Ruthar brought them in on a beach black with basalt. It was a dark reminder of how far they were from home. Few of them had seen a coast beyond the Purple Sands before.

Oyur helped Erjang down, supported her with a shoulder until the earth was firm enough for the elder's staff to bear her weight. The rest of the advance guard were cautiously scattering across the beach in pairs. Former rotflies, none of them still wore the badge. That title had died with Xerxes.

But the glass blades they carried had not lost their edge, and the watchmen were no less dangerous than they once had been.

The island- For there was no mainland here, that much they knew- was dark of stone and mountainous. A volcano. Erjang nodded to the heights and vowed to pray to the spirits of this land. There would not be another. The encircling coral had done too much damage to their ships.

Strange plants grew here, things that had only been seen before as weeds, now grown into forests. Ferns as tall as pines, aloes that branched into trees, humble groundsels that now towered over the dandelions that had been their brothers. There were animals, also- Sea lions basked on the shores, and [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XO54HIsw-R0]something[/url] sang eerie wailing songs in the distance.

Erjang lowered herself with painstaking effort to the ground, rubbed the soil between her fingertips. It had never known the plough or the paddy. This was virgin land.

A tracker with a crocody-doggle approached them from the next rise and nodded to Oyur, still looking over his shoulder with his other pair of eyes. The two humans followed his lead as the cody worried at the trail of a shrew. Even the doggles were hungry for fresh ground.

Oyur adjusted her rucksack and lifted the old woman over the worst of the pillowed lava. She was light and small.

A sprawl of flat earth greeted them on the other side, dotted with ponds. At its center stood a figure. Something with two long, thin legs, and a body like a tooth. Erjang approached it without fear.

"Greetings," said the elder.

[color=f6989d]"Come,"[/color] said the Emaciator.