Excerpt from 'Agora'.

What turns a leisurely stroll across a countryside, a gentle pilgrimage on the strings of curiosity, a surveyors’ revel, into a desperate battle for survival, a horror? The weather? Hunger? Surely not this far out? Had they been a novice and entirely unable to survive in the open, Tovelyn would’ve turned back after the second week. Now that I’ve considered it, I wonder if my Orc has ever actually been on a hike; one at least that wasn’t a youthful exercise or a military campaign or a scouting mission or a marooned inconvenience – anything at all without bloated corpses in it. I wondered what he’ll come supplied with. You can tell a lot about a man by what he forgets to bring on a survivalist weekend. Some die for having brought but a pen, a knife and pride, some under a mountain of dumb luggage.

       Thunder rumbled down with wind: I realized now why these dark thoughts kept tapping me on the shoulder. It was going to be a little less fun getting caught in a rainstorm here than it would have been in the world where I cot most comfortable: the playful woods, each tree a probable shelter. One option was hope for the storm to pass, pushing through it without pause. The other was being pessimistic and assuming it will last much longer than one’s nimble feet. In a terrain like this, in heavy rain, it is almost impossible to set up camp and get some rest in it. I had no canvas for tent but my jacket and Araby will sog and droop once it gets wet, embalming me like in a grave. The rain will drive a novice crazy.

       I opted for camp. Two days till rendezvous. If I get enough rest and apply another layer of vax to my shoes, I will be able to walk for the next two days and the night in a downpour. Fail-proof strategy. Nothing to lead towards pneumonia at all.

       It’s easier if it’s two people; easier at least to build with two long coats. I didn’t have half that and there is no wood to speak of that low down. Making a stand against the elements was problematic. I opted for a small natural basin, a pit more like, which would have me, knowing full well chances were it will serve the field as a drain and flood eventually. Best I could find of the shrubs without thorns, I made for a mattress, generously padding my little nest with rosemary and some kind of seablite, licking the back of my palm first and rubbing broken bits of the leaves into my skin, just in case the thing turned out to be poisonous. The few rocks I found, white and edgy, white limestone overgrown with lichen, I lined onto the edge of Araby, which then I pulled over, making a lid over the pretty shallow tomb.