Geirrod was still quiet and subdued the next morning. Tarvos spoke quietly with Daphnis to get her thoughts on the situation and she told him that she wanted to put the previous evening behind them and mend things. Tarvos nodded and went to walk beside her brother.

  "You're an idiot," he said without preamble.

  "I know," Geirrod replied. "I spoke to Daff again this morning. I begged her to forgive me and she said she did. Whether she was just saying that..."

  "She wasn't just saying that," Tarvos replied. "She really does forgive you. You don't deserve a sister like that."

  "I know," Geirrod replied. "First Fathers, what was I thinking? To say what I did." He walked for a while with his eyes staring at the ground in front of him before speaking again. "The thing is, I've gotten so used to being able to say anything to her. Any secret I have, any mistake I make, I tell her. When I'm with her, everything that goes through my head just comes out my mouth without me thinking about it. It's so strange that I have to think about what I say to her now. It's like we've lost a closeness we used to have. I'm sorry, I'm not very good at explaining things..."

  "You're doing fine," Tarvos replied. "And I think Daff knows. I think she understands. I think that's why she forgave you so quickly."

  "I hurt her," said Geirrod. "She might forgive me, but I can never forgive myself for what I did. I hurt my sister."

  "Not as much as you think, I think," Tarvos replied. "It was Skoll who hurt her. Not you."

  Geirrod nodded. "I'm going to kill him for what he did."

  There was a flat, emotionless quality to his voice that made Tarvos believe him. "You'll have to stand in line," he said.

  "Do you think we lost him?" asked Geirrod. "Is he still on our tail, do you think?"

  "He's said to be an excellent tracker," Tarvos told him. "We've been trying to leave no sign that he can follow, but who knows?"

  He looked around at the vast, empty land that surrounded them. They were going north again, having moved what they hoped was a safe distance from the rexes, and the mountains were looming ahead of them like a wall across the world. In every other direction there was nothing but an ocean of purple spotted with red flowers that were now beginning to fade. The occasional clump of tanglebush dotted the horizon, along with the waving arms of skyreachers, creatures that Tarvos had heard of but never seen up close. There didn't seem to be any in their path, for which he was very grateful.

  "If they're within five miles they'll be able to see us," he said, "but we'd be able to see them as well. I can't see anything behind us. If they've lost our trail, then they've got to search a thousand square miles to spot us. I think it's possible we've seen the last of them."

  "Pity," said Geirrod. "I'm starting to want some payback for what he did."

  "You may get your chance. He's a bandit now. Sooner or later they'll raid one of our villages, looking for girls to steal as wives. Maybe it'll be your village. Maybe you'll find yourself face to face with him with a spear in your hand. I mean, I'm hoping it'll be my village he raids, but I'll be almost as happy if someone else kills him."

  "I never thought about what it must be like for the girls before. I mean, I know they assimilate, especially if they're young, but there must still be a long time before they accept their new lives. A time of fear and loneliness. And to think that our tribes stole girls from each other not so long ago." He looked across at Tarvos. "Is it true that they wait until they're fully adult before they... Marry them?"

  "So I believe," Tarvos replied. "And by then they're fully assimilated. They've been conditioned to accept it. They think it's normal and natural, which is why there's almost no trauma. To 'marry' a woman who hasn't had that conditioning is unusual."

  "And yet the bandits didn't seem at all shocked or horrified by what Skoll did to Daff."

  "Well, they are bandits. Criminals. Outcasts, or the descendants of outcasts. Maybe banishing criminals from our tribes isn't such a good idea. All we're doing is swelling the ranks of the bandits."

  "Most of them die before they reach the bandits, don't they?"

  "That's what we've always assumed. What if they don't die as frequently as we thought? When I'm clan chief, I'm going to give the matter a great deal of thought. Maybe there're better ways of dealing with criminals."

  "They say the mountain folk cut the hands off thieves. Cut the manhood from rapists."

  "Yeah, but I don't think we want to to be that brutal." He glanced over at Daphnis, who was chatting with Fornjot. "Although there is a certain attraction to the idea."

  Geirrod chuckled. "Do you think we'll see any mountain folk?"

  "No. We're not going into the mountains. Just following them north. The mountain folk will be leaving their valley homes by now and climbing up into the high slopes, where it's cooler. They won't come down again until the long winter returns."

  Then the mountain folk were forgotten, though, when Tarvos saw a line of dark cloud on the horizon, lit by flashes of lightning. "Looks like bad weather coming," he said. "We should start looking for shelter."

  "Considering this land is going to turn to desert, we seem to be getting a lot of rain," said Geirrod.

  "I don't think that's rain," said Fornjot, coming over to join them. "The tales of the Grandfathers tell of wild dust storms as Summer approaches. Dust blown by the wind with such force that it flays the skin from anyone caught out in the open. I reckon we've got two, three hours to find cover."

  "What cover?" asked Tarvos, looking around at the featureless plain that surrounded them in all directions.

  "There are shoveltusks in this area," Fornjot replied. "They'll be digging holes to shelter in. They don't like the sand any more than we do. We need to find one and persuade it to let us use its hole."

  "Is that a herd over there?" asked Daphnis, shading her eyes with a slender hand as she gazed over to the west.

  "Let's go find out," said Tarvos.

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  They were indeed shoveltusks, and they were already using the massive tusks in their lower jaws to scoop great clumps of sandy soil out of the ground. They normally used their long, powerful teeth to dig up the roots and tubers they ate, but now they were digging deeper, the hard, fleshy roots lying discarded on the pile of loose soil they were creating beside them. The giant bipedal creatures watched warily as the four humans threaded their way between them, looking for one that had already dug a deep enough hole as the first grains of sand began stinging their cheeks. The wind was already strong, pulling at their hair and clothes, and the storm was a great wall of darkness reaching high into the sky as it rushed towards them accompanied by crashing thunder. Flocks of skylords cruised ahead of it, using the winds to propel them forwards, out of harm's way.

  They came across a large female shoveltusk that had dug a hole as deep as the height of a tall man. It had exposed a rabbuck burrow, and the creatures, already half turned to stone, mewled in protest as they tried to crawl back away from the sunlight. The shoveltusk turned to face the humans as they approached, its tiny red eyes widening in alarm, and it waved its clawed forelimbs at them in an attempt to scare them away. Ordinarily it might have worked, as humans normally hunted the creatures in groups of a dozen, but Tarvos and his friends feared the oncoming storm far more than the giant herbivore.

  They formed a line and jabbed with their spears, bringing pinprick of blood from the creature's leathery hide. The shoveltusk lunged towards Tarvos, who was standing in the centre, and Fornjot took the opportunity to run in from the side to inflict a deeper wound. It was a trivial injury to such a large creature, but it gave a bellow of rage and spun around to face him, lashing out with its claws. As it did so Geirrod dashed in from the other side to jab it again, but this time the creature ignored the pain and continued to chase Fornjot, its long, horizontal body balanced by a thick, muscular tail. It was surprisingly fast for its size, and for a moment Tarvos feared for his friend's safety, but Fornjot ducked in under its waving claws and slid on his bottom between its legs.

  The shoveltusk jumped back to expose Fornjot and jabbed down with its long claws, but Tarvos, Daphnis and Geirrod had chased after it and they jabbed it hard with their spears. Tarvos's spear penetrated the skin under its forelimb, where its hide was thinner. This time the creature's cry was louder with a clear note of pain and it leapt away, almost taking Tarvos's spear with it as he struggled to pull it free. As Fornjot climbed back to his feet the creature turned to face them again, and the four humans formed a line with their spears aimed at it. The shoveltusk paused as if it was considering its options, but then it moved away and began to dig another hole a few dozen yards away. The other shoveltusks, which had ignored the battle, paid it no attention as they continued to dig their own holes.

  The windblown sand was getting thicker, and Tarvos's face and hands were stinging with protest under the force of the storm. "Into the hole," he commanded. The others slid down the side one at a time and Tarvos followed them, joining them at the bottom. The ground under their feet was dry and sandy and loose soil trickled down the sides, occasionally exposing more roots and thick tubers. Above them, they saw the sand blowing across the sky growing steadily denser as the storm arrived and swept past. Now and then came a blinding flash of lightning, followed by a deafening crash of thunder that seemed to make the very ground shake under them.

  "Best make ourselves comfortable I suppose," said Tarvos, leaning against the side of the hole and sliding down it until he was sitting. The others did the same, and then they waited, stretching out their legs so that their feet touched each other in the centre, as they waited for the storm to blow over.

  ☆☆☆

  "The beast," said the one-eyed bandit. "It's the only cover we've got."

  Skoll agreed, but he felt annoyed that the other man had made the suggestion before he could. It almost made it look as if one-eye was in charge. There was nothing to do about it at the moment, though, but run towards the gigantic corpse as the dust storm swept towards them.

  The six rexes had eaten their fill for the moment and were sleeping inside the thunderbeast's cavernous, torn open belly. They would probably sleep for two or three days, Skoll knew, and when they awoke they would take another meal from the gigantic corpse, which would only become more tasty as it began to decompose. They were no threat for the time being, therefore. So long as the bandits did nothing to provoke them, they would be able to share the same shelter without harm.

  One-eye led the way towards the thunderbeast's long neck, and Skoll took the opportunity to assert his leadership by directing them to the tail instead. One-eye gave him a look of amusement as if he knew very well why he was doing it, and Skoll's anger grew. The man needed to be put in his place. He might be obeying, but so long as he maintained this insubordinate attitude the others would be encouraged to question his leadership. He needed to be punished, and it would have to be severe and soon.

  They sat behind the beast's tail, which shielded them from the force of the storm, and watched as the windblown sand gradually gathered force, shredding the purple foliage of the spring growth and blasting the crimson flowers. Some of them had already developed a hard seed pod, though. Tough enough to survive the onslaught and protect the delicate embryo inside for a hundred years until the start of the next long summer.

  Soon, what was left of the foliage was being covered by a dusting of sand, carried by the wind from a region far to the west, where the ground had already dried out and was being eroded by the elements.

  "We'll never catch 'em now," said one of the bandits. Like One-eye, Skoll hadn't bothered to learn his name. He thought of him as Black-face because of his dark skin, identifying him as having come from the west coast. The story of how he'd come to the eastern side of the continent and joined a bandit tribe was of no interest to Skoll whatsoever and he hadn't made any effort to find out.

  "We'll catch them," he said confidently.

  "How?" asked Black-face. "The storm will blow away all trace of their passage. They'll have gone west to avoid the rexes, and when they turn north again they'll angle to east or west to avoid us. We'll have to search a strip of land forty miles wide."

  "They'll be looking for shelter from the storm, just like us," Skoll replied. "Out there, the only shelter is shoveltusk holes. They leave holes in the ground where they dig up roots to eat. We find a shoveltusk trail and follow it until we find the bigger holes they made to shelter in. There, hopefully, we'll be able to pick up their trail again. If we're fast, we might catch 'em in just a day or two."

  "If we're fast and if we're lucky," said Black-face doubtfully.

  "What's the point?" asked One-eye. "So a few captives got away. So what? Of course we were angry at first, but are they really worth chasing all the way across the world? Maybe we should just forget about them and go home..."

  Skoll had quietly drawn his dagger, taking care not to let the others see him doing so, and now he slammed it into One-eye's throat. The man stared in shock and surprise as he gargled on his own blood, and when Skoll pulled the knife back out he slumped against the leathery hide of the thunderbeast's tail.

  "Anyone else think we should give up?" Skoll then asked the other three bandits.

  "And if we do," said Black-face, watching him carefully. "Are you going to kill the rest of us like that? One at a time?"

  "Do as I say and I won't have to," Skoll told him.

  "There's three of us and only one of you," Black-face replied. "Maybe we should kill you before you kill us."

  Skoll fingered his trophy necklace meaningfully with its four human finger bones, one of which had belonged to their former chief. "Maybe you'd like to try," he said.

  The three bandits glanced at each other, as if trying to read each other's faces. Then they looked at Skoll, as his huge, powerful body. "We'll catch 'em tomorrow, you say?" one of them said. An elderly, grey haired man.

  "Or the day after," Skoll replied. "Soon, at any rate."

  "And then we go back to the camp," Black-face said, clearly trying not to make it sound like a question.

  "And then we go back to the camp," Skoll replied.

  "Reckon another day or two won't make much difference," the dark skinned bandit said, and the others nodded. They settled back against the thunderbeast's tail, trying not to look at One-eye's corpse, and Skoll watched them with satisfaction. Losing one of his men was unfortunate, but it had been necessary to ensure the loyalty and obedience of the others. They still had the numbers to defeat the fugitives, considering one of them was a woman. Skoll thought it likely that he'd be able to kill all three men by himself, but the three bandits fighting alongside him would make the outcome all but certain.

  He allowed himself to relax with satisfaction, therefore, as the wind continued to howl and the deadly sand continued to blow over their heads. Then he cut a finger from One-eye's left hand.