By then the rain had stopped, but a nearby pan had become a pool of water, safe, at least, for the beshti; and the tents went up with the lighter stakes this time, a quicker job.

Hati offered him a drink of sweet water, and he drank, and slept—and waked in the enclosed dark of the tent as the earth shook.

The baby born in the storm—Memnanan’s son—let out an infant cry of disturbance. That point of awareness was active. Then the Ila waked, elsewhere. Hati and Norit were much closer.

Thunder rumbled. The whole world felt strange, the air choked and thick with damp.

Marak rubbed his ears, rubbed his eyes, decided he could sit up, and did. Hati set her hand on his arm.

He moved that arm, embraced her shoulder, drew her close. They sat that way a while, one leaning on the other. Norit slept with Lelie across her lap.

He felt exhausted, drained of all the strength he had ever had.

Marak, Marak, Marak, the voices said. Luz said. Or whatever it was that droned on that way. The world had reached a sort of exhausted peace. He saw Norit wake, and he put out a hand and caressed Norit’s knee without resistance. Norit set her hand on his, looked at him, for the most part sane.

They rested that way until the light crept back, slowly, sullenly.

He decided finally that it was morning enough, and that today he would get on his feet and get into the saddle again.

It took two tries to get on his feet. Hati braced herself and pulled and he made it up, and walked, and passed the tent flap to the outside, into what passed for a dawn.

The air was cold, bitter cold. The sand was wet. He wrapped his coat about him, and saw others stirring out of their tents. He walked past the edge of the tent and looked around the camp, all around, seeing tents as far as he could see. After the wind that had blown over them, after seeing the scoured bone that had landed at the edge of the Ila’s tent, he had feared far worse was the case. Beshti, some of them, bore cuts and gashes. Some were burned over part of their skin, the hair simply gone. They were a sad-looking lot, and some might have died.

Tofi came out of the tent. Patya did. “You’re all right,” Patya said.

“Well enough,” Marak said, and heard the voices to distraction: Luz was nagging him. Luz wanted something that did not involve the east, rather north. North. Not far.