Makemin’s headless body lies there. Long black tree roots sprout from his neck flat across the floor, dotted here and there with lumps.

Silichieh rolls on his back, arm flung out, rifle resting on the ground. I can see the outline of his chest rise and fall, hear his breathing. I look down, and see faint light glint on Thrushchurl’s upper teeth. I lower my head to his face, I feel for life in his throat. I lay him down again. I go to Silichieh, keeping close to the dark wall behind the pillars, calling his name softly. I come round to him and crouch by his head.

Silichieh’s upside-down eyes flicker up to me.

“What happened?” he asks.

Makemin’s bullet perforated his thigh through the muscle on the outside. I work smoothly for a while, feeling weightless.

“Listen,” he says. “Saskia sent me ...”

Only now do I begin to notice the sound of shooting.

“They’re here,” I say.

He nods.

“Do we have a chance?”

“Maybe. They are nearly as few as we ... and they haven’t got Saskia. I think they could be low on ammunition. They shoot sparingly.”

“Do you think they have any help?”

Silichieh just breathes, looking up.

“I don’t think so ... Did you ...?”

“No.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing. It didn’t work.”

From far off come shots, cries.

“He didn’t get you, right?”

Thrushchurl, he killed.

“I’m not shot,” I say. “Any better?”

“Yes, thank you,” he says.

I sit by him.

“We should get back,” he says.

“You wouldn’t get there,” I say. “I’m not going to just leave you here.”

I put his pistol in my empty holster. I look up at the open doors, thinking I should shut them.

“We never should have come,” Silichieh says to himself.

Nikhinoch lies on his face across from me. Silichieh is resting.

I go over to Nikhinoch and turn him over onto his back. The look of suprise is still there. I try to lay him out with some dignity. It reminds me of the mortuary college, my friends. I start gasping, and I stagger away from Nikhinoch. My eye falls on Makemin’s body. I go over to it and stand, looking down.

I can’t hold my body steady—my hands shake, my legs sway, my head swivels on my neck, my breathing catches. I swallow thick saliva with effort.

“You idiot ...” I say.

I shout at abuse at him, and I kick his corpse, hearing only echoes of my own disjointed words as I jump on him with both my heels, stumble off balance from his body then jump again. I pick him up and throw him, his body collapsing a foot or so from me where I seize him up again and throw him down, take him and run with him, fling him up against a pillar. His body tumbles back to the ground hands slapping the floor.