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militia for good. And either way, it’ll mean a reckoning, and that can mean revenge.”
    The tardy spent hours in a circle, talking with brooding sounds, reaching out to each other. Their motions were careful under the weight of their limbs.
Poor lost soldiers,
thought Cutter, though his awe remained.
    At last the convenor of the parley said to him: “Them gone, one militia band. They gone north. Hunting. We know where.”
    “That’s them,” said Cutter. “They’re looking for our man. They’re the ones we have to reach.”
             
    The tardy plucked handfuls of their spines and lifted Cutter and his comrades. They carried them, easily. The deserted sables watched them go. The cactacae took mammoth strides, swayed across terrains, stepping over trees. Cutter felt close to the sun. He saw birds, even garuda.
    The
ge’ain
spoke to them. The feathered figures circled when they passed, with a sound like billowing. They jabbered in severe avian voices. The
ge’ain
listened and crooned in reply.
    “Militia ahead,” said Cutter’s mount.
    They staggered, resting rarely, their legs locked in the cactus-manner. Once they stopped when the moon and its daughters were low. At the very edge of the savannah, west, there was light. A torch, a lantern moving.
    “Who is he?” said Cutter’s tardy. “Man on horse. Follows you?”
    “He’s there? Jabber . . . get to him! Quick. I need to know his game.”
    The
ge’ain
careened in drunken speed, eating distance, and the light went out. “Gone,” the tardy said. A whisper sounded in Cutter’s ear, making him start.
    “Don’t be a damn fool,”
the voice said.
“The cactus won’t find me. You’re wasting time. I’ll join you by and by.”
    When they continued the way they had been going, the light came back, kept pace with them to the west.
             
    After two nights, breaking only for brief rests or to sluice Fejh with what water they found, the
ge’ain
stopped. They pointed at a track of pulped greenery and ploughed-up landscape.
    Over miles of dried grass, before greener hills, a haze was ris-ing, what Cutter thought was dust-smoke, then saw was mixed with darker grey. As if someone had smudged an oily finger on a window.
    “Them,” said Cutter’s
ge’ain.
“Militia. Is them.”
    The tardy did not plan. They uprooted knotted trees of the prairie and made them bludgeons, then continued toward the murderers of their kin.
    “Listen!” Cutter and Pomeroy and Elsie shouted, to persuade them of the sense in a strategy. “Listen, listen, listen.”
    “Keep one alive,” said Cutter. “For Jabber’s sake let us talk to one,” but the tardy gave no sign that they heard or cared.
    The veldt buckled; heat reverberated between stones like houses. Animals scattered at the
ge’ain
oncoming, loud as the fall of trees. The tardy stamped up a fold of land and became still. Cutter looked down over the militia.
    There were more than a score, tiny figures in grey, and they had dogs, and something expressing the smoke: an ironclad tower as tall as the tardy pulled by Remade horses. Its summit was corbelled, and two men looked out from between battlements. It tore up the bushes and left ruined land and oil.
    Very slowly the tardy put their passengers down. Cutter and his comrades checked their weapons.
    “This is idiocy,” said Pomeroy. Some dusty bird of prey went over, sounding excitement. “Look at their firepower.”
    “What do they care?” Cutter nodded at the tardy. “They only want revenge. It’s us who want more. I ain’t going to stand in the way of this lot getting what’s theirs. As if I could.” The tardy lumbered down the slope toward the militia. “We best get going.”
             
    The companions spread out. They did not need to hide. The militia had seen the tardy, and could see nothing else. Cutter ran in the dust that the cactus-giants left.
    A motorgun fired. Bullets purged from the rotating barrels. The militia