‘We can hope, I guess,’ Sorgan dubiously replied.

It was not long after noon when there was a sudden flash of intense light and a shattering crash of thunder.

‘Do you have to do that, Veltan?’ Sorgan demanded irritably.

‘She gets me where I need to go in a hurry, Sorgan,’ Veltan explained. ‘Please don’t irritate her. I need her right now.’

‘What’s happening, Lord Veltan?’ Padan asked Zelana’s younger brother. It seemed to Sorgan that Padan sometimes overdid his pretended politeness.

‘My big sister’s Dreamer just solved a number of problems for us, gentlemen,’ Veltan replied. ‘If you look off to the west, you’ll see her solution boiling this way.’

Sorgan jerked his head around and saw a seething yellow cloud streaming over the ridge-top. ‘What is that?’ he demanded.

‘It’s called a “sandstorm”, Captain Hook-Beak. You probably don’t see very many of those out on the face of Mother Sea.’

‘Almost never,’ Sorgan agreed.

‘I don’t think that’s a very good idea, Lord Veltan,’ Padan objected. ‘Won’t that pretty much stop the church soldiers still coming up that ramp dead in their tracks?’

‘The sandstorm’s out here, Sub-Commander; not down there,’ Veltan replied with a broad grin. ‘The soldiers who are already here will have to take cover, but the ones coming up that ramp and crossing that bridge won’t even know what’s happening up here.’ Then he suddenly laughed. ‘And it gets even better.’

‘Oh?’

‘The sandstorm’s blowing in from the south-west, and after it sweeps past Gunda’s wall, it’ll almost certainly roll on down the slope leading up from the Wasteland.’

‘That might just disturb the bug-people a bit,’ Padan suggested with a broad grin.

‘Quite a bit more than just “disturb”, Padan,’ Veltan replied. ‘The servants of the Vlagh will need shelter even more than these church soldiers will. That lovely sandstorm’s going to freeze everything in place - except for those church armies that’re still coming up out of the gorge. They’ll keep moving, but nobody else will.’

‘Not even us,’ Sorgan reminded him.

‘Don’t rush me, Sorgan,’ Veltan said. ‘I’m still working on that part.’

5

Keselo was very close to exhaustion. It made sense, certainly, to do these periodic retreats under the cover of darkness and Lady Zelana’s helpful fog banks, but a night without sleep came very close to cutting Keselo all the way down to the bone. He stood wearily with his new friend Omago near the center of the sixth breast-work pushing out from Gunda’s wall as the first light of morning stained the edge of the eastern sky.

‘Why don’t you try to catch a few winks, Keselo,’ Omago suggested. ‘I can keep an eye on things, but I don’t think any of those bug-people will start to move before sunlight’

Keselo shook his head. ‘I couldn’t sleep right now, Omago,’ he said. ‘I’m positive that our enemies will be coming up the slope before long, so I’m wound just a little tight.’

Though it seemed a bit unnatural in the light of the differences in their cultures, Keselo had developed a strong friendship with Omago. They got along very well, but Keselo had frequently been startled by the frequent leaps in Omago’s thinking. ‘Have you come up with any new ideas, my friend?’ he asked.

‘Nothing that might be useful,’ Omago confessed. ‘I’m just a bit tired too.’

‘That’s been going around here lately,’ Keselo said. ‘Andar’s a very good officer, but he pushes his men a bit harder than necessary. There’s an idea. Maybe if we sang lullabies to him for a couple of hours, he’d drift off to sleep and we could all get some rest.’

‘I sort of think that your Commander Narasan would jump all over him for that,’ Omago suggested.

‘Probably so,’ Keselo agreed. ‘It was just a thought. Why don’t you see if you can keep me awake by telling me stories about Veltan? I never got to know him very well back in the ravine in Lady Zelana’s Domain.’

Omago smiled faintly. ‘I could tell you stories about Veltan all day if you wanted to hear them. He used to spend a lot of his time in my father’s orchard when I was just a boy.’

‘Stealing apples?’ Keselo asked.

‘No, it was usually in the springtime when the trees were in bloom. An orchard in the spring is more beautiful than any flower garden, and Veltan always spends several weeks in that orchard when the trees are in bloom. We’d sit there and talk - well, he would. I just listened. There are things about Veltan that only the people of his Domain know about.’

‘Really? Such as what?’

‘He offended Mother Sea once, and she banished him to the moon.’

Keselo’s eyes had almost closed, but they popped wide open. ‘Did I hear what you just said right?’ he demanded. ‘Did you say that Veltan’s been to the moon?’

Omago laughed. ‘Oh, yes. Mother Sea was very irritated. Veltan had to stay on the moon for thousands of years. That was the moon’s idea, actually. She enjoyed his company, so she lied to him and told him that Mother Sea was still angry about something he’d said. Veltan was really put out when Mother Sea told him that he could have come back home after a month or so.’

‘You’re just making this up, Omago,’ Keselo accused.

‘I’m just passing on what Veltan told me,’ Omago said. Then he paused. ‘I notice that it did wake you up a bit,’ he added. He glanced off to the east. ‘We’re getting closer to sunrise, I’d say. Unless the bug-people have changed the rules, they should be coming back up the hill before too much longer.’

‘You don’t have to answer this if you don’t want to,’ Keselo said then, ‘but how is it that an ordinary farmer like you managed to snare a beauty like your wife.’

‘I didn’t,’ Omago replied. ‘She snared me. She came past my orchard once in the early summer when I was thinning out my apples, and she wanted to know what I was doing. I explained thinning to her, and then she went off down the road. I couldn’t think of anything but her for weeks after that. Then she came there again and made the bluntest announcement I’ve ever heard in my whole life.’