of the kinship and already some were whispering that the world would end. It was not a life she had wanted for her children’s children.
She left the creek bed and began to cross the Great Northern Plains. Although there were no roads, she navigated a thin track ridge through the clay desert. Such ancient tracks had been made during seismic surveys for gas and fuel deposits by early colonists, or so the tales went.
After several hours of walking and a short water rest in‐between, she approached a familiar place. She was in the territory of the Nullabor, a neighbouring kinship. During the cooler seasons, the Zhosa and the Nullabor had feasted together and performed their traditional dances to celebrate the defeat of the double‐headed eagle by the Godspawn, as the suns of Swelter were eclipsed by a red gas giant, marking a twilight and celebration that lasted for an entire lunar cycle.
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Perhaps they would know of fertile gorges in the region, or even of karst caves with edible rodentia. Better yet, Abena hoped that despite the famine, the kinship would honour their ties and perhaps spare her a cup of fermented milk for Ashwana.
Through the haze of noon dust, she could recognise the distinctive silver of their long carriages. The road trains, mechanical beasts from a lost age of mining, were drawn like protective wagons in a circle around the settlement, the rusting bulk of their segmented carriages protecting the tents and lean‐tos that clung to their bellies from wind and sandstorm. In all, Abena remembered the Nullabor as a generous but poor kinship. They did not own many heads of caprid, and their road trains were in disrepair, the engines temperamental after sixty centuries of maintenance. They owned only early prospector models with loud engines and noisy wide gauge tracks. Some of the corroded carriages had been shored up with hand‐painted wood panelling, giving them a roguish, antiquated air.
Yet Abena knew the kinship would still share whatever meagre supplies they could.
Drawing a zinc whistle from her belt, Abena blew a long, warbling note. It was to herald the arrival of a peaceful visitor and its sound travelled far across the sandscape. Yet there was no response whistle from the Nullabor.
Unsettled by the silence, Abena shielded her eyes with her hand and tried to search for the tell‐tale signs of carrion birds in the sky. If the Nullabor had fallen ill to plague then surely she’d be able to see carrion birds. Yet there were no birds, just a pervasive sense of lifelessness from the clutch of carriages.
She stood for a while, unsure of whether to enter the settlement or turn back. But Ashwana needed the food, and her old painful knees would not allow her to hunt game so late in the day. Easing an arrow out of her quiver, she rested it across the strike plate, ready to loosen. It was the custom for women of the plains to participate in hunting and herding as much as the men engaged in domestic chores, and although she could no longer run or jump like she used to, her arms were strong from carrying pails of water and stone‐milling, more than enough to draw the recurve.
The carriages were occupied. Huddled around their protective bulk, light wooden frames had been erected and then draped with heavy cloth to form lean‐tos. Plainsmen would take off their red shukas and spread them over the frame of their tents before they entered a home. The purpose was twofold: one was that the red cloth would ward away evil spirits who would see that a house was already occupied, and the second, perhaps more pragmatically, was to prevent dust and dirt from being carried into the home.
The carriages were hoary with a film of red dust. Dust storms were worst during the night and any respectable plainsmen would have beaten the walls with a stick by morning.
The fact that the carriages had accumulated so many days of red dirt meant the kinship had not moved for many days, perhaps weeks. As that notion slowly crept into her mind, Abena suddenly became aware that all the Nullabor could have perished.
‘I do not wish to harm you. Restless spirits, do not harm me,’ she chanted under her breath as she stepped towards the nearest carriage. At that moment, as if roused by her superstition, a brisk south wind picked up, gusting oxide dust in her direction and flapping the cloth draped across the carriage frames. With it