With a rueful glance over his shoulder, Cheney slouched over to join Candle. As the pair headed back toward the Lightning, Hawk stood where he was for a while, waiting for the rest of the caravan to catch up. In bits and pieces, it did so. The children were shepherded into the center of the camp by their caregivers while the drivers and guards worked quickly to construct makeshift facilities. The intensity of the storm continued to increase. By now the flats east were roiling with clouds of dust so high, the distant mountains were blocked from view. Hawk walked back through the camp, helping where he could, speaking to everyone, making it a point to let those he led know he was still there and still actively involved in what was happening. He did what he could to reassure them. It took almost an hour for the last of the stragglers to wander in, and by then everyone was in the process of covering up as best they could. There was little protection to be had for those outside the vehicles and the wagons; most simply hunkered down behind whatever shelter they could find. The wind howled, and the dust spattered against metal and canvas with a strange hissing sound. The storm was all around now, closing the members of the caravan away in a whispery, whirling shroud, and the world beyond disappeared as if blown away.
Hawk finished walking the camp from end to end, taking time to check that there were guards posted everywhere, and that no gaps in the defenses would allow an unnoticed breach. On his way back to the point, he stopped to speak with the caregivers who had gathered the bulk of the children inside a trio of broad, squat tents where they could be kept close together and carefully watched. He had not forgotten what was out there in the invisible nothing, what was waiting to steal away more victims if it could. Their predator was still hunting them. He did not pretend to understand its reasoning. But he had looked into its strange eyes and he understood well enough what sort of monster it was.
Once outside, he started toward the Lightning AV where Owl and the other Ghosts would have gathered. He had almost reached it when he caught sight of Tessa moving at the perimeter of the camp. She was between an old truck and a wagon, weaving her way through a series of small tents toward the waiting storm. At first he could not believe that he was seeing correctly, but then he saw her lift her head momentarily as if searching for something.
A second later, she was through the gap between the vehicles and outside the camp.
He stared in disbelief. Tessa!
He paused only a second to wonder what she was doing, and then he was running after her, hurrying to catch up.
In the wild rush of the wind and dust, with everyone trying to get under cover, only one member of the caravan saw him go.
FARTHER WEST, still many miles away, Logan Tom and Simralin Belloruus rode the Ventra 5000 toward the roiling gray wall of the dust storm. They had watched it grow in intensity during the past hour, and now they knew with certainty how severe it was going to be. They also knew that there was no time to get out of its path.
“We have to take shelter,” Logan said, giving voice to what they were both thinking.
He drove on for a short distance, then turned the big AV down into a ravine and parked it in the lee of a rocky outcropping that formed a barrier between themselves and the approaching storm. Glancing doubtfully at their meager protection, he shut down the engine and turned off the power. Outside, the wind howled across the barren landscape with such force that the entire vehicle shuddered.
“Guess this will have to do,” he said.
Simralin made no reply. They sat in silence, listening to the wind. The storm rolled over them, thick with dirt particles, and the sky and the earth disappeared within its roiling shroud. The light died and left them shadows cloaked in a gray-brown haze. The sound of the sand striking the hard surfaces of the outcropping and the AV was like the buzzing of angry bees. Outside the shell of the vehicle, the world slowly disappeared behind the wall of the storm.
“Tell me the rest of what happened to you,” she urged him.
He had begun relating the details of his own experience in escaping from the Cintra shortly after they had set out yesterday, then lost the thread somewhere along the way and hadn’t gotten back to it. He had gotten as far as Kirisin’s ordeal as a prisoner of the skrails, assuring her first that her brother was safe and well, but he hadn’t gone on from there. She knew of Praxia’s role in retrieving the Loden after Kirisin had dropped it, but not anything of the aftermath.
So he finished up now with Praxia’s death and the deaths of her companions, Que’rue and Ruslan, as they defended the Elfstone against the rogue militia that had stumbled on them while they tried to reach the Columbia River and safety. Simralin listened without comment, her eyes on his face, her gaze so intense that it almost hurt to bear its weight.
“I wish I could have gotten back to them,” he confessed. “But saving Kirisin was more important. I almost didn’t manage that.”
“You managed just fine,” she said. “If Kirisin had been lost, everything would have been lost. An entire people, Logan. Anyway, you did the best you could with the others. You have nothing to apologize for.”
“It doesn’t feel that way.”
She was silent a moment. “I’m surprised about Praxia. She never demonstrated that level of selflessness before. She was always so self-involved. But not this time.”
He shrugged. “Sometimes we rise above ourselves.”
“Sometimes.” She shook her head. “I just can’t believe it. They’re all gone, the whole squad I worked with all these years. Just like that. I’ve known some of them all my life, Logan.”
“Almost everything is hard to believe. I’ve stopped being surprised.” He gave her a half smile. “Except by you.”
“I’m not so surprising.”