sapling branch and sliced it in arc ahead of him. The head of the sapling took Aldinach on the side of the neck, just as he was launching himself, scalpel to the fore, at Sabir. He stumbled and fell to one knee, the scalpel tinging off a rock. He made a lunge for the knife, but Sabir caught him a second blow on the side of the head.
Then Sabir lost all reason. He beat Aldinach again and again with the branch, cursing at him all the while. When he was done, he threw the branch to one side and stumbled over to where Lamia was standing. As he approached she drifted slowly to her knees. It was an elegant movement, almost as if she were curtseying, and only at the very last moment had she decided to kneel.
Her head hung forwards. It nodded once or twice, and then, just as Sabir reached her, she pitched forwards onto her face.
He knelt beside her and swept her up into his arms. She was still alive, but her eyelids were already fluttering.
‘I love you. I love you.’ Sabir was weeping. His face was grimed with mud and with the blood from the cut in Lamia’s scalp.
Her lips moved once but no word came out of them. Then she died. Sabir could feel the life leaving her body like the final fluttering of a curtain in the wind before it once again falls still.
He looked up. Athame was standing a few feet away from him. She was looking at Lamia. Her face seemed sad. She held no weapon.
She took a step towards Sabir and held out one hand.
Something flashed past Sabir’s head. He turned quickly to one side to see what it was, but he was far too slow. When he turned back, Athame was clutching at the haft of Alexi’s throwing knife, which was protruding from her neck. As he watched, blood gushed out either side of the blade and over Athame’s hands. She was so small that she didn’t have far to fall.
Sabir looked down at Lamia’s face. It was partially turned away from him, so that the damaged side was hidden. He bent down and kissed her mouth, and then the skin around her eyes. Then he lay down beside her and drew her to him, just as he had done in the motel at Ticul.
The two of them lay there, in the clearing, one dead, the other oblivious.
A little later, when Calque attempted, with the greatest gentleness, to prise them both apart, he found it impossible.
