Crying out, Crokus grasped her ankles. He was pulled momentarily along the tiles towards the gaping hole before a fisherman’s strong hands closed on him and anchored him down.

Together, the two men dragged Apsalar from the pit’s edge. A dozen paces beyond it stood Fiddler – the Daru’s cry had been the first intimation of trouble.

‘They’re gone!’ Crokus shouted. ‘They fell through – there was no warning, Fid! Nothing at all!’

The sapper softly cursed, lowering himself into an uneasy crouch. We’re intruders here . . . He’d heard rumours of warrens that were airless, that were instant death to mortals who dared enter them. There was an arrogance in assuming that every realm in existence bowed to human needs. Intruders – this place cares nothing for us, nor are there any laws demanding that it accommodate us.

Mind you, the same could be said for any world.

He hissed, slowly straightened, fighting against the sudden welling of grief at the loss of two men he had come to consider friends. And which of us is next? ‘To me,’ he growled. ‘All three of you – carefully.’ He unslung his pack, set it down and rummaged inside until he found a coiled length of rope. ‘We’re tying ourselves together – if one goes, either we save him or her, or we all go. Agreed?’

Relieved nods answered him.

Aye, the thought of wandering alone in this warren is not a pleasant one.

They quickly attached the rope between them.

The four travellers had walked another thousand paces when the air stirred – the first wind they had felt since entering the warren – and they ducked as one beneath the passage of something enormous directly overhead.

Scrabbling for his crossbow, Fiddler twisted around to look skyward. ‘Hood’s breath!’

But the three dragons were already past, ignoring the humans entirely. They flew in triangular formation like a flight of geese, and were of a kind, ochre-scaled, their wing-spans as far across as five wagons end to end. Long, sinuous tails stretched back behind them.

‘Foolish to think,’ Apsalar muttered, ‘that we’re the only ones to make use of this realm.’

Crokus grunted. ‘I’ve seen bigger ...’

A faint grin cracked Fiddler’s features. ‘Aye, lad, I know you have.’

The dragons were almost at the edge of their vision when they banked as one, plunged down towards the ground and broke through the tiles, vanishing from sight.

No-one spoke for a long minute, then Apsalar’s father cleared his throat and said, ‘I think that just told us something.’