Hola and the Unstoppable Journey.

"She was a small girl; thin and rawboned, with short brown hair the color of pine needles. Her eyes were wide and dark brown, the color of tree nuts. She had large hands and feet, but the rest of her was smaller than average.

Except for her breasts, which were large for her age; larger than any other girl in the tribe."

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"I'll be back before sunset!" Hola yelled to her family as she left their tent on the edge of camp. Her two brothers looked up from their chores and waved. They were older than she was, but they ignored her as they always did.

Hola's father was not there to wave goodbye to his eldest daughter. He had ridden off into the desert with his brothers that morning. The girls' aunt was tending goats in the field nearby, and she waved at Hola too.

Hola ran up to the top of a dune and stared down at the tents and wagons of her tribe. They had stopped here because it was hot, sandy ground that would be hard for enemy horses and camels to gallop over without slipping in the sand. Their camp would be easy to defend from an attack if anyone came looking for them during the night.

Hola turned away from camp and took off across the sand at a run, kicking up little clouds of dust behind her as she went. She wasn't worried about getting home before sunset; she knew how fast she could run on a clear day like this one. The fading sun had already begun its long slide down toward the western horizon when Hola stopped running and slowed to a walk instead. She wiped sweat from her forehead with the tunic tied around her waist and looked around for landmarks. She had followed a trail through this part of the desert many times before, but she usually went with someone else or with an adult who knew where they were going. Today she was on her own and didn't have time to waste looking for landmarks that might not even be there anymore because they may have changed since last time she came this way.

A sudden gust of wind blew sand across Hola's path and made it hard to see more than a few paces ahead of her as it swirled around in front of her face like a living thing.. She put both hands over her eyes to protect herself from being blinded by it, then crouched low so that sand couldn't get under her skirt - which seemed like such a good idea at first until she realized that if someone wanted to sneak up on her while she squatted here like this he could knife her easily from behind without being seen or heard!

Shaking off that thought, Hola stood up again and started walking again as quickly as she could through the swirling sandstorm surrounding her, hoping that some landmark would appear soon so that she could stop walking blindfolded in all directions like this...