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The attack came from an unexpected angle. A cratalac must have taken one of the half-dozen other entrances and flanked their retreat. Only the fact that it could barely squeeze through prevented a slaughter on top of the blind, rushing, screaming rout that followed. Evar jumped the thrust of a barbed limb, barely seen in the gloom as its owner lunged from a side passage. He dragged his sister with a roar of effort, careless of her wounds, only determined that she not end in the insectoid’s filthy maw. After that it was all running and confusion.

—

“Kerrol?”

“I’m here.”

They were in a tunnel whose roof came so low Evar had been forced to crawl. The place hadn’t been dug out by humans. “Clovis?” He had her in his arms.

“...present...” A cough followed the weak response.

All the torches were out, though their smoke still stung his eyes. He could see nothing at all.

“Arpix?” He could hear Arpix calling the humans’ names.

“I’m checking.” Arpix carried on. “Henral?”

A human replied.

“Salamonda?”

Silence.

“Salamonda?” A pause before several humans started to talk at once.

Evar knew the woman who owned the name. An older human, solid and kind. She had been helping him look after Kerrol.

“Salamonda?” Kerrol surprised Evar with his concern.

“We must have lost her on the way,” Evar said. He felt guilty for not suggesting that they go back but there were at least five cratalacs in the tunnels. The woman was surely dead already or in no worse a position than the rest of them, albeit in a different tunnel.

“...ask him...” Clovis managed.

“Ask who what?”

“Arpix. About the weapon.”

Arpix spoke, closer to them than he had been. “It was mercury. That was all I had.”

“It poisons them that fast?” Evar knew from the education Starval had given him in such matters that mercury was a slow toxin that brought madness first, but only with long-term exposure.

“A catalyst,” Arpix said.

“A what?” Evar thought the human had the wrong word. It wasn’t one he’d heard before.

“Maybe I have the wrong word. It allows a reaction that would not otherwise occur. It doesn’t take part—”

“A poison to them.” Clovis cut across him, regaining a little strength.

“How did you get it?” Evar asked.

“The cliffs,” Arpix growled. “Exposed ore. Cinnabar. Not hard to extract.”

“And a librarian knew all this because...”

“Livira told me. She got it from a book.”

Evar said nothing. Even here. Even here Livira reached out for him. Perhaps she was watching now, a ghost at his shoulder.