The trembling of the mare’s legs increased, making them almost blurry to Fiddler’s eyes, but the animal did not run, stepping only to interpose herself between the sapper and whatever was coming. The gesture rent the man’s heart. ‘Dammit, beast,’ he rasped. ‘Get out of here!’

Apsalar was backing towards him. Crokus stood motionless, the sword falling unheeded from his hands.

He finally saw the newcomer. Newcomers. Like a seething, lumpy black carpet, the D’ivers rolled over the cobbles. Rats, hundreds. Yet one. Hundreds? Thousands. Oh, Hood, I know of this one. ‘Apsalar!’

She glanced at him, expressionless.

‘In my saddlebag,’ the sapper said. ‘A cusser—’

‘Not enough,’ she said coolly. ‘Too late anyway.’

‘Not them. Us.’

Her reaction was a slow blink, then she stepped up to the gelding.

A stranger’s voice rose above the wailing wind. ‘Gryllen!’

Yes, that’s the D’ivers’s name. Gryllen, otherwise known as the Tide of Madness. Flushed out of Y’ghatan in the fire. Oh, it comes around, don’t it just!

‘Gryllen!’ the voice bellowed again. ‘Leave here, D’ivers!’

Hide-bound legs stepped into view. Fiddler looked up, saw an extraordinarily tall man, lean, wearing a faded Tano telaba. His skin was somewhere between grey and green, and he held in his long-fingered hands a recurved bow and a rune-wrapped arrow nocked and ready. His long, grey hair showed remnants of black dye, making his mane appear spotted. The sapper saw the ragged tips of tusks bulging the line of his thin lower lip. A ]hag. Didn’t know they travelled this far east. Why in Hood’s name that should matter, I don’t know.

The Jhag took another step towards the heaving mass of rats that now covered what was left of the bear-killed horse and rider, and laid a hand on the shoulder of the mare. The trembling stilled. Apsalar stepped back, warily studying the stranger.

Gryllen was hesitating – Fiddler could not believe his eyes. He glanced again at the Jhag. Another figure had appeared beside the tall bowman. Short and wide as a siege engine, his skin a deep, warm brown, his black hair braided and studded with fetishes. If anything, his canines were bigger than his companion’s, and looking much sharper. A Trell. A Jhag and a Trell. That rings a towerful of bells, if only I could get through the pain to spare it another thought.

‘Your quarry has fled,’ the Jhag said to Gryllen. ‘These people here do not pursue the Trail of Hands. Moreover, I now protect them.’

The rats hissed and twittered in a deafening roar, and surged higher on the road. Dust-grey eyes glittered in a seething storm.

‘Do not,’ the Jhag said slowly, ‘try my patience.’

A thousand bodies flinched. The tide withdrew, a wave of greasy fur. A moment later they were gone.

The Trell squatted beside Fiddler. ‘You will live, soldier?’