His grip after that embraced Norit, and kept her across the saddle like a water sack while he reached forward for the rein. It was a feat of skill no villager would match, and it freed them all to run all-out.

No one had bled, no one had died, no blood had encouraged the vermin: distance widened between them and the mob, and when Marak looked back he saw clear sand between them.

He slowed. Far enough in the lead to know they had room, they all slackened to a staying pace, but kept moving. He held Lelie. He had Hati and Norit as safe as any of them.

Norit’s besha meanwhile was long over the horizon, headed breakneck toward the caravan to join the herd it knew. Unrewarded, behind them, the vermin had straggled out, and most would go back to the water. A few might follow the track they inevitably left—less dominant outrunners, more desperately seeking moisture or carrion, or living prey.

They were not out of danger, but they had gotten away from the heart of the mob.

Marak finally became aware of Lelie’s struggles in his arm. He had kept her still, carefully managed his grip to let her breathe, and now he soothed her frightened, wounded sobs and sheltered her in his coat as he had on the ride that brought her.

He thanked the god he doubted that he had had the instinct to doubt his judgment and investigate before bringing the slow caravan with all its weak and helpless all the way to Pori.

But there was no water.

“Hati,” Marak said. “Go. Take the women with you. Warn lord Aigyan. We’ve no choice but to turn toward the rim. Have them turn, don’t camp, and we’ll catch up on your new track.”

“I’ll see you there,” Hati agreed, and called out to the two women and laid on the quirt. She was gone over the roll of the next hill, vanishing in the dust they left.

“I warned you,” Norit said in a brittle voice. The tribesman had gotten her upright.

“That you did,” Marak allowed. He had no wish to take up a quarrel with Luz. He doubted even Luz had known the danger there was at Pori, or Norit could have warned them in far clearer words. The truth was that Luz had not known, had had no idea until now about the mob there. But: East, east, east! the voices urged, as if they had always been right.

He said, he hoped sanely so, and calmly: “Well, we can’t water at Pori; that’s clear. Norit was right: we can’t camp and rest. We need to get all this mass of people as far east as we can. If we’re out of water, we’re out. We’ll do what we can.”

East. Surrender to Luz settled him into a familiar track. He knew the way down the cliffs to the east of Pori, and he knew that the gathering of vermin had just doomed a good number of the caravan to a struggle they might not have the strength to make without rest and water.