Droughts in this land were not rare. They came on schedule, like the changing seasons, and the elders could sense them long before the first stream ran dry. By the way the ants moved, burrowing deeper into the earth. By the color of the sunset, too clear, without a hint of moisture. By the silence of the bittern in the mornings. There were signs, there were dates. Dan, having lived here for years, had learned to prepare for every drought in advance.

  They had already survived two dry seasons. Usually it lasted a few weeks. The river would shrink, the grasses would wither, but water remained. At most a couple of months, and the rains would return. They were used to it. They prepared for it: dug extra storage pits, dried meat, preserved last year’s grain.

  But this time it was different.

  The sun burned not like summer, but as if the sky itself had gone mad and decided to incinerate all living things. The rains stopped suddenly, and each new morning the heat grew. The river that gave life became shallower until one morning not even algae oozed from the riverbed. Only cracked stones remained, and swarms of mosquitoes drifted in the stifling air. Children walked along the former banks in dust, gathering the last shells as if they could not fully believe the water had vanished.

  The elders gathered at the edge of the former riverbed, silently staring at the dry depths. The oldest among them was barely over forty, yet he claimed that his grandfather, long before the rise of Agha, had told of such heat, when the river died and the “great death” came. Back then, they said, the tribe lost half its people. Even the spirits left, leaving bones to bleach in the sun.

  Now those stories seemed less like tales and more like warnings.

  The fields around the village, if they could be called that, were scorched. The barley barely sprouted, most shoots burned before opening leaves. Goats weakened and stopped giving milk. Hunters returned empty-handed; animals had migrated upstream to the few remaining green spots and small pools. Several times they tried to follow, but returned with nothing and swollen feet.

  Dan gathered the council and immediately ordered rationing of food and water. He had prepared for ordinary droughts: in previous years he had dug additional storage pits in shaded cliffs where the temperature was cooler, coated them with clay, and lined them with hides. There they kept dried meat, dried roots, and water skins filled during the high-water months. There were supplies.

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  But when the elders reached the riverbed, and old Keo, the shaman, stood silently, staring at the cracked bottom, he only shook his head and breathed the word no one wanted to hear:

  “Kho-arra. The great dry bone.”

  In the legends, this was the drought that came once in a generation. Not weeks, but months. Until the bones of animals bleached in the sun and crumbled to dust. The elders had heard this word from their grandfathers. No one wanted to believe they had lived to hear it themselves.

  Dan clenched his jaw. He had prepared for a normal drought. Three, at most four weeks without rain. The stores had enough food and water for a month if rationed. Maybe two months if cut in half. But for months? Long enough for all those left behind to die? The supplies were not enough.

  Rations were reduced immediately and strictly. Distribution was under close supervision. Every jug of water was counted. Many grumbled. They were used to saving supplies for days like this, yet now every drop was measured. Discipline remained. People saw the elders’ eyes. And Keo’s words hung in the air heavier than the heat.

  The main problem was not food but thirst. There was nothing they could do. The river had gone.

  The first days after the river ran dry were the most terrifying. People still did not believe the water was gone for long. They went to the banks, dug with shovels, hoping for moisture, licking their cracked lips. By the evening of the second day, two collapsed in the fields. Dan acted.

  “Dew. We need dew,” he said, gathering the warriors. “Take hides, cloth, anything you have. Stretch them on poles and ropes overnight. In the morning wring them out. Every drop is life.”

  The elders frowned. Some snorted. But by morning, each child received a cup of water. Literally a sip, but it existed.

  In the dry riverbed he had shallow hollows dug by hand. At the bottom, bundles of grass were placed. Over them a stretched hide, with a stone in the center. They collected the moisture in clay cups. It smelled of earth and sweat, but it was water.

  “Even dew from stones, if there is nothing else,” he said, showing how to stretch hair ropes between trees. By morning they were dotted with tiny drops. They collected them in shells.

  Someone remembered the juicy roots growing near the stream. They dug them up, chewed, and squeezed the sweet moisture. It saved those on the edge of collapse.

  But these were only drops. What they needed were buckets.

  Rationing was rationing, yet the stores melted before their eyes. Every morning Dan looked at the water skins in storage and saw the levels dropping faster than he dared to calculate. Hunters, leaving in hopes of tracking any game, demanded double rations of water. Without it they could not reach the hunting grounds and fell along the way, beaten by the heat. Even with double rations, they often returned empty-handed; the animals had gone too far, beyond reach.

  The heat drew moisture from the living as the sun drew it from the earth. Children shriveled before their eyes, elders stopped urinating, women with infants became dry shadows. Water was catastrophically short. Those waiting, those searching, those unable to rise — all suffered.

  These were only drops.