When at last we reached a flat slope midway through the two mountains rising either side of us, I was weary enough to have fallen down like a stone and slept, but Darga warned that the ground was still tainted and his reiterated assurance that there was clean ground and water ahead was enough to make us decide to go on.

As we passed through the gap between the mountains, the slope became a narrow passage that turned at the last into a deep, twisted runnel. This brought us to a wide, flat-bottomed canyon running east between what I had seen from above were two great long spurs jutting out from the base of the mountains like immense exposed stone roots. I had been unable to see what lay between them from above, but now we came upon a strange bush growing over a mound of enormous broken boulders. Its pallid fleshy leaves hung down like great long grey fingers and Analivia, gesturing to them, asked if they were not proof that we had reached clean ground. When Darga insisted that the ground was still tainted, Analivia pointed out with some asperity that the taint must be very slight if plants could grow. ‘We should at least stop here for an hour to light a fire to cook a meal,’ she said. ‘I need to tend to the girl’s wounds.’

‘Let us keep going until we get to clean water,’ I said, and we plodded on.

In truth, I did not like the feel of the canyon where the strange bush grew. Its pendulous leaves reminded me unpleasantly of dead hands and made me think of Moss’s body being soundlessly carried away. Glancing up, I had thought I saw tiny pale eyes high up the wall, but when I blinked they vanished. Another time, looking up, I thought I saw something enormous moving over the face of the mountain, but when the clouds parted a little later, there was nothing to be seen.

All at once, the wind began to blow strongly from the east, into the canyon. It seemed to me that I could smell the sea in it, though it was impossible that the scent of the distant sea could travel so far. Yet I found myself reminded of the morning I had woken washed up on the shore of the Westland bathed in sunlight and amazed to be alive. For some reason, the memory lifted my spirits.

‘It feels warmer,’ Ahmedri observed a little later, and then he stopped. ‘There is light ahead.’

He was right and both he and Swallow unsheathed their knives as we moved forward quietly, having left Dameon to wait with Gavyn and the beasts. The light turned out to be coming from a narrow cave in the southern wall of the canyon, half hidden by mist which hung queerly before it.

‘It must be badly tainted,’ Analivia said.