‘Enough with the damned horse-dung, Sergeant,’ snapped Ranal. ‘They’re there because they were late getting out of the oasis. Likely too busy looting the palace to notice that Sha’ik had been skewered, the Dogslayers were dead and everyone else was bugging out as fast as their scrawny horses could take ‘em.’ He glared at Fiddler. ‘I want their heads, you grey-whiskered fossil.’

‘We’ll catch them sooner or later, sir,’ Fiddler said. ‘Better with the whole company—’

‘Then get off that saddle and sit your backside down here on this road, Sergeant! Leave the fighting to the rest of us! The rest of you, follow me!’

Ranal kicked his lathered horse into a gallop.

With a weary gesture, Fiddler waved the marines on, then followed on his own bucking mare.

‘Got a pinched nerve,’ Koryk called out as he cantered past.

‘Who, my horse or the lieutenant?’

The Seti grinned back. ‘Your horse ... naturally. Doesn’t like all that weight, Fid.’

Fiddler reached back and readjusted the heavy pack and the assembled lobber crossbow. ‘I’ll pinch her damned nerve,’ he muttered. ‘Just you wait.’

It was past midday. Almost seven bells since the Adjunct cut down Sha’ik. Fiddler found himself glancing again and again to the north – to Raraku, where the song still rushed out to embrace him, only to fall away, then roll forward once more. The far horizon beyond that vast basin of sand, he now saw, now held up a bank of white clouds.

Now that don’t look right. . .

Sand-filled wind gusted suddenly into his face.

‘They’ve left the road!’ Ranal shouted.

Fiddler squinted westward. The riders had indeed plunged down the south bank, were cutting out diagonally – straight for a fast-approaching sandstorm. Gods, not another sandstorm ... This one, he knew, was natural. The kind that plagued this desert, springing up like a capricious demon to rage a wild, cavorting path for a bell or two, before vanishing as swiftly as it had first appeared.

He rose up on his saddle. ‘Lieutenant! They’re going to ride into it! Use it as cover! We’d better not—’

‘Flap that tongue at me one more time, Sergeant, and I’ll tear it out! You hear me?’

Fiddler subsided. ‘Aye, sir.’

‘Full pursuit, soldiers!’ Ranal barked. ‘That storm’ll slow them!’

Oh, it will slow them, all right...

Gesler glared into the blinding desert. ‘Now who,’ he wondered under his breath, ‘are they?’

They had drawn to halt when it became obvious that the four strange riders were closing fast on an intercept course. Long-bladed white swords flashing over their heads. Bizarre, gleaming white armour. White horses. White everything.

‘They’re none too pleased with us,’ Stormy rumbled, running his fingers through his beard.

‘That’s fine,’ Gesler growled, ‘but they ain’t renegades, are they?’

‘Sha’ik’s? Who knows? Probably not, but even so ...’

The sergeant nodded. ‘Sands, get up here.’

‘I am,’ the sapper snapped.