Noise. Movement. Flickering light and dancing shadows. Tayan, unable to focus. Quin, backing from Ilandeh as she advanced on him. The shaman trying to croak a warning. The holy Setat rising up behind him like one of the lords of the Underworld and snatching Quin so fast the spear tumbled from his grip. The eja didn’t even have time to shriek before its mouth had torn through his throat.

Sudden silence, but for the rush and patter of blood into the shallow pool. Sudden stillness, but for the flicker of the torch. The holy Setat ripped at Quin’s throat some more, swallowing mouthfuls of hot flesh and blood, and then let his corpse fall. It held out a hand and trilled. Come.

Tayan struggled to his feet, wobbling, his vision wrong somehow.

Come.

Smiling, Tayan stepped into its arms.

Pain. Red and amorphous, pulsating thickly behind his eyes and inside his head so that his hearing faded in and out with his pulse and his vision blurred, cleared, blurred again. Cool rain on his face and wind over his body. Outside, then. And not dead. Not … eaten.

Tayan cracked an eyelid. Firelight at several distant points and one close by, bright enough to make him turn away. Movement caused more pain, and also a murmur of interest from someone on his right.

A sandalled foot in the ribs kicked him onto his back, stealing his breath. Tayan curled up on instinct, trying to breathe, but a second figure crouched at his side and yanked his head back by his hair. A woman. A face he knew.

Ilandeh.

‘Enough,’ she snapped at whoever had kicked him. Then she met his eyes and hers were very, very cold.

‘Bitch,’ he breathed. Then: ‘How did I get here?’

Her fist slammed into his mouth. ‘Shut up,’ she said raggedly and he saw bandages peek from the neck of her tunic. ‘You, the cave, the god …’ She trailed off, unable to speak, mouth contorted with desolation. ‘You really are fucking savages, aren’t you?’ she asked in the end, quietly, as if she didn’t want an answer.

‘Why didn’t it kill me?’

‘How did you do it?’

‘I didn’t,’ he said, and then snapped his mouth shut.

Ilandeh’s lips peeled back from her teeth. ‘Xessa. That snake-fucking little bitch,’ she breathed. ‘I should have killed her when I had the chance.’

Tayan lunged for her, didn’t even know he was going to until his fingers were hooked and curving for her eyes. Ilandeh swatted them aside and then reared up over him and punched him. His nose broke, mashed across his face, and blood burst from it and from his mouth. He wailed and rolled onto his side. It was as if she’d ripped his face off his skull and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t will his eyes open against the pain.