that sagged under their loads of swollen waterskins.
'You two can go ahead,' Akaisha told them. 'I'm just waiting to seal this gate.'
'We'll wait with you if we may, my mother,' said Carnelian.
He had already counted sixty drag-cradles and he could see an apparently endless line of them stretching off round the Homing under the cedar trees. It was strange to see aquar allowed into the Grove. Even though the morning was still cool, he savoured the comfort of having the canopy over his head.
Carnelian gazed out over the golden plain. 'No doubt we'll soon miss this shade.'
'Be sure of it,' said Akaisha.
Eventually the last drag-cradle scraped past and they were followed by a party of Elders led by Harth. She gave Carnelian a look of disapproval before addressing Akaisha. 'What's he doing here?'
'Keeping me company.'
Harth looked up at Carnelian. 'So you believe you've beaten us?'
Carnelian did not know what to say.
'How many times have I told you, Harth: Carnie is on our side.'
Harth gave a snort and moved away. Carnelian saw the other Elders were carrying two jars and, on a drag-cradle, something covered with a blanket. They came through the gate and put everything on the ground. Akaisha closed the gate and then one of the old men dipped his hand in one of the jars and brought it out black and reeking of charcoal. Reaching up, he drew his hand across the gate leaving shiny black daubs on its wicker. Harth did the same with red chalky ochre.
When they were done, the Elders all stood back and began a grumbling incantation. The blanket was pulled back to reveal a bony cadaver of a man, leathery brown, with holes for eyes, his papery lips pulled back from a yellow grin. Carnelian was reminded of nothing as much as one of the Wise he had seen unmasked, which made him shudder. He felt Poppy clutch his arm and slip her body round behind his leg.
'He can't harm you,' he said, gently.
Harth whisked round. 'He has more power than you might imagine against our enemies.'
Between them, the Elders raised the huskman and propped him up against the gate. Drawing back they began shouting at him, arraigning him with the crimes he had committed against the Tribe, promising him that if he should fulfil his duty well and protect their home, one day they would expose him on the summit of the Crag tower and allow his soul to be carried up to Father Sky.
Leaving that wizened sentinel, they wandered under the trees along the Lagooning, walking in the ruts the laden drag-cradles had gouged in the rusty earth. Fern and Sil, with Leaf strapped to her back, were waiting for them by the final gate. All together, they walked across the earthbridge into a world drenched by the gold of the sun. The Tribe and the aquar with their drag-cradles were dark motes beneath a copper sky.
Akaisha and the other Elders moved in among the people dictating the order of their march. Slowly, the aquar were formed up around the people with their burdens. Riders floated in dust clouds further out. With thin warbling cries the Tribe stirred into movement, fading Carnelian's view of the world behind their dust.
A weaving of withered ferns held the parched earth in thrall. Trees waved flags of scorched leaves at the Ochre as they passed. The herds were gone. Dust spat at them on the torrid breath of the wind. The heat was terrible. With a leaden heart, Carnelian had given up looking for Osidian. Making sure Poppy was well protected, he wrapped the cloth of his uba around his face and bowed his head to protect his eyes from the grit and glare. Blind, he trusted to the feeling in his feet, using the burn of the sun upon his forehead to tell him in which direction their path lay.
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.
