It comes as a stranger.

Achamian grimaced, blinked at the sting that was the only thing he could feel. Tears or blood or sweat, it did not matter. He knew he was sprawled across the floor, the back of his head caught in a crook in the engravings across the Emwama Wall. He knew his life was over. He knew these things, but in the manner of whims or idle reveries. What was hard had become detached, ghostly. The world had lost its needling grit, and all substance had fled to abstractions.

He could see the regions about him greased in dingy torchlight: his legs as immovable as the mountain, the slump of the girl, the verges of the inhuman killing floor. But beyond …

His eyes climbed into blackness.

“Seju! Kellah! Fuck!”

Eyes wincing at blood. Head rolling. Her heart fluttering against the bourne of oblivion. Glances of a nightmare existence.

“Did you see Cleric? Did you see him?”

“Sweet Kellah, would you just fucking grab her?”

“Come, boys. Quickly. Quickly.”

“What’s wrong with his face?”

“Just salt. From the Tears of Go—”

“Enough with the fucking questions! Move-move!”

Shadows consult. Pain presses the first of its many pins into her skull. Arms hoist her like a basket against a scale-armoured chest. Tears and torchlight make gold and water of her bearer’s face. But she recognizes the smell: myrrh through the reek of entrails …

Soma.

He is a landmark, and the lay of her circumstances comes crashing back to her. “Akka!” she croaks. They are running with wounded haste, a meagre party of nine or ten or maybe more. Soma tells her to clutch his neck, raises her chin to his shoulder. Between ragged breaths, he tells her the Wizard lives but that they know no more. She can feel the Chorae between their two hearts. He explains how she’s lucky to be alive, how a Sranc javelin had capped her. He begins naming the fallen.

But she’s no longer listening. A lick of hair has dropped past her brow, threading the blood from her eyes to her cheek and lips. They are running along the Emwama Wall, and she can see their lost position in the light of a single remaining torch, the wreckage of Men and Sranc and mules. She sees one of their number limp-running, becoming slower and more precarious with every step. She sees him wobble, skid to his knees. She sees the Captain farther back, sprinting alone, a shimmering silhouette against the torchlight. She sees him raise his sword to strike the laggard down.