Carnelian could feel their thunder. Spume flecked the air. Sinking into the sand, the ridge grew flatter, allowing them to pick up speed. Carnelian was rolled around in the saddle-chair as his aquar took longer and longer strides. He found that if he pushed hard against the stirrups he could hold on more easily.
When they reached the rocks' pebble skirt, they began crunching across. The sea charged them, frothed over the pebbles, weakening visibly as it neared. It almost reached them, lingered frozen, then began to hiss back, at first slowly, then with an increasing rush and roar.
The pebble scree quietened into sand. The riders ahead filed off along the sea's margin, spurring their aquar into furious splashing speed. Carnelian did the same and the chair punched into his back. He gave a whoop of excitement as the wind whipped his black cloak up to flap around him like wings. The aquar's diamond head cut the air. Its muscle-shudder pistoned up through the saddle-chair. Together, they crashed along the trail pool-pocked into the darker sand. Incredible speed. A wave slipped its glass across their path. They were smashing through it. Then it whispered away wiping clean the printed sand. The salt air penetrated even the mask filter and Carnelian sucked at it as hard as he could. His eyes swam. The beach flowed a brown spate on either side. He noticed it brightening. Behind him, over the cliffs of Thuyakalrul, the sun was rising and spreading its glow over the sand. The aquar all broke into song. Their voices were like reeded flutes. Carnelian and his aquar's joined shadow cast forward like a spear as they pelted along the crystal margin of the sea, buffeted by their own speed's rushing wind.
The stream bled into the sea, darkening the water, making the waves froth pink. Its artery-red channels fanned out across a stretch of beach, bruising the sand purple.
With the others, Carnelian had slowed his aquar to a walk. In the east the Tower Crag lay black beneath a rind of sun. Westwards the sand stretched to the next bright headland. Carnelian looked upstream to where there was a wide gap in the cliff wall. Narrowing his eyes, he was sure that he could see the valley it gave into cutting upwards to the land above. Sunlight had not reached into it. A powdering of birds flew up and caught fire in the dawn.
The reek of rotting was forcing itself even through his filter. Carnelian looked out across the reddened delta, wondering at the gulls that mobbed it. He watched them land with several hops, wings snapping open and closed, fighting, screeching, dropping soft sodden lumps when retreating.
The party milled around him. Aurum was marshalling the Marula into formation. Feeling a desire to lose himself in the morning, Carnelian urged his aquar into a jog. Soon the red sand was all around him. The stench grew as if he were approaching a catch of fish left for days in the sun. He began feeling queasy as he came among the gulls and saw them tearing at hunks of flesh. Chunks clumped together, piling up into mounds like oozing gums around which the sluggish bloody waters flowed. Stained sand jiggled with sand-fleas. Mats of flies rustled up as his aquar's long shadow drove them from their feasts. Carnelian drew his cowl over his mask and fought the vomit down.
Voices thinned by distance rose above the rumble of the waves. Carnelian peered down the tunnel of his cowl. Further along the beach some scows had been dragged up onto the sand. Another was still in the sea, bucking amidst a slick of heads. He watched as it nudged closer to the shore. Dark arms clung to its sides. As its prow dug into the beach, the creatures dragging it came up out of the sea. They were brown jerking things like distorted men. He watched them strain together and the scow lunged up the sand to join the others. Around the scows, more of the distorted men were milling, each hunched under a basket. Carnelian watched them, curious, certain they must be sartlar. Naked, well-shaped men stood above them on the bows unloading something into their baskets. The burdened creatures then hobbled off to join the line wavering its way up the delta towards the valley in the cliffs.
Carnelian decided that he might as well take a closer look. He was about to ride on when the air around him was sprayed with blood from the stream. He turned to see two Marula calming their creatures from the run. The gulls that had risen around them were hacking out their calls. One of the black men bowed. The act of subservience did not feel like one. Carnelian caught a flicker of yellow eyes and glimpsed their hatred. The man lifted his lance up and pointed back to where the party was formed up in good order.
Carnelian returned, a Maruli on either side. As he came closer to the other riders, he spotted Tain clinging to the top of their baggage flushed and grimacing. Then he heard Vennel's voice, '… but I have been deceived. Why do we not ride for the road?' Jaspar replied that this was hardly the place to hold a discussion. They fell to arguing. Aurum signed with his hand. The sun caught his rings. The hand pointed and the Marula drummed off in a dark knot up the delta. The Masters and baggage straggled after them, their voices lost in the rumble of footfalls.
Carnelian watched the riders undulate away. It was a strange relief to be left alone with the buzzing flies. He glanced back to the Tower Crag where his people were. He might have fled with them if he had known a way to return to the Hold. He turned to the carnage. It seemed Crail's dismembered body that was clogging up the stream. He tried to remember the old man's face. He remembered that last kiss he had given him, that kiss of betrayal. The tears began dribbling down the inside of his mask. Carnelian longed to throw it away, to fly along the beach, to have the clean sea-wind scour the tears from his eyes.
Far away the riders were flowing towards the valley. There was no returning. Carnelian cursed, sniffed, then lashed his aquar to race after them.
He splashed along the rivulets as they joined, deepening into browner streams. The triangle of the delta narrowed and he saw that he was drawing ever closer to the shambling file of creatures coming up from the scows.
The streams wound together until Carnelian was riding along the edge of a single channel. On the other side the creatures struggled with their baskets, which brimmed over with things like wheels. Their crooked bodies were grained like wood. Whatever faces they might have had were hidden behind lank sheets of hair.
He reached the Masters where they had come to a halt. A stiff back betrayed his father. Height revealed Aurum. Vennel was precariously balanced in his chair. Jaspar's aquar was perched on the bank seeming to look across to the other side. Carnelian coaxed his aquar towards him.
They both looked down at the clots swirling in the purpled water. 'What carnage is this?' Carnelian said and ground his teeth.
'A poetic name for such filthy commerce.'
'Commerce…?' The word was unexpected. Carnelian gazed across the stream.
'And a fitting occupation for the Wise.'
Carnelian watched the creatures struggling on the other bank. 'Are those sartlar?'
'Of course. Repulsive, neh?' He pointed an arm upstream. 'No doubt we shall have to follow their stinking march through that.'
Carnelian followed his finger. The valley was still in shadow but he could see that it seemed to be set with dark jewels. The stream came out of it through something that looked like a wall stretched across its mouth.
Aurum sent the Marula into the stream with a motion of his hand. As they crumbled the banks into the water their aquar stumbled, jolting their riders. Then they were wading up against the flow with the water foaming red against their legs. The baggage animals were next. Seeing it was safe, the Masters urged their aquar after them.
Carnelian followed Jaspar. He watched him sway as his aquar slid down the bank. Then it was his turn. He gripped the chair rim but was still thrown about and almost pitched forward into the eddying stinking water. Soon he was making his way up the channel with the others.