The darkening day drags on for what seems like an eternity under the branches of Xtand. High pitch squeaking and ominous growls from the thick trees keep us in a constant state of vigilance, though I begin to wonder how much of what I am hearing is real and how much is in my head. The stale air is held in by the many leaves and branches of the forest that keep even the slightest breeze from piercing their foundation.

Stuart looks around in amazement as we continue down the path. “It's remarkable.” The old man says. His breath is labored and he leans heavily on the stick I had found for him. I nod in silent agreement. “The path itself seems to be carved out of the trees. You see the way the ground has been pounded in here? How there are no trees laying across the path?”

Ryan turns his head and looks at the Admiral but quickly back down at the ground. It's quite obvious the question that is weighing on his mind but the earlier confrontation with Stuart makes the priest unwilling to ask. Stuart smirks, he seems to have known that this would be the man's response.

“What could have made it?” I ask. “People?”

“It's a game trail.” Chris observes from Amber's side. “Animals follow it on a regular basis.”

“Where would they be going?” I pursue, calling out to Chris from the rear of the company.

Amber stares down the path, not allowing her eye to be torn away for fear of missing something important. “It leads to water.” She returns.

“Could be anything.” Chris explains. “Mating ground, watering hole, maybe even Uncachunca.”

“That'd be a relief.” Stuart grunts, his hobbling pace quickening. “We'd be able to find something to help us, get more turtles and get back to Yadout before two days have passed.”

“Don't count on it.” Ryan mutters.

“Quiet!” Amber orders coming to a stop. Everyone is immedietly silent. If she had wanted us to stop speaking she would have kept walking, but her stopping insists that she has heard something.

We stand still for long moments, no one daring to breathe. Stuart and I watch the treeline for any sign of danger while Amber stares ahead in concentration. Ryan and Chris watch intently for her orders.

Chris takes a small step towards her, stepping carefully to avoid disturbing the stones at his feet. “What is it?” He whispers. The young man's voice seems to be no more that the breeze that is missing from this forsaken land.

Amber doesn't respond for another long moment and finally whispers: “Water.” Amber breaks away from the path leading north and rushes to the west, her short footfall carrying her quickly over the mossy ground.

Chris leaves the rest of us on the path, still listening for the water, and hurries after Amber calling out to her to wait. Stuart and I nod to each other, though neither of us hear the water we silently agree to follow Amber's senses.

Ahead of us Amber laughs and calls out to the rest of us to hurry as the sound of water becomes unmistakable. Ryan hurries past us as I help the old man over a small boulder and up the path. “You can even see here how the forest seems to let us pass.” The Admiral says. “I'm glad we have it on our side.”

To call Amber's stream anything more than that would be to give it too much credit. Not even ankle deep the water falls off of some larger rocks and parts around a small bed of stones not three strides from either side.

The grassy shore reaches to the trees and leaves a small area large enough to, as Amber announces: “camp for the night.”

I pull the flint out of my bag as the Admiral uses a tree to help himself down. Using Ryan's dagger I quickly strike up a fire with nearby foliage. The small twigs crackle and sparks jump into the air, I can't help but worry about accidentally causing the entire forest to go up in flames.

Amber fills up a small bladder of water upstream from Ryan who has kicked off his shoes and is resting them in the small stream. The priest would have done this, I'm sure, even if Amber was down stream of him. After taking a drink from the bladder she passes it to Stuart who insists he only wants a sip. He hands the bladder back to her empty and thanks her with a loud belch.

The old man's son, seeing my efforts in striking up a fire, takes a moment to return to the forest to gather some sticks and explore our immediate surroundings. The young man is not out for long before he returns with an arm full of fallen timber. He places it next to me and I throw some of the larger wood onto the fire.

Before long night had fallen and we were all gathered around the fire, for a long time no one spoke.

“How do you think Kendra is doing?” Chris asks finally.

I sigh. If there's anything wrong with setting up a camp after such an ordeal it's that you finally have time to think about what has gone wrong.

Ryan throws a twig into the small fire. “She's probably returned to Zibwee with the other riders.” He says. “No use in staying if you can't fight.”

“She wouldn't leave.” Chris shoots back. Stuart doesn't say anything.

“Kevin and Gordo will do whatever they can.” Amber says. “I've never known those two to give up. Kendra will be fine.”

“What can a man do against such a destructive force?” Ryan asks.

“Whatever they can.” Amber repeats.

Ryan shakes his head. “We couldn't find a way to...”

“That's enough.” I interrupt him. Though he spoke the truth it seems unlikely that Kevin or Gordo could do anything about these creatures without prior knowledge of them. Now, however, is not the time for the truth. “We can only hope that Gordo and Kevin will stop them but until then we have to find a way to deal with this assuming...” I pause, “...assuming the worst.”

Amber breathes deeply and stands up. Silently she walks to the waters edge. Abandoning the warmth of the fire, I follow her.

The canopy opens up above the stream allowing the cool night air to wash over us, a stark contrast from the heat of the fire. The moonlight shines down on the water and shines up at us. Her eyes are distant and filled with tears as she remembers her country.

I wrap my arm around her and she wipes a tear away. The moonlight reflects off her eyes and surrounds us with a near holy light. The stillness of the moment is broken only by the splashing of the water and the crackling of the fire, the entire world seems to fall into a spell of tragedy.

Gripping her shoulder tightly, I whisper: “We will find a way.”

Amber rests her head against my shoulder and we stare ahead at an uncertain future.

“Deany.” I hear. I turn over, wrapping the blanket more tightly around me. “Deany, wake up!” The voice hisses again.

My eyes flutter open and are stung by the light from the fire intruding on their rest. Chris pushes on my shoulder a few times and I sit up. The young man yawns and stands back up. “It's your watch.” He tells me as he stretches. “Wake up Ryan for the fourth watch.” Chris wraps his blanket around himself tightly and walks over to the fire. “We move out at dawn, I'm staying here if Stuart can't move.”

Stuart's knee had been getting worse since we set down to rest. His leg had become stiff as a board by the evening and we were all worried what would happen to the old man if he was in too much pain to continue. Now I know what had been decided. We would return when we had found the turtles.

“I did a little scouting during my watch.” He explains.

I wipe my eyes and look at the young man. “While you were supposed to be keeping an eye on us?” I ask.

Chris shrugs. “Across the stream, just beyond the trees, there are a few bushes with berries on them. Tasted a little like flushberries.”

The young man hands a wrapped piece of cloth to me. I open it up to find the small berries resting there. I eagerly eat the berries, not having eaten anything yesterday and thank him for the food. Before I had finished eating all of the delicious fruit the young man had already bedded down in front of the fire and had drifted off to sleep again.

I watched the night sky through the break in the trees, eagerly waiting for the moon to turn pink and signal the beginning of the fourth watch. It was still much too early, however, because the sibling stars had not finished crossing one another for the second time, apparently Chris had called his watch to end sooner than he should have.

I still remember the few classes I did attend on seafaring. The watches of the night are dictated still by the old system of navigation. Before compasses anyone moving about on the sea would only travel during the night because navigation was near impossible during the day. Because of this the sea faring men became the first astronomers, watching the stars carefully to guide their ships across the waters.

Even then the only reason I remember this lesson, beyond it being the history of the night watches, is because their origin is a sort of story in itself.

Low evening begins with the blue and red siblings making their first appearance in the night sky, blue to the left of the red. First watch begins when they cross paths, the blue blotting out the red. During the second watch they separate again with the red on the left and the blue on the right. The third watch begins when the red star covers the blue and the night ends with the stars in the same position they had started in, their mother (the moon) having called them in for the day. They hide again, making sure to stay hidden until their father (the sun) has retired for the night. Only occasionally does the mother venture out during the day, for fear of what the sun may do to them.

Many different interpretations have come from the stars traveling through the sky like this every night. The most popular is siblings playing a game. Others suggest the sibling stars are actually lovers dancing the night away. In all of these classic interpretations, however, the sun is always the antagonist because the sun coming up would end the game, the dance and (most importantly) the ship to a stop.

Since the invention of the compass in Zibwee these stories have become less important and have become, like the legends of this land, bed time stories. Even in the class the only reason the stories were explained were to show the students just how far we have come since those times.

The teacher had even insinuated that it was Yadout that had come up with this barbaric way of traveling. When I had mentioned that generations of trading and prosperity had come from this 'barbaric' method of sea faring, the teacher only saw it as an excuse to say I was insulting his intelligence and to hit me with his wooden stick.

Abandoning my watch duty I follow Chris's directions to the berries and cross the stream, first taking off my soft leather shoes to make tomorrows travel more comfortable.

Tiptoeing across the shallow stream, feeling the tiny pebbles push their way up between my toes I can't suppress a shiver that runs up my spine. I already regret leaving the warmth of the fire as a blast of cold air shoots down through the tree tops and pierces through my clothes as I reach the other side.

The sticks and twigs on the other shore shoot up through the ground like tiny defenders of the berries. Each step I take is slow and painful as I try and make my weight shift as slowly as possible to decrease the amount of pain the twigs deliver.

On reaching the bushes and finding the berries I softly caress the fruit off of their buds and gather them into the same small cloth that Chris had given me earlier. By the light of the still pale moon I quickly gather a handful of berries before a sound from behind me causes me to jump.

The cracking of twigs nearby causes my heart to race. My eyes dart over to the camp. Chris, Stuart, Ryan, Amber. No one is missing. I curse quietly to myself realizing that I am now far from the others and without shoes on rough terrain.

Slowly the creature comes towards me either curious about the intruder or it has come to feed on the berries and has decided flesh would be more appealing. As it gets closer the steps grow slower and more spread out worried, perhaps, that I will hear it.

Suddenly, in a flurry of noise, the creature starts running towards the stream and breaks through the barrier of trees and bushes pushing into the water and into the light.

The moonlight shines down on the large creature and I breathe a sigh of relief as the cow stands on the island in the middle of the stream staring at the fire and then back at me. Finally the creature bursts forward, across the camp and into the trees.

My heart returns slowly to a normal pace as the stillness of the night overtakes the scene again and the sound of the stream overtakes the pounding in my ears. Looking down at the cloth in my hand I find it soaked with the juice of now crushed berries.