The rain fell in heavy, poisonous drops upon the barren plain, yet the scrub plants there seemed to grasp at each pelting orb of water with a passive voracity. Ed Archer, meanwhile, nurtured a fire into existence from the flame of his lighter. He had too little time to collect dry wood, but spread the kindling he had carried here with him along the ground. Working with practiced movements in the utter darkness, he carved a trench into the ground, blindly but accurately, and flicked the metal grooved disc at his thumb, sparking a meager flame into existence. Picking up a pinch of dry twigs and petrified moss, he caught the flame and dropped it onto his campfire. Soon, in the dry air of the cavern, the fire had exploded into a dizzying array of sparks and smoke. It burned cleanly, but the chance of asphyxiation would still be imminent if he did not move closer to the open air and the misty fallout soaking the cracked ground. The final sun had set. Those beasts that burrowed were far more dangerous than any creature desperate enough to enter a lit den obviously occupied by a huumunn or syrynykk dweller. A funnel worm in all its massive capacity to devour was nothing above ground or against a rocky surface; the dog-like wendabb feared campfires, though they were aggressively nocturnal; nothing else worth his energy could fit in the small opening. But the D'nierr, a subterranean race of bestial, reptilian humanoids. Predatory and vicious, they had the intelligence and tools necessary to carve a home from a rock. Some claimed that whole cities in the underground were inhabited by these stout, spiny creatures. Still, even the D'nierr were nothing compared to the creatures that squatted in their abandoned dwellings. This is what the fire was for.
Darkness surrounded Ed on both sides, two inky walls of mystery and danger that parted and enclosed once more with each flicker of the flames. Ed went over a familiar song in his head, aware that to sing the same thing aloud would invite predators to harass him. Always prepared, he propped his clenched fist on his knee, a revolver pressed against his palm and aimed towards the cavern's entrance. Ed was unaware of when each sun had cast its unique rays of light upon the ground and into the cave, but he had slept briefly, but fully, and was completely rested. A quick glance to the sky told him it was several hours past full daybreak, and in an hour or two the temperature would take a sharp leap. While it was easier to see one's path during the day, it was not at all easier to travel in the dangerous heat.
"Look, what else you got on you? Water, food...?" the merchant asked, scratching the scalp of a braying pack animal, no higher than his elbow.
"Three rifle magazines, two fully loaded...a bag of jerky..."
"Durr? Damned if I'm gonna trade this cow for a bag of snake flakes."
"No. Didactyl meat. A week old."
"Okay, how about that arm guard you got there?"
Ed stared at the man briefly, then muttered, "No. But I can offer this." He lifted a silver chain from his travel pack and draped it over the stuff already in his hands.
The man whistled low and nodded with a crooked grin. Then he said, "That works," and pointed to the group of braying, grunting creatures.
Ed crouched near the flank of one of these bipedal animals, a female, running his hand along the strong neck, down her back and along her muscular hind leg. He checked between the fingers of her front paw, noting her strength here and the length of her claws. Patting her tawny hide, he checked for parasites and, satisfied with the amount of care the kam'dass had, he grabbed its paw and led it in a loping stride back to the merchant's side.
"Does she have a saddle and bridle?"
"Ah, now that will cost you extra, my boy. What else you got on you?"
So they progressed, Ed bareback on the creature, hands clasped around its powerful neck. Kam'dasses were swift creatures, well suited to the desert with their capacity to travel vast distances without water. Moving quickly, the kam'dass pounding dry earth aggressively with its padded feet, rider and mount traveled over the dead remains of the land.