He watched the fire dance a moment longer, his eyes lost in the wavering flames, then he blinked and looked up at the sky. The White Moon, Domammon, was just beginning to rise. The Red Moon, Vala, was hidden in its new phase, and would be so for the next few days, and the Twin Moons had yet to rise. The Skybands cut the starry sky with an uncharacteristic brilliance that night, their stripes of bright color battling with one another to hold his eyes. They had been steadily widening by barely perceptible degrees when they turned northerly, allowing them to see more and more of them as they moved away from the equator. They had been a razor's edge at Dala Yar Arak, but at home in Aldreth, they took up about an eighth of the sky on a cloudless night. His mother told him that they dominated the entire southern sky in Ungardt. The Skybands in the south, and the Gods' Curtain in the north made nights in Ungardt very bright.

From beyond the rocky pillar came a strange hollow sound, almost like a moan. Tarrin turned his ears in that direction as it sounded again, an eerie sound that made the fur on his arms stand up. It was a sound without feeling, without anything, like an anti-sound that sought to deaden his ears in a curious manner. A sound without feeling, almost as if the voice was meant to take all feeling from those that could hear it and leave them numb. The Cat in him seemed to respond to that sound instinctively, wanting to get away from it. But Tarrin's human mind realized that it was an animal's reaction to an unnatural entity, much as it had been when he'd been confronted by a Wraith. That reinforced Denai's description of them as ghosts.

"What is that sound?" Sarraya asked, shivering her wings.

"That's a Sandman," Denai replied to her, standing up with a sober expression. "It's very close. It's time for you to make more fuel for the fire, Sarraya, and we'll need to keep it bright all night. Sandmen don't make noise unless they know living beings are close to them."

"They won't come near us?" Sarraya asked.

"As long as we keep the fire up," she replied. "Sandmen don't like the light."

There was another moan, and another, and they began to sound… eager.

"Holy Mother," Denai said urgently. "That's not right. They must be chasing someone!" she said.

"How do you know that?"

"That's the sound they make when they try to kill," Denai told her. "The eagerness in the voice gives it away."

"Who would they be chasing out here?" Sarraya demanded. "We haven't seen anyone since we left your tribe."

"Maybe a Scout that didn't get back to a tribe in time," Denai told her.

It wasn't a scout. The object of the Sandmen's attentions came up and over the fallen rock spire a scant moment after Denai stood up, moving with tremendous urgency and haste. So much haste that the figure slipped trying to come down, and ended up flopped unceremoniously on its back just inside the perimeter of the campfire's light. The scent of the figure reached Tarrin's nose as he moved to rise, and much to his shock, he recognized it.

It was Var!

"Var!" Tarrin said sharply, coming up onto his feet as the Selani male sat up and looked up to the rock over his head.

"Tarrin!" Var said in surprise, then he laughed. "The Holy Mother must be guiding my steps to bring me so close to you at such a convenient time!"

"What are you doing here?" Tarrin demanded hotly in Selani, glaring at the man.

"Going to Gathering," he shrugged. "My tribe means to take this route, and I'm scouting it. I lost my fire-pack to an over-eager inu. It's good luck that you happened to be nearby."

"You know this one?" Denai asked curiously.

Tarrin nodded. "He came about this close to getting killed," Tarrin said, holding his finger and thumb barely apart.

"He's of my clan, but not of my tribe," Denai said. "Who are you, stranger?"

"Will someone tell me what's going on?" Sarraya demanded. "What is Var doing all the way out here?"

"The stranger is a Scout for another tribe," Denai told her. "He lost his fire-pack fighting inu. He came here because of our fire."

"Oh. I know you speak the Western tongue, Var," Sarraya said sharply. "If you're going to talk around me, do it that way. I get cranky when I don't know what's going on."

Tarrin raised his ears at that, but then he remembered that quite a while ago, Var told him that Sarraya had told him some things. She couldn't do that if they didn't share a common language.

"My apologies, friend Sarraya," he said with a grin, in accented Sulasian. "He spoke to me in the True Tongue, and I responded in kind out of reflex."

That made Denai's eyebrow rise. "When did a Scout learn a trade language?" she asked him curiously.

"When his mother is obe," he replied with a shrug, standing up. "I know this is forward of me, Tarrin, but I need a fire this night. May I join yours? I'll do my part to keep it lit tonight, as is only proper."

Tarrin blew out his breath. Another stranger. But he wasn't about to send him back out to those hideous moans, though. Even he had limits on heartlessness. Those moans totally smothered even his curiosity to see one of these mysterious Sandmen. Tarrin knew Var, up to a point. He felt that he could trust his presence for a night. After all, Var already had an intimate understanding of how fast he would die if he did something stupid.

"Just tonight," Tarrin told him bluntly. "You already know how I feel about strangers."

"I know fully well. I'll stay on this side of the fire," he said, motioning towards Denai and Sarraya.

"Sounds like you just made it, Var. Literally," Sarraya grinned at him as Tarrin sat back down. Denai did the same, and Var moved over to their side of the fire. He dropped down in a cross-legged position beside the rock on which Sarraya was standing. "From the sound of those moaning sounds, I don't think I'd want one of them joining us."

"Sandmen are not to be taken lightly," Var said seriously. "Were it not for those inu, I'd be tending my own fire right now."

"Don't the inu have trouble with the Sandmen too?"

Both Var and Denai shook their heads. "Sandmen don't attack animals," Denai told her. "They only attack intelligent beings."

"But no animal will get anywhere near one," Var added. "They run from Sandmen. I've always wondered why, since the Sandmen won't bother them."

"Because they're unnatural," Sarraya told him. "Animals are sensitive to things like that. They won't approach unnatural things."

"I guess so," Var shrugged. "A Selani with half a brain runs too." He looked at Denai casually, then offered his hand to her, reaching over Sarraya's head. "I am Var Dellin'Sun, of Clan Dellinar," he introduced in Selani.

"I am Denai Shu'Dellin, of Clan Dellinar," she replied in kind. The two of them looked at one another steadily, then Denai took his hand and gripped it firmly. "Honor to the clan."

"Honor to the clan," he repeated, and then they let go of each other's hands. "How did she come to travel with you?" he asked Sarraya.

"Tarrin pulled her butt out of a pack of inu," Sarraya replied with a little laugh. "She's guiding us around some of the bigger obstacles in payment for that."

Var looked towards Tarrin, then looked at Denai, who looked a trifle embarassed at that revelation. "Surprising that you'd change your mind now, Tarrin. You told me that you wouldn't travel with strangers."

"Why do you think I'm over here, Var?" Tarrin asked sharply. "I didn't know that the desert was so hard to navigate in this region. Denai is saving me time, nothing more. When we're in the open again, I'll send her back to her tribe."

"It's not your choice when I leave," Denai flared. "I'll leave when honor is satisfied, and not a moment sooner."

Tarrin narrowed his eyes and stared at her in a manner that made her flinch away from him.