She leapt from the top of the nearest root, three metres from the tundra floor, and landed with a krump that shook Liska’s teeth.

The hand she had just torn loose was thick and clumpy, the bark already hardening around it. It looked more like a club than a fist, but that suited Embla just fine. She swung it high over her head and brought it down on to the seeper that Liska had burnt, crushing it into the soil, smashing a crater in the earth.

The seeper exploded, spewing globules of grey rot upwards in a cloud. They pattered across the roots of Nammu and Embla’s fresh skin of hardened bark, hissing, shrivelling and falling away.

Liska saw the second seeper spring upwards, trying to strike Embla while her meaty fist was buried deep in the mud. But she had her other hand free. She swung it round and caught the creature by the neck, gripping it hard, as tentacles of grey sludge thrashed outwards from the thing’s body.

The seeper pinning Liska made a wailing noise but didn’t move from her back. She struggled against it but was held fast. It didn’t look as though Embla would be quick enough to save her.

But there was still Elowen.

Liska saw a flash of white as her friend also dropped down from Nammu’s root. Even though she must have been exhausted, her hands were moving in summoning patterns, making streaks and spirals of light in the air. She was using her arbomancer’s powers to control Nammu itself, using the tree to fight against Thresher.

From the earth all around Liska, fresh roots burst, shooting straight upwards in an explosion of buds and vines.

They whipped downwards like striking snakes, wrapping themselves around the seeper that had her trapped. The thing was lifted clean off the ground, struggling and shrieking as the roots squeezed tighter and tighter.

Liska felt the weight on her back suddenly lift. She rolled out of the way just as Elowen’s vines snapped shut, bursting the seeper into a cloud of rot.

Clots of the filthy stuff drizzled down to the ground where Liska had just been lying, frazzling the grass there before shrivelling up and disappearing.

Liska flexed her wings, checking they weren’t broken, then turned to see if she could help Embla.

There was no need. The giant treekeeper had freed her other hand and was holding the struggling seeper above her head. As Liska stared, she brought it down into the red-hot coals of last night’s fire.

The creature instantly burst into flames, writhing about as its rotten body was eaten up in seconds.

That only left Thresher.

The hunter let out a strangled scream and threw her spear at Embla’s chest with all her strength.