The lagoon,' said Fern.
Carnelian looked at the handful of cloudy water-holes. Pointing, Fern undulated his hand and Carnelian saw the faint curves printed on the earth that were the ghosts of the vanished water. He lifted his eyes up to the featureless heat-grey sky and could not believe it would ever rain again. Around him the Tribe were marching across the cracked lagoon bed. Carnelian watched with curiosity as some women brushed the ground with their feet. Youths hung around them keenly waiting.
'What are they doing?' he asked Sil.
'We'll show you.'
Sil felt the earth with her calloused foot, she smiled and tapped the sand with her heel. Fern fell on his knees and dug where she indicated. Carnelian joined him. The earth had been baked so hard that at first it was like clawing stone. Then it began to soften, grow moist. Fern sat back to watch him. 'Go on,' he encouraged.
Carnelian felt something cold and slimy and yanked his hands out of the hole.
'I'll do it then,' said Fern, pushing him out of the way. He slipped his hands in and fetched something out that glinted in the sun. A fish. Carnelian was too astounded to say anything.
'Dreaming,' said Fern, giving it to Sil, then turned his back so she could tuck it into his pack.
'Even in the Withering, Carnie, the Mother provides for us,' she said, grinning.
The dark mass of the march had crested a ridge ahead.
'Come on,' said Sil, breaking into a lope. Carnelian scooped Poppy into his arms and ran to catch up. On the way they passed some boys dancing around a murky puddle jiggling their spears. One after another they plunged them in then, together, drew out a struggling dwarf-crocodile. They held it up as a trophy and Sil touched it to bless it for them.
'Kill it mercifully,' she said.
'And quickly,' said Fern. 'Or else you'll be left behind.'
Carnelian put Poppy down as they came over the crest of the slope and saw the soft circular outlines and eggshells scattered everywhere half filled with sand.
The remains of the bellower rookery,' Carnelian muttered. For some reason, the site reminded him of the ruins of the Quyan city he had seen from the leftway on his way to Osrakum.
The Tribe plodded on until the sun fell behind them, spindling their shadows off in the direction of their march. As the women of each hearth made a ring of blankets, the men cleared a great space among the brown and brittle ferns. They piled great armfuls of the stuff in the centre of the blanket rings and lit fierce fires. Carnelian saw Akaisha and others gazing off back the way they had come until it became too dark to see anything. It grew quickly cold. Carnelian huddled round their fire with the rest of his hearthmates as they all tried to recapture something of the comfort of their home. He sensed that much of the sombre mood was due to worry about the missing youths. As a djada rope was passed around, Fern produced the fish he had dug from the ground and buried it in a cooler corner of the fire. When it was cooked, he distributed pieces of its charred flesh, which were delicious. A waterskin came round from which sips were taken to help lubricate the chewing of the djada. Whin was telling a story about animals who spoke with human speech, in which her sisters and Akaisha had roles and the children joined in gleefully with the choruses.
As the sky frosted with stars, they quietened so that Carnelian began to notice the muttering, a rare laugh drifting from the other hearths. People grew drowsy in the warm flicker of their fires.
'We are so naked here,' Carnelian whispered to Fern.
'Our mother trees are already far away,' said Sil.
'And the tribute bearers and the children too,' said Whin.
In the firelight Carnelian saw Fern looking over to Leaf, sleeping in her mother's arms, and drew Poppy to him and stroked her head encouraging her to sleep.
Commotion broke suddenly around them. Carnelian leapt to his feet even as the whole Tribe did so, obscuring the light of their fires with their bodies, everyone jabbering.
'Is it raveners?' he asked.
'Silence,' cried Akaisha. Other Elders all across the camp could be heard echoing her cry. The people quietened, calmed. Carnelian could see vague shapes moving in the dark.
'Riders,' Fern breathed.
'We are returned,' said a voice in the night.
Carnelian knew it was Ravan. Those who hoped their sons were returning to them began to call out the names of their hearths. It was a while before Akaisha began to speak her name into the darkness. The calls subsided and still she called: 'Akaisha, Akaisha.'
A black mass looming up out of the night silenced her. It divided into the shapes of two riders. Their aquar knelt and two men dismounted. One was vast beside the other. Silence.
'Make them welcome,' Akaisha hissed.
At her command, Carnelian and the others moved round the fire so that its light poured out to illumine the figures. They strode in to close the ring and then sat down. They were offered djada and water.
'It's good to have you back, son,' Akaisha said.
When Ravan did not even turn to look at her, Fern grew incensed. 'Didn't you hear your mother?'
The younger people were sneaking glances at each other. Whin was regarding the Master with unconcealed loathing. Akaisha was struggling for composure.
It was Poppy who pointed out the shape standing watching them in the night.
'Come forward,' said Whin.
Moving into the light the shape revealed itself to be Krow.
'Well?' Whin demanded.
Krow's black hunter's face glanced at the Master for guidance but he seemed unaware of him.
'Krow has nowhere else to go,' said Carnelian, at last.
Akaisha found a smile for the youth. She beckoned. 'Join us.'
Krow muttered his thanks to Akaisha and shot Carnelian a grateful look. After that, people spoke in whispers, giving the Master anxious glances, while he sat, a massive shadow gazing unblinking into the fire. Once he did look at Carnelian, who saw in his eyes fierce triumph.
In the morning the Tribe flung the embers of their hearths into the wind. Where fire caught, smoke leapt quickly westwards. They turned their backs on the flames and trudged into the sepia east. The Master walked in their midst as if he were alone. Observing him, Carnelian feared what he might be feeling. He needed to probe him, but Osidian never spoke. What little he ate he passed through the folds of his uba so that only the pale mouth in the blackened face was revealed. His eyes seemed to have no more sight in them than glass. Poppy shunned him as if he were a stranger. Ravan served him like a slave so that his own people turned away, not wishing to see his humiliation. Krow might have been the Master's shadow.
As the days passed, Carnelian gave up waiting for Osidian to speak. He strove to bear the weariness of the march as well as he saw the Elders and the children were doing. Still, each day was like a fever to which only the cool repose of night brought some relief.
One day, feeling a tremor of thunder coming from the west, Carnelian asked Fern with eager delight whether it might be some rain.
Fern's eyes peered out between the folds of his uba. There'll be no rain for several rebirths of the moon. Until then, the Withering will tighten its grasp on the land, relentlessly.'
Carnelian waited for more, but Fern only said, 'I fear we may soon enough see what is following us with thunder.'
Carnelian did not have the energy to pursue it. The sun was turning the world to molten gold. Their store of water was the very heart of their march. Over the first few days they had come across water-holes, puddles, which they drained down to the mud and even that they did not waste, but plastered it on the aquar to cool the burning in their hides. Eventually the land had nothing to offer them but dust.
The thunder following them became a shuddering in the ground. Looking back, Carnelian saw a sandstorm bearing down on them. The Elders began shouting orders. The arc the Tribe made across the plain began coalescing around groups of Elders. The children huddling in beside them were walled in by the kneeling aquar. On the outside men swung their bull-roarers while women gathered stones.