Morning brought no relief. By now that, too, had become routine. Every sign in the sky and on the land said the same thing. No rain was coming. The drought had swallowed this region for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of miles in every direction. And it was not done causing trouble.

  Refugees began drifting toward the settlements of Agha.

  The first came from upriver. Two men and a woman, thin as stripped branches, their faces gray, their eyes emptied of fear. Only exhaustion remained. Others followed. Some arrived alone, some with families, some in small, silent groups. Each day there were more. A few had wandered for weeks. Others had hidden as long as they could, until nothing remained around them but dust and bare earth. They all looked the same. Skin burned dark by the sun. Lips cracked and swollen. Hair clumped together with sweat and dirt. Bodies dried out as if the heat had hollowed them from within.

  When his duties allowed, Dan watched them from the wall. Each time something tightened in his chest. He saw suffering, but he also saw danger. At first they lingered at the edges of the fields, saying nothing, not asking, not signaling. Then they began to move closer. Some with shy gestures. Some with blunt desperation.

  He ordered food given, water shared, the sick and wounded examined. The healers worked without pause, dividing rations, watching for signs of fever or infection.

  In the beginning, the real salvation had been the livestock. The goats Dan had tamed in the early years, and several wild cows captured at the start of the drought when the animals, weakened by heat, had come close to people on their own. They had to be watered from the wells. Every mouthful given to an animal was a mouthful taken from a person, and that sparked arguments. But without the goats and cows there would have been nothing left to eat. Milk still flowed, thin but steady. When the weakest animals were slaughtered, their meat kept people standing. The cows, restless at first in captivity, settled quickly once they were given hay stored before the drought and regular water. Not plenty, but enough to keep them alive.

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  Then the hunters found something else.

  Several hours east, among rocky hills, a small lake had survived. It had not dried up. It was shallow and murky, the water bitter and unfit for heavy drinking, but it was alive. Animals came there to drink. Zebras, antelope, even a pair of giraffes. Carrying water back to the village made no sense. A full day’s journey for a single skin, and half of it would spill or evaporate on the way. But for hunting, the lake was a gift. The hunters no longer roamed blindly. They knew there would always be game.

  Dan forbade excess. Only as much as could be carried. Only as much as would not spoil in the half day walk under the sun. And it worked. Every trip brought back meat. Lean, tough from dryness, but meat all the same. Life steadied itself on a thin thread, barely holding, yet holding.

  Still, the newcomers kept coming.

  By the end of the week more than a hundred had gathered near the capital and the nearby villages. There were rumors of dozens more on the way. The population Dan had once believed manageable was growing too fast. Faster than wells could be dug. Faster than meat could be dried. Faster than trust could grow.

  He stood over a map of his settlements marked in charcoal lines and counted. Calmly. Precisely. As if planning a raid or assigning patrols. In truth, he was doing exactly that. He had to protect what had already been built. Protection required decisions. People were not just mouths to feed. They brought tempers, grudges, suspicion, fear. New conflicts. New illnesses. New arguments over water. Over food. Over the right to stay.

  Dan understood the balance. Let everyone in, and he risked his own people. Turn away the dying, and he would become something else.

  “Every person we refuse may return with a stone in hand,” he said to Bob as they watched another group of refugees sitting beneath the trees, clinging to the shade as if it were a blessing. “And every person we accept without thought may take our last cup of water tomorrow.”

  The decision was forming. It would have to be hard and measured.

  The drought was only beginning.