‘Oh? What did she say? - If you can remember.’

‘Oh, I can remember it all right. She said, “My name is Ara. I’m sixteen years old, and I want you.”‘

‘That gets right to the point,’ Keselo said. He was just a bit surprised that Omago’s story had pushed his weariness aside. He was wide awake now, for some reason.

‘There is something I should really tell you, Keselo,’ Omago continued. ‘I don’t want to offend you, but I don’t really like this soldiering very much. I don’t like to tell others what to do, and the idea of killing things that look like people - even though they aren’t - makes me sick at my stomach.’ He shrugged. ‘I guess somebody had to do it, though, and Veltan sort of depends on me. I just hope I don’t make too many mistakes.’

‘I’d say that you’re doing very well, Omago,’ Keselo replied. ‘You invented the spear. If my history professor back at the university knew what he was talking about, you compressed about a thousand years of human history into a couple of weeks.’

Omago looked just a bit embarrassed and he glanced off to the east again. ‘The tip of the sun just came up above the horizon,’ he reported. ‘I expect that the bug-people will be coming up the hill before long.’

From out in the Wasteland there came that now-familiar roar that echoed back from the nearby cliffs, and once again the lumbering, oversized (and, Keselo believed, under brained) new breed of bug-people came shambling up the glittering slope toward the now-empty breast-works which had been abandoned by Narasan’s forces the previous night. As had happened several times before, the empty-headed servants of the Vlagh were completely baffled by the absence of soldiers behind the now vacant breast-works.

‘Bugs aren’t too intelligent, are they?’ Omago suggested.

‘Rocks are probably more intelligent,’ Keselo replied, carefully feeling for the pulse in his left wrist with the fingers of his right hand.

‘Are you hurt, Keselo?’ Omago asked with some concern.

Keselo shook his head. ‘Just counting,’ he replied. ‘If I’m right, we’ll hear another roar from out there in just about fifty-seven heartbeats.’

‘Your heart, maybe,’ Omago disagreed. ‘Mine seems to be beating just a little faster.’

They waited, and sure enough, the voice of the Vlagh roared forth the command to charge yet again.

‘Fifty-three,’ Keselo reported. ‘Something out there appears to be a little faster than the others.’

‘Where did you come up with that idea?’

‘It was one of the things we were trained to do when we were student soldiers,’ Keselo explained. ‘Precise timing can be crucial in certain situations. It doesn’t work too well if you’ve been running, but I’ve been standing in one place since first light.’ He nodded toward the now-occupied breast-works they’d abandoned the previous night. ‘Here they come,’ he said.

‘And there they go,’ Omago added as the attaching force encountered the reintroduced poisoned stakes. Keselo had been very relieved when Commander Narasan had rescinded his earlier command and allowed his men to go back to the previous practice of planting those stakes to slow the attacks of the bug-people. If things went the way they were supposed to, the church armies would soon arrive to take over for Narasan’s army, and Gunda had bluntly advised his friend that keeping as many of his men alive as possible was far more important than maintaining their supply of snake venom.

‘It’ll take a bit longer for the word to get back to the Vlagh this time,’ Keselo predicted. ‘The stakes always confuse them, and it takes them more time to send the report back.’

‘And then the Vlagh will shout again and the ones wearing armor will rush up here and start rolling over the stakes?’

‘Exactly. Then, as soon as the turtle-people get close enough, the archers will start shooting arrows at their eyes, and that should just about end this particular attack.’ Keselo yawned at that point. ‘Then we’ll all be able to get some sleep,’ he added.

‘What if they charge us again?’

‘Not very likely, my friend,’ Keselo said. ‘They never have before. It takes a very long time for this particular enemy to modify its tactics - months usually - maybe years, for all I know. Wake me if anything interesting happens.’ Then he found a relatively comfortable corner in the breast-works, settled down, and promptly fell asleep.

It was early in the afternoon when Brigadier Danal woke them. ‘Andar wants to know if you can come up with some kind of explanation for something that’s a bit peculiar, Keselo,’ he said.

‘Oh?’ Keselo said, struggling to shake off his sleep. ‘What’s that?’

‘Take a look at Gunda’s wall - assuming that you can still see it.’

Keselo rose and looked on up the slope at the yellow cloud billowing over Gunda’s wall. ‘I think that’s what’s called a “sandstorm”, Brigadier Danal - or possibly a duststorm. As I understand it, they’re fairly common in desert country.’

‘You’d better let Andar know that it’s something ordinary, Keselo. That thing up there’s making him just a bit edgy. A lot of strange things keep popping up here in the Land of Dhrall, and they’re making Andar sort of jumpy.’

The three of them went on along the breast-works to join Sub-Commander Andar.

‘Keselo says that it’s only what’s called a “sandstorm”, Andar. The world didn’t just split open or something like that.’

‘Could you give me a bit more in the way of an explanation, Keselo?’ Andar asked.

‘I’ve never actually seen one before, sir,’ Keselo replied, ‘but one of the professors at the university told us that in the dryer parts of the world where there aren’t very many trees or much grass, a strong wind can pick up dust or sand and send it billowing along the ground for miles and miles. When the wind dies down, everything settles back to earth again.’

‘How long do they usually last?’

‘As long as the wind keeps blowing, sir.’

‘That’s not very precise, Keselo,’ Andar complained.

‘That’s always a problem when you’re dealing with the weather, sir,’ Keselo replied. ‘The study of weather involves a lot of things that we don’t understand very well yet. We know that winters are cold and summers are hot, but that’s about as far as we’ve been able to go with any degree of certainty. You might want to tell the men to cover their noses and mouths with cloth, though. I don’t think breathing in sand would be very good for them.’