a balance between being able to walk and run unsupported unlike Asta and not looking like she could punch a hole in sheet metal like Odek. Next time they crossed paths with the Mountain scouts, not long before the time would come for them to make camp, Luna walked out, her hands raised, and tried to make contact.
“We come in peace,” she said, then inwardly balked at the corniness of it. “Our intention is not to disrupt your lives in any way.”
The scouts looked at each other silently, then suddenly seemed to vanish into the darkness.
“Was that good?” said Luna.
“We’re alive,” said Asta. “So I vote yes.”

They broke camp and left the woods for the mountain pass that Odek had scouted out up ahead. Asta’s leg was worsening: to Luna’s dismay but not surprise, their rudimentary efforts, bolstered slightly by Odek’s knowledge of desert herbs which probably had genuine medicinal properties, had done little to protect her from the ravages of the alien bacteria of the world. She wouldn’t let them see the wound itself, but it was becoming obvious that she wouldn’t last much longer before she would have to be carried again, maybe lose the leg if it came to it.
The narrow pass became a path that slowly rose up the side of the mountain, which didn’t have a name on any map. There was nothing left to say to each other any more. The Mountain scouts continued to shadow them. The next time Luna noticed them, watching from high up on a cliff above them, she saw that they had a kid with them.
“We must be close to their village. We should probably avoid it if we can,” she said. “Can’t imagine they’d be this relaxed about us if we showed up on their doorstep.”
That night, the plasma storm swirled overhead again. The three of them slept badly, huddled together.
When it happened, Luna was the first to wake. In the plasma mists above them, a shape was coalescing. Not a shape, a face. Half-conscious, Luna watched it resolve. It was not an unpleasant face, bearded, maybe fifty to sixty years of age by Luna’s reckoning. The pleasant features were twisted by an expression of pure hatred. She nudged Asta and pointed. “You see that too, right?”
Asta nodded. Odek was awake by this point. The face seemed to be forming words, angrily declaiming in silence apart from the hissing rumbling of the storm. It continued to rant and rave in silence for almost an hour, until it suddenly dissipated as quickly as it had appeared. The storm cleared not long after.
“The Heretic told me to begin searching at the heart of the storm. That’ll be the sorcerer’s lair, knowing our luck,” said Luna.
“Lu… you can’t really believe this stuff?” Asta said. “I mean…” she trailed off. Luna looked away. She wasn’t sure what she believed in.
“Whatever it is, we’ll know soon enough.”

Their course now set, the three of them began to try and find a way through the mountains towards the heart of the storm and freedom.

Asta grabbed her hand and pulled Luna back from the path.
“What? It’s just some rocks”
“Not rocks. Scree,” Asta said. “I’ve read about it. Impossible to keep your footing.” She pointed down to the bottom of the slope, jagged rocks at evil angles. “I’d prefer we didn’t have to go down there to look for you.”
“Then we’re stuck,” said Luna. “There’s no way forward.”
“I don’t know,” said Vil-Odek, pointing ahead. “He seems to be doing alright.”
One of the mountain folk was standing in the middle of the slope, watching them. As they looked, he scurried along the slope and down to solid rock on the other side.
“Good for him,” said Luna, sitting down bitterly. The Mountain Scout ran back into the middle.
“I think he’s trying to show us something,” said Asta. Then she gasped. “There’s a path! A safe path through the scree. Look!” She kicked some of the loose rocks to reveal a well-worn track that dropped away steeply.
“Guess that answers the question of them being friendly,” said Luna.
“Thank you!” shouted Asta.
“You welcome!” shouted the Scout.
“And that answers the question of them speaking Tond. We’re on a roll tonight.”

The Scout seemed to be running ahead of them, anticipating their every move. When they came to a black and impenetrable forest, he had carved arrows on the trees to lead them forward. When the only way was up a sheer slope, crude pitons had been hammered in to ease the journey – although Asta had to be carried up by Odek, clinging to his back like an animal.
Luna was the first on the ridge that overlooked the heart of the storm. It was a town, larger than the one Odek came from.
“So much for avoiding contact,” she said.

The mountain folk looked on the party suspiciously. They had never seen a stranger trio, in their tattered robes, covered head to toe in dust so much so that they looked as though their skin had turned a dim grey.
The town was glowered over by a tower that rose out of the centre of it. She turned to Asta, who nodded. The three of them hardly spoke to each other any more.

“Strangers! You can’t go in there-” said the man standing by the base of the tower. It was dark and silent in the town, and everything seemed to be covered with a fine layer of ash that rained down from the plasma storm above. His was the first voice they had heard since they entered.
Luna punched him in the mouth and carried on, pulling the steel door open. The staircase inside the tower was a surprise; it went down.
It was lit by an indistinguishable red glow which emanated from panels in the wall. It took Luna a moment to recall the word lightbulb. The walls down here were steel, and there was a low hum that seemed to come from below, rhythmic like breathing.
At the bottom of the staircase, a doorway led onto a dark, empty chamber. The red lights – emergency lights, Luna realised – had failed in places. Still, it was recognisable. A dead ship. A ghost hulk. The breathing of the ship was overpowering in here, making Luna feel like her skull was shaking. She wanted to scream. They were on the bridge. She walked over to a control panel and prodded it experimentally. To her surprise, it lit up. She was bathed in green light, then white as the main lights suddenly slammed on above her. They lit across the room, emanating out from her in waves.
The bridge was a lot bigger than they had thought. She glanced at the panel below her hands. It was in Standard, but an old form that hadn’t been used for a thousand years.
“Asta,” she croaked. “Can you read this?”
Asta nodded. She told Odek to take her closer. He obliged. “The logs have all been erased,” she said, typing. “But it looks like the ship is in complete working order.” She coughed. “Including Medical.”
“Fire up the engines, commander Venn,” said Luna. “We’ll be out of here in no time.” She turned around. Something she hadn’t noticed. A figure in a high-backed chair. She paced slowly towards it. Its arms, legs were shaking, jerking back and forth like marionette’s limbs. She grabbed the back of the chair and pulled it around, and found herself staring into the black eyes of the face they had seen in the clouds. His vicious snarl was frozen by rigor mortis, and metal probes punched through the bone of his skull into his brain. His skin was a desiccated brown colour, like an ancient mummy. Luna cursed.
The thing’s dead eyes snapped towards her, and it lurched forwards, arms outstretched, hands clasping for her throat. They were freakishly strong, and Luna could barely hold him – it – off. She threw it back. The frozen jaws creaked and the mouth began to snap open and shut, each time accompanied by a hideous crunching of bone.
Luna whistled through her teeth and Odek glanced over. He uttered an arcane oath and grabbed a chair, his muscles bulging as he tossed it at the thing. It spun and caught the chair, but in the process knocking out one of the probes that connected it to the ship – the right side. Its left side suddenly fell limp and it collapsed to one knee, dragging itself closer still to Luna.
“Pull the other one out!” Asta yelled. “They’re keeping him alive!” She planted a boot on its head and yanked the other wire.
“Time to sleep,” she muttered. Nobody heard her. “How are those engines coming?” she said aloud.
“Lu, I can do it, but…” said Asta. “If we launch – all those people above us. And not just them. These are old-fashioned engines, and this planet isn’t what it was when they last flew. We could ignite the atmosphere.”
Luna did what she had wanted to do since they first got down here and screamed. It went on for a long, long time.

“I hope the mountain people get you home safely,” said Luna to Vil-Odek, hoarsely. “Will you be alright?”
The big man nodded. “Do not weep at the end,” he said, his voice taking on the tone it did when he quoted his book. “Smile at the memory.”
“We have a saying like that,” said Luna.
“Actually, I taught him that one,” Asta said sheepishly. She lurched forward, still getting used to her newly-rejuvenated leg, and threw her arms around him. They almost touched at the back, but not quite. “Thanks, big guy,” she said. “I’m not following my own advice.”

When Odek was gone, Asta called out to Luna: “Come on! We’ve got to find our ship! It’s a graveyard out there – no shortage of parts! You’ve turned off the defence system now, right?”
Luna stared at the panel. If she fired the engines now they could just leave.
They could just leave.