Down below guards are milling around, but nobody’s spotted us. They’re all working on getting the door open. No sign of a storm. The sky’s cloudless, the wind’s only a breath. What’s happened is freakish. When I give myself time to think about it, this is going to scare the shits out of me.

‘Right,’ I murmur to Strangler. ‘Over that side, down the tree, then a sprint across farmland to the woods. I’ll carry you. But you have to keep quiet.’ I remember the layout pretty well; I’ve thought about getting out a lot, down there in the dark. This place is outside the walls of Mathuin’s fortress, which is up the hill behind us. And it’s clear of the village. Nobody in a place like that wants a bunch of thieves and murderers a hop and a skip away from their little ones. Have to hope it’s too early for sentries to be up on the fortress walls, ready to pick us off with a well-aimed arrow or two. ‘Not far. Then we’ll get you some help.’

‘Hah!’ wheezes Strangler. ‘Give us the knife, I’ll help myself.’

‘Shut up. Here.’

I get him up on my back again, then go crab-wise across the roof. I try to walk soft-footed but it sounds like there’s a giant stomping around up here. The guards don’t come. We struggle down the big oak tree and stagger away across the fields, where sheep and cows take a look at us, then go on grazing. Morrigan’s curse, it’s so open out here. Feel like a mouse or a shrew, creeping from one hidey hole to the next with owls and hawks up there ready to swoop. Every shadow’s a threat; every rustle in the grass is an enemy. Strangler goes quiet. He gets heavier and heavier. But we make it into the woods. We go deep in, where the oak roots are old and tangled and the leaves grow so thick it’s all shadows. No sign of Lady. No sign of Poxy and Dribbles, either. Hope that means they all got away safe.

‘All right?’ I say to Strangler, who’s lying prone beside me. ‘Sorry I had to hurt you; only way to get you out.’

But Strangler doesn’t answer, and when I take a look at him, I see that he’s staring straight upward to the light coming through the leaves, and he’s lying with his arms out and his hands open, like a child sleeping. Only he’s not sleeping, he’s dead.

3 Oran

3

~ORAN~

‘You disappoint me,’ my mother said.