Suddenly, Hynard seized his arm and pointed. Someone was running towards them at great speed. Though he could not make out who it was, Marris could feel the runner’s desperate urgency. His stomach turned.
When the runner arrived he was gasping for breath and could scarcely speak, but his fearful eyes and pointing hand were eloquent enough to confirm Marris’s worst fears. Supporting the exhausted man, he glanced towards the village and the people gathering there in the bright spring sunlight. At another time they might have been waiting for the start of a festival.
‘Very slowly,’ he said to the runner, with a gentleness so controlled that it almost frightened him. ‘Very slowly. Give me your message.’
The runner gulped violently and spoke between explosions of breath. ‘They found the bodi
