I dont know how many wagons and horses our people had when the Walk began, he went on, but by the time I was born there couldnt have been more than a handful of horses left, and perhaps 25 to 30 wagons, so even then we were pulling most of the wagons ourselves---

He smiled sadly to himself.

I was always frightened of the horses when I was a child---I thought they were monsters – dirty and foul-smelling beasts, evil-eyed, skeletal, covered in dripping sores and clouds of flies. But they werent monsters, of course, they were just pitiful, like the rest of us – starved and sick and permanently exhausted---we were all simply struggling to survive. The Deathlands had taken their toll. The land was just so dead and empty, just thousands of miles of nothingness – vast plains of either hard black glassrock or ashes and dust where nothing could grow and virtually nothing could live---no plants, no grass, no trees, just dead forests of blackened stumps. The white heat of the sun burned down all day, and the nights were so cold the ice ate into your bones---it was a miracle that any of us lived through it. But somehow we did. We just kept going, stumbling on in the hope that wede come to another waterhole before we ran out of water---and then, if we were lucky, we could slake our thirst and maybe rest for a little while if the Dau werent too close behind---

He stopped speaking then, peering intently down at the shoreline.

What is it? I said, following his gaze.

I thought I saw something in the mud.

An eel?

I dont know. I just thought I saw something moving.

We both sat there in silence for the next few minutes, staring hard, scanning the black mud for any sign of movement, but there was nothing, not even an air bubble. But as Starry began talking again, we both kept watching, just in case.

Anyway, he said, where was I?

Waterholes, I reminded him.

He nodded. They were few and far between, and most of them were little more than lifeless mudpools with just enough water to keep us alive. There were a few places with good water and some scatterings of life – patches of greenery, leaves growing on blackened shrubs, small animals and birds – but for the most part it was rare to see any other living things at all in the Deathlands---apart from the dogs, of course. The packs of Deathland dogs were always there, always following us. During the day they kept their distance, never coming within rifle range, but at night they were bolder. We had to post guards. Theyd take anything – food, bones, bits of hide and leather, even scraps of wood. And if the brutes could take a sick horse or an unguarded child---

Starry hesitated, as if hede suddenly remembered who – and what – he was talking to.

Sorry, Jeet, he said. I didnt mean —