At first the country was quite arid, and they followed dusty trails between water courses. They rarely saw other people, once they’d left the city and the crowded coastal strip. They did come across a few abandoned settlements, collapsed houses of mudbrick and straw, the boundaries of fields given up to the dust. The days were hot, the sun high. Uzzia gave Avatak a thick oil to rub into his skin to protect it from the sun’s heat.

When they stopped they made camp in a kind of yurt carried folded up on the back of the mule. The yurt was cramped, uncomfortable. Some nights they preferred to sleep outdoors by the fire, all save Pyxeas. Jamil and Uzzia complained of the cold at night, and woke up in wonder staring at the heavy dew or even ground frost. They had never known such cold, they said, not here. Avatak, though, slept deeply and well, enjoying the kiss of ice on his cheek.

After some days they descended to lower ground, and the nature of the country changed, becoming moister, grassier. This was a country that had evidently been spared the worst of the drought, and they followed trails and a few better-maintained roads through small communities of wary but more or less friendly farmer folk, who grew fruit trees and raised herds of sheep and cattle. At this time of year new lambs clustered around their mothers, cautious of the visitors. Avatak watched them curiously. There were no sheep at all in Northland, and the cattle here were fat, sullen beasts with snow-white hides, nothing like the tall, splendid aurochs, the wild cattle of Northland.

Pyxeas spoke vaguely of great civilisations which had been nurtured in this clement country, watered by tremendous rivers flowing from the north-east. In an arid valley he pointed to the tumbled ruins of what must once have been a mighty stone city, and pale scratches in the dirt that might have been irrigation channels, now dry and dust-choked. The state of the roads showed that civilisation still prospered here, Pyxeas said, the roads were for tax collectors and armies, but nowadays the great centres were far from here. Avatak thought that these old eastern cultures could never have matched the grandeur and antiquity of Northland.

Every few nights Pyxeas had Avatak help him maintain his records. They had a journal where Avatak kept a basic record of the date, the nature of the country, the number of days travelled, and the distance, which Pyxeas estimated, remarkably, by counting the steps of the horses’ hooves. With sun sightings Pyxeas kept track of their direction of travel too.