He chose not to go back. He followed Tain’s tracks, as he thought, and that trail took him back beside the tents, not crossing the line of march yet, but proceeding straight back alongside the encamped tribes.

Among the foremost there had as yet been no detectable movement to resume the march, and none came for a long time. Whatever was proceeding, whether the Haga had recovered the four riderless beshti and had left his mother’s burial to go out hunting on their own, it was early in their noon routine. Tribes behind the Haga in line were still asleep, still unaware what had happened up in the Haga camp.

He knew, too, that if he lost Tain’s track, he might lose more than he had lost. Tain might immediately double forward again to attack Tofi’s camp, and he might be wandering back here; or if he followed too fast, Tain might realize who was on his trail and lie in wait for him.

He expected ambush minute by minute, as he was sure Tain expected him. The dust made shadows of the encamped tents and the resting beshti… themselves a temptation for a man who might want a relief mount; but Tain had not struck here, not yet: beshti disturbed at their rest would not settle so complacently, would alarm their owners and rouse out a camp, and nothing of the like had happened.

Marak, Marak, his voices whispered to him. It came to him they had spoken before and he had not been attentive… nothing had been in his head at all but the necessities and the dangers of the chase. Go back, his voices said to him.

“Go to hell,” he said to Luz. “It’s my mother. Do you understand that? Did you have a mother?”

Marak, the voices whispered.

“Go to hell!” he said, and, on clear trail for a moment between dunes, he diverted Osan into a tribal camp. They were the Rhonandin, allies of the Haga. “Rhonan!” he shouted out, waking the camp, and roused men out from under their sheltering canvas. They came in alarm, clutching swords and pistols.

“My name is Marak Trin,” he said to the Rhonandin. “Marak Trin Tain, to the point. My mother is Kaptai of the Haga, Menditak’s cousin, Tain Trin Tain’s wife, and she’s dead.”

“What do you want of the Rhonandin?” a man in authority asked him.

“Tain’s murdered my mother up in the Haga camp and killed four of them in ambush when they rode after him. I ask you send a messenger to lord Menditak and tell him his men are dead. Tell him I’m on Tain’s trail, to kill him, and I can’t lose it.”

“Montend,” the man named one of his own. “Go to the Haga. Antag, you and your brothers, go with this man.”