In his own vision he saw what he had always seen. But he believed her. He stopped his work and stood still, dazed, seeing all these men, tribesmen, who had come farther and farther from their tents and from safety… that was his first clear thought at the warning, that it was not only a question of his safety, and above that, Hati’s, but of Tofi and all these other men.

But other men had heard the prophet. A panic began in that moment, even among the brave.

It tried to rise in him, the moment he gave it any room. “Hati,” he said. “Spread the word. Then get home.” Home, he said, like a villager fool, when Norit, their beacon, had come out here, so that in all this expanse of tents neither of them knew where that was.

But suddenly he did know. He knew, Norit knew, he thought Hati knew, and he thought strangely enough that, in the heart of all the world, a baby with the makers in her knew where the ones who loved her were standing at this very moment.

“Lelie’s our beacon home,” he said on a hoarse breath, and climbed to the saddle and took the offered rein. “Follow it! Spread the word: the storm’s coming. Get to cover! Now!” He turned and waved and lifted his voice in the loudest shout he could make clear. “Hindmost tents, take in all comers! Spread the word! Spread the word! Get the beshti sheltered! Take in the stranger! Take in your worst enemy! In all the world, there’s only us, and the storm!”

Men began shouting one to another, and what had been methodical work became hasty, then frantic effort, the last tents going up, the last webbing snugged down, the last-arrived wailing about their safety, their relatives, their belongings still without shelter.

Marak rode north, along the face of the camp, shouting at villagers just getting to shelter and at men still working. He heard the warning spreading up and down the rows, and back deep among the farther tents. Take cover, take cover, men shouted, when the night seemed as clear as any morning in the world, and not a breath of wind stirred.

But slowly, from the darkest dark of night, the detail of ropes and irons began to seem clearer, and clearer, and he realized to his horror that the dawn was coming out of the west, not the east.

He looked back toward the cliffs and up, where climbers still labored downward… still they came, with shelter so close, and it was too late.

His voices clamored at him, and it might have been a moment, a heartbeat, the blink of an eye that he stared, but then he laid his quirt to the besha he rode and put the terror at his back.