As the historian arrived, the demon gave one last shriek, then disappeared beneath the mound of attackers. The D’ivers and Soletaken then surged towards the four men.

Sormo E’nath was oblivious, his eyes glazed, unheeding of the mage’s efforts to shout him into awareness.

‘Wake him or we’re dead,’ Duiker gasped, stepping over Bult to face the charging beasts with naught but a small knife.

The weapon would little avail him as a seething cloud of hornets swiftly closed the distance.

The scene was jolted, and Duiker saw they were back in the dead oasis. The D’ivers and Soletaken were gone. The historian turned to Kulp. ‘You did it! How?’

The mage glanced down at a sprawled, moaning Sormo E’nath. ‘I’ll pay for it,’ he muttered, then met Duiker’s eyes. ‘I punched the lad. Damn near broke my hand doing it, too. It was his nightmare, wasn’t it?’

The historian blinked, then shook himself and crouched down beside Bult. ‘This poison will kill him long before we can get help—’

Kulp squatted, ran his good hand over the veteran’s swollen face. ‘Not poison. More like an infecting warren. I can deal with this, Duiker. As with your legs.’ He closed his eyes in concentration.

Sormo E’nath slowly pushed himself into sitting position. He looked around, then tenderly touched his jaw, where the ridged imprint of Kulp’s knuckles stood like puckered islands in a spreading flush of red.

‘He had no choice,’ Duiker told him.

The warlock nodded.

‘Can you talk? Any loose teeth?’

‘Somewhere,’ he said clearly, ‘a crow flaps broken-winged on the ground. There are but ten left.’

‘What happened there, Warlock?’

Sormo’s eyes flicked nervously. ‘Something unexpected, Historian. A convergence is underway. The Path of Hands. The gate of the Soletaken and the D’ivers. An unhappy coincidence.’

Duiker scowled. ‘You said Tellann—’

‘And so it was,’ the warlock cut in. ‘Is there a blending between shapeshifting and Elder Tellann? Unknown. Perhaps the D’ivers and Soletaken are simply passing through the warren – imagining it unoccupied by T’lan Imass and therefore safer. Indeed, no T’lan Imass to take umbrage with the trespass, leaving them with only each other to battle.’

‘They’re welcome to annihilate each other, then,’ the historian grumbled, his legs slowly giving way beneath him until like Sormo he sat on the ground.

‘I shall help you in a moment,’ Kulp called over.

Nodding, Duiker found himself watching a dung beetle struggle heroically to push aside a fragment of palm bark. He sensed something profound in what he watched, but was too weary to pursue it.

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER FIVE