Few other beasts had made it so far except for the moas, who required copious amounts of water at least every third day. Horses, mules, and oxen had long since turned back or died in harness under the lash of desperate drivers. Some of the latter found passage on the wagons, abandoning all but the choicest of their own loads, but most shouldered what water they could carry and started the long trudge back to Kothifir. Jame wondered how many would make it.
To have come so far, to fail by so little . . .
At dusk on the thirteenth of Winter, the remaining travelers—some fifty wagons in all—arrived at the edge of the Great Salt Sea. It stretched out before them to the horizon, its surface broken by drought into octagonal plates. A failing slash of light from the west washed its white surface with pink and mauve. The east wind picked up, causing sparkling salt ghosts to drift across the empty plain in stately procession like an army on the march, until the shadows overtook them.
Tents were pitched, evening meals cooked.
When Jame rose early the next morning, she found that the trade caravan had slipped away in the night, leaving its Kencyr escort behind. Moreover, she smelled fresh water. They had set up camp at a brackish oasis which, when dug out of the sand, stank of rot. Now the camp was surrounded by grass, sedge, and tall reeds marching into a shallow sea. One could still make out the salt plates under the surface, but they hadn’t yet dissolved to contaminate the rainwater swell. The face of the water reflected the glowing morning sky like a vast mirror, dazzling the eye.
“What in Perimal’s name . . . ?” said Timmon, coming up to her. “I know this is the beginning of the rainy reason, but surely it didn’t pour last night. Runoff from distant mountains?”
“That might explain it, but not all of this established vegetation. What do you think, Ran?”
The senior officer stood near them, surveying the sudden sea. “I’ve heard of such a thing,” he said, “when the Tishooo plays tricks.”
“Because the Old Man controls the flow of time in the Wastes?” Jame asked, remembering what she had been told in the Undercliff.
He gave a short laugh. “So the natives say.”
“That’s what I was afraid of,” said Jame.
Laurintine had guided the caravan back to lost Langadine, into the past. What if the Tishooo had taken them there too, for some obscure reason of its own? If so, where in the past might they be? She gathered that each caravan trip was closer to the Kothifir of three thousand years ago and to Langadine’s ultimate, mysterious destruction. Perhaps the caravan had barely arrived there. Perhaps it had been in Langadine for days, or months, or years. How long could they wait for its return before their supplies ran out?
Brier also stood by the shore, gazing out at the watery expanse. Jame wondered if she had been there all night and had seen the flood rise. What must she be thinking now? Her mother Rose Iron-thorn had escaped with Tori, Harn, and Rowan from Urakarn on the edge of this same sea, if much farther to the west. It had been dry at first as they fled, and sinksand had swallowed Rose. Jame remembered Brier’s voice telling her the story as Tori had told it to her, how at dusk they had come across the petrified remains of a boat and had collapsed into it.
“In the night, feverish,” Brier had said, “he thought he saw the water return . . . all that flat sand plain changing back to the sea it had been, and the stone boat afloat on it. Under the surface, he saw Rose and reached down to her. She took his hand, pulled it down into the stinging salt water, pulled the whole boat across the sea . . . in a dream, he thought, born of fever; but in the morning, there they were safe on the northern shore, with nothing behind them but sand . . .”
“Do you think that your mother is still out there, under the sand, under the water?” she asked Brier.
The Southron shrugged, malachite green eyes still sweeping the sea. “Did she come back at all or did the Highlord only dream it? Did you?”
“For your brother’s sake . . .”
Cold words, cold hands, thrusting Jame back to the surface when the returning sea had swallowed her outside Mount Alban after the weirdingstrom had swept it into the Southern Wastes. She had no doubt, herself, what she had experienced.
Brier shrugged. “Her bones at least still lie under the sand. Who knows?”
The laughter and catcalls of Char’s third-year cadets sounded behind them. They turned to see Gorbel trudging toward them from Ean’s abandoned tent, stripping off ropes and spitting out a gag.
“One of the wagon masters recognized me,” he said with disgust. “Our friend swore that I was his assistant, but they dragged me off anyway and tied me up to keep me from following. Is that them?” He peered at vague, wavering forms on the horizon.
“It could just be a mirage,” said Timmon.
“Or the spires of a city,” Jame said, staring hard.
An uproar burst out near the shore where the moas had gathered to drink. Something huge lunged out of the reeds and chomped down on the nearest bird. The rest flopped down flat and froze like so many brown lumps, some with their heads inadvertently underwater.
“Ancestors preserve us,” said the senior randon. “A rhi-sar.”
The beast stood on the shore, ignoring the motionless birds. The long legs of its prey dangled out of its toothy jaws, twitching slightly. It threw back its massive head and bolted them down. A second giant reptile emerged from the reeds. Both stood on their powerful hind legs, smaller forearms tucked almost delicately against their armored chests. The first was blue and mottled green, its scales edged with gold. The second was orange shading to the dark red of dried blood. Their lashing, scaly tails made up nearly half of their thirty-foot lengths.
The reeds parted and a third, smaller reptile joined them, this one creamy white with watery blue eyes.
I should have brought Death’s-head, thought Jame. As she had foreseen, however, he had stayed behind with Bel.
“Stand still,” said the randon. “They react to motion.”
Too late: Char broke ranks and dashed to grab a spear.
The two rhi-sar bellowed and charged the camp.
Yells sounded as the cadets scrambled for weapons and into formation. The blue brute lunged at one such group, catching a spear and jerking its wielder out of place. Its red mate snapped sideways, catching the cadet and folding him double backward before bolting him down. The senior randon plunged to the rescue, only to get caught between the two.
“No!” Jame cried, but already they had grabbed him, one on each side, and between them had ripped him apart. Blood sprayed the sedge. The water tinged pink.
Both rhi-sar spread their frilled collars and trilled their triumph.
Jame turned to watch the white rhi-sar. It had held back so far but not, she thought, out of fear or weakness. Its small eyes switched from reptile to reptile like a general directing troops. One of them lumbered back to it and vomited mixed body parts, steaming with acid and already half-digested, at its feet. An offering.
Someone handed her a spear. She balanced it, advanced, and threw it at the white beast. More by luck than skill, she caught the creature in one eye. It reared back, bellowing, and clawed at the shaft, snapping it off in its eye socket. The other blue eye focused on her. How well could it see? Well enough to chase her if she moved.
The other two rhi-sar seemed confused, snapping at random as cadets ran past them. Damson stood before one of them, holding it in her baleful gaze. It lunged at the air on either side of her as if unable to bring her into focus. The other rhi-sar stumbled into it and they fell, tearing at each other.
But the white one wasn’t confused. It thundered straight at Jame, jaws agape. She turned and ran, trying to draw it away from the other cadets, but they in turn were running toward her. Char thrust a spear between its hind legs, tripping it. It turned its fall into a lunge at Jame, missing by inches when she dodged to its blind side. Before it could recover, she threw herself on its head and clasped its jaws shut with her arms and legs, half expecting them to be ripped off. But she had guessed right: the muscles that opened that fearful maw were weaker than those that closed it. The brute reared up, trying to shake her off, scraping futilely at her with its foreclaws.