It took until midday to dig the hole for Gryrne's body.

The khiladri were nowhere to be seen. They had disappeared at the same moment Rial had charged, howling at the first rays of the rising sun and racing off down the side of the stream. Rial didn't know if they would find a way out, and didn't care.

Gryrne lay where the khiladri had left him, motionless, eyes staring into nothingness. Rial remembered Tomasu's eyes had had the same look.

It took the best part of an hour to carry his body out of the crevice, a tortuous process that left Rial drenched in sweat, and digging the hole required yet more energy.

Rial did not hesitate. The first sun rose and watched as the exhausted, sobbing figure prepared his friend's grave.

Rial performed the rites as well as he could remember, invoking any gami he thought might be listening, scattering earth onto the corpse. The only water in the area was the red, corrupted liquid of the stream, and Rial would be damned before he used that. He hoped his tears would suffice.

Once the grave was set and the soil returned, Rial bowed to his friend's final resting place and promised to bring incense as soon as he could. Then he left his friend in peace.

The area he was in now was thickly wooded, far denser than before. Rial found himself crawling over, under, even through fallen trunks covered in a strange, purple-coloured ivy he was unfamiliar with, tough and strong and grasping. It slowed his progress as he followed the stream flowing below.

The first night he slept high in the branches of an old, thick-trunked tree whose roots spread far across the forest floor. He slept cold and hungry; his hunting traps and equipment had been left behind in his pack.

The next morning Rial climbed down early and resumed his trek. The crevice in which the stream ran was gradually lessening, rising to match the level of the ground around it. By mid-afternoon Rial came to an area of small waterfalls, at the top of which the stream ran smooth and level besides him. He stood and stared into the red murk.

It rained that evening, heavy, cold droplets that Rial held his parched mouth open to. He used broad leaves to collect as much as he could, slurping it down until he was chilled to the core and could drink no more. That night he did not climb into the trees but curled up beneath a fallen trunk amongst damp, mouldering leaves. If the khiladri came for him, he told himself as he lay there shivering, they could take him.

Rial came to the source of the corruption on the fourth day after Gryrne's death.

A circle of trees hung low over a pool of water, their branches heavy with the purple ivy that had so hampered Rial's way. Their leaves were covered with strange, red blotches that stood out alien against the green, and their very wood appeared damp and rotten.

The water itself was crimson, but different to the water that flowed in the stream below. It was gelatinous, a viscous, blood-red swirl. Rial, afraid to touch it, threw a stone into the centre. It sank with a thick 'gloop,' and a few moments later a single bubble rose in its place, bursting only after the thick meniscus wore away.

He had made it.

Now what?

There was nothing he could do. He had no tools, no companions, no food. He had made it all this way, and now it was over.

He sat down heavily, his stomach rumbling with hunger.

"That's it? You're just going to sit down and die?"

He jumped to his feet as Rei appeared a few feet away, as if by magic.

"You..? How?" he asked.

"I've been here since yesterday," she answered. "Didn't know what else to do. I think we're the only ones that made it."

Rial, shocked to discover he was not alone, a storm of questions whirling through his head, said nothing.

"So, you're done? 'cos I've got no idea," said the... girl? Woman?

Rial really didn't know what he thought of this woman. She spoke very differently to any member of a house he had known, the same casual, almost vulgar tone Brin and Eselwol used when they spoke, and she seemed... dangerous. Always on the edge of attack. The belt of knives at her side didn't help, either.

At this moment, though, alone and lost in the wilderness, none of these concerns mattered, Rial realised. He was just glad she was here.

"There must be something..." he said, trailing off at the inanity of his words.

She came and sat beside him, and they both stared into the red murk.

"I'm sorry," Rei said after a while.

"Sorry? What about?" Rial asked, turning to her.

He stared at the profile of her head as she looked out over the pool.

Her features, he realised, were perfectly proportioned, short grey hair only serving to accentuate the shapeliness of her high cheekbones. From this angle her arching eyebrows and straight nose...

"What?" he said, blinking.

She had said something and he had completely missed it. Why? What had just happened?

I must be delirious from hunger, he told himself.

"I said, I took it. Your lump of metal."

Reality came smashing back in to focus.

"You what?" he said.

He must have said it with more force than he had meant to, because Rei jumped sideways and reached for her knives, limbs flexing in a way that...

No, stop that.

"You took Mea... took the treasure?" he said, calmer now.

"So it is a village treasure then? Nobody would tell me. Why do you have it?" Her eyes narrowed in curiosity, the previous outburst forgotten.

"I... it's a long story," he said.

"Well, we have nothing but time. It's about the slavers, isn't it? They said you fought your way out of a city of them." She looked at him as if she could dig the truth of the matter out with her eyes. "But I don't believe that. I just wanted to know what it was you were talking to."

"Ah," said Rial.

"Yeah, you didn't think I believed you, did you? I heard you prattling away to it like a kid with an imaginary friend."

Rial paused.

She didn't know.

Rei thought he had been speaking to himself.

Even as the relief washed over him he laughed. What did it matter now? He could tell her the whole story, if he chose. It made no difference.

A wave of dizziness struck him and he fell back, catching himself with an outstretched hand. Rei's eyes narrowed in concern.

"When did you last eat?" she asked.

"My pack..."

"What? You daft Khafta"

Rei stood and paced off to the fallen tree trunk she had appeared from, as Rial mumbled confused questions about Khafs and Khaftas.

A few seconds later a hunk of cooked meat landed on his lap, some kind of charred lizard Rei must have caught whilst journeying alone. Rial ate it without pause, washing it down with a container of water Rei placed next to him.

When he looked up she was holding Mead.

"You still have it!?" he said.

She pulled it towards herself at his sudden outstretched hands, then seemed to think twice.

"Sod it. I was going to give it back anyway, I just wanted a closer look at the alloy."

"Alloy?" Rial had never heard the word before.

"A metallurgy term. My dad was a metallurgist before he became a tanner. That's how he made these knives," she explained, gesturing to the belt at her side. "Weren't much demand for such things in the village, though. Not enough raw material. Tanning was more profitable."

Rial didn't know what metallurgy was, and right now he didn't care; all his attention was focused on the object in his hands.

They were saved.

Rial opened his mouth, then hesitated.

Sod it,[1] he thought. "Rei, I have something to show you..."

[1] He was still determined to be a quick learner