Marius stretches his back for a moment, looking down each path as mere formality.  "That way,' he concurs, smiling faintly still-- the gesture looks a little haggard on the dark-eyed face, the boy within the wolf of a man.  The wide, packed-clay path is empty for the moment, but from its condition it's certain they won't be alone on it for long...<br/><br/>Indeed, by the time the cicada-calling heat sets in at miday, they've passed a half-dozen travelers, their backs loaded with rope-webbed packs, their packmules bearing precariously-tied bundles.  They pass by on boots, in bare feet, indicative of the mingled, but distinctively differing, traditions of the coast, where high-walled villas and fortified cities loom over the ocean, thriving nodes for international trade-- then, a half-days walk farther, one could find dust-floored, thatched-roof villages, shunning the cities at the orders of their demigods or in distate for the urban lifestyle.  The next city would take a week to see by foot; Corvis, like a mountain of gray slate over the ocean cliffs, its many temples looking like snow-caps despite the oppressive heat of the Jagged Coast.<br/><br/>Along the way, Marius nods to passing travelers, stops occasionally to make conversation, asking for news, to offer small trades for fishing gear, dried fruit, a wineskin of mead.  Sweat glistening on their skins, they make good time-- Amara is used to the terrain and the traveler's life, and Marius is hardened from ceaseless marches and patrols.  He tells her a little of his experience in the king's army-- very little in the way of details or experiences, but he lists places, cities whose name is reminiscent of children's tales, or of mention in biographies that could be just as easily accepted as fact or myth for a girl from the quiet borderlands.<br/><br/>They've left the scent of the river far behind, but at a rise in the land near a grove of scrub-pine and palmetto, the afternoon breeze suddenly catches their faces, and the two of them are left to stop in their tracks, breathing deep the cool air, exhaling softly in relief.  There's even a tinge of the ocean's salt there in the gentle wind, mingled with woodsmoke and lush forest.<br/><br/>Cooking fires, certainly-- perhaps sign of a village, common on the floodplains where the seasonal river silt made crops thrive, and the occasional rice plantation could still be found.  Marius's long-lashed eyes are closed, his hands gripping the straps of his pack-- he'd removed much of the armor, and traveled in an open-necked shirt not to attract attention, and to minimize the effect of the heat.  At the peak of his shirt where the bronze-colored chest, beneath glistened with sweat, a leather cord hinted, but disappeared.<br/><br/>The wind then carries a soft whistling note, something so far as to be questionably a trick of the breeze, or some animal's cry-- but again, the sound like a peacock's cry, or a woman's-- and there, on the horizon, they can see the column of smoke into the sky, too wide to be a cooking fire, perhaps a mile inland.  Marius looks on, unblinking.  "It's a village," he says softly, angling his face in curiosity.  Clearly, this is no site he enjoys, from the grim set in his mouth-- but not one with which he is unfamiliar.