But east and down was increasingly the only choice that would serve. If calamity was coming as a star-fall, then surely, he said to himself, it would be something the like of which they had accompanying the lesser star-fall. They had their forewarning in that: it would be quake and wind and blowing sand, ten times, a hundred times worse than before. And that, unlike the Ila, could not change.

He gathered up his wits and his courage for confrontation and went to Memnanan instead, who rode behind the Ila’s servants.

“Pori’s lost to us,” he said.

“So I gather,” Memnanan said.

“The Ila knows?”

“She knows.”

“Quake and storm are coming,” he said plainly, “worse than we’ve ever seen. And it’s coming soon. This next camp of ours will be only a short rest, with no stakes driven. After that…” He felt his way onto quaking ground, with a man he had generally trusted, who had trusted him, more to the point, and who had the Ila’s ear. “After that, and it’s not far from here, we go down the climb off the Lakht, and we try to get as many as we can alive to the bottom.”

“Is there any spring at the bottom? Is there anything near the cliffs?”

“Not that I know. But we do what we can. We get down off the edge, and we immediately get the deep stakes driven, and we trust the cliffs to shelter us.” He wanted to ask, and saw no course but to ask. “Pori was completely infested. Did the Ila already know that?”

Hati, to his dismay, had followed him. Now both of them rode beside the captain, one on a side, and the au’it trailed them at a distance, as she always had.

Memnanan had a grave, a worried expression, and did not look quite at him or at Hati. And failed to answer.

“You don’t need a report,” Marak challenged him. “Why don’t you need one? Why don’t you ask? Isn’t she taking advice?”

“The Ila said let you try what you could, and if you couldn’t, or if you didn’t come back, then we would go down to the lowlands without you.” Memnanan did look at him then. “She believes in your calamity. She expects a storm. She doubted Pori would be enough shelter.” Memnanan seemed to weigh saying something further, then did. “She thinks most will die, and if anyone will live, we have to assume most will die.”