A call sounded then from the dark and he stilled, listening. Lyan also froze, her hand poised above her weapon. It called again. Neither beast nor bird. It was a girl’s voice in a rising and falling song, taunting from the night: ‘White … blade …’ it beckoned, ‘white … blade …’

His gaze went to Lyan. She closed her hand on the grip of her weapon. He signed a negative, shot his gaze to the cave. She nodded and began backing away to the cave mouth. He went out to meet the challenger.

She stood plainly lit in the open among the monochrome grasses under the moon’s watery silver light. He pushed his way to her through the knee-high stiff blades, thinking; Ruthen’el must have lasted far longer than he’d imagined. Long enough to talk to whoever it was who had found him.

When he was close enough, he shouted: ‘Listen, whatever your name is – just turn around and head home. I’m tired of this. I don’t want to kill—’

Something crashed into his head from the side and the next thing he knew he was staring up, blinking, at two faces peering down at him. What was strange was that the faces were practically identical. He wondered whether he was seeing double.

‘We could’ve killed you,’ one girl said.

‘But we want you alive,’ said the other.

‘For the moment,’ finished the first.

Kyle felt his head; his fingers came away wet dark and wet. A birding arrow, or a sling stone. He felt for his weapons, but they were all gone. One of the girls, he saw, carried the sheathed sword.

‘We want you to take our names with you,’ the second said, ‘so that you can tell our forefathers and foremothers who killed you.’ She pointed to herself: ‘I am Neese.’

‘And I am Niala,’ said the one holding his blade. ‘You killed our cousin and our uncle.’

‘Ruthen’el will be ashamed to hear you avenged him with an ambush,’ Kyle croaked.

‘You killed all the ones with honour,’ Neese said. ‘We decided to win instead. Isn’t that so, Niala?’

‘It is so, Neese.’

Niala hefted the blade. ‘So this is it … We have heard the stories. I will use this to cut you to pieces. Then it will rest among our clan heirlooms as proof of our power.’ She took hold of the sheath to draw it.

‘Careful with that,’ Kyle warned. ‘You have to know how …’

Sneering, Niala yanked – and the blade slid through the leather and wood of the sheath taking her fingers with it. She stared at the streaming bloody stumps of her four fingers then screamed, dropping the blade to clench her hand.

Kyle lashed out with his foot, catching Neese in the knee as she leaned to take the weapon. She fell. He threw himself on her and they wrestled for the blade. Something crashed against Kyle’s head. Once more stars burst in his vision: it was Niala, standing over him, her crippled hand gripped in the other.