The heaving mass of rats on both sides sought to retreat, but there was nowhere to flee – the sound enveloped all. The creatures began crumpling, the flesh withering, leaving only fur and bones. The song took that flesh, and so grew.

Gryllen’s thousand-voiced scream was an anguished explosion of pain and terror. And it, too, was swallowed, devoured.

Fiddler clapped his hands to his ears as the song resonated within, insistent, a voice anything but human, anything but mortal. He twisted away, fell to his knees. His wide eyes stared, barely registering what he saw before him.

His companions were down, curling around themselves. The Hounds cowered, the massive beasts trembling, ears flat. Mappo crouched over the prone, motionless form of Icarium. In the Trell’s hands was his bone club, the flat side of the head spattered with fresh blood and snagged strands of long reddish hair. Mappo finally dropped the weapon and slapped his hands over his ears.

Gods, this will kill us all – stop! Stop, dammit!

He realized he was going mad, his vision betraying him, for he now saw a wall, a wall of water, sleet grey and webbed with foam, rushing upon them down the path, building higher, escaping the root-walls and tumbling outward. And he found he could see into the wall now, as if it had turned to liquid glass. Wreckage, foundation stones softened by algae, the rotting remains of sunken ships, encrusted, shapeless hunks of oxidized metal, bones, skulls, casks and bronze-bound chests, splintered masts and fittings – the submerged memory of countless civilizations, an avalanche of tragic events, dissolution and decay.

The wave buried them, drove them all down with its immense weight, its relentless force.

Then was gone, leaving them dry as dust.

Silence filled the air, slowly broken by harsh gasps, bestial whimpers, the muted rustling of clothing and weapons.

Fiddler lifted his head, pushing himself to his hands and knees. Ghostly remnants of that flood seemed to stain him through and through, permeating him with ineffable sorrow.

Protective sorcery?

The Spiritwalker had smiled. Of a sort.

And I’d planned on selling the damned thing in G’danisban. My last cusser was a damned conch shell – I never checked, not once. Hood’s breath!

He was slow to sense a new tension rising in the air. The sapper looked up. Mappo had retrieved his club and now stood over Icarium’s unconscious form. Around him ranged the Hounds. Raised hackles on all sides.

Fiddler scrabbled for his crossbow. ‘Iskaral Pust! Call off those Hounds, damn you!’

‘The bargain! The Azath will take him!’ the High Priest gasped, still staggering about in the stunned aftermath of the Tano’s sorcery. ‘Now’s the time!’

‘No,’ growled the Trell.