'She's a lovely girl,' said Sil.
Her eyes met Carnelian's and they saw each other's grief at what they were to lose to the tithe.
'You know Fern loves you?' Sil said, quietly.
Carnelian looked into her eyes again and nodded. 'I love him too.'
She smiled a little and looked at her berry-red fingers.
He reached out and took her hand. 'He may love us both, but you are his wife.'
She looked up solemn, beautiful. Poppy chose that moment to return. She beamed when she saw them holding hands.
On the day Carnelian noticed that the valley was losing its green vibrancy, the embassy returned. Children's shrieks of excitement pierced the lazy afternoon and soon people were streaming across the meadow to welcome back the riders. Carnelian was among them with Poppy and Sil, laughing as the noise deafened him, adding to it himself with a bellow or two.
The riders came to a halt, Akaisha at their head, unable to make any progress against the throng. From every throat came calls for news. Akaisha signalled the riders to make their aquar kneel. Seeing her lowered to the ground, Carnelian and Sil pushed through to help her out of her saddle-chair. They could feel in the tremble of her arms how tired she was. She was hiding some pain behind her smile. Fern appeared beside them. He waved people away while Akaisha leaned on Carnelian as he walked her towards the encampment.
'What news, my mother?' Sil asked.
She made a face. The usual. Marriages, talk of hunts, of fernroot yields.'
'What about the Gatherers, my mother?' Carnelian asked.
Akaisha's face sank. 'It's as we'd guessed: they came this year to every tribe.' She looked with concern at Carnelian, trying to read his expression.
'So what if they search for you? No one knows where you are.'
He leaned down and gave her wrinkled cheek a kiss. Sil put her hand on his arm. 'Leave her with me, Carnie, I'm sure you and Fern will want to talk.' She leaned close and kissed him on the lips and then she and Akaisha moved away.
Fern was looking at him with eyebrows raised.
'We've become friends,' said Carnelian, embarrassed.
Fern grinned. 'I knew you would.'
Carnelian noticed a nasty bruise on the side of his friend's head. 'How did that happen?'
Trucestaff, or no trucestaff, we had a run in with the Bluedancing.'
'A fight?'
'A brawl with some young hotheads wanting revenge for the beating we gave them earlier this year.' He grinned. 'We gave them another good hiding.'
HAND OF DARKNESS
And when, for her bride-price, she gouged out his eyes she held the thorn in her left hand.
The breeze could not disperse the palls of smoke that hid the dawn. The Tribe had fired the further reaches of the valley. The Withering had at last stretched up to find them, parching the blue out of the sky, scorching the green from the earth. Their stream had dwindled, choking dry. The fern meadow turned amber, dying.
Harth and others of the Elders had sniffed hope floating on the air. Several had gone out beyond the entrance to the valley to confirm it. When they returned they went among the Tribe claiming they had smelled the rain in the breeze blowing from the west. When the young looked sceptical, they were reassured it was not a matter of having a keen nose but of being blessed with the experience to recognize the subtle perfume of the Skyfather's approach. After that it had been all hurried packing.
'We must rush to meet the rain,' said Fern. 'Even now it rolls towards us across the Earthsky.'
Carnelian wondered at the certainty in his friend's voice. Carnelian could smell nothing in the air but burning. To reach if we'll have to cross a desert.'
'We still have water,' said Sil, Leaf strapped to her back.
Carnelian had seen how lightly loaded the drag-cradles were with waterskins.
Fern craned round. 'Would you have us stay here?'
Carnelian looked back at the wall of smoke clogging the sky. Aquar ambled on every side as the Tribe made gentle progress to the valley entrance.
Osidian approached, attended by Ravan, Krow and other youths. Carnelian felt Poppy, Fern and Sil close around him like a faction. He greeted Osidian in Vulgate and he gave a nod but would not meet Carnelian's eyes.
Osidian turned to watch the smoke rising. 'It hides the sky.'
The fire will renew the earth,' said Fern. 'When we return next year this valley will be as green as it was when we arrived.'
Osidian was not listening. His eyes were grey, reflecting smoke as he spoke. 'Even the sun cannot see through that curtain of darkness.'
Thirst drove them west with ever greater speed. They had been struggling across the torrid land for days. Dawn found them plodding and so too the dusk. They had redistributed the djada and what little water was left so as to free drag-cradles for the pregnant, the younger children, the old and those who had to take turns resting. It was being whispered that the wind-blown promise of rain had been false. People gazed accusingly at the Elders, so many of whom were not having to walk. Carnelian understood there was a need to blame someone. It was difficult not to despair. The furnace air driving into their faces snatched all moisture from throat and eye. The sun glared relentlessly down. Carnelian choked on the ashen dust rolling hissing across a desert desolation. Whenever he lifted his itching eyes, the charcoaled plain stretched before him limitless and droughty to an umber horizon.
The water they carried dwindled day by day, as had the stream in the valley, and still the rain did not come. Every day, in the calm before the dawn, Carnelian saw Akaisha lift her head and dilate her nostrils like dark eyes. She shook her head and, when asked, she swore by the Mother that the Skyfather's rain was hiding unseen in the hem of the sky. With the others, Carnelian wanted to believe her but as each day withered into a chill night, they had to camp again in an unwatered land.
Aquar began dying. The Elders had ordered they should be given less water to save what was left for the people. Carnelian and Poppy saw one creature reel, stumble and fall, tumbling its rider into the dust. The woman rose, wearily, now the colour of the ground. They watched her urge the aquar to rise; she stroked it, talked to it, begged and even struck the creature in desperate rage. It would not budge and, forlorn, she joined the column of people toiling on foot.
When rain came it came unseen. People were leaning forward, straining for each step, eyes closed, despairing faces hidden in the coils of their ubas. The scorching west wind flung a hail of sand against them. It was a distant flash that woke eyes all along the march. Carnelian squinted blearily and saw a darkening horizon. Thunder rumbled. Even as he stopped to stare, the separation between earth and sky was inking black.
'A sandstorm?' he gasped, but the only answer he received was Poppy grabbing hold of his hand.
'Can you feel the Father in the air?' Akaisha shrilled.
Then Carnelian heard the rushing. The front struck them screaming, tearing the uba from his face. Veils of darkness were coming at them, hissing. The sand before him pocked as if a thousand tiny feet were sprinting towards them. Then he smelled the water and it was upon them, running down his face, drowning the air.
The march of the Tribe dissolved into a riot. Carnelian danced with Poppy. People slipping down from aquar were throwing themselves on each other. Many ran about shouting, their faces turned up into the rain, their arms outstretched seeking to embrace the Skyfather's gift of life.