The next time we stopped, there was again a seep of water, and when Darga pronounced it clean, I sent back that I only wished it was a proper pool, for although Ahmedri and Swallow had been meticulously digging a hole at every seep so that there would be water for the horses and dogs to drink, it was very muddy and the bottles of clear water we carried were almost empty.

‘Maybe it is enough to be grateful for water that is clean, and to hope the next seep is a little deeper,’ Dameon said.

Ahmedri wanted to count the full bottles we had left and ration mouthfuls, but it would have meant unpacking everything to locate them all, so we merely resolved to be even more careful and sparing with the remaining water. At least the horses and dogs were drinking the ground water and we might be grateful enough to do the same ere the end.

We rode on and after a time the wind dropped so that the night became very still and silent save for the soft thud of the horses’ hoofs. I was able to remove the face cloth I had been wearing but the air had a dead, odd scent that I realised was the odour I had taken for the smell of the sea. It was truly not much like the smell of the waves.

Once again I began to drift to sleep. I pinched myself and hummed softly and bit my lip, trying to stay awake. Then Gahltha was stopping. It was too soon to rest and Rheagor did not tell me we were to stop, but as I struggled to rouse my sluggish wits, I saw that the white wolf and several of the other frontrunners in the pack seemed to be in consultation.

‘What does he say?’ Swallow asked, yawning.

‘Nothing that any human is privy to,’ I said, and suddenly became aware that I could no longer hear thunder. But when I looked up, I could still see the eldritch flicker of lightning in the clouds, and still the moon had not shown its face, though as ever, some sort of grey light filtered through, else we would have been unable to see a thing. I turned to check on how the others were faring. Dameon looked exhausted, but Swallow seemed alert, as did Ahmedri. Analivia was pale but very calm and it occurred to me that Dameon had been empathising her. But he could not empathise continuously for hours on end.

Rheagor set off again without offering any explanation for why we had stopped. I wondered if we were still heading east. It was impossible to tell without landmarks and it was too dark for me to make out the mountains we had left behind. But so far as we knew, Jacob’s city was north-east. At least, it was, if he had been right and a city had grown where once there had been a settlement of some kind, called Pellmar Quadrans.