I set Maruman aside and, rising, drew off the scarf I had pulled over my hair. ‘I will come to you, if you will release the girl,’ I said, knowing I could better fight and hold the knife off than the half-stunned Dragon, and even if he cut me, I would heal.

The man glared at me. ‘You think I don’t know my own kin, woman? I know she is near. Summon her or I will stick the girl and I know you don’t want that.’ He staggered a little and the knife drew a little necklace of blood beads, but Dragon did not speak or open her eyes. Maybe she was unconscious.

‘I do not know what kin you mean,’ I began carefully, wondering if he was mad, and then I heard the ring of boots on stone.

‘I am here,’ said Analivia, coming down from the weeping arch.

Chapter 26

26

‘What do you want, brother?’ Analivia asked coldly.

Moss! I thought.

The big man’s attention was wholly fixed on his sister, though he did not slacken his grip on Dragon nor shift the knife from her throat.

‘I came for you, little sister. I am your kin though you forgot it when you gave your soul to the mutants and beast lovers,’ he snarled, then he spat and the blood was dark on the stone by his feet.

‘It is you who forgot you were my brother long ago,’ Analivia said. She was trembling like a leaf and her hands hanging at her sides clawed the cloth of her trews.

‘A brother rules his sister and his mother,’ Moss said in his slurred, wet voice. ‘They are no more than beasts to a man and he does what he pleases with them and to them. So did my father and so he taught me to do.’

‘I dwelt with my only true brother,’ Analivia hissed.

‘That moon calf,’ Moss said, and spat again. ‘Is that how you came to the beast lovers, girl? You gave yourself to Bergold and then to the beast lovers and what next? The beasts themselves?’

‘I would say that you are the beast but it would be an insult to any animal,’ Analivia said, but her voice shook. ‘Why did you come?’