But she preferred cold to company.

And so she sat apart, sullen and silent, and watched the light drain out of the brooding sky, watched the darkness creep into the land. There was just the faintest glow of the sun now, on the distant horizon. A last feeble brightness round the edges of the looming clouds.

The big pink stood up, and looked at her. “Getting dark,” he said.

“Uh.”

“Guess that’s what happens when the sun goes down, eh?”

“Uh.”

He scratched at the side of his thick neck. “We need to set watches. Could be dangerous out here at night. We’ll take it in shifts. I’ll go first, then Luthar—”

“I’ll watch,” she grunted.

“Don’t worry. You can sleep. I’ll wake you later.”

“I do not sleep.”

He stared at her. “What, never?”

“Not often.”

“Maybe that explains her mood,” murmured Longfoot.

Meant to be under his breath, no doubt, but Ferro heard him. “My mood is my business, fool.”

The Navigator said nothing as he wrapped himself in his blanket and stretched out beside the fire.

“You want to go first?” said Ninefingers, “then do it, but wake me a couple of hours in. We each should take our turn.”

Slowly, quietly, wincing with the need not to make noise, Ferro stole from the cart. Dry meat. Dry bread. Water flask. Enough to keep her going for days. She shoved it into a canvas bag.

One of the horses snorted and shied as she slipped past and she scowled at it. She could ride. She could ride well, but she wanted nothing to do with horses. Damn fool, big beasts. Smelled bad. They might move quick, but they needed too much food and water. You could see and hear them from miles away. They left great big tracks to follow. Riding a horse made you weak. Rely on a horse and when you need to run, you find you can’t any more.

Ferro had learned never to rely on anything except herself.

She slipped the bag over one shoulder, her quiver and her bow over the other. She took one last look at the sleeping shapes of the others, dark mounds clustered round the fire. Luthar had the blanket drawn up under his chin, smooth-skinned, full-lipped face turned towards the glowing embers. Bayaz had his back to her, but she could see the dim light shining off his bald pate, the back of one dark ear, hear the slow rhythm of his breathing. Longfoot had his blanket pulled up over his head, but his bare feet stuck from the other end, thin and bony, tendons standing out like tree roots from the mud. Quai’s eyes were open the tiniest chink, firelight shining wet on a slit of eyeball. Made it look like he was watching her, but his chest was moving slowly up and down, mouth hanging slack, sound asleep and dreaming, no doubt.

Ferro frowned. Just four? Where was the big pink? She saw his blanket lying empty on the far side of the fire, dark folds and light folds, but no man inside. Then she heard his voice.

“Going already?”

Behind her. That was a surprise, that he could have crept around her like that, while she was stealing food. He seemed too big, too slow, too noisy to creep up on anyone. She cursed under her breath. She should have known better than to go by the way things seemed.

She turned slowly round to face him and took one step towards the horses. He followed, keeping the distance between them the same. Ferro could see the glowing fire reflected in one corner of each of his eyes, a curve of cratered, stubbly cheek, the vague outline of his bent nose, a few strands of greasy hair floating over his head in the breeze, slightly blacker than the black land behind.

“I don’t want to fight you, pink. I’ve seen you fight.” She had seen him kill five men in a few moments, and even she had been surprised. The memory of the laughter echoing from the walls, his twisted hungry face, half snarl, half smile, covered in blood, and spit, and madness, the ruined corpses strewn on the stones like rags, all this was sharp in her mind. Not that she was frightened, of course, for Ferro Maljinn felt no fear.

But she knew when to be careful.

“I’ve no wish to fight you either,” he said, “but if Bayaz finds you gone in the morning, he’ll have me chasing you. I’ve seen you run, and I’d rather fight you than chase you. At least I’d have some chance.”

He was stronger than her, and she knew it. Almost healed now, moving freely. She regretted helping him with that. Helping people was always a mistake. A fight was an awful risk. She might be tougher than others, but she’d no wish to have her face broken into slop like that big man, the Stone Splitter. No wish to be stuck through with a sword, to have her knees smashed, her head ripped half off.

None of that held any appeal.

But he was too close to shoot, and if she ran he’d rouse the others, and they had horses. Fighting would probably wake them anyway, but if she could land a good blow quickly she might get away in the confusion. Hardly perfect, but what choice did she have? She slowly swung the bag off her shoulder and lowered it to the ground, then her bow and her quiver. She put one hand onto the hilt of her sword, fingers brushing the grip in the darkness, and he did the same.

“Alright then, pink. Let’s get to it.”

“Might be there’s another way.”

She watched him, suspicious, ready for tricks. “What way?”

“Stay with us. Give it a few days. If you don’t change your mind, well, I’ll help you pack. You can trust me.” Trust was a word for fools. It was a word people used when they meant to betray you. If he moved forward a finger’s width she would sweep the sword out and take his head off. She was ready.

But he did not move forward and he did not move back. He stood there, a big, silent outline in the darkness. She frowned, fingertips still tickling the grip of the curved sword. “Why should I trust you?”

The big pink shrugged his heavy shoulders. “Why not? Back in the city, I helped you and you helped me. Without each other, might be we’d both be dead.” It was true, she supposed, he had helped her. Not as much as she had helped him, but still. “Time comes you got to stick at something, don’t you? That’s the thing about trust, sooner or later you just got to do it, without good reasons.”

“Why?”

“Otherwise you end up like us, and who wants that?”

“Huh.”

“I’ll do you a deal. You watch my back, I’ll watch yours.” He tapped his chest slowly with his thumb. “I’ll stick.” He pointed at her. “You’ll stick. What d’you say?”

Ferro thought about it. Running had given her freedom, but little else. It had taken her through years of misery to the very edge of the desert, hemmed in by enemies. She had run from Yulwei and the Eaters had nearly taken her. Where would she run to now, anyway? Would she run across the sea to Kanta? Perhaps the big pink was right. Perhaps the time had come to stop running.

At least until she could get away unnoticed.

She took her hand away from her sword, slowly folded her arms across her chest, and he did the same. They stood there for a long moment, watching one another in the darkness, in the silence. “Alright, pink,” she growled. “I will stick, as you say, and we will see. But I make no fucking promises, you understand?”

“I didn’t ask for promises. My turn at the watch. You get some rest.”

“I need no rest, I told you that.”

“Suit yourself, but I’m sitting down.”

“Fine.”

The big pink began to lower himself cautiously towards the earth, and she followed him. They sat cross-legged where they had stood, facing each other, the embers of the campfire glowing beside them, casting a faint brightness over the four sleepers, across one side of the pink’s lumpy face, casting a faint warmth across hers.

They watched each other.