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Wishing for more would gain him nothing, he knew. The Gwurran were a tough tribe. They had not survived inhospitable country and forbidding fauna through dint of heavy wishing. Where resources were lacking, they found acceptable substitutes, or devised their own.

That was it, he knew. He had some hasty devising to do. Reason and logic might all seem to lead toward inevitable failure, but Tooqui was able to compensate for his small self with an outsized ego. If nothing else, his own boastfulness would not let him fail.

Now, if only he could find a way to make the Qulun understand that.

Every step, every forward lurch of the plodding sadains he was following took him farther from home, from the safety of familiar hills and the warmth of the Gwurran tribe. He tried not to think about how far he was from everything he knew. Water was not a problem, rain having collected in small pools and depressions in the hard-packed prairie dirt. But he had to spend time searching for food, and then would have to hurry to catch back up to the steadily advancing caravan. Days passed in this fashion, then another, and another. Tired and filthy and homesick, he nevertheless somehow managed to keep up with the procession.

Yet another evening saw him no closer to a possible way of rescuing his friends than when he had hidden in the kholot burrow. As night fell, tired and hungry he once again sought shelter from marauding predators, and found himself having to move farther and farther away from the encampment. He regretted the loss of light from the camp’s glowpoles, even if they could only be safely viewed from a distance. But safety was more important than a cheery glow in the night. If not a burrow, or a high tree, he would have to find some big rocks he could squeeze between before he allowed himself to rest.

What he encountered instead was a distant rumbling and booming. “Ou, pifgot!” he mumbled. As if his present situation wasn’t bad enough, now it was going to rain. Pretty hard, too, judging by the smell of it. Wind swirled around him as if suddenly unsure of what direction to take, and the taste of impending moisture was heavy on the night air. Kapchenaga boomed off to the north, announcing his advance with steady earthward thrusts of the Light-That-Burned.

Behind him, the camp would be bracing itself for the arrival of the approaching storm: sealing house joints, fastening windows, securing livestock, and rolling up pennants and advertisements. The Qulun and their prisoners would wait out the storm safe and snug within sturdy shelters, warmed by hot food and imported offworld heaters. Meanwhile he, Tooqui, would be lucky to find a dry burrow not already occupied by some inhospitable creature.

An overhang beneath a rock would be better, he knew as he continued searching. Not as warm as a burrow, but far less likely to already be claimed for the night. Unlike an Alwari or a human, he had his coat of fur to keep him warm. At least the rain that was coming would mask his scent from roving meat eaters.

There, in front of him in the darkness—an unexpected ridge of hills. Just in time, too, judging from the rising wind. Already, fast-moving clouds were beginning to block out the stars and the light of Ansion’s first ascending moon. Thunder was sounding more frequently now, and the first fat raindrops began to slap at the grass. Blinking away drip-drops, he headed for a gap between the nearest hills. A flash of Kapchenaga’s breath briefly lit up the sky. Tooqui froze. These were not hills he was silently approaching. He knew that was the case not only because of what he had seen in that split second of illumination, but because the hill he was nearest to had turned a baleful eye in his direction.

Lorqual.

So startled was he that he couldn’t decide whether to curl up on the ground, turn and run, or simply topple over unconscious. As a consequence, he did none of these. Instead, he just stood where he was, staring, as the rain began to fall in earnest. The sound of it pattering against the