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it, graceful and sure, Tifari and Bizan returning at full tilt, too far away, the wind snatching their cries from their open mouths. Elua help me, but I will do it, I will ride between him and that monster, if I have to kill my horse and myself.
    Why it did, I’ll never know, but the rhinoceros thought better of it. It shook itself, for all the world like a massive dog, and turned, trotting toward the river, plowing through the thornbushes and leaving us.
    “You idiot !” I shouted at Joscelin, finding my voice. “You could have been killed ! What in Elua’s name were you thinking?”
    He laughed out loud, spinning in a giddy circle, his blade carving a silver line in the air. “I struck true, Phèdre! Did you see? I can still do it. I can still do it !”
    I opened my mouth and closed it. “You could have been killed,” I repeated with more restraint. “Joscelin, if you need to test your skills, pick something that’s not nearly the size of an oliphaunt, with hide like cured leather. You can’t kill such a beast on foot, with a naked blade.”
    “You can if you cut their hamstrings.” In a calmer humor, he sheathed his sword behind his back. “Tifari Amu told me; it’s how they hunt oliphaunt. It takes precision, that’s all. I’m sorry if I frightened you.”
    I gave him a look and had no time for aught else, for by then, Tifari and Bizan returned, with Bizan’s horse pulling up lame, having strained a foreleg, and our bearer Nkuku had to be extricated from the thorns. He was badly scratched and shaken, and two of the donkeys entangled as well, having been scattered by the rhinoceros’ charge. Those acacia thorns are like nothing I have ever seen; finger-length and sharper than a fishhook. There were wounds to be tended, human and animal alike, and a pair of water-skins slashed to shreds, good for naught but patch-leather. Tifari Amu opined that the beast must have been ill, and sought only to gain the river. Mayhap it was so, but it wrought a fair amount of damage! ’Twas a mercy Imriel had thought to grab the reins of Joscelin’s mount, else we’d have had a job chasing it down, too.
    Nonetheless, we needed to regroup, and so it was that Tifari scouted upriver, finding us a pleasant site. Here we would make our camp, until we were fit to travel.
    The site was situated at a bend of the river, which flowed smooth over a pebbled bed, swirling and eddying as it turned. At one point a natural spring gave rise to a deep, secluded pool, emptying in a rivulet which meandered off on its own, burbling over rocks to feed the Tabara River. It was a perfect place to bathe or wash clothing without fear of crocodiles or hippopotami intruding, and for that alone I was grateful. We pitched our tents on the grass near the river’s bend, lush as greensward and ample fodder for horses and donkeys alike, and Yedo, another of the bearers, carved out a passage through the underbrush to the bathing-pool.
    We spent four days there, all told, letting strains and thorn-gouges heal, while Tifari and Bizan hunted gazelle-not only to replenish our supply of meat, but to replace our water-skins, for they used the hides scraped clean and laid to cure, burying them in hot sand and shale away from the green swathe cut by the river. When it was done, the hides would be tied by the four legs and laced tight with leather thong woven from the remnants of the old water-skins, and these, Tifari assured us, would serve us well in the last portion of our journey, where we must depart from the river and again traverse the highlands. After that, we would reach the Great Falls, and enter Sabaean lands. I did not know, until we had it, how much we needed that respite.
    Thanks to the generosity of the Lugal of Khebbel-im-Akkad and Ras Lijasu of Meroë, while we did not travel in state, we travelled in comfort, as much as one might attain in the wilds of Jebe-Barkal. Millet we had in plenty, for cooking the flat, spongy bread of the Jebeans, and spices as well, and dried dates and figs. Our tents were well made and spacious, and we had all of us adopted the Jebean custom of sleeping on hide cots, stretchers that disassembled easily and raised one off the ground, where scorpions and other insects were wont to be found.
    I even had a three-legged stool slung with a leathern seat, and an ample supply of ink and parchment to record our journey. And that I did, sitting before our tent and musing over the activities of our encampment, setting