Quin sucked his teeth and then spat. ‘We held,’ was all he would say and so they waited, huddled down low, hungry and thirsty, as the sun peaked in the sky and began its slow slide to the Underworld.

A light rain had begun and the hill had quietened in the aftermath of slaughter when Quin put his hand on Tayan’s chest and shoved him hard down onto the floor of the tunnel. ‘Scouts,’ he whispered and readied his spear. The shaman slid further backwards into the tunnel to give him room, his heart a sick thudding in his chest and his dry mouth even dryer. Behind them, in the womb, the holy Setat – Drowned, it’s a fucking Drowned – began humming.

Quin yelped and spun around. ‘What’s that?’ he hissed as Zal growled.

‘It’s fine, it doesn’t affect you,’ Tayan said hurriedly. ‘I’ve been listening to it for days. Ignore it. Oh, shit.’

There were shouts from below on the hill in the gloom: had they seen Quin move? The eja was staring out at the rain and then back into the tunnel leading to the Drowned, indecision etched across his face.

‘In,’ Tayan hissed, dragging at his arm. He didn’t wait to see if the man followed, just slithered further down the tunnel and then jumped up and ran. They hadn’t been in the womb since the previous afternoon, too intent on what was happening below and trying to spot a safe route through to the city, and now Tayan cursed his own stupidity. There was no orange glow from the womb, just the humming of the Drowned in the dark – the last of the candles had burnt out.

‘No fucking way,’ Quin breathed when he realised. ‘I am not going in there in the dark. No. Fucking. Way.’

The pale light at the end of the tunnel darkened abruptly as bodies moved into the entrance. They crouched, still, silent. ‘… hear that?’ someone asked. A woman. Familiar.

‘Didn’t you say this whole place was made of songstone, Flight Ilandeh?’ another voice asked.

‘I did, and it is. But what was the songstone echoing?’

Tayan closed his eyes, but not in fear or recognition of Ilandeh’s voice. At his own stupidity. Songstone. Fucking songstone. Of course that was it; of course that explained why the womb was sacred and why the prayers and chants the high shaman spoke in here had such power. He should have realised.

And that was why the holy Setat hummed. He’d thought it harmless noise, a way to comfort itself, perhaps, but nothing that creature did was harmless. The headaches and thirst, the lethargy in the ejab dogs, the fact that he could spend an hour in here and have written nothing, though when he came back out he had vivid memories of learning remarkable things, things just beyond recall.