"Stay left of that," Alexei grunted, pointing to the other side of the dust wall.
Zubair already was. The machine rode the shoulder of the storm and stayed ahead of it. Dust fingers reached for the skids and missed.
"Water," Elias said, pointing to the other side.
A river cut the land into a long, dark line.
The banks slumped where floods had eaten them when nobody managed the gates upstream anymore. Rusted farm tools lay half-buried in the bend where the river had turned wrong and taken a field with it.
The water moved slow, thick, like it wasn't purely water anymore.
"Follow it," Sera suggested.
Zubair nodded and set the helicopter on a low track over the river's broken spine. Rivers went south. South was the only direction that mattered.
The fuel sight slid lower.
Sera briefly thought about the extra fuel she had stored away in her space, but the problem was that there was no way to refuel while they were still in the air.
