Jake didn’t doubt it. The Ur had a strange affinity for time, marking it in long and short counts. He remembered his own heightened intuition back at home after his exposure here. The Neanderthal tribes had been living in the shadow of the great temple far longer than anyone else.

“Then why didn’t Mer’uuk send the rest of my clothes?” Pindor picked at his shirt. “Or weapons?”

Bach’uuk licked his dry lips. “Or water.”

Jake shook his head, mystified as usual by the Ur Elder’s ways.

“Well, we can’t just sit here.” Jake pointed toward the rocky pinnacles. “We should make for one of those. At least there’ll be shade. Maybe water, too.”

Jake tossed his backpack over his shoulder.

Marika remained silent, her gaze contemplative.

“What is it?” he asked.

“We’re forgetting something.” She looked at the others, then down to her wrist. “When we were given these bands, five of them were handed out.”

Jake nodded. “To the four of us and to my sister, Kady.”

“Then where is she? Where is your sister?”

Jake appreciated her concern, but he put her fears to rest. “She’s back in my own time.” He remembered Kady’s scream as the mummified grakyl grabbed his arm. Luckily she’d kept away and not been transported with him. “Don’t worry. She’s safe.”

From out of the desert, a girlish cry of terror rang out like a crash of cymbals, echoing from far away.

Okay, maybe not.

7

A PRICKLY SITUATION

Jake sprinted up the highest dune and searched the desert in the direction of the scream. The rolling sands looked like a storm-swept sea. Beyond the dunes, he again noted a strange blurriness to the horizon. But he saw no sign of his sister. As near as he could tell, the cry had come from the direction of the largest rocky peak. The pinnacle was shaped like a giant flat-topped mushroom. They could use that strange landmark to keep them on track.

“Hurry!” Jake said, and took off.

His friends raced behind him.

He bounded down the far side of the dune, half sliding in the loose sand. His fingers clutched the stone he’d picked up earlier. It was his only weapon.

Another scream echoed over to them, more angry than terrified now. Jake knew it had to be Kady.

With the sun beating down, he raced toward the mushroom-shaped rock. As he led the others, he quickly found out it was faster to run between the dunes than up and over them. The valleys offered firmer footing but also forced them to take a zigzagging path. The four of them ran in a line like a snake slithering across the blasted landscape.

Jake made tiny corrections with each cry from his sister. Finally, he skirted around a dune and discovered a bowl of sand ahead, as wide as a soccer field.

Kady danced in the middle. She had shed her pack and held her fencing sword, a wicked length of slender steel called an épée. With one arm balanced behind her and her sword facing forward, she turned in a wary circle. Her face glowed red with exertion; her lips were tight with determination. She maintained that same deadly focus during a difficult fencing match.