The man turned to look at them. He was large, as if born of a race of titans long dead. His eyes were jet black, his pupils almost invisible. They peered out of his eyes as if from the end of tunnels. His long hair writhed in a wind that touched no one else. His skin was almost white, stretched taut like parchment drawn tight over a skull. Water pooled around his feet as ice fell from his skin. Chasthana spied a missing wrist, though the slash was rimmed with a reddish-brown icy ring. Chain marks showed around his neck, as if he had been throttled. The Titan turned a strange looking dagger in his other hand. Reflected torchlight glimmered on the ice shards scattered over the man’s midnight armour.

Aeneas edged closer, as if in a trance. ‘What are you?’ he whispered in a trembling voice. ‘Are you a demon?’

‘I doubt he knows Greek,’ Kalyavan said, no trace of fear in his voice. Chasthana didn’t like that. He had wanted Kalyavan to cower, as he did. ‘Krishna!’ Kalyavan shouted into the empty black air, ‘If you think a giant can scare me, stow that thought deep away, cowherd.’

The Titan slowly lifted his head. His withered wide mouth stretched into a condescending grin, revealing teeth encrusted with ice. Muscles tautened along his neck, his shoulders and arms in twisting, shaking lines. ‘Savitre?’ he whispered in a hoarse voice that sounded like a knife softly drawn across bone. Chasthana knew the Titan spoke in the tongue of the First Empire, but he did not understand the words.

‘What did he say?’ Aeneas asked.

‘Sounded like Seetre.’ Chasthana trembled. ‘Archon, we should leave.’

‘Thorin! Where is he?’ Muchuk Und asked, looking at his wrist. ‘Asha…’ The last word was an icy whisper that misted out of his mouth.

‘Enough! I don’t care for this nonsense. Kill him!’ commanded Kalyavan.

Kill him? Could he even be killed?

Chasthana’s eyes flickered from Aeneas to the Titan, unsure. But a command was a command. He nodded at Aeneas and the other soldier whose name he did not remember, wishing they had more men. The two cranked the crossbows they had picked up from the corpses of Mathuran soldiers. The machines rattled but the bolts glanced off the Titan’s armour. Any other man would have dropped dead from hits at such close range. The Titan merely looked at his assailants, his eyes filled with rage. There was a brief motion and the flash of the old dagger. The soldiers fell on either side of him, as if in a coordinated dance, their throats cut.