Chapter 11
THE CAMELS FINALLY had names.
Javes’ camel was called Zaylen, which meant “leader” in the old forgotten language of the north. Tali’s camel was Shirra, which was a type of desert flower.
Javes didn’t know if he imagined it, but he felt that both beasts walked taller and more proudly because of it. They often walked side by side now, not tethered to each other, and Javes and Tali would chat about everything. Tali, it turned out, had a gift for lame puns; one that, Javes feared, would get worse once she learned the central dialect, which offered many words suitable for puns.
By now, they had left the worst of the bad weather behind.
Because the telegraph lines were out, Javes never found out whether the storms up north continued, but after a few days of blustery weather with
