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Maintaining a low profile was slow going: zig-zagging around the slopes of the dunes rather than a direct route through the free air above. But the fear of recapture and the prospect of further interrogation with those repulsive Malada tendrils chilled him to his core, and so he clung to the lower slopes like a shadow, using Ar thauma fashioned from the thinnest skein of Vivo to quieten the papery flap of his wings.
The dunes seemed endless, although it may have been the snail's pace with which he traversed them, keeping the sound of the waves to his left at all times to avoid going off track. On one or two occasions he was convinced he overheard low voices behind him and to his left, but could not be sure this was not the dunes themselves, moaning and whispering as if talking to each other.
Recalling the map he and Yslana had seen through the Janela orb, he was a little concerned that he was leading the Hawkers directly towards the Viajante, but he was exhausted, weak and wounded, and the death of Yslana at the Red Wall had left him bereft of company and moral support. Even though she had been hard on him since the first moment they had met he had drawn strength and courage from her, now without her bullying him onwards he felt as lost as a leaf on a stream, blown by the vagaries of the wind and waters.
He had not eaten or slept since they had reached the Red Wall the previous day and he had been threatened, interrogated and beaten numerous times since then. Now he was running low on energy and willpower and the only place he thought he might find succour was with the Viajante. If he could find him without alerting the Hawkers to his presence then he would be safe. But Yslana had said it was maybe another day or two's travel to the Viajante's hideout, and he did not know if he would survive the night, let alone another two days.
He was startled from his mind's meanderings by a form that loomed unexpectedly out of the silvery gloom of the moonlit sands: a reddish-brown furry creature with distinctly canine features, many times his size, with a pale tip on its long tail following low across the sands behind it. The creature seemed as startled as Dax, as it sniffed the air between them cautiously with its long snout. Forcing his rapid heart to slow, Dax recognised the creature as a Raposa, for he had seen them many times hunting mice and rabbits in the long grass near his home, and had often heard their skin-tingling barks late at night as they marked out their territories and searched for mates. They were harmless enough as long as he didn't get within snapping range of its sharp-toothed jaws.
Dax casually sent the Raposa packing with a well-aimed squirt of Agua that hit the animal smack on the nose. He watched as it sprang away, shaking its head and sneezing, and allowed himself a wan smile; if only all those he had come up against recently were so easy to vanquish!
And so the night continued. It had been some time since Dax had heard or seen any indication that he was still being pursued, and so by dawn's first light, he decided to find a spot to hide up and rest for just a few hours. Rising to the tip of a particularly tall dune, using the rustling Marram Grass that sprouted from the ridge as cover, Dax peered all around.
To his left he could still see the huge expanse of restless water, endlessly roaming back and forth in a most disconcerting way for a purely riparian soul like him who was used to water only travelling in one direction and never coming back. Ahead of him, he could see that the dunes petered out some way ahead, eventually to be replaced by scrubby gorse and pasture. To his right, he could now see a row of pines a short distance away, their dry, skeletal lower branches exposed below their dense canopy some metres above the ground.
It was to the pines he flew, using the dark trunks as cover to reach the thicker foliage in the upper quarters. Here he searched around, eventually finding a branch that was well covered with the dark green needles but still provided a good view across the dunes so he could keep watch for Hawker activity.
But his plans to monitor the terrain lasted but a few minutes before fatigue took precedence and try as he might he succumbed to a deep but troubled sleep; flashing images of the ravening features of the Jraconoid interspersed with his final, terrible view of Yslana plunging to her death in roiling waters.