The Free Trader of Warren Deep (Free Trader Series Book 1) by Craig Martelle Page A

and Skirill could see them. If they fit the description, Braden would climb up and use his knife to hack them down. It wasn’t pretty work.
    They settled on ten branches, cutting the leaves off and sharpening the thick ends so they could more easily be driven into the sand and ground. He wove the bark to make short ropes for tying the pieces together at final assembly. The deer hides didn’t cover as much as he wanted, so he broke down the blanket pack and used the blanket as the main sun screen,. He added the deer hides to the sides, extending the shaded area.
    As the third night after their previous foray into the Desert approached, they departed. They trotted until they reached the heat of the desert, then they slowed to a fast walk. As the air cooled, they picked up the pace. They only took one break, about midnight, and they drank from the casks without drinking to excess. They pushed on to the morning. As twilight revealed more of the desert around them, they looked for a place with an embankment facing northeast, to give them the least exposure to the hottest sunlight. Nothing at first, so they continued.
    As the sun poked over the horizon, bathing the Great Desert in deep reds and vivid browns, Braden started to panic. He didn’t want to push too far into the daylight. Their gains during the night would be quickly lost.
    He settled for an embankment that was only his height, but it faced the right direction. He went to work immediately digging with a wood shovel he had fashioned for just this purpose. It wasn’t near as good as a steel counterpart, but moving sand wasn’t difficult, and he didn’t have a steel shovel.
    Braden drove the main branches into the top of the embankment at an angle to give them more space over their heads. He braced them with branches fashioned for that purpose, then put the blanket and deer hides in place. He dug out as much of the ground as he could under their shelter, letting out the stored cool of the deeper ground. It took Braden a little while to get the horses to lay down. It had been a long daylight followed by a long night. The sun was going to be brutal shortly. But they were finally settled in the shade. Braden used Max as a back rest. Skirill stood on the casks after they all had a good drink. G-War curled to the side away from the horses. He refused to get too close where he could get kicked or stepped on.
    Braden splashed a little water on the horses’ necks to help them calm down. He took a drink from the flask, and then was instantly asleep.

 
    32 – Moment of Truth
     
    Braden awoke with a start. Sweat poured from him. Max breathed heavily. The sun’s heat pressed in on him. He had misjudged the sun’s path and it was now shining on him and Max. Pack, Skirill, and G-War were still in the shade and sleeping peacefully. When Braden stood up to adjust the poles of the shelter, Max stood up, too. The horse clearly understood that it needed to get out of the sun, so it turned and looked for an open space in the shade. As it completed its turn, it bumped one of the shelter supports, knocking it down. The rest of the shelter came down with it.
    Pack panicked and jumped up, throwing branches around, snapping a couple. Braden waded in, grabbing his harness and stroking his nose to calm him down. Skirill was protected against the embankment where the casks were dug halfway in to prevent their accidental overturn. Braden could see his wide eyes in a gap between the deer hides. G-War was nowhere to be seen.
    “G! Are you under there?”
    ‘No.’ Braden looked around, finally spotting G-War on the top of the embankment.
    He lifted the branches and watched as Skirill hopped out. Braden went to the top of the embankment and resunk the poles that made up the roof. He tied a couple together that had been broken.  From the bottom side, he used two support poles to lift the roofing part of the structure into place. He reseated those two poles. Although he worked quickly, with