And some had none. People had come in from the villages using them; and only if they were strong enough and forceful enough, they rode out with them. He knew with all his experience of desperate men that the desperate and the hard would have beasts to ride and the forgiving and the gentle would have no one to defend their rights.

Oburan’s people in the city’s fall had passed through a sieve, through which only one kind survived, and it was not for the better, and it was not for the kindest, except as they had protectors more ruthless as the worst… and the Ila had moved to the fore of the line, being that ruthless. So had he. But the Lakht as it had become was a far finer sieve, a trial from which fools and those led by fools did not emerge at all, and a leader who had too much pity for the few would kill everyone who trusted him. Witness the caravan they had passed, bones, naked bones in the sand, and a leader who should have known his business had miscalled the storm and the proximity of safety. Norit had warned them… and they had used that advantage.

He saw the tribes drawn up along the road, different in proportion of beasts and goods than those caravans of the villages, for the tribes had less, used less, were much the same as each other in weight carried, in every aspect. There were subtle differences in colors and patterns, but all tribal patterns, even the brightest, blended generally with the beasts, with the rocks, with each other, as if the same haze of desert dust lay over them all. The Ila and the aui’it were a splash of scarlet in his company, the priests that had attached themselves a glare of white, and then the rest of the tribes poured in, following their line, more dusty hues half-obscured in dust as the sun sank to leaden death.

As for the villagers, beyond his view, people of every color and every pattern, inexpert with the beshti and a hazard to themselves and others in the high desert, he could only wish they hurried onto the road and kept the pace behind them as best they could. He would not turn back in this deep dusk to see how they fared, what they chose, what they did. So far as they would survive, behind the tribes’ example and advice in front of them, they were on their own.

Hati paced him, riding by him. Norit scarcely bothered. They both knew where she was, back among the rest, and nowhere, drifting in her mind in a dark place, cold, peaceful, remote from them.

Marak, Marak, Marak, the voices said, as if he could be several days’ marches farther on, and they would never be satisfied.

They rode past familiar formations, and on and on. There was no fall of stars tonight. The cloud obscured it.