The screams mingled as one wailing torrent, shrieking through her mind, bursting through her skull, flowing out of her ears on bright red brooks. She heard her own voice in there, her own sorrow, her own agony, her own tragedy.

Eventually, their voices stopped. Hers continued for a while.

She looked up, at last, and saw Naxiaw. His hands hung weakly at his side. He stared at her firmly. He did nothing more as she scrambled to her feet, staring at him with eyes bereft of anything but pure animal terror, and fled into the forest.

He stared, long after she had disappeared into the brush.

Then, he sat down, and sighed.

‘I should not have done that,’ he whispered.

‘ She had to know,’ a voice deep inside his consciousness spoke: Inqalle, harsh and unforgiving.

‘ You did as you must,’ another added: Avaij, strong and unyielding. ‘ Anything to make her aware of the disease. So long as she knows, she can fight it.’

He said nothing in reply. Through the Howling, though, they heard everything.

‘ You fear her weak,’ Inqalle said. ‘ I thought her weak, too. She lacks the conviction to kill the humans. She has had days, opportunities beyond counting, and she has done nothing.’

‘ If our plight, the suffering of our people, her people cannot move her,’ Avaij said, ‘ then perhaps she is too infected. Perhaps she must be put down.’

‘I have seen too many shicts die at human hands,’ Naxiaw whispered harshly. ‘Too many families severed, children lost … I will not let it happen again, not to another shict, not to her.’

He sent these words through the Howling on thoughts of anger, of frustration. The words of his companions came back on sensations of possibility, anticipation.

‘ Many Red Harvests approaches,’ Avaij said. ‘ The idea here was to test it.’

‘ There are ways to save a host beyond putting it down,’ Inqalle said. ‘ Poison can be used to cleanse, to shrivel tumours and drive out diseases.’

‘I have seen enough of her heart to know that it will hurt her,’ Naxiaw replied.

‘ The nature of poison is to harm. The nature of disease to kill. It is your choice, Naxiaw.’

He sat silently for a moment. His decision was made known to them in an instant, the Howling full of his cold anger and hardened resolve.

‘The humans die,’ he whispered. ‘I will cure them.’

‘ I am with you,’ Inqalle said.

‘ As am I,’ Avaij agreed.

‘ And we,’ their thoughts became synonymous, ‘ will not let another shict suffer.’

The vigour that coursed through Lenk’s body as he strode out of the cavern was one that he had not experienced in a lifetime. Maybe even his whole lifetime, he thought. His muscles were taut and tense; his body felt lighter than it had ever felt; his breath came in deep gulps of air too fresh to have ever existed on this stagnant island of death.

Life surged through him, a vibrant and untested energy that was nearly painful to feel racing through his veins. His mind was aware of his wounds and his scars, but his body remained oblivious. Still, that did not stop his brain from trying to make his body aware of its limitations.

This doesn’t make sense, he thought. Moments ago, I was unconscious. Hours ago, I was in agony. Days ago, I was …

‘ Look back far enough,’ the voice replied to his thoughts. ‘ You will find only pain, a dark and agonising nightmare, until this moment. You’re awake now.’

How?

‘ Don’t believe what the priests tell you. Life is not sacred. Life is simply a tool. Purpose is sacred. Without purpose, life is nothing but a long, pointless, empty sleep.’

And our sleep has been long.

‘ Too long.’

And our purpose …

‘ We know what it is.’

To find the tome.

‘ To slaughter the demons.’

And from there?

‘ You’ll know by then. But for now …’

He glanced up and saw Kataria’s back. The shict sat upon a rock, staring into the forest. Lenk felt his hand tighten into a fist.

‘ Remember your purpose. Remembers theirs.’

‘I will,’ he whispered.

Her ears twitched. She glanced over her shoulder and frowned at him as he approached.

‘You snuck up on me,’ she said, slightly offended.

He said nothing. They stared for a moment. Her gaze was softer than he remembered. She shifted to the side, leaving a bare space of granite beside her.

‘ Walk past,’ the voice urged his legs. ‘ Do not look. Do not think of her. Go forward.’

She had abandoned him. She had looked into his eyes. His mind remembered this. His mind did not object as this vigour carried him forth and past her. Her hand shot out and caught his. He stopped. Her fingers wrapped around his.

His body remembered this. It did not object as she pulled him down to sit beside her.

Silence persisted between, but not within. A voice raged at him, hissed angrily inside him, told him to go up. He wasn’t sure why he stayed sitting. He wasn’t sure why her hand was wrapped around his.

‘Through the neck,’ she said, suddenly.

‘Huh?’

‘I’ve got your sword arm right now. If I had pulled just a little harder, I could have brought my knife up into your neck.’ She sniffed, scratched her rear end. ‘It wouldn’t have to be instant, either. I don’t think you could stop me if I ran away and waited for you to bleed to death.’

‘ See?’ the voice roared. ‘ Do you see? Do you see her purpose? Do you see why she is a threat? Kill her. Strike her down! Strangle her now before she can kill us!’

She hasn’t killed us.

‘ Yet.’

Yet.

‘I don’t have my sword,’ he said.

She reached down and plucked up a length of steel from beside the rock, handing it to him. The moment he clenched the weapon, the vigour inside him boiled instead of surged, his muscles clenched to the point of cramping.

‘It washed up on shore just an hour ago. The Owauku wanted to throw it back before you could use it on them. I stopped them.’

‘ It has purpose,’ the voice whispered. ‘ It knows what it is used for. That’s why it comes back to us. It knows what it craves.’

‘I could,’ he whispered, ‘kill you right now.’

‘You won’t,’ she said, not even bothering to look up. ‘And I haven’t killed you yet.’ She smacked her lips. ‘I’ve had so many opportunities. I’ve thought of a hundred ways to do it: poison, arrows, shove you overboard when you’re doing your business …’

‘ Kill her now!’

Right now?

‘If I was a true shict, I would have killed you when I first set eyes on you.’ She sighed. ‘But I didn’t. I followed you out of the forest. I followed you for a year. I tracked you to a dark cave that you went into and I waited on this rock because I knew you’d be all right.’ She bit her lip. ‘You’re always all right.’

She bowed her head for a moment, then rubbed the back of her neck.

‘And that’s all I’m ever sure of these days. I go to sleep not knowing if I’ll dream shict dreams or what shict dreams are, but I know you’re going to be there when I wake up.’ She blinked rapidly for a moment. ‘And back on the ship, when I wasn’t sure, it … I …’

The silence did not so much cloak them as smother them this time, seeping into Lenk so deeply that even his mind was still for the moment. He glanced at her, but she was pointedly looking into the forest, staring deeply into the trees as though she would die if she looked anywhere else.

Perhaps she would.

‘How’s the shoulder?’ she asked.

‘It’s fine,’ he replied. ‘I’ve had worse.’

‘You do seem to have a talent for getting beaten up.’

‘Everyone’s good at something.’ He shrugged, then winced. The pain in his shoulder had returned; it hadn’t been there when he had emerged from the cave.