In moments, the three were gathered together, huddled around Cheney, who had been sleeping under the AV. The others had crowded into the open doorway, watching anxiously. “Panther, I don’t think you should do this!” Owl shouted at him through the rush of wind. “Don’t go out there alone! Wait for help!”

“Can’t do that!” the boy shouted back, racking the slide on the spray. “Might not be time! Not if it’s that

. . .” He didn’t finish, bending down to Cheney, whispering to him, holding Hawk’s leather gloves under the big dog’s nose and then leading him over to where Hawk had walked past earlier.

“Track, Cheney!” he ordered.

Cheney seemed to know what was needed, setting off at once into the haze. “Send help if you can find it!” Panther called back over his shoulder, and disappeared with Bear and Sparrow after the dog. Owl shut the AV’s door and sat back. Candle huddled down in the seat next to her, staring, her instincts still as sharp and jagged as broken glass. Nothing felt right. Panther and the others weren’t going to be enough. She could sense it already. They weren’t strong enough, even with their weapons. Seconds later she leapt up, threw open the door, and jumped from the vehicle once more, shouting to Owl that she would be back, that she was going for help.

She already knew where she would find it.

TWENTY-NINE

THE WORLDwas a seething cauldron of heat, wind, and dust, the whole of the visible landscape enveloped in an impenetrable haze. Hawk pushed through it as if it were quicksand threatening to suck him down and swallow him, fighting to keep Tessa in view. For the most part, he could not do so, only catching sudden glimpses of her as she appeared and then faded ahead of him. Each time he thought he was closing the gap between them she would disappear once more, and when he found her again she would still be far ahead.

Tessa!

He called to her silently, knowing that it was pointless to call aloud in this wind. For a second it seemed she had heard, half turning back. Then she was gone again into the haze. He could not understand what she was doing, why she had left the safety of the caravan to come out into the flats. Tessa did not take chances without a reason, and it was inconceivable that she would do so now, carrying the baby. He could not think of anything that would have persuaded her to put herself and their child at risk this way; it made him both uncertain and afraid for her. That there was something very wrong was undeniable, and his fear of what that might be drove him on even when his common sense warned him that he was being reckless.