spread across the Far Lands, we offered up our prayers, and our incantations, and we wished… oh, how we wished… for the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons to be sent to us to help us in our darkest hour. And our calls have been answered. You are here! We are saved!'
Veitch was dragged from the adoration by a glimpse of Shavi's shattered expression. 'All right, we're trying to keep a low profile here!' he shouted. 'This isn't helping.'
But his words were drowned out by the cries, which were growing louder by the moment as more people herded into the street. Soon the commotion would attract more unwanted attention.
Finally, Veitch put his head down and rammed a path through the crowd, no longer caring if he bowled people over. Shavi followed in his wake, the wave closing behind them, attempting to turn in their direction. For a moment, it appeared they would be dragged down, but then Veitch broke through the ranks of those who had recognised them and they were running and dodging back through the flow, not slowing until they were two streets away.
In the shade of a warehouse that smelled of beer, Veitch gripped Shavi's shoulders tightly, desperately wanting to drive away the upset expression on his friend's face.
'Look, mate, so they trust us to do the job, so what?' he said.
'How can we meet those expectations?' Shavi replied. 'Destroy the Devourer of All Things? Change a prophecy of final destruction that has been around since the beginning of time? They are treating us like some kind of messiahs, but we are only human.' He shook his head. 'So much hope invested in us. They offer up their lives to us, to save, because they know they cannot save themselves.'
'Of all of us, I never expected you to give in to despair.'
'I am not giving in to despair,' Shavi said adamantly. 'But I am pragmatic, Ryan. All our plans have failed. The chances of progressing are slim, and even then…' His voice trailed off.
Veitch gave Shavi's shoulders a brief, firm shake. Deep inside he felt something swell, growing stronger, bright with the energy of the Pendragon Spirit; he had never felt its like before, but he knew it was something he had wanted all his life. 'Listen to me — we're going to be the heroes they want us to be. We can't let them down. We don't have the luxury to be soft.' He planted his thumb and forefinger in an L on his forehead. 'To be losers. We've got to be hard, whatever the cost. And we've got to win, not for us, but for them, because that's the job we've been given. All right?'
Shavi smiled, but in his eyes Veitch caught a hint of pity at Veitch's naivety. That only made Veitch more determined, and for the first time he had a clear vision of his own role. Despair was starting to infect all of them, unsurprising given the scale of the threat they faced. It was down to him to stop that despair spreading, to turn them around and show them the right direction. This was where he could finally transcend the person he had been all his life. The swelling emotions grew so strongly, he thought he might burst.
A hubbub rose up from the end of the street and they realised word was spreading rapidly about the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons in the city. 'They want us to save them, but they're going to end up getting us killed. That's… what?… irony, right?' he said with a note of pride at his use of the term. 'Come on, let's get out of here before we're hanging from a lamp post.'
With the shouts and cries drawing closer, they hurried down a deserted alley until they came to a secluded inn few would have known was there. The sign above the entrance to the Wolf's Surprise showed a man's face with unmistakable lupine qualities. Out of place amongst the sleek metallic lines, it was a squat building with a corbelled flint wall and small bottle-glass windows that caught flickers of lamplight within, but reflected only darkness. Veitch and Shavi ducked into an atmosphere of ale and smoke, sweat and damp, but the coolness of the interior was inviting. They kept their heads down and averted their eyes until they found an obscure spot at the end of a curving bar.
After a pause to take in the new arrivals, the clientele returned to their drinks, as sullen and dispirited as the crowds filling the streets. A few surveyed Veitch and Shavi as potential opportunities, but the glint in Veitch's eye and the hand on his sword deterred any advance.
Veitch looked around at the array of bizarre figures. 'Used to drink in a boozer in Camberwell just like this,' he muttered. 'Still, better than being out there with all those bombs going off. What do you want?'
'Fruit juice.'
'There's an old joke there somewhere.' Veitch grinned. 'God, I've missed winding you up.'
'You have missed trying.'
As Veitch ordered the drinks, the door crashed open and a voice boomed, 'There! I told you. Brothers of Dragons!'
'Not a-bleedin'-gain.' Veitch sighed.
Striding next to the bar was a man wearing furs despite the heat, with a wide-brimmed hat that had seen better days and a string of lizards round his neck. A blunderbuss hung from his belt. Behind him strode a painfully thin, extremely tall man in a dark suit, a huge stovepipe hat threatening to topple from his head, with darting eyes that had a silvery glint.
The hunter clapped a hand on Shavi's shoulder. 'I knew it! Even in the middle of a crowd I can recognise a Brother of Dragons. What do you say, Shadow John?'
Leaning down to examine Shavi and Veitch, the man in the stovepipe hat exclaimed, 'Bless my soul, you're right, Bearskin.' He pumped their hands furiously. 'How very wonderful to meet you both. We had the honour of making the acquaintance of one of your colleagues, young Hal of Oxford. A fine, upstanding fellow in the long tradition of your line. Mallory and Caitlin, too. The legend lives on.'
'All right, all right, nice to meet you and all that. Now clear off. We're actually trying to be incognito,' Veitch said.
'Very wise,' Bearskin noted, ignoring Veitch's urgings. 'This is not a time to be a Brother of Dragons. The Enemy must be hunting and harrying you.'
'We are hunting and harrying the Enemy,' Shavi said.
The clap of Bearskin's arm across Shavi's shoulders almost pitched him into the bar. 'That's the spirit, good Brother!'
Shadow John grew lachrymose. 'This is not a good time to be any living thing. How I regret fleeing the Court of the Soaring Spirit to seek sanctuary in a safer part of the Far Lands.'
'There is no safety anywhere,' Bearskin agreed.
'How I miss the Hunter's Moon.' Deep in maudlin recollection, Shadow John rested his hands on his silver- topped cane, rocking gently from side to side.
'Best inn in all of the Far Lands.'
'I miss that place like the Golden Ones miss their long-lost homeland,' Shadow John cried.
Veitch saw Shavi scrutinising the new arrivals closely and recognised the light of an idea appear in his face. 'You are a hunter?' Shavi said to Bearskin.
Bearskin tapped the edge of his right eye. 'Never miss a thing. I track through the thickest parts of the Forest of the Night, or across the desert out there. I can see a blade of grass move on a hillside on the distant horizon.'
'Then you could perhaps help us locate someone, in the heaving mass of this city? A woman?'
'A Fragile Creature?' Bearskin laughed heartily. 'Fragile Creatures are the easiest to locate. Why, I have tracked them across…' His words dried up when he caught Shadow John's anxious expression. 'Well, enough to say that I could sniff out a Fragile Creature anywhere in this forsaken place.'
As the barman laid a tankard of ale on the bar, Veitch eyed it longingly and sighed. 'Okay, let's go.'
8
Along the western wall of the city — though directions meant little in the Far Lands where west could become north in the blink of an eye — lay a walled-off garden containing rows of monuments: statues commemorating some great moment from the long history of the Tuatha De Danaan, pyramids and spires of less- obvious meaning, sculptures that contained some unobtrusive element that was alien to the human sense of proportion and which caused an involuntary increase in anxiety and flutter of the heartbeat, gargoyles, beasts, spheres that glowed with an inner light though made of stone, and other, more abstract designs. Some areas of the
