Truly it was not like a storm but like some sort of mad shrieking wind monster that tried for hours to tear the covers from us. It went on and on and I began to imagine I heard voices calling to me, begging me, cursing me. Incredibly, I slept for a time. I dreamed the H’rayka was the storm, harrying and attacking, but Gahltha and Maruman were flanking me in spirit-form and they fought the mindless beast, driving it back.

I woke to silence or maybe it was the silence that woke me. I felt a moment of panic at the weight on my chest but it was only cloth lying over me in folds weighed down with sand. The silence meant the storm was ended, and when I fought my way free of the blanket I was shocked to see the night sky arcing above, filled with stars. Was it possible that a whole day had been devoured by the storm? Or was it that we had all fallen into such a stunned sleep that we had not noticed when the storm ended?

That there was no moon meant that it was early in the night, I thought, as I stood up. I felt dizzy. My tongue was a wad of dried cloth in my mouth and I could feel sand between my teeth, in the corners of my eyes and clogging my nostrils and ears. Belatedly I realised with a sinking feeling that the bitter little ball Dameon had given me was no longer lodged in my cheek. I fervently hoped that I had not swallowed it.

‘Elspeth?’ It was Dameon and I helped him out of his sandy chrysalis.

‘I am … sorry,’ he rasped, after trying and failing to stand.

‘Just rest for a bit and then we will wake the others. I just want to go up to the top of the dune and see if I can reach Ahmedri or Rasial.’

‘Be careful,’ he said.

I laughed despite everything. ‘Dear Dameon, I doubt anything could be more dreadful than the great storm beast that tried to devour us!’

I floundered up the side of the dune. Once again the desert stretched pale and tranquilly undulant on all sides, showing no evidence of the fury unleashed upon it the day before.

I tried to locate Ahmedri first, and then Rasial, but to no avail in either case. On impulse, I tried the wolves, too, though I knew I would not be able to reach Rheagor’s mind unless he was seeking mine. Of course I failed, but it might only mean that all of them were lying at the bottom of dunes where my probe would not reach.