The next day it was finally time to part from Gidea, (who would be heading back to the palace, cleaning up any messes she encountered along the way of course. News that meant brown trousers time for any nearby bandits.) But before they parted Gidea dragged Mibbet off to one side, requesting Rosalind give them some privacy to talk. (This was achieved by Rosalind singing an annoying and repetitive earworm of a song, that was decidedly impolite, and involved of all things hedgehogs on an endless loop until they were done talking.) “Now I’ve got to know you a little I can trust you with my daughters safety, but a quick thing to note, if you screw up and get my daughter hurt even once I will make it my personal mission as queen of this country to reintroduce frog leg based food throughout this kingdom, and make it the national dish. Meaning every bugger will eat it, do I make myself clear?”

“Crystal” Mibbet replied with a nervous gulp, she had no desire to be the harbinger of the noms based frogapoclypse. Which given that Rosalind was not exactly known for her sense of caution, or sense in general meant she now had a doozy of a mission.

Soon enough they were in trundles and on the road again, and after much debate the little Sqwoomphette was named Bandit, since it was agreed turncoat or sellout were a little too close to the knuckle on this front. (Though really Rascal was extremely lucky they didn’t try eating them, as Sqwoomphettes are ambulatory magical catastrophes on a small scale. So they taste like six week old herring, from a world with purple water, that generates smoke and sings swanee river. In essence magic be weird. Oh not to mention they’d put a road right through you.)

Apparently the next place on the tour was the town of Waterford, which judging from the massive stretch of dust bowl ahead may have been a misnomer, or the drought had hit particularly hard. Either way it did not strike Mibbet as the kind of place with good waterfront views.

The horses were soon tired, luckily water magic helped a little (though Mibbets control was still appalling, so the horses got a drink, a wash, and Trundles got a clean all at once, at unfortunately high pressure. Luckily the hard as nails equines took it all in their stride. Keeping on walking as if nothing had happened while drinking from the water that had now accumulated in their feedbags. Which to be honest couldn’t make hot mash taste any worse, but then again nothing could. That stuff is gross.

It did of course take a little while to get Trundles moving again after that, because dust bowl plus gigantic splat of water at high pressure equals being up to the fetlocks in muddy slop. Which is a bad combo for four horsepower with a wagon wheel based traction setup with no wheel drive, but eventually they got moving again.

At Mibbets insistence given how damned hot it was everybody took a turn in the carriage (except Addy of course, who was happier outside under the burning sun, I guess when you are basically magically solar powered with rock and crystal skin you don’t really have to worry about tans, burns, heatstroke, or (yuk) peeling all that much.)

Errol had held the wool inner pads for his armour under a water spell too for a bit, it would of course mean a lot of polishing later, but in a desert the last things you want to be wearing are a metal suit, or a wooly jumper or equivalent, and poor Errol was wearing both. But any kid who has ever had to wear a jumper made by their nana will tell you, wool that is wet is bloody freezing (and surprisingly nowhere near as itchy as the cheap wool by itself.) So in the end all the extra time spent polishing later would be totally worth it.

Rascal of course was loving the sun, and in the grand tradition of cats everywhere was lounging in the optimum spot to get the most from the heat, in this case on the carriage roof, in what it would be simplest to call anatomically impossible poses, to any creature but a cat. It seems that cats take physics and basic physiology as suggestions, rather than irrevocable law, and actively seek to defy both for their own comfort and amusement. Today they were hanging their entire front end off the carriage roof backwards, while their back end was barely hanging on by the aid of a minor miracle. Once already they had slid off landing in an undignified heap. Looked around as if to say “I totally meant to do that,” and then clambered back up to resume the exact same position all over again.

As they got further out the dust became almost sand like, which was a tad worrying, the maps did not show a desert out this way, which meant this was a recent development. Suddenly manifesting sandy spots are seldom good news. When they were several miles across even less so. Every once in a while they would encounter signs of the place once being grazing land, the occasional skeletal cow was definitely a bit of a hint on that front. Though the dry troughs clearly indicated that had changed of late, (so recently the wood hadn't even warped yet.) Meaning Mibbet had a mystery on her hands. What the hell had happened here?

They were rapidly approaching the town itself, but no closer to answers. It couldn’t just be drought, as grass has a tendency to stick around even when long dead, and the fact this had once been grazing land definitely implied grass. But the dirt round here was as bare as a naturists butt on casual Friday, and looked to have been that way for a little while. Well they would have answers soon enough, as they followed the winding dirt trail past an old school house, and finally set foot in Waterford.