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decisions and to take the command. Obdjang and Dwadjang, they lived together in fraternal friendship in Djanduin.
    A long screeching cry cut through the night.
    Delia cocked her head.
    “A wherezik has found its prey,” quoth Tandu. “Poor victim, swimming in the river at this time of night.”
    “No doubt,” said Delia briskly, “the victim’s belly was stuffed with its own victims.”
    “Aye. Aye, majestrix. That is the way of the world.”
    “Has there been any report of leems lately?”
    “Not one.”
    “I am relieved to hear it. On the morrow we take all the totrixes and march downriver for Mellinsmot. There we should be able to find a flier, or zorcas if they have no airboats.”
    “Whatever the folk of Mellinsmot may have, they will gladly yield it for their empress.”
    “That, I hope.”
    “Oh,” said Tandu, easily, “they will.” In the star-shot darkness the lights of the moons shadowed on his hand, instinctively reaching for a sword hilt, without thought. Delia half-smiled and half-sighed.
    “The Hikdar will be surprised,” said Tandu, out of nowhere.
    “The Hikdar?”
    “Aye. He brings a patrol along the bank, on a regular schedule. Just to see we are not all dead or run off.”
    “Oh!”
    “Hikdar Leomer ti Vindheim will expect to see Deldar Hirvin and us — and he’ll find another audo of guards.” Tandu made a small breathy sound on the night air that was as near a laugh as a sentry would permit himself. It was clear that to the Djang this was a great jest. Delia felt pleasure in Tandu’s enjoyment of the situation. This was a simple enough example of one of the reasons she loved her Djangs so.
    They lived in Djanduin, a sizable country in the southwest of the vast continent of Havilfar, down south of the equator. Up here in the north, the large island of Vallia with the clusters of smaller islands around the shores, had seen the coming of many Djangs since the Strom of Valka became King of Djanduin. This free movement and mingling of peoples was a dream near to the heart of the Emperor of Vallia, for he foresaw the time when all of this grouping of continents and islands, known as Paz, must fight for life against enemies from overseas, the detested, despised and dreaded Shanks. So if anyone thought to question why one man should at once be strom, kov, hyrkov, king and emperor, the answer did not lie in the reply that the man was a remarkable person. He was, of course, and Delia had married him; but deeper than that, more touching the core of the future on Kregen, lay this determination to resist enemies and create a whole, free, full life for all.
    A dream. Of course, a dream. But without a dream you are without everything.
    The night passed. Delia said: “Before we ride for Mellinsmot there is a task I must perform. We will take all the totrixes and all the water we can carry.”
    A fighting man grasped the meaning without fail. A warrior maiden, a Jikai Vuvushi, probably understood even more rapidly.
    Tandu cocked an eye aloft as they finished up the first breakfast of the day.
    “Yes, Tandu. I know. Rippasch will be there before us. But — I must.”
    So, with all the saddle animals loaded with skins bulging with water, they set off into the badlands, out across the Ochre Limits.

Chapter three
    A Burial Is Completed
    Delia and Tandu stood, heads bowed, looking down at the wreckage of the airboat and the strewn bones. Dalki stood in a respectful way; but his eyes did not stare downward. His right hand rested comfortably on his belt beside the feathered shafts in their plain quiver, and his left hand, held down, grasped a bow. He looked up.
    Presently, her private commendation to Opaz for the ibs of her friends completed, Delia said: “It is sad. But we will give them a proper burial. They will surely reach the sunny uplands beyond the Ice Floes of Sicce.”
    “Without doubt,” said Tandu.
    Scraping a grave was simple enough. It would blow streaming sand, later on, no doubt,