Throughout the night the villages camped around the ruin would still be setting themselves on the road. Perhaps into morning, the halt would ripple down the column to those just setting out. They had thought they would make better time than they had on the way back, with lightly laden beasts, but with the incidents on the road, it turned out they had not. Now by no means would they set any greater pace on this trip, with the beasts as laden as they were, burdened most of all with shelter and with water. The slow pace was unintended mercy for those afoot. It was danger to the rest of them, and still the hindmost might not survive… but they would have a trail to follow, the more they straggled. They would have it until the wind blew and erased the slate and buried the bitter wells too deeply to dig out.

Marak slept, rocked by Osan’s motion, safe in Hati’s company. At times she slept, and he stayed awake, both of them exhausted.

Past the mid of the night, Memnanan came forward.

’The Ila asks when we will take a major rest,“ Memnanan said. ”I think I know your answer. But these people are unaccustomed to riding.“

“At noon,” he said. “Granted no delays. Tell her I regret the discomfort, but this is to save her life. Twenty and thirty tomorrows will have no more pleasant answer.”

Memnanan rode back to tell her so.

How the Ila had received it he was not sure, but Norit came forward then, and rode with them a while, and slept in the saddle: Norit had finally learned to do that in their travels… had learned her balance, and how to brace herself, and rested as secure as a woman of the tribes.

The falling object hit the sphere, again and again and again. The lake of fire flowed down over the rocks like a spring let loose.

Norit waked, and said nothing to either of them.

When the sun came up, a gathering light along the line of the Qarain, Marak rode up the line a little. Hati paced him as he rode past their column, not pressing the beshti for any speed, but gaining, slowly, slowly, comfortably, as riders moved within the column. They entered the Haga column.