It seemed a bit of a perversity that the Wasteland had such an overabundance of dismal locales: barren deserts, hovel-filled frontier towns, thick forests crawling with wretched beasts, and oceans that were populated by still more monstrosities. Still, it was the desert he liked the least. For weeks after he’d visited it, sand seemed to appear everywhere. He could taste it now, an unpleasant, silty brine on his lips and tongue. “Water,” he ordered. The sedan chair didn’t alter its forward trudge through the desert as one of the locals he employed handed him a canteen of warm water through the window. The water wasn’t at all refreshing, but given his lingering exhaustion and the desert heat, Ajani knew that drinking wine or brandy would be unwise. The perspiration on his skin had already caused a fine layer of sand to stick to him. He grimaced and blotted his face with a cloth. Outside the sedan chair, Ashley, one of his most trusted fighters, gave him a look of disdain that would’ve resulted in a reprimand if she’d been anyone else.
