‘Doubt it would matter,’ he replied after a moment. ‘The boat was to have patrolled for three or so nights, no longer. We’re at least four days from the coast and getting weaker by the hour.’

‘And the next water?’

‘About seven hours’ walk. More like fourteen, the shape we’re in.’

‘You seemed spry enough last night!’ she snapped. ‘Running off to collect Heboric. You don’t seem as parched as us, either—’

‘I drink my own piss.’

‘You what?’

He grunted. ‘You heard me.’

‘Not a good enough answer,’ she decided after thinking a moment. ‘And don’t tell me you’re eating your own shit, too. It still wouldn’t explain things. Have you made a pact with some god, Baudin?’

‘You think doing something like that’s a simple task? Hey, Queen of Dreams, save me and I’ll serve you. Tell me, how many of your prayers have been answered? Besides, I ain’t got faith in anything but me.’

‘So you haven’t given up yet?’

She thought he wouldn’t answer, but after a long minute in which she’d begun to sink into herself, he startled her awake with a blunt ‘No.’

He removed his pack, then skidded back down the slope. Something in the able economy of his movements filled her with sudden dread. Calls me plump, eyes me like a piece of flesh – not to use like Beneth did, but more as if he’s eyeing his next meal. Heart hammering, she watched for the first move, a hungry flash in his small, bestial eyes.

Instead he crouched down beside Heboric, pulling the unconscious man onto his back. He leaned close to listen for breath, then sat back, sighing.

‘He’s dead?’ Felisin asked. ‘You do the skinning – I won’t eat tattooed skin no matter how hungry I am.’

Baudin glanced at her momentarily, but said nothing, returning to his examination of the ex-priest.

‘Tell me what you’re doing,’ she finally said.

‘He lives, and that alone may save us.’ He paused. ‘How far you fall, girl, matters nothing to me. Just keep your thoughts to yourself.’

She watched him peel Heboric’s rotting clothing away, revealing the astonishing weave of tattooing beneath. Baudin then moved to keep his own shadow behind him before bending close to study the dark patterning on the ex-priest’s chest. He was looking for something.

‘A raised nape,’ she said dully, ‘the ends pulled down and almost touching, almost a circle. It surrounds a pair of tusks.’

He stared, eyes narrowing.

‘Fener’s own mark, the one that’s sacred,’ she said. ‘It’s what you’re looking for, isn’t it? He’s excommunicated, yet Fener remains within him. That much is obvious by those living tattoos.’

‘And the mark?’ he asked coolly. ‘How did you come to know such things?’