He began searching for a swarm. He felt something stir beneath his feet. Something large. Not at all the type of thing he wanted to wake up and try to control. But it was there, waiting. A few others clung to the edges of his awareness—fire ants, scarabs, and wilder things, bugs he had no names for but the impressions and scents they used to differentiate themselves from one another.

“I’m employed by a man named Hanife,” Rhys said. He knew they had not come for that. Knew they did not care for that. But he had to say it anyway, to everyone he encountered. If the man was as Payam said he was, he would be loved or despised in equal measure. Best to play a bet on finding the man’s allies. “He lives north of here. I was separated from my caravan during… a sandstorm.”

But the women were unmoved. They stayed still for so long that Rhys wondered if they were truly live things, or a hallucination. He passed his hand in front of his eyes, but the women remained rooted to the spot. Watching.

“I’ve done nothing wrong,” he said. “I just needed water.”

The woman nearest him said, in Khairian, “We have come to collect blood debt for Circle Bavaja.”

“I’m sorry,” Rhys said. “I have no idea what you mean.”

“You have defiled one of ours,” the woman nearest him said. She was fleshy in the face, soft compared to her taut, lanky body. “You have fed a body to the sand that was not yours to take. We have come to claim vengeance.”

Rhys took a deep breath. He flexed his hands, preparing to draw his pistols.

“There has been a mistake,” Rhys said. “It was an accident.”

“It is not an accident to spill blood. Vengeance must be taken. We are the avengers of the blood.”

They moved toward him like a desert wind over hard stone—fast and fierce.

He drew his pistols. He was a fast draw, and a good shot. But he got off only one round. In the next breath, one of the women had his wrist twisted behind him. His pistol was on the ground, and pain screamed up his arm. He fell to his knees and lost his grip on the other pistol. She released him. He let out his breath and shook the pain from his twisted arm.

The women made a circle around him. The fleshy one said, “Your blood debt will be paid, stranger.”

“I have nothing to give you,” he said.

“You lie about that,” she said. “There is always your blood.”

“The bodies of our kin lie ten days back at the Rovanish water cairn where you slew them as we came to reclaim that which is ours. Now we have come to collect blood debt for your crime.”

“Who are you?” he asked.