No rise. Not even a turn of the head. Be that way. I drooped too, put one foot ahead of the other, blanked my mind.

They came and got me to take care of Elmos wounded. There were a dozen of them, and that was it for the day. The Rebel had run out of do or die.

Darkness came early under the storm. We went about business as usual. We got a little away from the Rebel, waited for the storm to abate, pitched a camp with fires built of whatever brush could be scrounged. Only this time it was just a brief rest, till the stars came out. They stared down with mockery in their twinkles, saying all our sweat and blood really had no meaning in the long eye of time. Nothing we did would be recalled a thousand years from now.

Such thoughts infected us all. No one had any ideals or glory-lust left. We just wanted to get somewhere, lie down, and forget the war.

The war would not forget us. As soon as he believed the Rebel to be satisfied that we were encamped, the Captain resumed the march, now in a ragged column snaking slowly across moonlighted barrens.

Hours passed and we seemed to get nowhere. The land never changed. I glanced back occasionally, checking the renewed storm Stormbringer was hurling against the Rebel camp. Lightning rippled and flickered in this one. It was more furious than anything they had faced so far.

The shadowed Stair of Tear materialized so slowly that it was there for an hour before I realized it was not a bank of cloud low on the horizon. The stars began to fade and the east to lighten before the land started rising.

The Stair of Tear is a rugged, wild range virtually impassable except for the one steep pass from which the cordillera takes its name. The land rises gradually till it reaches sudden, towering red sandstone bluffs and mesas which stretch either way for hundreds of miles. In the morning sun they looked like the weathered battlements of a giants fortress.

The column wound into a canyon choked with talus, halted while a path was cleared for the wagons. I dragged myself to a bluff top and watched the storm. It was moving our way.

Would we get through before Harden arrived?

The blockage was a fresh fall which covered only a quarter mile of road. Beyond it lay the route traveled by caravans before the war interrupted trade.

I faced the storm again. Harden was making good time. I suppose anger drove him. He was not about to turn loose. We had killed his brother-in-law, and had engineered the Taking of his cousin....

Movement to the west caught my eye. A whole range of ferocious thunderheads was moving toward Harden, rumbling and brawling among themselves. A funnel cloud spun off and streaked toward the sandstorm. The Taken play rough.