Tuvi blew out the light.
The wind increased in pitch until the sound of it hurt. The spray of sand and dust and rocks was louder than a driving rain, obliterating everything until they huddled in a netherworld in which all substance was caught betwixt and between, neither air nor earth, neither day nor night, neither living nor dead. Shai couldn't even hear the ghosts, or perhaps the storm had scattered them.
The demons screamed, but silk was proof against their kind.
It was too hot and frightening to sleep although now and again he dozed off, only to jolt awake as whispers throttled him.
"Beware the third blow… I betrayed her, but only after she betrayed the others. She betrayed all of us. And I aided her, out of fear. I cannot bear my shame any longer. Let the wind take me. Let this burden pass on to another… "
Yet it was only the heat and sand stifling him, after all, and the close-packed bodies, and his parched throat.
In time the wind lessened and, at last, hours or days later, ceased.
When they dug themselves out and Chief Tuvi called roll, they had lost not one man or horse, although a few were having trouble breathing, and it was clear they would need more water and that soon.
"Not so bad," said Chief Tuvi. "The heart of the storm didn't pass over us. It stayed to the south."
But Cornflower was gone, vanished entirely. Mountain had thought she had taken refuge with Priya and Mai; Priya had thought she was with Mountain and the nine bearers. Shai hadn't thought of her at all.
Captain Anji shaded his eyes to examine the red haze that blanketed the southwest. The sun was setting, although it couldn't be seen through the retreating storm. "The demons took her," he said.
Shai hid his tears.
13
All that next morning as they pushed eastward across the dusty flats, Mai thought obsessively of the feel of Anji's arm around her as the storm had raged. She had turned to him without thinking. He had the experience and foresight to shelter all of his people, and somehow that made their intimacy more precious by contrast. Her heart outraced her head. He was so strong. He was clever and imperturbable. He wasn't like anyone in the Mei clan, not at all. He had chosen her, out of all people.
Surely the heroine in the old songs had thought as many ridiculous things about the bandit prince she fell in love with!
She laughed and he, hearing her, turned with eyebrows raised as their horses plodded along. She blushed. How much more intense this feeling was even than the sun's punishing light! The old songs were silly and sentimental, but that didn't mean there wasn't a grain of diamond truth hidden in the sand.
By midday it was too hot to ride. Ahead of them the way was cut by rugged ground, and Chief Tuvi led them into a ravine formed by a dry riverbed. There was no surface water but there was shade to be had right up against the cliff face. The slaves set to work digging, but by the time they had got down a man's height, two of the slaves had fainted and there was still no water and not even muddy sludge. A third slave lay in the shade, clutching his stomach and moaning.
"May I go see what I can do, Mistress?" Priya asked. "They will leave them behind if they're too weak to talk. It would be a terrible way to die. At least in a storm you die quickly."
"Do you think so?" asked Mai. "Do you think Cornflower is dead?"
"I hope so."
Mai shuddered. Swallowed by sand, flesh scoured from bone by the screaming wind. Yet how much more terrible to be snatched and tormented by demons. "She was so unhappy. Do you think she wanted to die?"
Priya's mouth twitched. Compassion, perhaps, might cause the lips to form that particular angle. "You are the only one of your family who would ask that question, Mistress."
The words made her uncomfortable; she was no champion of Cornflower. She'd turned her gaze away, just as the rest had. "Go help those men." The words came out more sharply than she'd intended, but Priya bowed and hurried away to the sick man.
Mai sat on a pillow in the shade of the cliff, sweating and tired but not exhausted. She hadn't had to walk, or dig. Down the ravine, soldiers offered their mounts water from cupped palms. Nearby, Anji and Tuvi consulted a pair of scouts.
"How bad is the road?" Anji was asking. "Can we negotiate it in darkness?"
"We'll have a bit of moonlight. There's hills and dunes for the next two days or so before we get back to flatter country near to Mariha. That's if we don't lose the trail, and if that storm didn't wipe away the caravan markers."
"How much of a risk?"
"Better to ride it during the day. But if we delay too long here and can't get more water, we'll lose horses first and then men."
"Let me think on it."
Anji walked over to stand beside her in the shade. For a while he thought, and she waited. In the marketplace, one learned patience. She felt comfortable with him and, indeed, relieved to be alive. The storm had shaken her. Truly, demons haunted the wilderness; that was why folk kept to their towns and didn't wander. Anji offered her a swig from a finely tooled leather bottle. The slap of rice wine, gone a little vinegary, burned her mouth and soared straight to her head.
"Hu!" She giggled. "That makes me even more thirsty."
"Thirst is a powerful goad," he agreed, smiling. He had a particular way of looking sideways at her that made her shiver with anticipatory pleasure, but when she shivered like that she always, the next instant, thought of Cornflower's blank expression. Hump hump hump.
Enough of that! Cornflower was gone. Yet the image wouldn't flee and refused to be chased away.
"What are you thinking?" he asked abruptly. He'd never asked such a question before. Husbands didn't care what their wives thought. They didn't need to, so her mother and the aunts often told her.
She was taken aback, caught off guard. Lie, or be truthful?
She shook her head, impatient with herself. She had often held her tongue, but she'd never outright lied to anyone. "I'm thinking of Cornflower. I-" After all, she could not go on. It was too intimate; it was too humiliating. He might misunderstand, or he might understand, which could be worse. Her cheeks were hot. She gritted her teeth, trying to untangle her thoughts and her tongue.
Sand pattered on the ground as the wind eddied, then died. It was a clear day, without haze, and the sky was as blue as Cornflower's eyes and as empty of joy.
"Her death, or her life?" he asked. "Aren't they the same? She must have run out into the storm seeking her freedom. That would be her death. Her life…"
"You think she did not live well in your father's household?"
"How could anyone do so?" she asked bitterly. "Used like that?"
"Was she beaten?"
"Not after Uncle, the one whose name we don't say, not since he died. The aunts wouldn't touch her. That was the strange thing. They wanted to be rid of her but they didn't hate her even though she had bewitched all the men." None of the women had hated Cornflower. It was peculiar, when you thought of it. You expected women to be jealous in such a situation, but instead they had all pitied her while just as strongly wanting her gone. Their silence was their shame. "They didn't hate her even though the men couldn't leave her alone. But she didn't bewitch you." She wasn't sure how he would respond. It was a risky comment.
Anji wasn't a man who frowned much. He did so now, causing lines to crease his brow. "No. She didn't bewitch me. I've seen demons face-to-face before. I know what they're capable of. Mai…"
He looked away from her, studying the red-brown horizon to the south, as if seeking storms. He wasn't shy, just considering his next words. He rubbed at his lower lip with a dirty thumb. Like all of them, he was astoundingly filthy, hands and face coated with grime, officer's tunic gone to a color that could not be described. She rubbed at her own hands as she waited, but the stuff was caked on. She could feel sand in every most intimate crevice, and every time she blinked, her eyes stung from the residue.