helping to staunch the blood, bowing her head and muttering words of her Craft where they would help, offering a simple prayer where nothing would.
Church joined in, but the trickle of victims from the centre of the market had become a torrent, and the latest arrivals were consumed by a more immediate panic, glancing over their shoulders in fear as they staggered away from the blast zone.
Behind them lurched survivors who had been transformed by whatever magic lay within the explosion. The flesh had been ripped from their heads to leave bloodstained skulls, the eyes still intact and roving crazily as they attacked anyone who came near them, snapping and snarling with the ferocity of cornered wolves. One badly wounded man moved too slowly, his throat torn open by the bite of one of the skull-faced pursuers.
As others fell and the panic spiralled out of control, Church rushed to help. Blue Fire sizzled from Caledfwlch as he attacked. He could see there was no hope of the skull-faced victims recovering; indeed, there appeared to be nothing left of their personalities in their insane eyes. They had been turned into weapons and Church had no choice but to meet them head on to save the lives of others.
The primal savagery of the skull-faces slowed him a little, but his athleticism and skill with the sword served him in cutting them down before they could harm anyone else. When the last one had fallen, he ran back to Ruth and pulled her away from the survivors. She resisted, insisting on helping the wounded until Church said forcefully, 'The Enemy did this to draw us out. They'll be here soon, and if we hang around more innocent people are going to get hurt.'
Reluctantly, Ruth allowed him to lead her into the maze of alleys that led away from the market. When they were sure they had put enough space behind them, they rested and allowed themselves to contemplate the horror of the blast.
'They killed and injured all those people to get at us?' Ruth said.
'Come on — are you surprised? They know we're not going to sit back while innocents get hurt, so they'll keep attacking them until we act. And then they've got us.'
'Terror, pure and simple. And if we try to resist, the people will give us up sooner or later. This is the Libertarian, isn't it?'
Church nodded uncomfortably. Ruth wouldn't meet his eye.
'And you're convinced we need to find this woman?'
'Yes.'
'So we can run away?'
'Do you really think I want to run away?'
'No,' she replied, unconvincingly. 'It's just hard to see where this is going.'
Another blast punctured the silence that followed her comment, somewhere on the far side of the city. Screams followed, distant but not diminished, followed by the shrill, dismal cries of the Morvren as they took flight, the portents of death they carried with them now inescapable.
7
On the eastern side of the city, in the shade of the great brass wall, Veitch and Shavi kept their heads down to avoid recognition as they pushed through the crowd. In the stifling heat, the smell was choking: excrement baked in the gutters and the bitter reek of urine mingled with the vinegary sweat that rose from every too-hot body jostling for space in the slow-moving flow. Occasionally, from some darkened space drifted the sour-apples stink of decomposition.
The only breathing space came where people had fallen, overcome by the heat, hunger, thirst or illness, sprawled on the burning cobbles, their chests rising and falling too slow, and slowing. Shavi attempted to help the first three they encountered, but without water or food or medical supplies, there was little he could do; and the simple act of stopping to offer comfort halted other passers-by who wondered if there was a chance of aid. The desperation in their eyes was almost too much to bear. Now Shavi and Veitch stepped over the prone forms like all the other people, but Veitch could see the tears glistening in Shavi's eyes.
As they edged into a narrow street filled with the shops of silversmiths and jewellery-makers, a gang of dirty children in torn clothes and blankets scrambled forwards and began to beg. Some were human in form, though their faces contained the familiar, sly touch of the Far Lands, but others were covered with thick hair, or had golden triple-lidded eyes or facial contusions that could have been natural or caused by malnutrition and the constant filth. Swarming around Shavi and Veitch's legs, they tugged at their clothes, some surreptitiously trying to slip their hands into pockets until Veitch slapped them away.
'Food, please,' one of them said. 'Just a crumb. My mother is dying. A crumb will keep her spark alight for another hour.' It sounded like a line to elicit sympathy, but the savage emotion in his face offered an unbearable proof.
'We haven't got any food,' Veitch said too harshly. 'Clear off and bother someone else.'
'A coin, then. It does not matter what kind. One coin will buy us a day more in the Far Lands.'
'I am sorry,' Shavi said. 'We do not carry money.'
'Don't bleedin' engage them in conversation. We'll never get rid of them,' Veitch said with frustration.
His feelings already rubbed raw by the misery he had witnessed, Shavi was touched by the children's plight. Bending down, he tried to offer words of advice and support, but it only encouraged more children to cluster around, hands grasping the air for any sustenance he might be offering, and that brought the attention of passing adults who kicked at the children and rolled them into the gutters to get first chance at any offerings, the crowd pressing harder and harder so that Veitch and Shavi were trapped at its core.
'From now on, you do nothing until I say so,' Veitch grumbled. 'You're a bloody liability.'
A man who towered a good two feet above everyone else, his barrel chest bare, thrust his way through the cluster with arms so muscular they appeared to be made of wood. He loomed over Veitch and Shavi, peering at them with blinking, piggy eyes.
'It is!' he exclaimed. 'Two Brothers of Dragons!'
'Bleedin' great,' Veitch said, trying to push through the tight knot without much luck.
'Here, here!' the ox-like man announced to the entire street, beckoning wildly. 'We are saved! The Brothers and Sisters of Dragons are here, in the Court of Endless Horizons!'
Veitch's protests only drew more attention. The crowd around them swelled from one side of the street to the other, and the words Brothers of Dragons could be heard rising from awed whispers to jubilant shouts.
A woman in a black headdress with a third eye in the centre of her forehead clutched Shavi passionately. 'Brother of Dragons. You will free us from the yoke of the Enemy. You will deliver us to salvation.'
'You will ensure that the prophecy of these Last Days does not come to pass,' another woman cried.
Veitch was stunned into silence by the sudden ignition of hope he saw in the faces gathered around him. Fingers brushed his clothes with the awe one would reserve for a great leader or a religious figure. Struggling to comprehend, he stared blankly at one outstretched hand wavering before him, and then gently took it. Someone else took his other hand, and within a moment he was forced to reach out and touch hand after hand, shocked by the relief he saw rise up in everyone he graced with a fleeting contact.
'We will do what we can,' Shavi began, to try to curb expectations, but the cries only rose up louder: 'They will help.' 'The Enemy is doomed.' 'We are saved!'
'How do they know about us?' Veitch asked Shavi.
A bearded man in white robes answered. 'We have always known of the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons, in the oldest stories of the Far Lands, in the tales of all peoples from all places. The champions of Existence who will rise up to become the greatest heroes of all-time, all-place. In the earliest days, they were whispered by mystics, and then told to children for the entertainment of young minds, but few truly believed. And then… oh, wonder of wonders!.. Jack, Giant-Killer, stepped into the Far Lands and began his exploits, and the truth became known, and the legend of the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons spread from mouth to mouth.' His voice grew shriller as his passion grew. 'And the tales of other Brothers and Sisters of Dragons in the Fixed Lands reached our ears, and we realised there was hope for us… the great prophecy of the Devourer of All Things could be averted.'
Caught up in his passion, the three-eyed woman continued, 'And so when the shadow of the Enemy began to
