He worked his way clear of the sucking mud, rolled on to his side.

The nag had given up its struggle and looked across at him with dumb misery in its weeping eyes. He could see that it had sunk down now halfway up its shoulders at the front, and deeper still at the back. Its whole body trembled and flies swarmed its mud-spattered hide.

He crawled away, still weeping, his face smeared. He had killed his horse, his noble servant. He had betrayed the beast, as only a master could.

But I’m not the betrayer – it’s not supposed to be me. It was never supposed to be me!

His weight was as nothing on the hard-packed clay crust. He made his way across it towards the pebble-studded old bank. Reaching it he straightened and looked back.

The riders were leaving, heading back up the road – and from beyond the bend two columns of thick, black smoke lifted into the sky, and Orfantal knew that his companions were all dead. Haral, Gripp, all of them. A disbanded unit, fallen into banditry and murder – but no, even that did not make sense. Those skins on the wagons were valuable. Bandits would not set them alight.

His gaze fell back to the nag.

The back end of the animal was now beneath the mud, and he could see how it struggled to breathe.

Orfantal ventured back out on to the clay, retracing his route.

When he reached the nag only its head and neck were visible. The crying left him weak, but he managed to throw his arms around that neck, holding on tight. The hide was hot and slick, almost on fire with life, and he felt the nag’s cheek settle against the side of his head, and he wept so hard he felt as if he was emptying his own soul. His wails echoed back from the cliffs behind him.

The mud touched the underside of his left arm; he felt his elbow plunging into soft coolness. The neck muscles strained and the nag lifted its head, nostrils opened wide, air gusting out in a long stream. But it had no strength with which to draw a breath inside – the weight of the clay against its ribs was too vast. As the exhalation dwindled, he felt the nag shudder, and then begin to sag, the muscles relaxing and the head settling on the clay. The horse’s eyelids dipped down half over the lifeless eyes, and stayed there.

Orfantal dragged his arms from the mud. With the nag’s death, the anguish left him, and in its place was a vast hollow, a numbness that made him feel small.

Truth cared nothing for stories. The real world was indifferent to what people wanted to be, to how they wanted everything to turn out. Betrayers came from everywhere, including inside his own body, his own mind. He could trust no one, not even himself.