'Attacked me only once. And those eyes. It looked at me. Almost… human.'

'And it left you for dead?' Erys's curiosity got the better of him.

'Yes,' said Yron, his eyes scanning the dark cloak of the rainforest all around them.

'Why?'

'Because, Erys, that panther was not hunting for meat.' Yron rubbed his mouth and chin. At least it couldn't get any worse now.

'Please,' said Pavol. 'It hurts.'

'I know, son. We'll save you.'

But Pavol was suddenly dead. Yron laid his head gently on the ground and turned to Erys, his mind racing with possibilities, a shiver of fear running down his back.

'How's your stamina, you and Stenys?'

'Pretty good. Your herbs do a better job than I'd thought.'

'Right. Get yourselves linked and commune with the ships. I want the reserve out now; I want them to establish defensive positions in front of the estuary entrance. Tell them we're coming in teams. Get to it.'

'That panther-' began Erys.

'Later. Go.' Yron turned away. 'Ben-Foran!'

His lieutenant ran over. 'Sir.'

'I want to see all the squads with cargo ready to go now. Any that aren't ready, get them so. That includes the two with Erys and Stenys. They're leaving now and there'll be a change to their routes. We've just run out of time here.'

'And the rest of us?'

Yron shrugged. 'We get to buy them as much time as we can before we die.' Rebraal stumbled again and crashed heavily into the trunk of a tree, only managing to turn his body at the last moment to avoid Mercuun taking the damage. His shoulder sang out its agony and a cry forced itself out of his mouth. He rested a few moments, panting hard, his pulse pounding in his head, his body soaked in sweat and his limbs shaking with exhaustion.

He had no idea how far he had travelled or for how long. All he knew was that it wasn't far enough and that now, with night full around him, he was fading fast. His eyesight wandered in and out of focus and every step was a trial. He felt constantly nauseous and faint and he was waiting for his body to give out and for Tual to offer him up to the rainforest. Him and Mercuun.

He pushed himself away from the tree and plodded deliberately on, seeking vegetation he could force through without a blade as he had done all day. It added to the distance but there was no way he could do otherwise. Once he put Mercuun down, he didn't think he'd have the strength to lift him again.

He ducked under a stand of broad leaves, his vision swimming again, the colours he could usually pick out so cleanly in the dark all washed out and running together. Again he was forced to stop while his head cleared, each time taking longer than the last, and it was then that he heard what he had most feared. The quiet padding of feet. The almost imperceptible movement of vegetation at odds with the ambient breeze. The careful placement and sinuous movement that spoke of the consummate hunter. Tual had spoken her wishes.

Rebraal was being stalked.

Shivering, his body wracked with the fever pumped around his bloodstream by his exertions, he forced himself on. Mercuun, unconscious for much of the time and incoherent the rest, was a draining weight in his arms. Rebraal knew he hadn't the strength to fight the jaguar, if such it was, and his only hope was to carry on, hoping and praying the animal was diverted from its hunt.

He upped his pace, his body screaming at him to stop, his mind fogging and new blood seeping from the wound in his shoulder. He tripped across a root, dropped to his haunches under a low branch and drove himself upright, gasping. He broke into a trot, imagining the jaguar's footsteps increasing, the shoulders moving under the sleek fur, the eyes piercing the night and the nostrils twitching as they caught the scent of blood.

Behind him, he heard the crack of a twig and the rustle of leaves. He ran, praying for respite or a hiding place. Mercuun bounced in his arms and moaned in his unconsciousness, the pain of his broken limbs finding him even there. Liana and vine slapped Rebraal's face as he went; he twisted this way and that, jumped more roots, slid down a slight slope and forced himself up its other side. He dared not look behind him.

The sounds of the rainforest filled his ears, their volume increasing tenfold, twentyfold, as he ran. The croaking of frogs, the rasping of lizards, the scurrying of ants and spiders. He could hear it all so loud, mingled with his ragged breath as he fought for air. He heaved them over the lip of another incline, not stopping, rushing onwards, splashing through a stream, his skull echoing painfully to the awful noise that built and built.

He felt his legs half give but drove himself for another pace. And another. He ignored the shuddering of his arms and the lancing stabs through his back every time his foot went down. He had to escape the jaguar, he had to get to the village and warn them. The temple. By Yniss, the temple had to be retaken. He couldn't fail or the harmony would be lost.

He raised his head to look for his route, his vision clouded again and a branch caught him squarely across the forehead.

Rebraal felt himself go as if in slow time. Even as his head rocked back from the impact, his legs carried on forward a pace. Impossibly unbalanced, his grip on Mercuun was lost and his broken friend tumbled out of his hands and away. He circled his arms desperately but still he fell back, landing in a tumble on the soft muddy forest floor, his head a mass of sparks, his senses all but gone.

He heard the sound of those feet running towards him, could feel their vibration through his tortured body.

'I am sorry, Meru,' he managed as he waited for the end. 'I have failed you.'

The hot breath of the cat fired into his face. He looked up into the eyes of Tual's creature to see the wonder of creation even as it tore his life from him but it was no jaguar. It was a panther, black as night with the light of sentience in its eyes. Its head darted in and licked at his cheeks and forehead, an impossibly comforting feeling as the rough tongue dragged at his skin.

He frowned, the last vestiges of his strength gone, too weak even to raise an arm, but as he faded to nowhere he heard a voice.

'How fast you ran, brave Al-Arynaar. But now you can stop. We have found you. We will take you home.' Ilkar had told them it would be different but he hadn't managed to get across the magnitude of that difference. The rainforest was vast. Unbelievably vast. It covered everything that they could see and, the Julatsan assured them, a thousand times more that they couldn't.

Sailing gently up the River Ix, they were hemmed in by walls of green on either side. The tallest trees towered over two hundred feet into the sky; their shorter cousins hung their branches into the water, sucking up the life that gave their colours such verdancy. But just as the forest seemed about to overwhelm them, the bank would cut suddenly away on one side, and the roaring they had been hearing for an hour would reveal itself as a waterfall, many hundreds of feet high, falling sheer down moss-covered rock into a deep plunge pool that fed straight into the Ix. And elsewhere they would glimpse huge gentle slopes, running away from shallow banks and up the sides of hills, that gave way in turn to spectacular mountains, thrusting through the all-conquering forest and up into the heavens.

And everyone but Aeb stared, stunned by the majesty of the land. The Protector betrayed no emotion and Hirad wanted to rip off his ebony mask and implore him to look, to laugh in delight at the beauty and to drink in his freedom. But to remove the mask would be to subject Aeb to torment at the hands of the demons who controlled his soul and the path between it and his body. Such was the curse of every Xeteskian Protector.

So Hirad tried not to think about it, and felt happy instead that some of what they saw brought light even to Erienne's eyes.