Looking after Kadumi, Lander said, "We can't go back. When the sheikh hears we're missing, he'll search everywhere for us."

A terrible clatter sounded from above, and the air filled with the bleating of goats. A moment later, a herd of several dozen of the beasts materialized from the boulders on the slope above the rocky spine, then started moving down the mountain. The camels began backing away nervously, their footing coming precariously close to the cliffs to either side.

Kadumi called, "Come with me, you fools, or you will be driven off the cliffs with my camels!"

"We can't abandon the camels," Lander said to Ruha. "Without them, we're dead."

"And if we stay, we are also dead," Ruha answered, watching Kadumi descend the mountain. The widow did not blame him for leaving.

Lander was not intimidated, though. He started toward the goats, waving his arms and crying, "Go back to where you came from! Get out of here!"

Kadumi's brown gelding tried to turn and flee, then slipped and lost its footing. With a terrified bellow, it plunged off the cliff on the backside of the mountain, its body bouncing off the rocks with a series of muffled thuds.

Ruha realized that, whether or not he was a fool to challenge Rahalat, Lander was right about one thing: they could not afford to lose their camels. She waved her hand at the top of the rocky spine, at the same time whispering the incantation she had brought to mind earlier.

The breeze shifted, then whistled as it wove itself into an impenetrable wall in the spot she had chosen. The goats stumbled into the invisible barrier, then began to batter it with their horns or try to climb over.

Lander turned and stared at Ruha with an astonished expression. "Did you do that?"

"No," she said, speaking the lie automatically. It did not even cross her mind that Lander might not be offended by her use of magic. Ruha handed the reins to the baggage camel to the confused berrani. "Hold these. I'll go to the back of the line and see if I can coax them down backward."

As she worked her way past the apprehensive camels, the bleating of the goats and the knelling of their bells faded.

"Wait!" Lander called. "They're gone!"

Ruha turned around and saw that he was correct. The goats had disappeared, as had her wind wall. In their place stood the white, translucent figure of an unveiled woman. Her face was young and strong-featured, though there was a certain weariness to her countenance that gave her a lonely and heartbroken appearance. She was studying Ruha with an expression of sisterly sorrow.

"Kadumi! Come back! They're gone," called Lander. Without waiting to see if the youth heard him, the berrani turned and started back up the mountain. "We'd better get off this narrow ridge before something else happens."

"Wait," Ruha said, still looking past him to the translucent form of the goddess. "How do you know Rahalat has given us her permission?"

Lander looked directly at the place where the form of the goddess was standing. "There's nothing there," he said. "Just a moonlit rock."

Rahalat gave Ruha a sly smile, then suddenly looked in the direction of the Bitter Well. She scowled in displeasure, and then the goddess was gone.

Ruha led her camels across the rest of the spine, puzzling over the appearance of the goddess and the meaning of her final frown. From Lander's reaction, it was apparent that Rahalat had permitted only the widow to see her, and from that Ruha deduced that she was being shown some sort of special favor. She could not decide, however, whether the glance in the Bitter Well's direction had been a warning of some sort or whether the goddess had merely seen something in that direction that she did not like.

When Ruha reached Lander's side, he asked, "You didn't make that wall of force that saved us?"

"What's a wall of force?" Ruha asked, turning to look down the mountain. "Is Kadumi coming?"

The question was unnecessary, for the youth was already crossing the rock spine. He paused in the center long enough to cast a regretful glance down at his dead gelding. Then, a sheepish expression on his face, he rejoined them without saying anything.

Lander resumed his climb, finally calling a halt atop a section of steep crags and two-thousand foot cliffs that overlooked the oasis spring. Ruha could see the embers of the Mtairi campfires spread out in a semi-circle against the base of the mountain. In the darkness, she could not see individual silhouettes moving about the camp, but there was no sign of torches, so she assumed the trio's escape remained unnoticed.

Beyond the camp, the alabaster crests of the whaleback dunes and ebony ribbons of their dark troughs created an eerie sea of black and white that stretched clear to the eastern horizon. Somewhere to the northeast, Ruha knew, was the Bitter Well and the Zhentarim army.

"I thought we had walked farther," Kadumi commented.

"We did," Lander answered. "The only way to get here is around the back of the mountain. If anyone comes after us, we'll see them leave camp long before they reach us."

"Still," Ruha said, "it would be best not to let them see our silhouettes on this ridge."

The berrani nodded, then led the way a few paces down the other side of the shoulder. As Lander and Kadumi tethered the camels, Ruha heard the faint tones of an amarat horn. Her first thought was that their absence had been discovered, and she quickly scrambled back up the shoulder.

A moment later, Ruha knew she was wrong. She crested the ridge in time to see a bolt of light flash in the dunes outside the oasis, then a muffled peal of thunder rumbled up the mountainside. More amarat horns sounded.

"Zhentarim!" she gasped.

By the time Kadumi and Lander joined her, flickering pinpoints of torchlight were dancing between the khreimas. A solid line of the torches was forming at the edge of the camp.

"It appears Al'Aif got his wish after all," Lander commented. "The Zhentarim must know that Zarud was killed."

"How could they know so soon?" Kadumi asked. "That was only a few hours ago."

"Magic or spies," Ruha suggested. "Do they always attack so quickly after an insult?"

"The Zhentarim are careful planners," Lander said, his eyes fixed on the scene below. "As soon as Zarud presented their treaty, they probably started moving their army forward-just in case the sheikh did not accept their terms."

A familiar knot of cold dread formed in Ruha's stomach. "The Mtair will be slaughtered, just like the Qahtan."

Neither of her companions contradicted her.

"Where are the dead?"

The question was Kadumi's, but it troubled Lander and Ruha as well. The trio was perched on Rahalat's shoulder, at the top of a steep face of barren rock that dropped over two thousand feet to the campsite at the base of the mountain. The sun was just rising, and they were getting their first view of the devastated khowwan of the Mtair Dhafir.

From such a distance, the three survivors could make out only a few details of the scene below. Every khreima in the camp had been knocked down. The Zhentarim had tethered the Mtair's camels in a tight circle and were looting the possessions of the Mtair Dhafir. Hundreds of columns of gray smoke rose from campfires spread around the base of the mountain, and the camel drivers were taking their beasts to drink from the spring in small groups.

Missing from the scene were what Lander had most expected to see: the bodies of the Mtair Dhafir. At such a distance, it was impossible to tell a tribesman from an invader, for men looked like dark specks crawling across the pale sands. What troubled Lander and his companions was that all the dark specks were moving. If the Bedine were lying at the base of the mountain, at least two hundred of the dark specks would have been quite still.