But it was only another pack animal fallen. It might be best to leave all of the beasts here and go on, though what the beasts would do if no one returned.... Gods, he was his troop, man and beast: Every loss hurt as if it had been carved out of his own flesh and bone, even after so many deaths. The Eagle's standard felt comforting in his hand. And it made a fine staff as they climbed up toward the crumbling arch.The Eagle he bore was a glory overhead. Now he could make out Draupadi's and Ganesha's faces. Under the radiance, they were worn, the eyes deeply circled. Ganesha's jowls drooped as if he were melting, and Draupadi's proud straightness seemed to waver....The light flickered ... a veiling of sand or cloud- after months it was odd to think of clouds that were not a desert tempest or the eternal snows of far-off mountains. What was that? An instant ago, he had known with an assurance greater than any he had ever enjoyed before, precisely what to do. The Eagle's staff warmed in his hand. Had he forgotten? It had not, the warning seemed to convey."Fare forward," Quintus found himself muttering. Arjuna's thought had become his....As Quintus watched, the man in the lead threw down the torch he carried. In the next moment, he had cast himself down at Ganesha's and Draupadi's feet. His shoulders heaved with the force of his sobs. Their song broke off, and the priests diminished into themselves: an aged man and a lovely woman trying to coax up from his humiliation a man who had already suffered much, who had feared and who still feared, but who had seen in them what might be an end to all fear.