He went and went, the dangling man, he flew, and his stance was stiff and he sped through the air. Through the byways of the swampy estuary, between stubbish islands, past mangroves and through the arches of their vines, over banks of mulch and mud into karst, rock splints, a serrated landscape.

His companion was a bird, a hare, a jag-wasp the size of a dove, a rockling a fox a cactus-child, always with its tumour of mottlesome flesh moving upon it as it clung to the dangling man or kept pace with him, impossibly pushing whatever its body was from spire to spire of stone. The dangling man emerged into grassland. For a time the beast below him was an antelope that ran like none of its kind had ever run.

They went and went, they tore through the scorching scrubland in sped-up time. They went north through little trees and the burnt villages and onward north and their pace was up and whatever the animal was that followed the man or held to him or flew above him their speed increased and they hunted, watching signs in the earth and air that only they could see, narrowing in, following, coming after.

Chapter Five

They gathered Fejh to bury. The strange dogs surrounded the militia bodies and howled for their masters.

The two tardy remaining stood with their legs locked, in slumber. Not all the militia were dead. There was a thin screaming, and fast breathing from those too broken to crawl away. There were no more than four or five, dying slowly but with all their energy.

As Cutter dug, the horseman came through the frantic dogs. The companions turned their backs on their dead friend, to face him.

He nodded at them, touching the front of his brimmed hat. He was the colour of the dust. His jerkin sun-bleached, his trousers of buck leather and the chaps smoking with dirt. He had a rifle below his shabrack. On each hip he wore a pepperpot revolver.

The man looked at them. He stared at Cutter, held his right hand cupped by his lips and muttered. Cutter heard him, close-up, as if the mouth was by his ear.

"Best hurry. And we’d best get one of the dogs."

"Who are you?" Cutter said. The man looked to Pomeroy, Elsie, Cutter again, mouthing. When it was his turn Cutter heard: "Drogon."

"A susurrator," Pomeroy said with distrust, and Drogon turned to him and whispered something across the air. "Oh aye," Pomeroy answered. "You can be damn sure of that."

"What you doing here?" said Cutter. "You come to help us bury-" He had to stop and could only gesture. "Why you been following us?"

"Like I told you," Drogon whispered. "We want the same thing. You’re exiles now, and so am I. We’re looking for the same thing. I been looking for the Iron Council for damn years. I wasn’t sure of you, you know. And maybe I still ain’t. We’re not the only ones looking for the Council, you know that. You know why these fuckers are here." He pointed at a militiaman supine and bloody. "Why’d you think I followed? I needed to know who you-all are looking out for."