Ground flattens and my legs bend—I run for the mounds, splashing across the distance the water already subsided into the myriad puddles reflecting the sky as they did when we first arrived. Xupí is their word for ghost, isn’t it? How do I know? How do I know? I’m drawing near, and shots thump into the ground by my feet, a stone chip flaked off by a bullet cuts my cheek—

“It’s me you idiots! Stop shooting!”

I stand in my place holding my head in my hands with my elbows in the air shout my name again and again—the shots have stopped, hands on my shoulders, I am being brought forward. I see Jil Punkinflake’s glowing face, smiles and shakings. So I’m back, I’m safe, self-saved safe.

*

Makemin’s face shifts and then hardens again as I tell him about the skirmishing party, the signs of general withdrawal. He turns from me the next moment orders already shrilling from his slot-like mouth. We march back the way we came, at once. Daybreak is mired in yellow fog, and the sun’s heat does not penetrate the chill rising from the bare black earth of the hills we pass.

Vscriathjadze is too well defended a port to take by sea: the difficult passage into the estuary, impossible by night and slow by day; the city’s defenders have ample time in which to spot and prepare for a seaborne enemy. The port itself is high-walled, and really can only be entered either very slowly or with the assistance of a pilot. Once within the confines of the harbor the enemy ship is vulnerable to fire from above, and so are the troops as they ascend the long steps to the level of the city. Impracticable. But Vscriathjadze is strategically vital as the only proper port on Meqhasset’s southern coast, where troops and supplies can be deposited in any quantity. It is also the island’s only city. So Wacagan set their troops down elsewhere in small groups on strips of empty stone beach and direct them to travel inland. Their Predicate tells them to go to Cuttquisqui, where they may dig in and wait in some security as these smaller bands come together to form a body of soldiers large enough to take Vscriathjadze.

Makemin speculates that the first band, their Predicate being away providing guidance for some other newly-arrived group, misnavigated and overshot the town. They pressed on down the road, ran into us, were routed, and fled; their only hope being to find another group of their own. A Predicate most likely arranged such a rendezvous and it was from this mass of Wacagan troops that the skirmishing group was selected, set to mislead us into remaining in Cuttquisqui. Makemin had hoped to find the enemy remnant there, and finish them.