Clariel risked propping up on her elbows to have a look, but there was still no sign of life around the other huts, and she couldn’t see anything where the sun had reflected off the quarrel before. It had been a murderer’s shot, a sudden attack from hiding. She’d been lucky to see the slight movement before the assassin fired.

‘See anything?’ croaked Bel muzzily. ‘Kargrin?’

‘No,’ said Clariel.

‘I can’t … concentrate,’ whispered Bel. ‘Can you cast … healing marks … on my wound?’

‘I can’t remember the spell,’ said Clariel. She was desperately trying to work out what they should do. Where could Kargrin and the others have gone? What could have happened to them? She didn’t have time to try to cast a Charter spell that she only dimly remembered learning. ‘I’ve forgotten the marks. I’m sorry, I was taught them a long time ago.’

‘I’ll try in a minute,’ said Bel. He was even paler than he normally was, even a little blue around the lips, Clariel thought. He needed help quickly.

‘Kargrin! Roban! Captain Gullaine!’

She heard no shouts in answer, but a moment later a great column of fire erupted on the far side of the Islet, appearing so suddenly that Clariel didn’t know whether it had come down like lightning or had erupted upwards, exploding one of the huts into thousands of burning pieces, some of which started falling around them, though none were big enough to be dangerous.

There was no sound from the fire, though from her experience of forest fires Clariel knew something burning like that would be roaring, popping and crackling loud enough to be heard from a half a league away.

‘Kargrin,’ whispered Bel. ‘Casting a fire spell. Why can’t we hear them?’

‘Because I don’t choose to let you,’ said a soft voice behind them. A woman’s voice, but something about it did not sound entirely human. With the sound, so sudden, came a choking stench of hot metal that was both like and unlike the smell of Jaciel’s forges.

Clariel moved even as she heard the voice, springing up regardless of any chance of being shot by a crossbow, the falchion in her hand. But there was still no one visible. The shark-tooth curtain had not moved. As far as she could tell, there was just her and Bel on that particular hillock of stone.

‘Where are you?’ she said. ‘Face us!’

Bel tried to get up too, but he only managed to raise his head slightly before his eyes rolled back and he slid down. He was either unconscious again or close to it, and the dark, black stain of blood around his shoulder was spreading.