beneath her feet. She scrambled back, thrashing with her arms. How could she get them out?
A nest of tangled branches was wedged between the trees to her left, carried down by a flood. She heaved one out, snapped off the side branches to stubs and ran back. Wading in as far as she dared, Tali hooked a stub end into the belt of Rix’s kilt, and pulled gently. The kilt pulled up then slipped free.
She reached further down, caught something and jerked.
‘Aaarrgh!’ Rix roared. He convulsed and his head went under.
She panicked. Get him out, quick, before he drowns. She heaved on the branch with all her strength.
He let out a bellow that echoed off the rock walls, even louder than the waterfall. ‘What the hell are you doing? Let go.’
She kept dragging him backwards, and Tobry with him, still in the headlock, until Rix grounded on the shore. Tobry was not moving. She pulled Rix’s hooked arm away from Tobry’s neck, dug her toes into the sand and dragged him up the beach.
Rix groaned, rolled over, gasping and clutching at himself under the kilt, and only then did Tali realise where the branch had caught him.
Oh dear, she thought, flushing.
Tobry was barely breathing. She turned him onto his side and drove her knee into his diaphragm, imitating the way he had pressed the water out of her. None came out. She opened his shirt and put her ear to his chest, which was bruised and scratched where he must have hit the rocks, and red from healing cuts made days ago. She could not hear any gurgling, just his fluttering heartbeat.
She was about to drive her knee into his belly again when his eyes opened and he took a deeper, more reassuring breath. He was all right! She rolled him onto his back. His chest had a number of thin white scars across it, healed wounds, and some went perilously close to the heart.
‘Is Rix — ?’ he whispered.
‘He’s alive, but — ’ She bit her lip.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘I was hooking him out with a branch but … er, it caught on something under his kilt. I’m afraid I’ve hurt him.’
‘It caught on
‘I’m afraid so. He seems quite upset about it.’
Tobry made a muffled noise in his throat, looked at Rix, who was still writhing, and chuckled. ‘Serves the sod right.’
‘He’s in pain,’ said Tali, shocked at his callousness.
‘But hilarious pain,’ Tobry hooted.
‘What if I’ve damaged him?’ She knew men were sensitive down there.
His laughter echoed off the cliff face.
‘He just saved your life,’ snapped Tali.
‘And in ten years’ time I’ll still be getting free drinks to tell this story.’
CHAPTER 52
‘They’re only minutes away,’ called Tali from her vantage point up a tall tree.
‘Come down, Tali,’ said Rix.
‘Can’t go back in the water,’ said Tobry. ‘Another ride like that one will finish me.’
‘Besides,’ Rix added, ‘we’d end up in Lake Fumerous and the last waterfall has a thousand-foot drop. We’ll swim the pool and head overland.’
Rix towed Tali across but she saw no animal power in him now, just a bone-creaking weariness. Tobry was even slower. The hundred and fifty yards across the pool took him minutes and with every laboured stroke she was afraid he would fail and sink. She looked upstream, expecting to see grey heads beside the waterfall. Tobry reached the shore and Rix dragged him out.
‘How do we get back to Rannilt?’ said Rix. ‘You know this country better than I do.’
‘Map’s lost.’ Tobry checked the angle of the sun and pointed to the right. ‘This way. I think.’
Rix squeezed Tali’s shoulder, the way an old friend might have done. ‘You did well.’
‘Thank you,’ said Tali, disconcerted by the change in him. But then, they had been through a year’s worth of adventures today. ‘Are you sure Rannilt’s all right?’
Rix and Tobry exchanged glances. For a few seconds, Tobry’s eyes went black.
‘We’ve led the enemy away from her …’ said Rix.
‘What is it?’ said Tali.
‘Nothing to worry about,’ Rix said slowly. ‘But … Rannilt kept talking about something that comes out of the dark.
Frosty fingers scraped down Tali’s back. ‘She told me about it, too.’
‘Do you think it’s real?’ Tobry’s voice crackled like ice.
‘Yes, I do.’
‘And it’s hunting her?’
Tali’s chest was tight. She pushed the words out. ‘
There was a long silence. ‘We’d better split up,’ said Rix. ‘Tobe, take Tali and head for Caulderon. I’ll go after Rannilt.’
‘If you think I’m running away — ’ began Tali.
‘I’m with Rix on this,’ said Tobry. ‘If you’re right, it wants you to come after Rannilt. It’s luring you in.’
‘Do you think I don’t know that?’ snapped Tali, for she was desperately afraid. ‘She saved my life and I’m going after her. I’m not debating the matter.’
‘This way,’ said Tobry, turning left.
Away from the incised channel of the river, the barren plain was unnaturally warm and dotted with sinkholes and fuming pits. The soil was a rusty orange, scattered with round black pebbles the size of marbles that rolled beneath them and hurt Tali’s feet through Mijl’s thin sandals. In the distance, the Brown Vomit fumed and roared. Red lava was trickling over the rim, though it quickly congealed.
‘Eruption’s getting worse,’ said Tobry laconically.
‘Does lava ever flow this far?’ said Tali.
‘It’s too sticky. The Vomits tend to blow up.’
‘H-how often?’
‘Might not happen for a thousand years. But when it does, it’ll empty the lake and wash Caulderon clean away.’
Tali wished she had not asked. ‘How far is it to Rannilt?’
‘Three miles in a direct line,’ said Tobry. ‘But it’ll take hours on our winding route.’
In hours the enemy could catch them. In hours the shifting thing could kill Rannilt and eat her.
‘How did you escape Cython, where no other Pale ever has?’ asked Rix, sometime later.
She explained about the sunstone knocking all the enemy out.
‘Yet you escaped?’
‘It didn’t affect me — apart from a terrible headache.’ Or had it? The power that had killed Banj had appeared soon afterwards.
‘I wonder why not?’ mused Tobry.
She did not answer, for a chilling possibility had occurred to her. How come Rix, the one person she could identify from the murder scene, had appeared at the shaft within hours of her escape? It could be a coincidence, though it seemed a little too neat.
If he knew the killers, had he been blackmailed into protecting them? But in that case, why had he rescued her, and why was he doing his best to make up for his earlier insult? She couldn’t make sense of it.
