She capped off the rest of the blood and snapped it to the bandolier.

“Fucking mad,” Ahmed said.

Khatijah started keening.

Nyx didn’t bother pulling the burnous from Eskander’s body. It was a cheap one, not organic, and wouldn’t be saving any of them.

Kage came down the dune, then. When she saw Eskander’s body and Khatijah’s trembling shoulders, she came to a halt. Swayed a little.

Nyx took Eskander’s full bulb from her pocket and tossed it to Kage. Kage didn’t catch it, just let it fall to the sand at her feet. Kage stared at her, unmoving.

“That’s yours,” Nyx said. “Don’t worry. By the time you fall over, we’ll be too far gone for blood.”

Nyx turned away, easily slapping off Khatijah’s weak grab, and went back to Isabet’s body. She didn’t watch to see if Kage drank, or if Ahmed and Khatijah fought over it. Never knew how people would react, about this time. Whatever you did about now could be forgiven.

Nyx heaved Isabet up onto her back again, the coppery aftertaste of the blood still thick in her mouth.

Two down, she thought. Wonder how many more to go?

She slogged. Time passed.

“Can’t see,” Ahmed murmured. His voice sounded distant.

She turned, saw him rubbing at his eyes, blinking, squinting out ahead. She was surprised to see him still walking. She couldn’t see anyone behind him.

“Just desert blindness,” she said. “It’ll pass. Just follow after me. You can hear me, right?”

“I can’t see, Nyx.”

“Just follow after me, Ahmed. Just follow.”

Time stretched. She must have blanked out for a while, because when Nyx glanced up next, she was walking alone, dragging Isabet behind her with her hands looped up under the girl’s armpits.

She paused, swung her head up. Khatijah knelt in the sand not a dozen paces distant, swaying softly. Ahmed’s body made a muddy S-shape in the desert behind her, just an arm’s length away. There was a low wind blowing, and it piled up sand along the edges of their bodies. It wouldn’t take long for the desert to conceal them. Far behind Ahmed, she noted a suggestive black clump at the top of a dune—Kage, long since given up the fight.

Nyx squeezed her eyes shut. Survival, up to a point, was just a mind game. Your body could do more than you thought it could. But when you reached your body’s breaking point, well, it was just that—the end. If she dropped Isabet she might make it another kilometer. It was possible. She could see a break in the dunes now, and just a stroll away the crunchy sand became hard playa again, and she could see the soft, comforting breasts of mountains in the distance. Logic told her she would never make the mountains. Thirst and delirium said otherwise.