The beasts were fresh and strong, striding easily over the sand. The hounds trotted quietly. The wind continued to drop, diminishing the brownness of the air.
Stark rode like a thundercloud, one arm about the small ferocity of Jofr, who sat straight and unbending, his body yielding only to the motion of the beast.
Gerrith said, "You are angry about the boy."
"Yes," said Stark. "I am angry about the boy. And I'm angry about something else—the visions."
"Let the boy go," Ashton said. "He can find his way back easily enough."
Gerrith sighed. "Do that if you will. But none of us will ever see Yurunna."
Ashton turned and studied her face. He had known many peoples on many worlds. He had seen many things that he could neither believe nor disbelieve, and he had acknowledged his ignorance.
"What did you see," he asked, "before Eric woke you?"
"I saw Eric . . . Stark . . . in a strange place, a place of rocks. There were Hooded Men there, but their cloaks were of different colors, not the orange of the First-Come. They seemed to be hailing Stark, and someone . . . something . . . was performing a ritual with a knife. I saw blood . . ."
The boy had stiffened in the circle of Stark's arm.
"Whose blood?" Stark asked.
"Yours. But it seemed to be shed in promise, in propitiation." She looked at Jofr. "The boy was there. I saw upon his forehead that he was to be your guide. Without him you would not find the way."
"You're sure of this?" Ashton said.
"I'm sure of what I saw. That is all I can be sure of. Has Stark told you? My mother was Gerrith, the wise woman of Irnan. She prophesied in the fullness of power. I do not. My gift is small and fitful. It comes as it will. I see, and I do not see." She turned to Stark. "You are angry about visions! I'm sick of them. I'd prefer to go blundering ahead without sight, as you do, trusting nothing but my own hands and brain. Yet these windows open and I look through them, and I must tell what I see. Otherwise . . ." She shook her head violently. "All that time in the stone house, with those things clawing and screaming to get in at us, I kept seeing you being torn apart and I couldn't tell whether it was the true sight or only my own fear."
Ashton said, "I had the same vision. It was fear."
"The hounds passed a miracle," Stark said. He was watching the boy's bright head, which was poised now with a new alertness.
Gerrith shuddered. "They'll come again."
"Not in such numbers, and the hounds will watch."
"If there's another sandstorm," said Ashton, "let's pray there's somewhere to hide. The next wayhouse is a week's journey."
"You'll not reach it," Jofr said. "My father will send the Swiftwing."
"Swiftwing?"
"The bird of war. All the clans of the Ochar will gather. Your demon dogs will kill many, no doubt, but there will be many more." He twisted around and smiled at Stark, his small white teeth showing sharp as a knife-edge.
"Um," said Stark. "And what of this place of rocks, and the Hooded Men who are not of the First-Come?"
"Ask the wise woman," said Jofr contemptuously. "It is her vision."
"Your father mentioned the Fallarin. Who are they?"
"I am only a child," said Jofr. "These things are not known to me."
Stark let it go. "Simon?"
"They're a winged folk," said Gerrith suddenly. Ashton glanced at her. "Yes. Undoubtedly a controlled mutation like the Children of the Sea and the Children of Skaith. They seem to be held in some sort of superstitious awe by the Hooded Men. They are important to tribal life but in what way I was never told. The Ochar are closemouthed with strangers, and the Wandsmen respect their taboos. Anyhow, I had other things to think about. But I do know one thing, Eric."
"What?"
"When that boy said I am an Ochar, he was doing more than stating a fact or making an affirmation of courage. He was also saying that an Ochar knows the ways of the desert, sharing its powers; that an Ochar destroys his enemies, never turning aside from sacred feud as long as he has breath. That's a blue-eyed viper you hold there, and never forget it."
"I've known desert men before," said Stark. "Now let me think."
The wind dropped. The face of the desert became peaceful. The veils of dust fell away from Old Sun, and the rusty daylight showed the markers of the Wandsmen's Road marching on ahead, never so far apart that if one was buried the next one, or the one beyond that, could not be seen.
Stark said, "Simon, what lies beyond Yurunna? You spoke of something called the Edge."
"The plateau we stand on drops away, four thousand feet or so. It's much warmer below, and there are places where springs make cultivation possible. There are cliff villages—"
"Where the Hooded Men raid?"
"Not the villages themselves, they're out of reach, but they try to catch people in the fields, or steal their harvest. Beyond that is more desert until you come to the Fertile Belt."
"The good green land of the Farers."
"I was brought straight up the road from Skeg, so I didn't see too much of the country. The only city I saw was Ged Darod, the city of the Wandsmen. It was quite a place."
"A place of pilgrimage," Gerrith said. "Sanctuary, whorehouse, foundling home, spawning ground of more Wandsmen. That's where they're trained and taught, and every scrap of windblown rubbish in the world that drops there is made welcome."
"The whole of the lower city is crammed with Farers and pilgrims from all over Skaith. There are pleasure gardens—"
"I've heard of it," Stark said. "But first comes Yurunna."
Happy as a bird, Jofr's clear voice said, "You will not reach Yurunna."
He flung his arm skyward, a gesture of triumph. Where he pointed, high up, a winged shape of bronze and iron glinted and was quickly gone.
"It will go first to the nearest clan chiefs, and then to the farther ones. From its collar they will know that it belongs to my father. They will raise up their men at once, to come to him. You cannot pass through them on the way to Yurunna."
"Then we must go another way," said Stark. "And if there's no safety for us among the Ochar, we'll have to seek it among their enemies. Perhaps Gerrith's vision has purpose after all."
Ashton said, "You'll go to the Lesser Hearths?"
"It seems the only choice."
Jofr laughed. "The Ochar will still come after you. And the folk of the Lesser Hearths will eat you."
"Perhaps. What about you?"
"I am of the blood. I am man, not meat."
"What will they do to you?"
"I am a chief's son. My father will buy me back."
"Then will you guide us to the Lesser Hearths? Or at least to the nearest one."
"Gladly," said Jofr. "And I myself will share in the feasting."
Stark said to Gerrith, "This guide you have chosen for me does not inspire trust."
"I did not choose him," Gerrith snapped. "And I did not say he would guide you out of love."
"Which way?" asked Stark of Jofr.
Jofr considered. "The Hearth of Hann is nearest." He indicated a northeasterly direction, frowning. "I must wait for the stars."
"Does that sound right to you, Simon?"
Ashton shrugged. "Judging from where the Ochar lands are. They have the best, of course."
"The Lesser Hearths are weak," said Jofr. "The Runners eat them. When they are gone, we shall have all the land and water."
"But that time is not yet," said Stark. "Let's go."
They left the markers of the road behind them.
They moved on across boundless desolation while Old Sun slid down to the mountaintops and vanished in a cold brassy glare that streaked the land and then gave way to blackness and starshine and the dancing aurora.
Jofr studied the sky. "There. Where the big white one hangs under a chain of three. That is the way we must go."
They altered course toward the star.
"Have you been this way before?" asked Ashton.
"No," said Jofr. "But every Ochar knows the way to the hearths of his enemies. The Hearth of Hann is five days' journey. The Hann wear purple cloaks." He said it as though "purple cloaks" was a scatological term.
Stark said, "Do you know the name of that star?"
"Of course. It is Ennaker."
"The folk who live on its third world call it Fregor. Those who live on the fourth world call it Chunt. The folk of the fifth world also have a name, but I cannot shape their speech with my mouth. All the names mean sun."
Jofr set his jaw. "I do not believe you. There is only one sun, ours. The stars are lamps he has set to guide us."
"All those lamps are suns. Many of them have planets, and many of the planets support life. Did you think that Skaith was all alone, and you the only people in the universe?"
"Yes," said Jofr passionately. "That is the way it must be. There have been stories about flaming eggs that fall from the sky and hatch demons in the form of men, but they are not true. My mother said they were only idle tales and not to be listened to."
Stark bent his head above Jofr, dark and grim in the night. "But I am a demon, boy, out of a flaming egg."
Jofr's eyes widened, reflecting the starlight. He caught his breath sharply, and his body seemed to shrink within the circle of Stark's arm.
"I do not believe," he whispered. He turned his face away and rode huddled and silent until they made camp.
Halk was still alive. Gerrith fed him wine and broth, and he ate and laughed at Stark. "Take a dagger to me, Dark Man. Else I shall live, as I told you."
They tied Jofr as comfortably as possible. Stark set the hounds to watch and said good night to Ashton, who looked up at him with a sudden unexpected grin.
"I'll tell you true, Eric. I don't think we'll make it, and I don't think I'll ever see Pax again; but it's good to get back to the old ways. I never was much for office work."
Stark said, "We'll fill you up with the other kind." He put his hand on Ashton's shoulder, remembering other nights by other fires on other worlds a long time ago. Ashton had learned about the pacific administration of wild worlds by doing, and Stark had gained his early knowledge of tactics and the art of dealing with all manner of peoples from his growing-up years with Ashton along the frontiers of civilization.
"Set your superior mind to work, Simon, and tell me: how do three men and a woman and a pack of hounds take over a planet?"
"I'll sleep on it," Ashton said, and did.
Stark went and stood by the fire. Halk was asleep. Jofr lay curled in his furs with his eyes shut. Gerrith sat watching the smoke rise from the glowing embers. She stood up and looked at Stark, and they went away a little from the fire, taking their furs with them. Gerd and Grith roused and followed. When they lay down together, the two hounds lay beside them.
There were many things to be said between them, but this was not a time for words. This was the coming together after separation, after captivity and the fear of death. They did not waste life in talking. Afterward they slept in each other's arms and were happy, and did not question the future. The deep-shared warmth of being was enough, for as long as they could have it.
On the second day after leaving the Wandsmen's Road, the character of the desert began to change. Underlying ridges rose up and became hills. The restless dunes gave place to eroded plains gashed with old dry riverbeds. Stark and his people rode through a haunted land.
There had been cities here. Not so many as in the darklands, which had been rich and fertile in their day, nor so large, but cities nonetheless, and their bones still lay along the riverbanks. Runners nested in them. Jofr seemed to have an instinct for cities. He seemed almost to smell them on the wind. But he said it was only that every Ochar boy was made to memorize the ancestral maps as well as the star-guides, so that no Ochar could ever be lost in the desert no matter what befell him. Stark tried to make him draw a map in the sand. He refused. Maps were taboo except for the Ochar.
The boy had been given a beast of his own to ride, and not the swiftest. He appeared to be content to lead. Stark trusted him not at all but he was not afraid. Gerd would tell him when the boy's mind contemplated treachery.
In the meantime Stark brooded, riding long hours without speaking, and then talking far into the night with Ashton and sometimes with Gerrith and Halk. It was after all their world.
Twice they waited until dark to skirt the ruins of a city, because the Runners did not hunt by night. At other times they saw roving bands of the creatures, but the hounds killed them or drove them off. And on a morning, suddenly, when they had been no more than two hours on the way and Old Sun was barely above the horizon, Gerd said: N'Chaka. Boy think death.
At the same moment Jofr made an excuse to dismount and go apart, "Go straight on," he said. "I'll follow in a moment."
Stark looked ahead. There was nothing but a flat place of sand between two low ridges, and nothing unusual about the sand except that it was perfectly smooth and the color perhaps a shade lighter than the surrounding desert.
Stark said, "Wait."
The party halted. Jofr paused in the act of hiking up his tunic. Gerd came and stood beside him, dropping his huge jaw onto the boy's shoulder. Jofr did not move.
Stark dismounted and climbed one of the ridges. He picked up a large flat stone and threw it out onto the smooth sand.
The stone sank gently and was gone.
Gerd said, Kill, N'Chaka?
No.
Stark came back and looked at Gerrith, and Gerrith smiled. "I told you Mother Skaith would bury us all if you didn't take the boy."
Stark grunted. Much subdued, Jofr mounted again. They went around the sinking sand, and after that Stark kept an eye out for smooth places.
He knew that they were entering the territory of the Hann when they came upon the remains of a village. There had been wells and cultivation not so long ago. Now the small beehive houses were broken and gutted by the wind, and there were bones everywhere. Bones crushed and snapped and fragmented until there was no telling what sort of flesh they had once supported. The sand was full of gray-white chips.
"Runners," Jofr said, and shrugged.
"Surely the Runners attack Ochar villages," said Ashton. "How will your people hold all this land when you take it?"
"We're strong," said Jofr. "And the Wandsmen help us."
They passed two more villages, dead and disemboweled.
Beyond the third one, in midafternoon of the fifth day, with Halk propped up in his litter wide-awake, they saw ahead of them, on the top of a hill, a knot of riders in dusty purple.
Jofr whipped his beast forward, his voice screaming high and thin.
"Slay these men! Slay them! They are demons, come to steal our world!"