"Beet," Balthier said, squeezing her shoulder to get her attention. She had calmed down considerably, and now only sniffled against his vest. I'll have to charge her for getting my cleaning done when this is all over. "It's gone."

Beet straightened and pushed away from him, wiping her face and nose with the back of her hand. Balthier sighed, deep and exaggerated and threw in an eye-roll for good measure. "Here," he said, offering a lacy handkerchief. She accepted it and wiped her face, leaving mixed smears of tears and dust on the white cloth.

She held out the used hanky. Even in the dim light from the fire's embers, Balthier could see that her eyes and nose were red and swollen. He gave the dirty handkerchief a sideways look.

"Eh, you keep it for now." Balthier said, raising one hand to refuse it. "At any rate, I assume from your reaction that was the mark I'm out here to kill." Finally satisfied that the golem would not be returning, Balthier rested his gun across his shoulder and returned to the fire and his blanket. Settling on the hard ground, he got as comfortable as he could, pillowing his head on his arm with his gun resting where it could be grabbed in haste.

Beet remained at the edge of the firelight, staring out into the dark. With a grimace, Balthier sat up and called to her. "It's your turn to keep watch. At least take my gun—even if you don't hit anything, it might scare the nasties away." With the danger gone, sleep was fast creeping over him and it was a struggle just to keep his eyes open. Balthier yawned, shivering as the ground's chill crept into his body. Finally Beet acknowledged him, returning to the fire to collect the offered weapon.

"You know how to shoot that?" Balthier asked. She stared at him as though he had asked her an inappropriate personal question. He raised his hands in a placating gesture. "Just asking." Rolling back into his blankets, Balthier squirmed around, trying to find a place that didn't have a sharp stone to gouge him in the back. He could hear the whisper of Beet's sandals against the stone as she walked back and forth at the perimeter of camp. Even the worgen have the sense to hide from that thing, Balthier thought, noting the eerie silence that had descended upon the desert just before sleep claimed him.

--

Balthier woke to the acerbic smell of brewed herbal tea. The last of the bread lay in toasted slices on a flat rock near his head, along with a tin mug with steaming contents. He sat up with a groan, feeling every ache from the previous day's wounds plus new ones from sleeping on the rocky ground. He took a slice of toast and sipped the tea, wincing as he burned his tongue. Beet was nowhere to be found.

She returned a short time later, emerging from a large crack in the cliff where wind and sand had opened a passage. Balthier sat by the fire's ashes with a small amount of water in his tin cup and a silver mirror in one hand. The other held a razor, with which he scraped away a small bit of stubble that had been missed in a previous pass. Beet came and squatted beside him, placing the gun on the ground between them.

Balthier rinsed the blade in the cup, swirling the water around to remove all traces of lather. He poured some into his hand and wiped it across his chin and cheeks, then tossed the rest on the ground. Patting his face dry with a clean handkerchief from his pack, he also wiped the razor before folding it and putting it away with his cup.

"Our water is limited, you know," Beet finally said.

"If I am to die of thirst," Balthier responded, "I should like to leave a presentable corpse."

Beet rolled her eyes and stood, slapping dust from her trousers. She folded her arms across her chest and faced away from Balthier, looking out over the plateau and across the desert beyond. Heat haze already shimmered in the distance. Balthier bent to pick up his gun. He cracked in half, checking to see that it was ready to fire before holstering it.

"Tracking our quarry?" he asked, gathering his pack, waterskin, and Fran's spear from where it rested against the cliff. Balthier kicked the ashes of the fire apart, scattering them. The wind would soon carry them away, scouring the campsite of all trace of their stay.

"There isn't much to track," Beet answered. "For all its bulk, the thing does not leave much sign here on the stone. And the sand shifts. By now any prints it has left are long gone."

Balthier shrugged. "I suppose there is little help for it. We shall just have to do the best we are able." He hefted his gear and walked a few steps toward the sand-choked defile Beet had emerged from earlier. "Come. This creature seems to be most active at night. Day is our best opportunity to catch it unawares."

Beet grabbed her own pack and slung it across her shoulders, falling in behind him. "I checked this gorge, but saw no trace of it." She rubbed her hands over her upper arms, as though chilled. "It was an eerie place. I do not wish to linger there."

"I thought the area looked familiar," Balthier said. He took the lead, brushing the fingertips of one hand against the sheer side of the narrow gap as he walked. "A wyrm's nest, this place was once. I daresay the local wildlife still avoids it for that reason."

Gusts of wind howled through gap, swirling sand around their legs. Dry brush and spiky grass choked by the sand rattled, scraping against the looming cliffs as the wind tugged at them. The silence filling the small canyon bore down on them, weighty and ponderous, a physical sensation. Balthier paused when the gap widened and the walls spread out, revealing a roughly circular depression surrounded on all sides by tall, striated cliffs. Huge round cacti studded with spines longer than a man's hand grew in clusters around the walls. Above, framed by the ring of reddish cliffs the cloudless sky seemed intensely blue.

"I dislike this place," Beet said. Her voice sounded flat, absorbed by the walls rather than echoing from them.

Balthier felt a prickling sensation on the back of his neck, as though something watched them, unseen. "I share the sentiment," he said. He rested one hand on the butt of his gun, but rather than pulling it out, he slipped the makeshift strap on Fran's spear from his shoulder. "Unwrap this for me, will you?" he asked, handing the spear to Beet.

With the rustle of cloth, she did as he asked. Balthier removed his gun from the holster and held it in one hand, his arm bent at the elbow and the barrel of the gun pointing at the sky. When Beet offered the spear to him, he shook his head in a small, abrupt motion, indicating that she should keep it for now. The pair edged forward, looking all around and ready for attack.

A sudden flurry of sand burst out from the base of a nearby cactus. With a curse, Balthier leapt back, jostling Beet and nearly knocking her from her feet. She staggered, clutching his arm for balance. Balthier steadied his gun and prepared to shoot…then relaxed, easing the cocked hammer of his gun forward until it clicked safely into place. With an angry chirp, a bright green cactuar gestured rudely at them and darted off, ducking out of sight behind a pile of tumbled boulders.

"False alarm," Balthier grumbled and spat into the sand, shoving his gun back into its holster. He looked down at his left arm, where Beet still clung to his sleeve. He cleared his throat. "Ahem."

Beet looked up, her expression almost dazed. "Huh?" Then she looked at her hand and where it was. "Oh." Realization hit. "Oh!" She stepped back, releasing Balthier's arm. The built-up tension released, and she started giggling. "Oh my," she managed, covering her mouth.

Balthier rolled his eyes and sighed, looking at the sky in an exaggerated expression of long-suffering piety. Beside him, Beet's giggles died down into fits of snorts and faint chortles. "I'm sorry," she choked out. "But its face…it was so angry…and then you…" Thinking about the situation apparently set her off again. Laughing, she sank to her knees and wiped at her eyes with the heel of her hand.

Balthier rubbed the back of his neck with one hand, the other hand on his hip. He watched her laugh with a crooked smile of his own. When was the last time you had a good laugh, I wonder? he thought. Not the place I would have chosen for it, but I wager it will do you some good.

When Beet had regained her composure to some degree, Balthier offered his hand to help her up from the ground. She returned the spear to him and brushed sand from her legs. The tension in the small valley had eased, but despite evidence to the contrary in rogue cactuars, the area seemed completely devoid of wildlife. Balthier narrowed his eyes and tightened his grip on the spear's dark shaft, but no other threat presented itself.

Balthier pointed out another gap on the opposite side of the valley, similar to the one they entered through. "That will take us to the Westersand," he said. "If the golem has already tried to cross the Nebra and failed, it is likely that it's on the move. Unless it went north, that is the only available path."

Beet nodded in agreement. "I don't think it would return to the Highwaste. That is where I fought it before, and so I expect that place holds bad memories for it." She crossed her arms and looked at the ground, frowning. "I do not understand what drives it though. If it is merely trying to escape, or if it has a purpose, somewhere it wants to go."

"I suppose we can ask it when we catch up," Balthier said, resting the spear across his shoulder. Beet nodded again, a faint smile playing across her lips for an instant. Then she settled her gear higher on her back and headed for the opening Balthier had indicated. Balthier fell in behind her, but before they left the little valley he paused and looked back, rubbing the back of his neck again. The prickling sensation had returned, even stronger than before.