“The bones would be gone too.” Nomi looked back at the skull and saw the cracks around the eye sockets, flakes of bone missing here and there. The back of the dome was also smashed, as though something had broken it open for the brain inside.

“I don't like it,” Noon said. “Shove it over. I won't sleep here if that thing's with us.”

“I'm not touching the dead,” Ramin said.

Nomi shook her head and picked up one of the leg bones. It was completely separated from the knee and foot. Smashed to pieces, she thought. He must have fallen a long way. She threw the bone out into space and they all watched it arc away from them, tumbling end over end until it disappeared into the gloom. Then she shoved the rest of the bones with her feet, kicking them away. She heard Rhiana gasp as she did so.

“Just a dead climber,” she said when she'd finished. “I'm sure he won't mind us taking his ledge.”

But the skeleton troubled her more than she showed. As the Serians pinned ropes in around them to prepare for the night, Nomi looked out across the darkening landscape of Noreela and wondered who the climber had been. Or maybe he hadn't been a climber at all.

The ledge was small, four steps deep and maybe a dozen wide, and the five of them huddled closely together. That would help them keep warm, but it also made it awkward when one of them had to answer nature's call. And they found no food. No plants, insects, lichen or grubs, so their evening meal was dried sheebok skin that Rhiana had brought with her all the way from Marrakash. It was bitter and hard, but at least chewing it to pulp took time and concentration, and it was a high-energy food.

When full darkness fell and Rhiana made sure they were all tied in tightly, the cold really began to take effect. Nomi had Beko on one side of her and Ramin on the other, and they all pressed in close to share warmth. She pitied Noon and Rhiana at either end.

Things cried out in the darkness, some of them from the plains far below, others from the open air before the cliffs. Shadows appeared high above and drifted across the land, and smaller shapes darted in and seemed to attack or feed from them. The sounds of hunter and hunted echoed from the rock, and Nomi closed her eyes to shut them out.

“I have a story,” Ramin said at last, and Nomi could have hugged him.

Ramin told his tale of sea caves, smugglers and water serpents, and his voice was strong enough to take her far away for a while.

THEY HARDLY SLEPT, and next morning as the clouds to the east lightened, they were keen to move.