Kamakama was lying full length upon the sand, his face submerged in the water. Now he pulled up his head with a great spuming and blowing. He cried, “Oh, kuia, that’s good.”
“Soon you’ll be in Galul, boy. You can put your whole body into water there. There’s lakes to swim in.”
“I’d like that. Is swimming hard?”
“Is walking hard? Everything is when you start out, getting easier as you go.”
“Except life,” said the boy in a grim voice. “It starts out hard then just gets harder the more we go on.”
“There is that,” she agreed. “We didn’t count on these Aresians. I hope we got enough bodies moved . . .”
“We got the ones south of Qum. They were the closest ones.”
“All we could do with this child along.” She lifted the baby from the water, patted him dry, and laid him on the blanket, where he promptly put his thumb in his mouth and closed his eyes.
“Well, he’s gone quick enough,” the boy said.
“He’s slept hardly at all on Way,” she answered. “He’s tired out. And so are we, but watch should be kept. You rest, boy. I’m too jumpy to sleep yet.”
Kamakama stretched out on the blanket next to the sleeping baby and let himself relax, wriggling his hips and shoulders into the sand while Awhero took her pack to the cave entrance and arranged it to make a backrest. From this vantage point she could see north and south along the coast, though her view inland was blocked by the ridges stair-stepping upward above the cavern. From this point south, the seacliffs blocked all passages from the sea, at least any that were visible from the shore.
The entrance to the cave was well hidden. The state of constant vigilance they’d been in for the last four days meant she and the boy had slept little better than Dovidi. She leaned back her head and shut her eyes. Just for moment, she told herself. Not long. Just . . . moment.
And she woke to an erratic sound, like a disturbed bee or hornet, caught in some cul-de-sac. A whiny noise. Like a malfunctioning sand-sled . . .
She moved slowly, carefully to the entrance, standing in the shadow. There it was, down on the shore path, with the tide moving in. And there was . . . well, Jorub! Now what the devil was he doing out here? She stepped into the clear, put her hands to her mouth and called through them, “Hai-eee.”
He couldn’t hear her over the sound his engine was making. It went on whining, then suddenly stopped. She put her hands up and called again. This time he looked up. She waved. He got off the sled and kicked it petulantly.
Shaking her head, Awhero went down among the rocks. “You got water in intake, didn’t you?”
“I don’t usually come this way, to or from,” he said. “I was looking for Aufors Leys. Is he with you?”
“Looking here?”
“The woman, Genevieve, she saw the bird rocks and the red cliffs and her man was supposed to be at one or the other.”
“Well, then he’s at other. She saw this place because her child is here.”
He shrugged. “So, I’ve wasted a little fuel.”
“Not a drop was wasted, and I’m mightily glad you came. We could use little faster travel, which we won’t have if we don’t get this sled up out of wet.”
Together they dragged it along a sloping shingle, halfway up the shore path, out of the reach of the tide, while Jorub shared his news of Genevieve and the Marshal and Joncaster, gone to find Aufors Leys. “We’ll meet at the standing stone,” he concluded.
“Te marae’s empty, is it?” Awhero asked.
“We shut it down before the Shah got there. We’ve been making a supply run since, and we were at the canyon house when Genevieve got the galloping visions . . .”
“I heard someone . . . something call,” Awhero offered, tentatively.
“You and the rest of the world,” muttered Jorub. “I thought those shouters in Mahahm Qum were loud. She let out a bellow like I’ve never heard.”