Almost everywhere she looked flames filled the night. The whole village was on fire! What was going on here? “Milady! This way!” For a moment, Thayla allowed herself to be pulled along by Blad; he seemed to know where he was going. Then she saw an opening in the wall of fire, and she shouted at him. “That way is clear.” “That leads to the lake, milady!” She took his point. Pili did not swim, there being little opportunity to do so in the desert. Then again, while the desert was hot, it hardly compared to a raging fire. “There will be water craft of some kind. Hurry! “ They hurried. The crackle of light and heat was joined here and there by the collapse of buildings and the screams of villagers too slow to escape one or the other. Thayla did not know what had caused the inferno but she suspected that her quarry had been in some way responsible.
