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For a moment everyone was very still, but then the Scorpion grunted, holding out a hand. A moment later, something surged from the undergrowth to let him run clawed fingers over its segmented carapace. It was a fine specimen, Che considered, perhaps two-thirds the bulk of its master, its claws looking well able to scissor a man’s leg off at the knee, and the needle point of its sting was swaying suspiciously as if regarding the newcomers.

‘Scutts,’ the Scorpion gestured with one talon. ‘Barad Ygor,’ he added, pointing to himself. The Wasp was Mordrec, the Grasshopper Soul Je.

Introductions made, the two groups of travellers settled down about the single campfire, watching each other very carefully. Varmen remained in his armour, a hulking presence weighing down the corners of everyone’s attention.

Che busied herself with sorting out some food, readying a pot for boiling, reckoning that such signs of unconcerned activity would go some way to allaying suspicions. Soon enough, she saw Thalric and Varmen fall into cautious talk with the dark-haired Wasp-kinden, but before long they had broken off and retreated back to silence around the fire, to the other man’s obvious chagrin. She shifted over to ask, out of the corner of her mouth, ‘What is it? Something wrong?’

Thalric gave a derisive snort. ‘Slave Corps,’ he muttered, as if that explained everything.

‘What, still?’

‘He used to be.’

Che gave Thalric a level look. ‘And you’re in a position to care?’ she demanded, still trying to keep her voice to a whisper, but failing somewhat.

‘You wouldn’t understand,’ he told her, and he grimaced even as he said it, realizing how unwise the words were. Immediately, Che was storming over to the three travellers, aggressively enough for them to scrabble for their weapons.

‘You,’ she pointed at Mordrec. ‘You enslave people much these days?’

‘Not me.’ He looked at her levelly. ‘In fact my current troubles are more to do with too much pursuit of freedom.’

Che glanced back at Thalric and Varmen. ‘Then stop being so stupid, the pair of you.’ To make her point she sat down beside Mordrec, hooking her pot over the fire. ‘Why did you leave the army, then?’

He blinked at the question, then shrugged. ‘Killed a Rekef man. An officer.’

Thalric had the grace to smile slightly at that. ‘There’s a coincidence.’

‘And the debts,’ Ygor muttered. ‘What he’s not telling you is how he owed the man money. Don’t go taking him for some kind of hero.’

‘Well maybe we should get on to what you and Soul did,’ Mordrec retaliated, whereupon Ygor held his hands up hurriedly.

‘All right, you’re a hero. The less said about us mere mortals the better, especially as that business could still come back and bite us.’

Other people’s histories, thought Che, noticing significant looks pass between the men, and knowing that she would never find out. She lifted her eyes to the third member of their band, and found him staring at her.

‘What?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know,’ the Grasshopper replied softly. ‘Something, though.’

Ygor and Mordrec would be Apt, of course. She wondered if Soul Je just had particularly good sight, or whether all the Inapt would end up staring at her like that, trying to work out what had marked her out in their eyes.

Later, she sought out Maure’s company again, after Thalric and all three of the travellers had bedded down, leaving just Varmen and the scorpion Scutts staring at each other over the fire. The halfbreed woman was plainly about to seek sleep herself, but she sat up again as Che approached.

‘These three,’ the Beetle girl murmured. ‘Any ghosts there?’

‘Hah, it’s strange,’ Maure replied. ‘They share one, but it’s not a dead man’s. You can be haunted by the living in a strange sort of way, as you yourself have cause to know. They’d rather be elsewhere, maybe even not in each other’s company, but I can see the same hand rests on each of them. Loyalty to a living friend can haunt you as much as the ghost of a dead one.’

The next morning the two travelling parties parted