‘I’m ... heavier,’ Baudin said after a few minutes.

She paused, glanced back at him. ‘What?’

He shrugged. ‘Heavier.’ He kneaded his own arm with his uninjured hand. ‘More solid. I don’t know. Something’s changed.’

Something’s changed. She stared at him, the emotions within her twisting around unvoiced fears.

‘I could’ve sworn I was burning away to bones,’ he said, his frown deepening.

‘I haven’t changed,’ she said, turning and continuing on. She heard him follow a moment later.

They found a side channel, a cleft where torrents of water had rushed down to join the main channel’s course, cutting through the layers of sandstone. This track quickly lost its depth, opening out after twenty or so paces. They emerged onto the edge of a range of blunt hills overlooking a broad valley of cracked earth. More hills, sharper and ragged, rose on the other side, blurry behind waves of heat.

Five hundred paces out on the pan stood a figure. At its feet lay a humped shape.

‘Heboric,’ Baudin said, squinting. ‘The one standing.’

And the other one? Dead or alive? And who?

They walked side by side towards the ex-priest, who now watched them. His clothing too had burned away to little more than charred rags. Yet his flesh, beneath that skein of tattooing, was unmarred.

As they neared, Heboric gestured towards his own bald pate. ‘Suits you, Baudin,’ he said with a wry grin.

‘What?’ Felisin’s tone was caustic. ‘Are you two a brotherhood now?’

The figure at the old man’s feet was the mage, Kulp. Her gaze fell to him. ‘Dead.’

‘Not quite,’ Heboric said. ‘He’ll live, but he hit something going over the side.’

‘Awaken him, then,’ Felisin said. ‘I don’t plan on waiting in this heat just so he can get some beauty sleep. We’re in a desert again, old man, in case you hadn’t noticed. And desert means thirst, not to mention the fact that we’re without food or anything like supplies. And finally, we’ve no idea where we are—’

‘On the mainland,’ Heboric said. ‘Seven Cities.’

‘How do you know that?’

The ex-priest shrugged. ‘I know.’

Kulp groaned, then sat upright. One hand gingerly probing a lump above his left eye, the mage looked around. His expression soured.

‘The Seventh Army’s camped just over yonder,’ Felisin said.

For a moment he looked credulous, then he gave a weary smile. ‘Funny, lass.’ He climbed to his feet and scanned the horizon on all sides before tilting his head back and sniffing the air. ‘Mainland,’ he pronounced.

‘Why didn’t all that white hair burn off?’ Felisin asked. ‘You’re not even singed.’

‘That dragon’s warren,’ Heboric said, ‘what was it?’