Fern trudged with slow heavy footfalls up the last few yards of slope to the brink of the fault. She crested the slope and descended a few paces, planting her feet with caution that became more evident as the adamant sloped away beneath her and the surface became cleaner and slicker. When she had gone as far as she dared, she bent her knees and her back, and carefully let Swab down so that she was sitting on the smooth adamant, using her remaining arm to prop herself upright. For a little while then they stayed together, Fern squatting next to her stricken partner and embracing her as if her heavy arms could hold in the chaos that had once been Swab but was now escaping from her form. Finally, before it was too late, Swab shoved off with her good hand, and began sliding into the fault. Unable to remain upright, she flopped sideways, rolled lazily over, slid, picked up some speed, rolled over twice more, and was gone.

Prim watched it all from a respectful distance. Long after she had lost sight of Swab, she saw a faint flare of chaos down in the abyss, and knew for certain that Pick was correct in suggesting that neither Egdod nor Pluto nor El had bothered with putting a bottom on this thing. The Land was built upon mere chaos, and in places you could reach it.

Another Beedle sniper came up to reconnoiter, but his approach was almost offensively obvious. Lyne shot him and he fell wounded. His companions—for others could be heard, and occasionally seen, farther down the slope—let him lie where he had fallen. Insects came out of nowhere and feasted on his blood.

Night fell. They lit no fire, lest it dazzle their vision. There was almost nothing to be burned in any case. Prim had worried that the Beedles might come in the night, but the air was so dry and thin in these parts that moon-and-star-light let them see, and shoot at, anything out there in the no-man’s-land below them.

In Secondel, Beedles had always been under the command of Autochthons. But none were in evidence here. Fern ventured the opinion that a larger flagship would probably be not far off, commanded by an Autochthon, and carrying Beedle marines who would prove more formidable opponents than the scouts and mere galley slaves who had them bottled up at the moment. And indeed when day broke Corvus flew in from scouting and reported that just such a galley had entered the cove, and that reinforcements were climbing the hill, led by an Autochthon.

“Don’t kill him,” Corvus suggested, when he got a chance for a private word with Prim. “Or anyone, unless you do it like a normal person, by putting an arrow through them or something.”

“We may have no other choice. We have a day’s water and no food to speak of. Pick’s preparations are taking forever.”