"By dawn, there were only six of us left. Every time a camel stumbled or someone fell from the saddle, the asabis got him. Soon our tired camels could barely keep their footing. Three of the others gave up hope and drew their jambiyas, then turned to meet the beasts. They might as well have stopped and let the fiends take them."

The sheikh paused, then pointed at the campsite. "They're about finished."

Lander looked toward the camp and saw that all of the khreimas were engulfed in flames. In the center of the camp stood Yhekal, dressed as always in his purple robe. A hundred asabis had gathered around him, and he was gesturing at them wildly, waving his sword at both sides of the volcano. Lander suspected he was ordering the reptiles to sweep around the cone and destroy any living thing they encountered.

On the far side of the camp stood a line of black-robed Zhentarim and their camels, the eerie orange light of the fires reflecting off them, making them appear ghostly. The camels were frantically ripping at the lush grass, but the drivers had made no move to remove the baggage from their backs.

Now that he was finally ahead of the Zhentarim, Lander realized, he would have to ride hard to stay there. Without taking his eyes from the camp, Lander asked, "What happened to the rest of you?"

"We kept riding," the sheikh said. "About two hours after dawn, the asabis stopped and burrowed into the sand. That was the last I ever saw of them-until tonight."

"So that's why they always attack at night!" Lander exclaimed, rising.

"What?" Sa'ar asked. He made no move to follow the Harper.

"All of the Zhentarim's attacks have come at night. Until now, I thought they were just trying to take their enemies by surprise."

Sa'ar smiled. "But it's really because the asabis are creatures of the night," he said. "During the day, they're worthless."

Lander nodded.

In the camp below, the asabis scattered, gesturing wildly at each other. The acrid smell of burning camel-hair began to waft up the slope. Realizing that he and the sheikh would be trapped on the cinder cone if they did not leave soon, the Harper climbed out of the ravine.

When Lander reached the lip of the gulch, he perceived a curious silence behind him. Alarmed that something had happened to Sa'ar, he turned and saw the sheikh still sitting in the ravine, sipping his tea.

"Are you coming?" Lander asked.

Sa'ar looked up with a roguish grin on his lined face. "You want to leave so soon?" he asked, rising to his feet and slowly stretching his arms. He sauntered to the steam vent and picked up his battered tea pot. "Mustn't forget this. I paid two camels for it."

Carefully working their way from one ravine to the next, they hurried across the cinder cone's gritty slope and returned to their camels. By the time they untethered the beasts and mounted, they could hear the asabis barking orders to each other in a sharp, chattery language.

The two men reached their rendezvous point with the Mahwa at dawn. Without dismounting, the sheikh gave the order to ride for the Well of the Chasm. It was, he explained, the next waterhole in the Zhentarim's path. The tribe camped there was allied with Mahwa, so he was obligated to warn them of the approaching hazard.

Sa'ar flattered Kadumi by asking him to scout ahead with the Mahwa's best warriors. Lander and Ruha were assigned to ride with the sheikh's party.

To Lander's amazement, after Sa'ar issued all of his riding orders and the tribe began to move, the sheikh closed his eyes and fell asleep in the saddle. As the sun rose higher in the sky, the Harper found it increasingly difficult to keep his own eyes open, but did not dare imitate the dozing sheikh. Unlike Sa'ar, Lander was not so accustomed to camels that he could ride them in his sleep, and he did not fancy the idea of falling onto the hard desert floor from the height of a camel's back.

Lander tried to keep alert by studying the Mahwa caravan. At first glance, it seemed a disorganized herd, but the Harper quickly realized that there was an order to the jumble. Riding far ahead and far behind the tribe, mounted on the fastest camels and well beyond sight, were the youngest and most daring warriors. Like Kadumi, they were scouts who would alert the khowwan to any dangers lurking ahead-or approaching from behind, Lander added silently, remembering the Zhentarim.

Ringing the tribe at a thousand yards were the rest of the warriors, accompanied by their eldest sons, sleek saluki hunting hounds, and falcons. As they traveled, they periodically unleashed a dog or bird, or broke into a spirited gallop themselves. At first Lander thought they were pointlessly wasting energy on high-spirited displays of riding and animal mastery, then he noticed that after these bursts of activity the sons returned to the center of the caravan with a hare, lizard, or some other meat for the evening's pot. Once he even saw a proud boy riding with a small gazelle slung over his camel's back.

The boys delivered the game to their mothers and sisters, who were riding in the security of the caravan center. The women of the wealthiest warriors rode in elaborately decorated haouadjejs, but most of the families could not afford the extra camel's wool needed to make one of the box-shaped litters.

As Lander studied this part of the caravan, he realized that the Mahwa were moving at what must have been an extraordinary pace for the khowwan. Every camel was carrying at least one person, sometimes two. Even the baggage camels had small children perched atop their bundles, their little hands tightly gripping the leather thongs that held the cargo in place.

Lander turned to Ruha, who had been riding at his side all morning. "Do Bedine children usually ride the baggage camels?"

Ruha laughed. "No. The women and children usually walk to avoid tiring the camels. Sheikh Sa'ar is anxious to stay ahead of the Zhentarim, though, so everybody must ride. With luck, we will cover forty miles today."

Lander glanced back over his shoulder. The ebony basin holding Colored Waters had already disappeared. For dozens of miles, all he could see was dun-colored barrenness. In the far distance, perhaps a hundred miles or more away, a low range of mountains rose out of the glassy heat waves drifting off the desert floor.

"I hope it will be enough," he said.

"What makes you think it won't be?" Ruha asked.

"Have you ever heard of asabis?" Lander asked, turning his attention to his riding companion's sultry eyes.

She furrowed her brow. "No. The name means 'eaters-of-parents'."

"Maybe you haven't heard of them, but you've seen them," Lander replied. He repeated Sa'ar's story to her, then added, "I have no idea how the Zhentarim made contact with them, but it appears our enemies already have one group of allies here in the desert."

"That explains why they're so quick to destroy the tribes who won't cooperate," she concluded. "They're more concerned about eliminating potential enemies than about making allies."

Lander nodded, impressed by the young woman's grasp of the situation. "Their intentions are worse than I thought," he said. "With the asabis, they have the allies they need to take military control of Anauroch. They only need the Bedine to use as slaves-in the worst sense of the word."

"Did you ever doubt that?" Ruha asked.

The young widow rode unusually close to the Harper's side for the rest of the day. She remained quiet and thoughtful, but Lander had the vague sensation that she enjoyed being next to him. The feeling was pleasant enough, but it also gave the Harper a giddy sense of excitement that discomforted him.

Late in the afternoon, Lander looked down and noticed that the ground had changed from barren, dun-colored dirt to a flat, endless mosaic of coin-sized stones. The pebbles were mostly red in color, varying in hue from blond to dark brown. All had been polished glass smooth, which gave the desert floor a fiery, pebbled appearance that seemed more appropriate to the caldera they had left behind than the open flats through which they were passing.