Stars fell, and multiplied streaks of light across the night sky as they rode through the dunes that night. Some stars vanished beyond the distant wall of the ridge, off the edge of the Lakht. Some sank themselves in cold waves of sand in front of them.

One exploded overhead and left a trail that twisted slowly in the sky.

Marak, Marak, Marak, the voices said constantly, allowing him no rest from warning. Norit rode with Lelie asleep across the saddlebow, and had her eyes shut, listening or seeing visions, but Hati seemed doggedly trying to sleep, head down and arms clenched as she rode.

Over hours, the ridge to the east played out. The sand stretched level as they traveled south. There was the way to the rim, that track they had taken before, avoiding Pori. The night went insane above them, one streak and the next.

East!

The voices suddenly redoubled their efforts, as if the tower had just wakened from sleep and found out where they were.

Marak! East! Now!

Marak bit his lip, and kept going as he had set their course, as he had told the lord of the Keran, who was deaf to voices and blind to visions.

Lelie began to cry, wordless, plagued, perhaps, by prophecy even in her young age.

Norit suddenly reined in her besha and diverted it from the line, obstructing the course of beshti behind them. Tofi and Patya scarcely avoided colliding with her.

Marak rode close and leaned from the saddle, evading the irate snap of the besha’s jaws. He seized the rein and led Norit back, and Norit jerked at the rein and tried to seize control of the beast.

“East,” Norit insisted. “The hammer of heaven. We have to go east.”

“We know it,” Hati said, entirely awake now, and in bad humor. “All of us know it’s coming. But we’re not going east. We haven’t any water. Make Luz understand that. We can’t kill all the villages.”

Lelie kicked and squalled. Patya rode close, far more skilled a rider than Norit, and held out her arms. So also Memnanan’s relatives rode near to offer help, asking what was the matter, while the caravan moved around them, never pausing. Children grew fretful. Families held discussions. It was no one else’s business.

“Give Patya the baby,” Hati said harshly. “Give her to Patya! You’ll drop her if you go on.”

Norit would not. Norit held Lelie and hugged her close, hushing the cries, and the look in her eyes, in the light of a star-streaked heaven, was a hell of fear and desolation.

“It’s not safe.”

“Nothing’s safe,” Marak said. “We’re not safe if half the villages die of thirst.”