Ninshubur knew at once that things had gone very wrong. She watched Enki hasten across the plain towards their camp and fear began to creep through her. ‘Liv’s dead. We need to go.’ All she could do was stare at him. ‘She can’t be! She knew she wouldn’t die!’ ‘She knew she would die. She knew you couldn’t cope with it. Come on.’ She pulled away as he gripped her arm. ‘Perhaps she’s not dead? Perhaps they’ve just got her somewhere?’ ‘Why would they do that? She’s no use to them alive. None of us are. Now come on!’ On the heights beyond the pass to Dilmun, they heard the howl of a wolf, summoned to the hunt. They snatched what they could carry and ran. There was no point hiding their tent or the remains of their fire. A wolf would scent it at five hundred paces. Ninshubur followed Enki into the meagre cover of the pistachio trees clinging to the rocky slope, focusing on the treacherous trail, straining for the sound of racing paws, trying not to feel her grief, her loss, her fear. The Anunnaki could hunt down anything, including them. They started to climb up a long, exposed ridge which would eventually lead them to the plains of the Great River. She looked back, saw three wolves five hundred paces back, searching through the undergrowth as if they were flushing out bustards or hares. Unnatural wolves, under the control of the Anunnaki. She went cold as she stared. A prickling on her neck. She saw a distant, cloaked figure watching them. ‘That’s Dumuzi. He’s the one who killed her.’ Something crossed the distance between them as she watched. A challenge, a sense of scorn. A hint of the immense, labyrinthine power the Anunnaki commanded. Not even Livia could withstand him. Ninshubur’s life already belonged to him. She felt his smile as her balance wavered. Enki gripped her arm and pulled her forward. ‘We need to get to the river valley. If they catch us up before then, it’s over.’ They ran on. A howl behind them, joined by others. The chase had begun. They crossed the ridge and started down the rocky slope towards the river. They pushed faster as the slope steepened. ‘What do you mean, it’ll be over?’ she gasped as they reached the valley. ‘It is over!’ Livia had lost. It was supposed to put everything right, and now she was dead. Ninshubur’s eyes swam with tears. ‘Even if we get back to Harran, what can we do?’ Enki stopped and gripped her arm. ‘Listen to me, Nin. It’s not over. She knew she was going to die. And she knew there was something we can do.’ He looked back towards the ridge. ‘We’re going to Mingöl. They’ll think we’re going back to Harran, and if we can get across the valley they’ll go that way while we cut north.’ He squeezed her shoulder. ‘Just keep going.’ Movement on the ridge behind them. Two Anunnaki. Three. At least five wolves. She and Enki plunged into the forest flanking the flood plain. The dense undergrowth and solid trees made her feel safer. Misguided, she knew. ‘As long as we stay hidden we’ll be fine.’ ‘They can’t see us anyway?’ ‘Dumuzi has no eyes in the sky. His gifts are with the wolves, the hunt. The others, I don’t know. We can hope.’ They cut back, forward, back again, confusing their trail. No sign of their pursuers. The forest dwindled to open ground. The wide, steep-sided valley seemed quiet. The river surged a hundred paces away, just starting to swell with snowmelt. The pass to Harran lay through the mountains to their left. Ninshubur forced herself to match Enki’s pace, forced her burning lungs and aching legs to quell her unbearable sense of loss. Enki checked the sinking sun. ‘We’ll keep going along the river. We’ll get to Mingöl by sunrise.’ The air grew chill and mist rose over the river as dusk drew in and they were forced to ease their pace. They heard the yip of a jackal in the distance, an answering call to their right. Benu appeared, then the four stars of the Sky Vulture, soaring at the top of the Soul Trail. The wind began to rise. ‘This is better for us, isn’t it? The wind will blow our scent away.’ ‘Better for us, better for them. We won’t hear them coming.’ A wolf howled ahead of them. Instinct told her it was a natural wolf. Enki stopped and looked back. Ninshubur did the same. She could sense no movement, no prickling attention on them. ‘What do you feel?’ Enki asked. ‘Nothing. We’re alone.’ ‘You’d never feel the Anunnaki. But you’re right. We’re not being followed. For now.’ The valley curved north and she jumped at what sounded like human footsteps. Ahead of them. Enki gripped her arm hard enough to hurt. ‘It’s an onager,’ he hissed. ‘If you’re going to jump at every sound, you’ll guide them right to us. You can do better than this, Nin.’ She looked up at Benu instead. The portal to Absu, the axis around which everything pivoted. The sun, the stars, the Soul Trail, the balance of ma’at. She traced the Soul Trail upwards to the Sky Fox, downwards to the Sky Serpent. Her throat tightened as she thought of Livia’s spirit rising towards Benu. It took three days to reach the top. Just as it took three days to descend following birth. Ma’at. They hurried on as the moon sank, past endless skeletons of trees, scarred rockfaces, long-choked and dead streams. The relics of what had caused Liv’s death. She looked up again, compulsively, trying not to think of their pursuers. The Serpent had sunk below the horizon. The Bull had risen. Benu had moved. That was the reason everything had gone wrong. And they’d come so far putting it right, until today. Long ago, before the Thousand Year Winter, Benu had shifted from its axis. And with it had shifted the Soul Trail. The spirit-walkers and the souls of the dead found it harder and harder to journey to Benu. And the disorder in the skies reflected here on Kur-Gal. When the star fell, the Thousand Year Winter had begun. Darkness. Endless rains of ash and soot. The sun was obscured, the land poisoned. Kur-Gal almost died. More stars fell. Many were small, and died before they reached Kur-Gal. The Irin watched the skies every night. The world had finally begun to recover. And then another huge star had fallen. The first rift of their people. The Anunnaki believed they should stay on the ruined meadows of Dilmun. The Irin left for the plains of Harran and built The Enduring on the hill of Duku, the greatest work ever done. The Enduring reflected Kur, the spirit world that shaped Kur-Gal. It reflected Absu and the laws of ma’at. It would ensure a disaster like this never happened again. It hadn’t worked. Ninshubur thought of the sickness as she struggled after Enki along the endless valley. The clanspeople coming to them begging for help. Livia and the other shamans trying to counter it. The horror on first seeing a village entirely wiped out. There’d been a village here, on this bend of the river. Even in the darkness she could see the indentations where houses used to stand, the grain plots with a few plants still struggling among the grass. Another star had fallen. The Irin could do nothing but watch its relentless approach. The shamans had returned from Duku, red-eyed and exhausted. Livia had slept for three days. It struck the edge of the world, they’d said. That had been devastating enough. Had they influenced it at all? Ninshubur didn’t know. It was a warning. They all knew that. But nobody understood what had gone wrong. They couldn’t find answers in Kur, nor could the Anunnaki in the labyrinth. So the most powerful shamans went into the abyss of Sokar. Their bodies grew cold, their spirit threads frayed, until the last had broken and their hope of returning was gone. Livia had been the seventh to try. Five days, everyone believed her lost as well. But she’d returned, and brought with her the meaning of the chaos. ‘It’s not chaos.’ Enki had seen what she was thinking about. ‘It’s a cycle of ma’at, far bigger than we’d ever understood before. That’s what we’re trying to balance.’ Ninshubur looked at the sky again. ‘Benu will one day return to true?’ ‘Yes. You know what gifts she brought back from Sokar. She learnt things no one has ever known.’ ‘And the price she paid was her death.’ The ache of loss tightened in her chest. ‘No. That wasn’t the price she paid.’ Enki looked at her then walked on. ‘What are we going to do now?’ ‘It takes three days for the spirit to cross into Absu. During that time, it’s possible to draw it back with the souls to be born.’ They were going to bring her back. Sudden hope mixed with shock. ‘At what price?’ She knew there must be a price. That was ma’at. The enduring law of balance that existed in an eternal rhythm she was just beginning to understand. ‘I don’t know what the price will be,’ Enki said. ‘Did she?’ ‘Yes. She did.’ Enki looked at the sky again. The stars of the Jackal were above the horizon. The sky was paling, the Soul Trail was closing. He walked faster. They left the valley and started to climb towards the uneven plateau which stretched towards the Mingöl mountains. Hills loomed on either side. Snow-chilled air bit her skin. A pebble bounced down and they looked up. A fox was slinking across the scree. It sniffed at a clump of alpine plants then caught wind of them. It looked for a moment then bolted. Ninshubur looked after it, wondering what its appearance portended. Enki gestured impatiently and she hurried after him. The fox alone had thrived after the star fell, and both Irin and Anunnaki had adopted its gifts to aid their survival. It was no coincidence, they said, that the falling stars had a tail like a fox.