As he was about to descend, he saw Khral’s bunk and stopped to stare at it in fascinated horror.

The bunk was covered with a heavy hide blanket, its fur still upon it. For a moment, Marcus couldn’t think of what kind of beast would leave such a mottled, mismatched, patchy coat behind. Then he understood what he was looking at.

There were perhaps a hundred human scalps in the grisly blanket. Many of them sported hairs so fine that they could not possibly have come from an adult. Some of the scalps were, in fact, quite small.

Marcus fought down his gorge and made his way almost blindly into the hold. Up on the deck of the ship, he heard a trumpet blow, a call that was taken up generally, the quarter-hour warning. The fleet was preparing to move again.

Marcus and Sha went back to the opening in the hull and leapt down into the open pocket beneath it, dragging Khral with them. Marcus called up Vamma with a snarl, and within a moment, they were enclosed in earth once more.

“Is he alive?” Marcus demanded a moment later.

“In the strictest sense of the word,” Sha replied.

“Wake him.”

Sha was silent in the darkness. Then he growled something beneath his breath. There was the sound of several sharp blows. Khral began to make sputtering sounds.

“He speak Aleran?”

“No,” Sha said.

“Translate for me, please.”

“Yes.”

Marcus reached out a hand and felt blindly until he encountered Khral’s hide. Then he shot out a hand, seized the Cane by the ear, and dragged him forward with all the strength Vamma could give him.

“I am about to kill you,” he said quietly, and Sha echoed him in rumbling Canish. “In a moment, we will leave. And I’m going to leave you here. Ten feet beneath the earth and the ice. The dirt is going to press against you, press into your mouth, your nose, your eyes.” He gave the ear a savage twist. “You’re going to be crushed to death, slowly, Khral. And no one will so much as know whether you are alive or dead.”

Marcus waited for Sha to finish speaking, then shoved Khral roughly away, releasing his ear. Khral babbled incoherently in Canim, and it sounded like he was trying to cling to Sha.

Marcus heard Sha’s saw-toothed tool leave its sheath, heard it strike with a meaty thump. Khral let out a scream. An instant later, Marcus smelled bile and sewage. Sha had gutted the ritualist.

Marcus put his hand on the earthen wall again and willed the tunneling to begin moving again. Khral began to babble in greater panic as the sphere of air moved away from him, left him behind. He kept on babbling and screaming until, a few seconds later, his voice abruptly vanished.

Sha let out a satisfied growl but otherwise made no comment.