‘Even if they are there, how can they surround the hut? There’s not enough space up here and there’s no point being down in the channels.’

Clariel drew her falchion. Bel drew his sword, and they instinctively stood back to back.

‘They were behind us on the causeway,’ said Bel.

‘Well, they’re not any more,’ answered Clariel.

chapter eleven

out of the bottle

‘Maybe we should shout out,’ said Bel nervously. ‘Call them.’

‘I can’t see anyone at all,’ said Clariel. She was slowly looking from left to right, watching for any movement outside the huts on their higher outcrops of stone, or perhaps the glimpse of a head in one of the channels. ‘Nothing, no … there!’

She pointed at a sudden movement as someone leaned around the corner of a hut some fifty paces away, there was a flash of sunlight on metal –

‘Down!’ shouted Clariel.

She grabbed Bel as she threw herself into the firepit. But she was a moment too slow, and with a hideous thumping sound a quarrel suddenly flowered in Bel’s shoulder and he screamed in shock and surprise and then both of them were in the firepit, the prepared wood scattered everywhere.

‘Spelled quarrel,’ gasped Bel, as he rolled onto his back and gripped the shaft, which was wreathed in acrid white smoke. Aided by Free Magic, the quarrel had gone straight through his armoured coat, breaking the protective spells and boring a neat hole through one of the gethre plates. Clariel measured the distance from his shoulder with her fingers together.

‘Three fingers under your shoulder bone,’ she said. ‘Not fatal, unless the magic is … is like poison.’

‘N … no,’ said Bel, getting the word out through a grimace of pain. ‘I don’t think so, just some sort of power to cut through Charter-spelled armour … Can you break off the shaft, close as you can?’

‘Yes,’ said Clariel. She knew not to pull it out, because that would make the bleeding worse, but breaking off the shaft would make it easier for Bel to move around. If he could. Shock would be setting in soon. ‘I’ll do it in a minute.’

She said that, but broke it off immediately, holding it as tightly as she could against his chest so not to move the embedded point around. Bel screamed again, and fainted.

‘Roban! Kargrin!’ shouted Clariel. ‘Gullaine!’

She heard several shouts in reply, but couldn’t tell where they came from, or what they were saying. They sounded distant, as if the others were right over the far side of the Islet. Maybe down in one of the channels and not on a hillock. The sound was strangely faint, and difficult to locate.