The Serian could probably kill him in the space of five heartbeats.

Beko sighed and turned away. “I'll not fight him,” he said. “And I'll not risk him fighting me, because then he'll be dead.”

“Beko, please, those pages are—”

“This is your fight, Nomi. If you must, try and take them from him yourself.”

For a moment Ramus was sure she would do just that. She was younger than him, fitter, faster. But she was even less of a fighter than he.

“Please, Ramus,” she said.

“Piss on you, Nomi.” He turned his back on the camp, grabbed his horse's reins and set off. Ramus would have been happy knowing he would never see Nomi again. But that was not likely.

This voyage of a lifetime had become a race.

Chapter 8

Chapter 8

IT TOOK A while for Lulah to catch up. Ramus even began to fear that the other Serians had persuaded her to stay behind, and he went slowly, trying not to consider the prospect of traveling on his own for so long.

When he heard her coming, he breathed a long sigh of relief.

“We'll ride until dawn,” she said, “and then we need to pause and take stock. Noon gave me a parcel of food and a skin of water, but we have little else.”

“We have to gain a lead on the others,” Ramus said. “We won't be stopping.”

Lulah fell in alongside him, their horses moving slowly across the darkened landscape. Ramus knew how dangerous it was to travel by night. They were not only risking their horses' stepping into a hole or tripping on a loose stone, but there could be different perils, easily avoidable by day.

“I'm with you for my own reasons,” Lulah said. “Maybe you'll hear them, maybe not. That's my choice. But I'm here as an equal, and I'll not take orders from you.”

Ramus actually laughed. “Lulah, I never for a moment thought you would.”

He wondered if she smiled, but it was too dark to tell.

DAWN CAME AND burned the sky. They stopped, took a drink, ate some dried biscuits from the parcel Noon had given Lulah, and Ramus took out his map.

“I drew this from everything I have at home,” he said. “It's well mapped where we are now, but even so there are differences. We're closing on the border. We need to take care.”

“Last night you were all for riding on regardless,” Lulah said.

Ramus nodded, looking up at dawn's spectacular blaze on the eastern horizon. “I'm more tired now. More angry.”

“You and she were good friends?”

He shook his head. “Not really. More like lovers who never loved.”

“A simpler life is better,” Lulah said.

Ramus glanced up, but it seemed that she had already said enough. He did not want to push her. They had a long way to go, and plenty of time for talk.

“You're sure about this?” Ramus asked.