Sea of Death

Chapter 19

Wind whistled and moaned through the old stones, roofs and towers, domes and turrets that stuck up from the ashes and dust like broken teeth and bones. It was not a strong wind, nor was it cruel. It sprayed only fine powder in its gusts, and the dust devils it sent among the deserted structures were small and playful. The movement of air was actually kind, for it cooled the dark stuff of this waste, material that baked under the merciless sun every day to become as hot as a griddle.

It had been three hours since sunset, and roughly the same length of time since the last of the escaped slaves stepped tentatively through the doorway out onto the Ashen Desert. The heat of the air and ground was below human body temperature, barely. It would drop much faster soon, and then the heat of the day might be longed for… almost.

"It is so bright here!" said a woman standing near Gord as she shielded her eyes from the full moons of Midsummer. She was a human, and thus should not have had light-sensitive eyes, but her long captivity underground had changed that.

"Remember the sun, Falina?" said the man next to her. "In a few hours it will soar in the sky above, and then we will know real brightness. I only hope that we can again become accustomed to normal light before too long, for we have a long way to travel."

Gord watched the man lead the woman away, heading for a cluster of other humans who all meant to take a northwesterly route away from this place. When everyone reached the surface, they celebrated, but only briefly. They had escaped their subterranean prison, but there was still the desert to contend with, and none of them could claim to be truly free until they had reached their homelands again, or at least made it to a place where they could resume normal lives.

How many former slaves had died? Gord could only guess, but the toll was certainly in the hundreds. This estimation saddened him. but then he recalled the essence of the words of one of the slaves he had personally helped to free: Better a death killing the pygmies than enslavement and eventual slaughter as a source of food for the little cannibals. The inhabitants of the underground cyst beneath the City Out of Mind would long remember this incident, he thought with a smile of grim satisfaction. He figured that the slaves, the drow, and the rest must have done for around a thousand of them — and at least as many more of their degenerate hounds, the mute baboons that must once have been the soldiers and slaves of the shrunken descendants of Suel.

Gord saw Dohojar moving toward him from the side, and turned to face the smiling, brown-skinned man just as he spoke. The gwahasti are ready to set out, Gord Zehaab." The man referred to the lizards by the name they were known by among his people, the tribesmen of Changar.

"I guess I'm ready, too, Donojar. How are the others doing?"

"Some have already set off, heading for the north and west. I think the rest will be going their own ways soon."

"Aren't you going west yourself? You said that's where your home lies."

"How can I see the wonders of the unknown east, Zehaab, if I run for my village like a peasant?"

Dohojar replied, his smile widening. "If you do not mind, I will make the long journey eastward with you."

Gord shrugged. "As you wish, Dohojar. I warn you, though — to accompany me could mean your death. Probably will, in fact."

Now it was Dohojar's turn to shrug. "Who can dispute with fate, Gord Zehaab? What is written will be. Poor Dohojar merely follows the course laid down for him."

"Liar! You steer your own way, and that's a fact," Gord said to him with a clasp of the man's shoulder to accent the statement. "You owe me nothing! Don't risk your newly won chance for liberty and life by coming with me because you feel obligated, Dohojar. I got here fine, and I'll leave and get where I'm heading the same way."

"I do not question that, Zehaab. I have as much faith in you as you have in yourself, and I wish to accompany you for my sake, not for yours." Dohojar finished this statement with another grin. Gord couldn't tell if he was speaking the whole truth or not — but after all, he thought, it doesn't really matter either way.

"Bah! You're hopeless," Gord said to the smiling fellow. "But if you are determined to follow me, you might as well make yourself useful. Bring the lizards — the gwahasti, I mean. We should be on our way quickly." One of the last decisions that Gord made as leader of the group concerned the animals he had found caged inside the tower. He decreed that the surviving officers should get first choice in the disposition of the lizards, and most of the lieutenants and Serjeants had eagerly staked their claims. Many others in the group actually preferred to set out on foot, mostly because they were afraid of the animals, or unfamiliar with them, and did not want to have to use some of their food and water to keep a lizard alive. As a result, there were more than enough of the creatures to go around.

"On our way, Gord Zehaab, yes. I hurry now to bring our mounts," the mahogany-hued man said with a little bow.

Left to his own thoughts again, Gord had one last chance to survey the area and reflect upon where he had just been. What a place, he thought to himself. As it turned out, the City Out of Mind was only half buried by dust and ash. Its bones thrust up stark and weathered from the desert around, a reminder that glory is fleeting indeed. Judging from the extent of the ruins and the size of the structures, the metropolis must have been the largest ever known. The young adventurer supposed that it must have housed a million people once. Now it sheltered a fraction of that number — degenerate pygmy descendants of its builders — in a subterranean portion of itself. "And they exist in that darkness and disgusting condition by choice…" he mused aloud.

"Who do, cap'n?"

"Oy! Barrel, you gave me a start. What are you doing sneaking around like that?"

The ugly man smiled good-naturedly. "Guess I just move sort of quietly, sir," he replied with ill-concealed pride at not having been heard by the redoubtable Gord, even though the burly fellow knew his captain had been lost in thought. "The others will be here in a jigger."

"Jigger? What do you mean? What others?"

"Oh, Dohojar, Shade, Delver the dwarf, and a couple of the others."

"Just a damned minute now," Gord said with some heat. "I didn't invite a party to come along with me, and I'm not going to play nursemaid to a bunch of… of… you know what I mean!"

Dohojar had approached Gord again during this brief conversation and overheard his last remark. The small Changa smiled, bowed, and hastened to reassure the young thief. "Oh, no, Zehaab. We are only going along in your direction. You need not fear, for soon we will undoubtedly veer off on another course. And meanwhile, you must not concern yourself with such insignificant ones as we."

Gord could not help but be impressed with the desire of these men to travel with him, regardless of what their true motivation might be. "Stop chattering," he said to hide his appreciation and embarrassment, "and bring me my liz- gwahasti. You'll have me out here talking all night at this rate."

Barrel nodded to Dohojar. "You heard the cap'n! I thought you were bringing them lizards a long time ago!" The ugly fellow winked at Gord as he emphasized the word, inferring that Gord had no need to use the Changar term for such beasts if he didn't like, or couldn't remember, such a strange and foreign term.

Within the next couple of minutes, a small group of men gathered around Gord, all of them familiar faces. They were six in number, but were leading a group of ten of the strange, paddle-footed lizards. Gord frowned and was about to demand an explanation for the excess of mounts when Post and Smoker stepped up and coughed to get the young thief s attention. It was Post who spoke.

"No sense in mincing words. Captain Gord. You don't like me much, and I had no love for you. That's changed — on my part, anyway. You brought us out of that mess below in a way I never would have expected, and risked yourself plenty in the process. You are all right, and I was wrong. That said, I decided that I'd like to throw in with you a bit more, and I talked Smoker into joining me. We'll pull our own weight and get out when you say so." The others all nodded and voiced their assent to this last statement. Gord looked into their eyes, one after the other beginning with Post, and saw nothing but sincerity in each return gaze.

"No harm in us setting out together," he said solemnly, "but if you stay with me I hope you realize what you may be getting yourselves into. And now, will someone explain to me why we need these extra lizards?"

Smoker replied. "We have a long way to go, and though we don't know much about what you must do, we know that your mission is important and dangerous. The extra beasts are carrying all the food and water we could heap upon them, and they will serve as mounts in case we lose a creature or two in the wastes."

Obviously, these men had thought things out well, and had prepared for a large expedition even before they knew for sure that Gord wanted company. He didn't want to get close to them, but Gord could not entirely suppress the affinity he was beginning to feel for this ragtag bunch.

"I give up," he said warmly. "It seems that the lot of you are determined to lead your leader no matter what he may want to do. Dohojar, show me how the dancing devils these beasts are controlled, and then I'm riding. The rest of you can come if you can keep up with me!"

"Yes, Gord Zehaab. First you must put on your leggings and robe — they are of gwahasti hide, you know, very useful, like the hood and mask you must also wear. The storms are terrible out there, you can be assured." Despite Gord's protests and fidgeting, the Changa helped him to don the leather garb, complete with strange face mask. Dohojar was smiling as usual as he did this, but Gord thought he detected a trace of slyness in this grin, as though the dark-skinned man knew some things he wasn't talking about.

"Now you look a proper gwahastoo!" Dohojar said after Gord was fully outfitted. The young thief sprang up and landed on the back of his mount, and at this the others in the group did the same. "Nothing to the rest, Zehaab, nothing at all," continued the Changa. "See how the hooks on the reins fit into the holes on either side of this big beast's jaw? Tug, and it turns one way or the other — or it stops if you pull on both reins at once.

"This is your angwas," said Dohojar, indicating a wooden pole with a thorn lashed to its end that was stored in a sleeve on the side of the saddle. "To make a gwahasti run fast, you just poke it with this thing at the dark place you see behind its skull. Don't bother to try anyplace else, I tell you now, for the thick scales of these brutes allow the gwahasti to laugh at such pinpricks."

"I know all I need to know," said Gord. "Let's be off, so we can cover some ground before the sun comes up and cooks us inside these leather prisons!" Dohojar had more he wanted to say, but happily deferred to his leader's desires, and the group headed east.

The lizards traveled slowly at night, no faster than a man might trot, and a slow trot at that. Still, Gord thought, it was faster than walking. The reptiles' feet weren't webbed, as was the case with others of their ilk that Gord had seen. Instead, their feet looked as if what once had been normal extremities had been thickened and cooked in the desert, so that now these members were hard, spongy-looking, and platterlike — much like dust-walkers, in the way they allowed the beasts to traverse the dust and ash without sinking in too far.

Sunrise, from their vantage point on the high plateau they rode across, was a spectacular sight — especially to the six of them who had not viewed such a scene for a long, long time. Even more fascinating to Gord was what happened to the dark, sooty hide of the creature he rode as the sun's rays struck it. As he watched, the reptile's scales gradually turned from black to dark gray. Then they seemed to stand up slightly from its skin, and as this occurred the dark gray turned to a dull metallic color.

This was unusual enough, but then Gord happened to glance down at his own arm, and found that the garment he wore was also of the same metallic luster! Last night when he put it on, it had been as dark as the lizards around him. He understood that the lighter color reflected heat more readily, so that this characteristic of gwahasti hide offered some protection for him and his mount from the ravages of the desert sun.

"Now I can see why the pygmy folk cultivate these beasts for riding and dress," he remarked to Dohojar, who was traveling alongside him.

"No, no, Gord Zehaab," Dohojar said politely. "The little white cannibals got the idea from Changar — even though the Jahindi claim they were the first to use gwahasti. In fact, these beasts were those maintained by the pygmies for use by traders from both Changar and Jahind. You see, Zehaab-"

Gord interrupted him with a smile and a wave. "Enough said, little man." Dohojar fell silent, wearing his everpresent smile, and Gord concentrated on riding. The saddle strapped to the lizard was small for him and not too comfortable. It made him feel insecure, especially now that the creature was picking up its pace. The sun felt hot, even inside the leather robe that reflected most of its rays. Yet the warmer it grew, the faster the gwahasti ran. By mid-morning the beast was speeding along like the wind, seemingly tireless and willing to run forever.

Of course, the huge reptiles had no such ability — as Gord abruptly found out some time later. He was actually beginning to feel relaxed atop the beast, despite its speed, when all of a sudden the lizard stopped dead in its tracks. Gord went sailing over his mount's saurian snout and sprawled ungracefully in the dust. As the young adventurer floundered around in the powder, sending a billowing cloud of it into the breeze, and tried to wade back to where the big lizard stood like a statue, peals of laughter resounded from the others, who were all still astride their stationary mounts.

"What's so friggin' funny?" he demanded from behind his mask. Even to Gord the angry statement sounded muffled and ridiculous. He jerked the leather face covering off, and another little cloud of the powdery stuff floated away in the wind. Spitting and wiping dust from himself, Gord looked around at all the others. All were dismounting now, and Post was assiduously concentrating on unloading one of the lizards carrying their extra gear and provisions. Smoker was there too, his back to Gord. Both men's shoulders were moving as if they were laughing. Delver Oldcavern was doing his best to help Barrel unload another of the pack reptiles.

"It is time for the gwahasti to hunt, Zehaab," Dohojar said with an expressionless face. "Was not the Zehaab aware of that, perhaps?"

"No, confound you! Is that why the blasted lizard stopped and pitched me off?"

Somehow, for once, the Changa managed to keep his face absolutely bland. "Before we set out last night, I told all the others that as the sun reached its zenith, and the scales of the gwahasti grew silvery, then they must be prepared for the beasts to halt. But you, Gord Zehaab, told me that you had heard all you needed to know, so I did not disturb you by sharing knowledge that you already had."

Gord squinted at the fellow, but there wasn't a hint of mirth in the plain, brown face. Still, it was very difficult to tell if the little man was actually being serious, for he customarily made very earnest statements while grinning from ear to ear. Gord was confused and more than a little embarrassed. If he had been the object of a prank, then so be it. Let them have their fun now, for things would certainly get worse before they got better.

"It appears, Dohojar, that what I had heard about these lizards was not complete or accurate," Gord lied. "So tell me, what do we do during this rest period?"

The Changa's face broke out in a big smile again; now they had each had their little joke. "It is not all rest, oh no, Zehaab," he said. "The gwahasti must be allowed to run free and hunt. When they have fed, they will come back and sleep for a time. Then we ride on."

The others were already busy pitching a sort of tent, a lean-to affair set so that it kept the wind from them. The fabric was of the same lizard skin as their garments, and it gleamed with a silvery light now as the stuff reflected the rays of the burning sun. Were there observers within miles, Gord thought, their garments and tents would be beacons. But observers were most unlikely — at least ones able to reason. Gord assumed it quite unlikely that there would be creatures who sought the giant lizards as prey, not with the beasts' speed and teeth. Not even the biggest of dustfish would care to tangle with a pack of gwahasti, although the reptiles might hunt the dustfish.

"What do the gwahasti eat, Dohojar?"

"Anything they can catch," the Changa replied with his white-toothed smile. "The beasts like big insects, though, like the ants and beetles of this place. No matter what they find, they come back afterwards to get the salty water we have for them. That's why they return quickly."

"Would they eat us?"

"Never, Zehaab — as long as we wear these lizard garments, anyway. If we had no such clothing on, the stupid things would then think us to be food, and we would be in trouble."

Gord had been about to strip off the very garb Dohojar spoke of and relax in the shade of the tent. At hearing the Changa's words, he decided a bit of discomfort was acceptable after all. It was hot even in the shade of the tent, but it was better than being in the sun. After about an hour the giant reptiles came racing back, all ten in a pack. Dohojar greeted the lizards with a skin of salted water, giving each of the creatures in turn, largest to smallest, a squirt of the stuff from the container. Immediately thereafter, the gwahasti settled into the dust with much scattering of the stuff into the air. When they were done with their work, only their backs and noses were visible. The group of travelers managed to doze too in the meantime, resting for about three hours. In mid-afternoon the lizards erupted to life, and the noise of their hissing and mock fighting with each other roused the group.

"I'll be fried!" Gord muttered as he helped to load one of the pack beasts.

"What is it. Gord Zehaab?" Dohojar asked in a concerned tone.

"I just realized that the wind has been blowing from the west since we set out!"

All of them were surprised at that, especially Barrel. "Will you ram me if that ain't so, cap'n," the burly fellow exclaimed. "I been a seafarer a bit in my time, I'll tell you, and I should have noticed that for sure. The wind most always comes easterly in this forsaken waste, don't it?"

Gord nodded, puzzled. "You know it. Besides its direction, the force of it is pretty strange, too. It's been nothing more than a gentle breeze, with nary a gust above that. I wonder what caused the shift."

The dwarf spoke up at that. "It's a gift, whatever the reason. Having the damned dust at our backs is a whole lot better man th' other way round."

The group mounted and moved on again. Shade brought up the rear, with Post seeing to the three pack lizards that bore the two tents, food, and extra water on their backs. All except Gord were armed with the pygmy arbalests and a miscellany of other weapons. Of course, each one also held one of the sharp prods used to control the gwahasti. Dohojar mentioned to Gord that he was a terrible shot with the little crossbow and suggested that 'Gord Zehaab' might wish to take his, for the Changa felt he could never hit anything with it anyway. That gave the young thief an idea.

"You say you studied magic once, Dohojar?"

"Very true, Zehaab, very true. For many years I was the apprentice of a wise and powerful worker of Illusions and spells. But that was a time ago, Gord Zehaab. I have forgotten much, and I have no books or the stuff with which to try even a simple cantrip — if that is what the Zehaab was suggesting…"

Gord shook his head. "No, that isn't what I was thinking, Dohojar. But I do have an idea. I'll take the arbalest. Even though I'm not much with such a weapon myself, I have used crossbows a few times in my days sailing with the Rhennee on the Nyr Dyv."

"I've used this thing with fair success," he continued, drawing forth his wand from beneath his robe, "but I'm not as comfortable with it in hand as I am with a normal weapon. You take it in place of the arbalest. Perhaps you'll be able to employ it better than I."

"You are most gracious and generous, Zehaab! Use this I can! Now I begin to feel much, much more better."

Smiling at the small fellow from behind his mask, Gord managed to keep his tone neutral. "I expect you to be ready for action with it from now on then, Dohojar. You're hereby appointed to remain in the lead — except after dark, when Shade or I will have to take the point."

Thank you, captain. It is honorable duty I will not fail in," the fellow replied with obvious pride.

By a couple of hours after sunset the lizards had slowed to walking speed again. Then they slowed even more. It was time for another of their sleep periods. The party got about six hours of rest this time, arising about two hours before sunrise to begin their journey once again. The reptiles would have preferred to sleep until the sun came up, but Dohojar got them awake and moving, despite their dreadful hissing and snapping at the prospect of having to work again. He explained that by pushing the gwahasti they could travel twenty leagues or more a day, while if they allowed the lizards to go at their own pace, fifteen or so would be the best distance they would make.

Whatever had caused the wind to blow from the west hadn't kept it there today. Around sunup the breeze shifted to a northerly one, sending the powdery stuff of the Ashen Desert dancing and swirling off to their right, still a little ahead. Barrel said he reckoned this to be a slow shift from west-northwest to north-northwest by sunset, and he thought perhaps a storm was brewing. Dohojar didn't agree with this, for the lizards weren't behaving strangely. Just before the usual hunting time, however, the lizards did begin to act up. The party was near the place where the high plateaus of the central portion of the Ashen Desert plunged down in a stark line. The Changa managed to get the reptiles in line sufficiently for them to make the descent, but thereafter the beasts would not move. Instead of hunting, the gwahasti found shelter and buried themselves as if for sleep. That was sufficient warning — time enough for the seven travelers to also dig in and wait.

The storm came less than an hour later and struck from almost due north. What it would have been like to be exposed to its full fury was unthinkable. The force of the winds was terrible, and visibility was no more than a foot or two. But the whole group was at the base of the cliff where the plateau rose suddenly from the wastes, and with an arm of that high table of land sheltering them from the north, men and lizards suffered little — except perhaps mentally, as the humans, the half-elf, and the dwarf reflected on what would have happened to them had they not chanced to be here at the time the storm brought its fury upon the dusty wastes around, them.

"I think it is weather magic, Zehaab," Dohojar shouted to Gord between howling blasts of wind.

"If so, Dohojar, I don't want to confront the one who worked it up!" Gord called back.

At one point, a drift avalanched down the cliff, entirely burying the dwarf and the young thief. Post pulled Gord free from the suffocating stuff, for the young adventurer had been stunned by a rock that fell amid the dust and was unable to save himself. Delver, calling upon his dwarvish talents, managed to burrow out single-handedly. The others were more fortunate, happening to be in places where their heads and faces did not get covered by the whirling, falling dust and ash.

Within minutes after this near-calamity, the wind began to die, and the seven dug out their equipment and took stock of things. One of the lizards had been killed, its head crushed by a large boulder that accompanied the dust slide, but the nine remaining reptiles were unharmed and in good shape. Gord thought it disgusting, but the creatures devoured their dead comrade without hesitation, using their saw-edged teeth to bite through its tough hide and get at the pale flesh beneath.

"It is cannibalism, Gord Zehaab, I know," Doho-jar said to the young man as he stood watching the fight between the lizards for the next mouthful of their dead kin. "Still, we are very, very fortunate because of it, too. The beasts are now rested, you know, and with this feeding they will not need to hunt. In an hour we can be riding again!"

Because there were still occasional blasts of wind from the north, the travelers headed southwest, keeping the plateau between themselves and the dying storm. Near sundown they discovered a partially buried oasis. Its spring still sent water forth, and the clean liquid was cutting a new channel to the half-filled pool. They all took time to bathe, even the lizards. After being unloaded of their gear, the gwahasti went into the ashy places to soak in the near-mud, while men, half-elf, and dwarf rinsed themselves off in the clear jet and got rid of the fine dust that covered every portion of their bodies. Waterskins were emptied, rinsed, and refilled with much splashing and squirting of one another. Everyone drank until they could hold no more. While the gwahasti browsed on knife cacti and bed-of-nails plants, with an occasional nip from a young rolling-spikes bush still too immature to tumble freely, Dohojar caught snake weeds for the party to eat.

The Changa held up one of the thin, writhing plants proudly. They were a vegetable imitation of a worm more than a snake, although their mottled skin and their tapered shape suggested the latter. The plants moved quite quickly, slithering along beneath the top few inches of dust and ash to feed on other vegetation, ash worms, and anything else small enough for them to ingest. Dohojar told Gord that they were found near moisture only, and were always around an oasis. They were poisonous, and the rootlets near the mouthlike openings on their front ends oozed the nasty stuff heavily. The Changa had simply caught them, shaved the rootlets off with his dagger, and then showed the others how the remainder of the thing could be cleaned and eaten without fear of harm. The flesh, which Gord eventually consented to try, was firm and rich, and tasted a little like crabmeat. Somehow he managed to eat quite a bit of the stuff thereafter. Full and refreshed, the party mounted up and headed eastward again into a desert of ash that was, for the moment, absolutely calm.

A hundred miles to the southeast, Eclavdra was cursing and threatening her remaining servitors. The sudden storm had blown her fishlike vehicle before it, despite all efforts to keep that from happening. Finally, to keep from being overturned, the crew had been forced to allow the vehicle to run before the gale. Now the craft was lodged among rocks, stuck fast in the outcropping stone. It would take a long time to free it, if they could. The drow high priestess was in a fury, but that couldn't change the situation.

About the same distance away from Gord's group to the northeast, Obmi was in a similar state. His sailing ship of the desert was motionless, the masts broken and sails torn to shreds. It would be a difficult task to clear the pile of fine dust and ash that had drifted against it so the thing could move again. There were spare sails, of course, and a new mast could be raised. Now the favorable wind was gone, though, so at best his progress would be slow… perhaps too slow.

"Where is the filthy bitch?" the dwarf growled to his companion, who was intently staring out across the desolation.

"I sense her location to be about three hundred miles south, Obmi, and she is getting neither farther from us nor closer to us."

The dwarf grinned in satisfaction. "She is not moving either. Is she dead?"

"If she were dead, I would not be able to perceive her location as I do, and I would have other ways of discerning her lifeless condition, too — believe me. She is stationary, but alive — of that I am very sure."

"You had better be, Leda, or else I'll make you-"

The dark elf whirled toward Obmi, an icy glare fixed on her face. "Don't bother threatening me in any way, dwarf. I joined you willingly, and I serve you in the same fashion. Our bargain stands — you get the Final Key, I kill Eclavdra. If you seek trouble, look no farther than here. I have only one desire, and I will see it realized — with you or without you."

At that Obmi laughed, reached out, and slapped Leda on her round bottom. "You're cool-headed and tough, drow. That I admire!"

"Give the gwahasti their heads," Dohojar suggested. "These old dust runners know where water can be found. They can smell it for miles." The men were thirstier than the lizards, for when it came to a choice, the water was salted and given to the mounts and the men went dry — or with scant ration, more accurately. It was more than seven days now since they had bathed and drank at the oasis near the plateau. Since that time, they had plunged east into the desert of dust and ash and had seen no sight of even a damp spot. Dohojar's suggestion brought no better result either, at least as far as they could tell. The big reptiles just continued going in the direction they were headed anyway, directly toward the morning sun.

"We cut our water ration by half again, tonight, unless we find a spring or oasis," Gord told the others. Not even Delver bothered to answer. He was too dry, and grumbling did no good. The lizards ran on, and the men dreamed of deep, blue lakes. All this time there had been but little wind. It was as if the skies had exhausted themselves in the fury of the storm a week ago and were now recouping strength. Mere zephyrs blew from the north, eddying and shifting all around the compass at times. When it was time to make camp for the night rest, each of the seven got a mouthful of water only. Even the gwahasti were on half rations. Men and reptiles were growing thin and weaker all the time.

Hunting had been bad for the lizards; that was evident from their increasingly gaunt flanks. Only eight returned from the noon foray the next day, and Gord was uncertain about what had caused the loss. Either the others had eaten their comrade, or else it had been too slow and some predatory lurker in the dusts had gobbled it up. It wasn't much of a loss, for with their water nearly exhausted and food down to a couple of days' worth for each of them, two pack beasts weren't needed. The remaining extra animal was loaded down with the tents, and the water and food were distributed among the seven members of the little band.

Even though the gwahasti ran more slowly these days, they still made good speed, and the miles fell behind. The next day was much the same, only they noticed little specks circling in the sky above them. When they dipped closer to the ground, all could see that they were some sort of vultures, with wing-spreads of ten or twelve feet. The birds didn't come especially close, but it was impossible for the travelers to ignore their presence or what their appearance portended. Gord wasn't worried for himself just yet, but he wondered how the others were taking this ominous turn of events. Then he overheard a short exchange that put his mind at ease.

"I think we're in big trouble now," Smoker remarked laconically to Post.

"Yep," the lean fellow replied. "Unless those damn things come a little nearer, we're never going to get fresh meat."

Shortly thereafter, dust-striders started to appear — strange, long-legged arachnids with beak-like mandibles. These things were as big as jackrab-bits in the body, and their legs were two feet long. They were carrion eaters, too, but according to Dohojar they were not edible. The dust-striders paralleled the little band at a distance, just as the huge vultures flew high above. When dusk came, the vultures disappeared, and with full darkness the striders were gone too. The party halted for their nighttime rest period. As soon as the gwahasti were unsaddled and unloaded, all eight managed to hit a fair run as they sped off to the northeast instead of settling down to sleep. Even Dohojar was at a loss. "Never have I heard of such behavior," the Changa said. "It is unheard of, Zehaab — unthinkable!"

In the course of further conversation about what had just happened, the brown-skinned man admitted that he was not really an expert on the lizards. He had ridden them a few times, seen the big reptiles handled, and talked with those who were familiar with gwahasti, but that was the sum of his experience until their recent escape. Dohojar was ashamed and morose. "Never mind, serjeant," Gord said to him with a hearty slap on his narrow back. "You've helped us all to get this far. That itself was one fine piece of work, and all of us are in your debt. Cheer up, now, and let's see what we can do to put our band back on the trail tomorrow!"

Despite this encouragement, Dohojar was glum and looked ready to wander away into the dust to escape his failure. Just then, Shade intervened with a shout from about a hundred feet away, where he stood on sentry duty. "Hey! Look sharp there in camp!" he hollered. "Ridgebacks cutting through the dust toward you — from the north!"

Just as fins cutting the surface of the water signal the approach of sharks, so do ridgebacks above the ash herald the arrival of the dreaded dustfish. Gord had heard about them from his fellow travelers, and knew enough to be sure that he never wanted to meet one — but there was nothing to be done for that now.

"Grab your weapons and look for any bit of rock you can find!" Gord shouted to the rest of the men as he snatched up his own arbalest. There was a waning half moon in the sky, that being Luna, and Celene was just above the horizon. The two satellites shed a fair amount of light — hopefully enough to enable Smoker, Post, Barrel, and Dohojar to see well enough to aim and hit their targets. Gord clambered atop the leather tents to get a height advantage, such as it was. Just then a streak of light darted forth from where Dohojar had run to. He was at the edge of the camp, in a position nearest the approaching monsters, and the dart of violet-hued light revealed a monstrous, finlike ridge for a split-second as it splattered upon the extruding back of the approaching dustfish.

"There's a whole bloody school of the bastards comin'," Delver muttered as he jumped up beside Gord and loosed a bolt from his crossbow. "We just might be in trouble, captain."

After making his courageous but futile attack with the wand, Dohojar was trying to bound through the powdery dust back toward the others, and a huge fin was close behind him. It must have been the dustfish he'd hit with a missile from the wand — enough to attract its attention, but insufficient to injure the monster seriously. Gord and Delver saw the situation at the same time, both realizing that the Changa would never make it. The dwarf was growling oaths of his folk as he triggered off a quarrel, despite the fact that the running man partially blocked his line of fire. Gord likewise loosed a bolt from his own arbalest, silently praying that he'd hit the dustfish and not Dohojar. The small man gave a great leap just then, and the dust at his heels erupted in a geyser that obscured the rest of what happened from the sight of both onlookers.