Chapter 2
(in this one, they go on on their journey, and J'zargo demonstrates his lack of skills with magic beyond the summoning of a flame, when they are beset by caravan raiders. having left his other blade in his tent, he tries to use flames to hurt the bandits along with his sword, with varying results. by the end of the chapter, it is night again, and now J'zargo has a meaningful conversation about what it means to be a warrior with S'shani.)

J'zargo rose later that afternoon with the sun already having set and the sand quickly cooling down. Ahnassi had woken him, ensuring to remind him to take down his tent as quickly as possible. While he had slept, he had dreamed... and his dreams were no less troubled than his thoughts, full of visions of fire and ice, and a word that called out at him, destruction...

He took his sack of clothing out of his tent and folded it in his practiced fashion, quickly and nimbly. Putting his clothes and the rolled up tent in his pack, he tested the weight on his shoulders and deemed it acceptable.

Ahnassi tapped him on the shoulder and asked, "Are you ready to depart?"

"Yes," he said simply. She turned away, and he followed her to the two carts of goods that they were toting to Rimmen. S'shani stood by them, the picture of the Khajiit warrior, his hand on the pommel of his sword. It was enchanted, and had been made for him in his home village. J'zargo had seen its effect in battle, paired with the warrior's skill, and it was astounding. J'zargo hoped to someday learn to enchant weaponry like S'shani's. He thought there was perhaps much money to be made with this skill.

"J'zargo! Sleep well?" called out S'shani, grinning.

"Well enough, and you?"

"You would not believe what dreams came to me. Many moons go by but the Khajiit do not dream of such things as vast waters and beautiful mountains, peaked with snow. But I did. So I did."

"You are a strange one, S'shani."

"I do not disagree. Are you ready?"

"Yes. Let us go, I do not like the thoughts that lie restless in this place."

S'shani shrugged. "So be it. Ahnassi, is the tent ready? I loaded the cots and supplies onto one of the carts."

"Yes, I have packed it already. All that remains is to hitch up the Senche."

J'zargo thought, and not for the first time, of the lives the Khajiit caravan animals were forced to lead. They were sentient beings, intelligent; not mere pack mules, for all their size and strength. However, they could not speak, and therefore could not share their thoughts. Jode and Jove had spoken at their birth, and so the Senche were forced to be mere mounts and pack animals. J'zargo tried his best to be kind to both the Senche that pulled the caravan carts, but he could sense their anger and bitterness toward the two-legged Khajiit that surrounded them.

"J'zargo, will you do it?" Ahnassi asked, looking critically at him.

"Very well, Ahnassi. And then leave."

As he attached the first Senche, named Ameq'in, for his fierce stamina, J'zargo thought sardonically of how if they got the chance, their two pack animals would most likely turn on them. Though four-legged, they were as powerful as mammoths, and twice as fast.

He whispered to Ameq'in, after having hitched him to their cart of skooma and moon sugar, and the Senche began to walk slowly forward. J'zargo did the same to the second Senche, and watched as Khala followed the other cart.

"And so we go," S'shani remarked, walking up beside J'zargo.

"So we do," he said by way of reply, and nodded.

-

The journey was long and the night longer, the coolness of the evening giving way to the chill of the night. The sand was still slightly warm under J'zargo's padded feet. However, the heat of the day would soon fade, and nights in the Ne-Quin Al were as cold as the days were hot. They had to make good time, though, and so J'zargo donned his warmer cloak and trudged on beside the caravan, hand on his sword and trying to keep his mind sharp. He thought of Ahnassi's mother, and whether she would give him the advice he sought. He did not think that he should rely only on her advice, but it would be interesting to see what she would say. Very wise, the stories told of the female Khajiit, and equal parts dangerous.

As the moon rose high in the starry sky, Ahnassi cheerfully called out her sighting of the tell-tale sign of an oasis village where they could trade their non-skooma-related goods. All was well. In the next moment, however, darkness overstepped its bounds and spilled into their path.

A pack of desert bandits leapt out from behind the dune the caravan had just passed and went for Ahnassi, swords drawn. She smiled grimly and drew the daggers at her waist, simultaneously to S'shani's drawn longsword. Parrying the blow that would have severed a wrist, she snarled and leapt away from the attacker. "Ahnassi has seen warriors stronger than you in the whorehouse, now fight!" J'zargo chuckled as he drew his own two blades and rolled away from his opponent, who was approaching him menacingly, curved sword drawn.

"Oh ho, so you want to dance, do you?" J'zargo called, and teeth bared, thrusted his dagger at the man's side. He in turn evaded the attack, and swiped at J'zargo's head. Ducking swiftly, J'zargo aimed a clawed kick at the other Khajiit's calf and heard the sound of skin tearing. Momentarily distracted, the attacker let his guard down and lowered his sword a few inches.

"That was a mistake," J'zargo muttered as he sliced the man's throat.

Another bandit appeared just as the second crumpled into the sand, and J'zargo jumped on top of one of the carts to evade the foe as he swung at him with a greatsword. Where the Khajiit had learned to wield a greatsword, he would never know, but the man was clearly brawny and a little slow. J'zargo took his dagger and, glancing around for any bowmen to shoot him in his high position, leapt down at the muscled Khajiit before he could recover from his failed blow.

Two and not even a scratch, J'zargo thought, and wondered if he was beating S'shani. No doubt the warrior had slain at least four foes already.

Making a split-second decision to switch his blades to a bow he had thankfully strapped onto his back just in case, J'zargo jumped back onto the cart to pick off the bandits from up high. He had never been a very good hunter, but his marksmanship was good enough, and no one would be paying attention to him down below. He surveyed the circumstances below. S'shani and Ahnassi were battling back to back, surrounded by no less than six bandits. J'zargo had to be careful not to accidentally shoot one of them as they did the dance of death on what had become the battlefield. He aimed, and shot one man straight through the eye. He crumpled.

Not bad, J'zargo...

Suddenly, he heard the sound of a scuffling step in the sand below the cart.

A young Bosmer woman pointed a bow straight at him as she came into range. Panicked, he reached for his blades, forgetting he had left them on the ground.

"No!" he yelled, and amazingly, the woman did not shoot, momentarily confused by his reaction.

He reached deep within himself and summoned the flow of magic that resided deep within him. He called into his soul and searched for the essence of flame, the spirit of which was both free and destructive. J'zargo felt it all the way from his heart into his hands and there, the destruction that was fire erupted, straight into the face of the Bosmer.

Shocked, J'zargo leapt back and watched as her clothes set afire and the skin on her face blackened. He felt the urge to vomit, but swallowed, knowing he could not afford to throw up now. Enemies were still about. J'zargo suppressed what he had just seen and reached for his bow, which he had thrown behind him right before killing the Bosmer.

He turned back to the battle waging between S'shani and Ahnassi, and the leftover bandits. There were only two of them left, and J'zargo watched as S'shani executed them both in one sweeping blow.

Jumping down from the cart, he walked toward them, staying on his guard for any more bandits that might have been smarter and waited to attack them. There didn't seem to be any; it was strange, how silent the desert could be where before, there had been utter chaos.

As J'zargo approached them, he could see that they were both breathing heavily, and that Ahnassi had blood on her lip. Otherwise, the two seemed relatively unharmed.

"Are you alright?" he asked, to be sure.

"Yes. I think that was the last of them," Ahnassi said, and sighed. "I am tired of caravan raiders."

"As am I," S'shani growled. "Now let us make a profit from them as they would have done to us."

J'zargo nodded and followed S'shani as he inspected the bodies for anything useful. They found quite a bit of gold, a few arrows, and a full set of leather armour that was almost undamaged by the fight. S'shani would be able to improve it and sell it for a nice sum at the oasis town.

They had found a few good-quality daggers when they came across the cart where J'zargo had set the Bosmer aflame and found her burnt corpse lying nearby.

"Strange, hmm, fire in a battle? Looks like a mage's work to me…" S'shani eyed J'zargo sardonically as he picked through the Mer's burnt clothing. Some of it was still smoking. "This one has a nice elven bow. Dagger, too. It'll sell nicely."

J'zargo stood back, looking at the bow in S'shani's hands.

"It was me, you know," he said quietly.

"I thought so. I hardly think that Ahnassi commands the powers of the elements. Hmm, yes, J'zargo, you may be young yet, but a mighty warrior you will be. Swinging a greatsword is not all it takes to be a warrior."

J'zargo chuckled. "And I thought that was the only thing."

S'shani smiled, somewhat sadly. "No, it is not. Being a warrior, a true warrior, is to battle on even when you are sure to die, if it is for something you love. To be a warrior, you must push yourself, beyond when your muscles are screaming to stop, and your mind cannot go on, and you are depleted beyond belief, simply because you are a warrior. For the true warrior does not give up."

"And what else?" asked J'zargo wryly.

"You are a smart one, you. What else? A true warrior also always plays his strengths. What are your strengths, J'zargo? When the time comes, will you play them?"

J'zargo merely smiled and walked away, grabbing some of the loot to bring it to Ahnassi.

The lights of the oasis city shone on in the distance. They would be there by morning.