“The wind is coming,” Hati said, with a twitch of her shoulders, and at last Marak put a name to what had been prickling at his senses all day.

Wind. Weather-sense had served him once before in the campaign on the Lakht. He had refused to lead his men out on a certain day. The enemy, the Ila’s men, had perished.

It was like that now.

“How soon?” he asked Hati, and Hati shrugged.

“A day, perhaps as much as two. Sunset may show it.”

He had not spoken much to Obidhen. The master and his sons, the freedmen and the slaves, all kept to their own company, ruling over separate tents, riding together, the freedmen riding last, to be sure no one fell behind unnoticed. They doled out water and supplies to him for his tent without much converse. They were not pleased today: the bitter well they hoped to find for the beasts’ use had failed them.

He decided he should say something to the caravan master, a warning, however Obidhen might receive it. “I have a bad feeling about the weather,” was the only shape he could put to it. “So does the an’i Keran.”

They rested. And toward the evening, when they ordinarily should ride out again, Obidhen called out to his sons and his helpers:

“Drive in the deep-stakes.”

Then, walking over to Marak with his hands tucked in his belt-band, he said, “I agree. There will come a blow. We won’t budge tonight.”

“So,” Marak said. “We understand.”

There were expressions of relief throughout his tent when they heard the news, and that relief pervaded the camp, tent to tent. The nameless fear had taken a shape, and he heard others claim they felt bad weather, even vying with one another as to how early they had known. The subterfuges they had used, the lies they had told, the discipline they had exerted not to betray their affliction were all cast away. They had begun to compete with one another in their madness. The desert was the collective enemy, and their inner demons had become guides, protectors, allies.

The slaves had the deep-stakes out, and more cordage, and Marak turned the men out to help sort cordage as the caravan master’s son and the slaves drove the long anchoring stakes down and down into the sand. They anchored to them with more cord, and ran cordage up and over the canvas with laced hitches, so that when the wind blew there would be a good webwork of rope to hold the canvas from tearing. The sun lowered in fire, a glow all along the west: Hati was right.

Last, they unbundled the side flaps and lashed them into place along the sides of the tent, ready to unfurl when the wind came, as come it would.

This will be one to remember, some said, in their new weather-wisdom.