Xessa wound through an ancient rockfall, picking her way among slabs taller than she was and over others smaller than an infant. Her knees buckled and she caught herself just in time, forced them straight and kept walking, bouncing gently between the rocks on her cut feet, one hand holding Ossa in place until she regained her balance.

She came around the shoulder of the hill, but her sob of relief caught in her throat. The city wasn’t there. Xessa blinked, confused, and then quartered the landscape and saw it, far below. Of course, she was too high, had come out onto the scree field near the Swift Water’s main tributary. Deep enough for a Drowned.

Should she go back the way she’d come, and potentially run into any warriors tracking her, or risk the water and head through the scree, which would slip and roll beneath her torn feet and alert any Drowned to her presence?

Ossa butted her head with his and Xessa clung to a boulder and lowered herself onto her knees, biting her lip at the shuddering in her thighs. The dog slithered off her shoulders and looked up at her, then he sniffed the wind and gave her the predator signal from behind and downhill.

Shit. Shit shit shit.

Xessa was out of options. She took a deep breath, clicked three times, and whistled once. Home.

Ossa cocked his head but she cast him and he went, and Xessa sat back on her heels and watched her brave, clever dog race downhill through the scree towards the city, limping but running, running for her. One of them at least would make it back and if whoever found him had any sense, they’d realise something was amiss.

Xessa hauled herself back to her torn feet and picked her way after the dog through the scree, arms out for balance and praying the stream ahead of her was free of Drowned. Not much to eat up here. Not much to sing for. Please be empty. Please be empty. Malel, ancestors, let it be empty.

The ground slid from under her and then came up to meet her knees, the palms of her hands and then her forehead. Lightning exploded behind her eyes and the pain in her feet was so great the thought of standing made her want to weep. But Ossa was running, running on three legs. If he could do it, so could she. Xessa pushed herself back up and shambled downhill towards the city shining palely through wind and rain and oncoming gloom. And then someone was coming towards her, a dark blur through the downpour.

‘Enemy,’ she signed, the gestures big so they could be seen. ‘Northern slope. Enemy.’