The great desert to the extreme south of known Alair is the home to the Red Dust Nomads. These wild horse nomads are the stock "barbarians at the gate" to the Erlyid, but in truth many centuries of strife with their more organised neighbours has reduced their numbers and their desire for conflict to the point that they are no longer a serious threat to the Empire. However, whenever it is politically expedient for the Empire to have an enemy (to distract attention from uncomfortable facts of life within, for example), a punitive expedition will be sent out to harass the nomads. These invariably indulge in some fairly light skirmishing with the few nomads to be found at the edge of the desert and return, proclaiming great victories and concealing their reluctance to venture into the deep desert. The Tract itself is a climactic peculiarity, with a combination of sea currents and lack of flowing water (there are no rivers anywhere near it) producing a dusty, barren desert. While not a roasting hot desert, it is an inhospitable place and those without considerable survival skills will soon come to grief in it. The nomads are a patriarchal people, formed into loose clans of around 250. They travel almost constantly, raising camels and other sturdy creatures, as well as horses; there are oases deep in the Tract known only to the Nomads and they breed the finest horses in the world there. In the early days of the Empire, hordes of nomads mounted on these horses would sweep in and devastate the small provincial towns the Empire put on the borders of the Tract. Now they are mainly used for internal disputes, communication and - very rarely - trade.
The Empire no longer directly abuts the desert, and the horse nomads of the Red Dust Tract have a slightly better relationship with the Stryrans than they did with the Empire. There are still raids, and punitive expeditions into the desert fringe, but there is trade and some diplomatic exchange as well. In the heart of the deep desert, life is unchanged from what it was centuries ago; the harsh laws of survival make other concerns less important.
Since the Dragonslaying, the Nomads appear to have acquired a charismatic leader, something that happens every few centuries; the last was the great Tarik Khan, a female warlord who led a force gathered from several of the clans to the Battle of the Last Alliance. A large-scale assault on Southern Stryre is in progress, but this is a fairly small thing on the scale of the Tract and its' people; mainly, life continues as before.