The guard, on the other hand, was weeping as he tried to hold his wounds together. In the shadow of the tunnel, Dalip found it impossible to tell where clothing finished and flesh started. Both were bloodied rags.

‘Why? Why?’ the guard sobbed.

Dalip didn’t know, beyond naked barbarism and utter contempt for life. The man couldn’t be moved – he screamed in agony when Dalip tried – and perhaps with modern medicine and a team of doctors, he might have survived. Scarred inside and out for certain, but alive nevertheless.

He died too, slowly, sadly, knowing he was going, sliding inexorably into darkness and terrified of it. He died clutching at Dalip’s forearm, and only let go when he slid to one side, awkwardly trapping his head in the angle between the wall and the door. Not that he cared any more about comfort.

Dalip walked back out into the pit and stood centre stage. He threw the knife down and looked up at the geomancer, dressed in her finery.

‘Are we done here now?’ he shouted at her. ‘Are we?’

‘Yes,’ she said, and stood, adjusting her skirts, readying herself to leave. The steward tapped his silver-tipped cane against the balcony, in annoyance or impatience or just out of habit, and scowled at Dalip.

Who bent down and caught up as much blood as he could off the floor, before flinging it up at his captors.

Most of it either fell back or flecked the high walls of the pit. But one or two drops reached their targets. The steward stiffened as something touched his cheek, and the geomancer saw it without knowing her back had its own darkly shining jewel clinging to the fine fabric.

‘There. That’s your share of this butchery.’

He stared up, his bloody hands raised to them, while they stared down. Whatever they were expecting, they got defiance, not supplication. They got his red palms and drying scabs instead of his fear.

They still left, and he had to drop his arms by his side at some point. He hung his head, and went to pull the body out of the way of the blocked door.

19

19

Mary made the top of the last rise. Even at a distance, the gorge that divided the two peaks was discernible. The base of each mountain was forested, like most of Down that she’d seen so far, but higher up where the slopes grew steeper, bare grey rock dominated. The peaks, facing each other over the chasm, were high but rounded, scraped clean by the wind and the rain.

She still couldn’t see the geomancer’s castle which, Crows assured her, was behind the rightmost peak, tucked in a hollow with a lake.

Crows puffed up behind her. ‘We should turn back before it is too late.’