“Not a danger to us,” he said, hoping it was the case.

“No,” Norit said. But in only a matter of moments the earth shook itself like a beshti clearing dust. The tents swayed and the beshti bawled their distress. It did so twice more.

The wind had fallen off markedly by then. And as Marak came out of their tent to inspect for damage, a few drops of cold water fell from the leaden clouds. Sheet lightning showed in the distance, to the east, and as Hati came out under the sky, a spit of rain came down and pocked the sand all about them.

Marak gave a desperate laugh.

“What’s funny?” Hati asked him. Worry had settled on Hati like a heavy weight these last days. She looked at him now as if he had become the madman again.

But before he could explain himself, more rain fell, and she took on a strange look and began to laugh and laugh, and laugh. “You’re right,” she said, and laughed again, until Tofi and the freedmen came out to see what was funny. She wiped her eyes with a dusty knuckle. “We’ll drown, next.” She kept laughing.

“What’s funny?” Norit asked next, completely seriously, and he and Hati both set to laughing, which brought a tentative laughter from Tofi and the freedmen, as if they dimly understood the joke.

“We’ll drown or we’ll be eaten,” Hati said, and laughed. Norit simply looked puzzled and troubled.

“There’s a storm coming,” Norit said. “But a small one.” That was from Luz, Marak thought, and he had Tofi move to strike the tent, determined to get the canvas down before it gathered water weight. The Keran were taking those down, and meanwhile one of Memnanan’s messengers had come in, and he went to know what the news was.

“We’ve lost contact with the farthest contingents,” Memnanan said to him, after talking to that man. It was sifting rain, now, a mist as fine as dust. “We’ve heard nothing yet. I hoped this man had ridden back that far, but he didn’t. The weather changed, and he grew uneasy and came to report.”

“It’s possible they’re that far off,” Marak said.

“Or vermin ate them. But vermin aren’t our only worry,” Memnanan said. “There are bandits unaccounted for in all of this. They’ve doubtless picked over Oburan’s bones. If they’re starting now to pick at the column, there’s nothing we can do about it. They’ll scavenge the weak.”