Wind drove the fire forward. Where it advanced too rapidly for those in its path to escape, charred corpses littered the smoking, blackened earth in its wake.
“By Gapreth!” Suddenly wide awake, Simna was scrambling to gather up his gear. “The pool! Into the pool!”
“It is not wide enough,” Ehomba countered. “The fire is too big. The flames will consume the grass on both sides and merge above the surface. They will suck the air from above the water, burn the lungs and suffocate anyone who is not fish or frog.” Even as he spoke, the towering flames had advanced another ten feet nearer to the campsite. “Downstream! If we can find a pool too broad for the flames to overreach we will be safe.”
Carrying everything, they fled from the onrushing blaze. Ahlitah flew effortlessly over rocks and gullies that slowed less nimble companions. Burdened by packs, lesser individuals than Ehomba and Simna would have fallen fatally behind. Hunkapa Aub was not graceful, but his expansive stride compensated for his occasional ungainliness.
As they fled, the stream continued to flow strongly alongside them, holding out the promise of a hoped-for refuge somewhere up ahead. When the ground showed signs of sloping slightly upward, Ehomba took heart. The slight alteration in terrain strongly suggested that the water that was now flowing downhill beside them would soon have to come to rest in a large, still body.
It was the tallest of the travelers who sang out moments later. “Hunkapa see water!”
“Another pond?” a gasping Simna inquired. He was panting hard not so much from running as from the rising temperature. In spite of their exertions, the wall of flame was gaining on them, and the fire gave no indication of tiring.