‘I will,’ Toxte said aloud. ‘I swear. You just come back, Fang Lilla. We need you. Xessa needs you and him both.’

Lilla flinched that Toxte had conjured Tayan after all. Please, Malel, watch over my husband. Send him back to me alive. That’s all I ask.

Dakto extricated himself from Ilandeh’s grip and returned to Lilla’s side. ‘She may never forgive me for this, but I feel it, in here.’ He rubbed his chest. ‘This is the trail I’m supposed to walk. This is right.’

‘I make no promises to you, nor have I made any to the rest of my Paw – I cannot promise you will come back alive. I can promise I won’t risk you unnecessarily.’

Dakto looked at him; they were of a height, and the Xentib face was calm and clear. ‘That’s enough.’

The city was behind them. The best part of the day was behind them and they were deep in cultivated jungle, the trail just wide enough to walk two abreast as the cloud and the trees combined to steal the light. They’d have to rest soon.

‘Do you know any of our touch-sign?’ Lilla asked quietly, breaking the comfortable silence between him and Dakto.

The Xentib warrior skipped over a tangle of vine that crept across the trail, brow furrowed. ‘Touch-sign? What’s that?’

‘We’ve taught most of the Yaloh warriors; you should know too. It’s sign language for the dark.’

Dakto scowled, slowing. ‘But if it’s dark …’ he began. ‘Do you take me for a fool?’

‘Well, you did volunteer to destroy pyramids when you could have stayed at home.’ Lilla laughed as the man’s scowl deepened. ‘No, look, let me show you.’ He squinted down the trail. ‘Looks like we’re making camp anyway – there’s a clearing up ahead that should squeeze us all in. Come on.’

They pressed forward until the trail lightened and they could see the sky again, filtering out into a clearing and finding a rotting tree to use as a lumpy seat. ‘Give me your arm. All right, touch-sign can never be as eloquent as full sign, but it’s still really useful. Here.’ He held Dakto’s forearm in his left hand and with his right drew a long straight line and then a triangle at the end – a basic arrow – with his fingernail. ‘Direction.’ Next, he drew a big cross. ‘Negative. So the arrow and the cross mean don’t go that way.’

Lilla drew a large loop from inner wrist, up the forearm and down to outer wrist. ‘What do you think that one is?’

Dakto looked up, biting his lip. ‘Apart from ticklish?’

‘Apart from ticklish,’ Lilla confirmed with a grin.

‘Well, supposing we are at the start point, it might be … go in a circle? Circle around?’