Jean-Claude woke to pain and the baying of hounds. He lay beneath the shattered boughs of a half-dome tree. A hole in the canopy above him gave evidence of his plunge. Saints, but he hurt … and Aria was dead … and the hunt was almost on him. He rolled to his side—each side hurt worse than the other one—and forced himself to his feet. Hasdrubal had tricked Jean-Claude into thinking he was running ahead, when in fact he’d stayed behind and followed him straight to Aria. He must have killed Dok first, or left him to die, so he could move quietly. Jean-Claude had been checking his back trail, but Travers’s hunters had served as a distraction for the Seelenjäger. With the reliquary in hand, absolutely nothing stood between Hasdrubal and the Vault of Ages.

Fool.

Hasdrubal had whipped him like a mangy cur, then wiped his arse with what was left. Dok and Aria had paid for his mistakes. He hadn’t much liked either of them, but they’d been good to their word, and that was something in this world.

Men shouted nearby and dogs barked. They were close enough he could hear the rattling of trees as they passed.

Time for recriminations later. Jean-Claude pushed himself to his feet, found his cutlass hanging in the branches, and fetched it down. Of his dagger there was no sign. He limped away into the brush at right angles to the direction of the chase. The hunters would find Aria’s body. They’d have to decide what to make of it. That would give Jean-Claude precious minutes, but no more. In chasing Jean-Claude they would be pulled away from Hasdrubal, which explained why he’d been left alive.

Jean-Claude lurched along the crease of a narrow valley looking for a way up and over the next ridge. He had somehow managed not to break any bones in that fall, but he was so bruised he would resemble a ripe plum should he survive until tomorrow, whatever tomorrow looked like at the top of the world. He knew when his pursuers had found Aria’s corpse by the sudden eruption of noise and sounding of horns.

The shadows lengthened and shifted direction as the Solar continued its progress around the rim of the sky. The light dimmed and the veils of the auroras shimmered and crackled overhead. In this gloaming, many of the bugs began to glow and twinkle, as if the stars had all come down to live in this fairy forest. Under other circumstances it would have been enchanting to watch.

Something bigger than a beetle rustled the bushes. Jean-Claude crouched, ignoring the complaints in his knees, and scuttled under a half-dome tree. He eased up against the trunk and held deathly still.