A hissing sound. Marith sat up, jerked, rolled sideways, a blade came down hard burying itself in the bed. Thalia sat up screaming. Silver light flooded the tent. Dark to light was blinding: Marith blinked as a shape threw itself at him, spitting through its lips. Flailed for the knife under his pillow. Thalia! Gods, Thalia, my love! Pain in his shoulder. Bright as the light. His hand closed on the knife handle. A voice shouted. Pain again. Bright in his heart. Thalia! He struck out with the knife, felt it meet something hard and yielding. Sunk in deep. Blood smell. Blood spattering his face. Voices cursing whispering in panic. The light exploded brighter. A kind of howl. Lonely. Heartbroken. Afraid. The weight on the knife jerked away from him. Killed it? Shrieking hissing sound. Smell of hot musky earth. Sweet.

The light faded. Dim cool shadows, the lamp by the bed flickering into life. Thin traces of dawn coming in through the tent seams. A gentle music of rain on the leather and the smell of fresh damp. Thalia was sitting up in the bed. Naked. Shining. All the light in her face. Landra and Tobias and a woman with yellow hair were kneeling on the ground before him. Blood on Landra’s fingers. Blood on Tobias’s arm.

That would be what had stabbed him, then. And that would be what he’d stabbed.

Landra was holding a knife. The blade ended half way in a jagged line of rust. She was staring at it mesmerized, like a woman looking at a snake. Tobias was looking at Thalia. The yellow-haired woman was looking at Tobias. There was blood running down the yellow-haired woman’s cheek bones. Running out of her eyes.

Thalia pulled the bedding up around her. Flushed and trembled at Tobias staring. Weeping. Afraid. Ashamed. Her eyes closed, opened weaker and pale. The light flared and dimmed again. The spell broken. Tobias looked away from her. Groaned.

Hot musky earth smell. Sweet. Like an animal scent. The yellow-haired woman turned away from Tobias. Got up onto her feet. Raised long clawed arms. Like birds’ wings.

“No!”

The light bursting out again. Marith threw himself at the woman, hitting out with the knife. He was on top of her, his weight knocking her over, they rolled on the floor of the tent. Her breath stank in his face hot musk and stone. Eyes like furnaces, weeping blood. Cold and hard as iron ingots, writhing dissolving under his hands, he stabbed down at nothing, cold and hard as iron, dissolving like wrestling storm clouds, the stinking breath in his face. All he could see was yellow. Sulphur fires and yellow dust. He hit again and again with the knife blade. Sparks flying. The ring of metal on stone. Keening weeping howls. Yellow, and behind his eyes black star-lit dark. A thing like a hoof struck his shoulder. Earth stink. Life stink. The smell of flowers. The smell of bread baking. The warm smell of sweat and skin. Rolled and got some kind of purchase on it, lashed out with the knife blade, got something soft. His hand sank into it. Growling sound. Pig grunts. Filth like grass blades thrust in his mouth. Taste of flowers. Scalded metal. He spat and bit down. Shrieking. He’d hurt it. His shoulder was bleeding. It had hurt him. But you can’t hurt me, he thought. You can’t! From a long way off he could hear Thalia screaming. Soft floppy things like dead fingers rubbing themselves over his body. His eyes stung worse than hatha. Soft floppy dead finger things peeling at his eyes and mouth. Taste of flowers. Scalded metal. Shrieking. Pain in his chest. Hurting. Hurting me. Taste of blood in his mouth. Hit and hit and hit with the knife blade. Blunted metal. Rang like hammers on an anvil. Bright flashes. Musk. Hit and hit and hit with the knife blade. Shrieking. A soft, warm weight.

You can’t hurt me, he thought. You can’t. He burned up in white fire. Stabbed out with the knife. Eyes staring at him, huge as mill stones. Bleeding. A vast white explosion of light.

Thalia’s voice, screaming. Shouting. “No! No!”

Hit it. Hit it. Hit.

The lamplight flickering, dawn light coming in picking out the seams of the tent.

Thalia standing with the light pouring out of her. Tobias crouched in the corner. Landra crouched beside Tobias. The yellow-haired woman lying huddled, blood on her face.

The door curtain pulled open. Brychan and Lord Durith and Lord Parale and a whole lot of people, all armed, falling over each other to get inside. The thing that was pretending to be a woman spat at them, stretched out her claws. Lord Parale rushed at it. His sword went up like pitch burning. Fingernails long as sarriss tore off his arm.

“Get back! Get back!” Brychan. Shouting.

Thalia was still shouting “No! No!.”

The thing reared up in front of them, huge and silver, shapeless like the branches of a tree. Marith reached his sword where it hung in the corner, so very close, so very far from the bed. Drew it in a shower of white light.

He screamed, “Death!” and rushed at it, hacking down with his whole strength. The bedchamber filled with shadows. Rainbows dancing on the leather. Rainbows dancing on Thalia’s face. The shadows rose like a maelstrom. The bedchamber stank of rot.

The sword bit home.

All there is, in the end, he thought. The dark. The dust. This creature, this god, this thing is weaker than I am. Is life. Is lies. Death is the one true thing.

He struck again with the sword, felt flesh and blood yielding. Soft heavy drag of the blade through skin.

Killing it.

Landra’s voice, screaming. Shouting. Pleading. “Marith. Please. Marith.”

The tent exploded in silver shadows. Marith fell backwards. The sword rang in his hand. Thalia’s voice crying out rejoicing. A thing like a great black bird shot upwards into the roof of the tent, a deafening beating of feathers, a smell of burned bones. The leather of the tent ripped open. Dawn light flooding in on them, damp soft morning rain. A mass of leaves swirled up out of the hole. Dead leaves blown on the wind. Black before his eyes a moment, and when he could see again Landra and Tobias and the woman were gone.

Marith stood naked and uninjured, shining white in the morning, rain picking out the fine bones of his shoulders, the muscles of his arms and chest. Blood and leaves and feathers caught in his beautiful blood-clot coloured hair.