I hunched over and mantled wings around a candle stub. I licked my needle more or less clean, ran it through the flame and filled it from a skylark vial. I tied a tourniquet around my upper arm, and made the injection. I flushed the syringe out with my own blood and pulled the spike from my arm. Then I keeled over, into the leaves. An aching nausea filled my empty stomach and dispersed as my rush came on. Gradually and gratefully I gave up on thinking about anything at all.

The tops of the oak trees were pushed by a wind that didn’t touch us below. Each gust churned the topmost boughs in the distance, then shook the branches above us as it passed.

A crunch sounded somewhere deep in the forest. Lightning glanced up from his book and stood up silently. He bent his longbow against his boot and strung it. He kicked the fire out, then hauled me to my feet by the scruff of my neck and simultaneously gave Wrenn a hefty kick on the bum. The Swordsman woke with a start and Lightning raised a finger to his lips. “Footsteps,” he whispered.

“Insects?” Wrenn’s eyes widened.

Lightning shook his head. After the first few trees the ground was obscure. I listened. The footfalls extended deep into the woods from our left to right. As they came closer, we could tell they were made by men. There were at least five directly ahead of us, but the noise seemed to stretch out far on both sides.

“How many?” Ata mouthed.

Lightning held up his free hand with the fingers extended, clenched his fist, then opened the fingers again.

Wrenn sprang to his feet, crossed his arms over his waist and drew his rapier and dagger at the same time. Mist pawed uneasily for the 1851 Wrought sword that she carried buckled to her pack.

The footsteps resolved; the people making them walked about two meters apart. I peered into the gnarly gloom but I couldn’t glimpse anybody. We should be able to see them by now. I smelled hot oil. The crunching continued; they were almost on us. They stopped. There was silence.

Wrenn went into guard.

A yellow glare turned our camp bright as day. Black jumped to colors, disorienting us. They had been carrying covered lanterns and with one accord they raised their shutters.

I was less blinded than the others. I turned as a man jumped from the forest behind us. Dagger in hand, he ran past Lightning and cut the bowstring with a neat slice. Lightning’s powerful longbow sprang back straight.

It gave a dry crack. Splits opened along the bow’s limbs from the tips to the grip. It snapped its eighty-kilo draw weight back into his arm. Lightning jerked away so the string didn’t gash his face. The shivered wood creaked. He dropped it and the arrow, and grabbed his left arm. “Damn you, Gio Ami! Traitor and sneak!” He drew his sword with an efficient gesture but his wrenched arm seemed awkward.

The horses neighed and reared, frightened. They pulled out their tether pegs and scattered.

I can’t take off. The branches are too dense for me to push up between them. I’d be scratched to bits and never break through into the clear air. Fuck it, there isn’t even enough room between the trees for me to open my wings, let alone run with them spread.

Gio sauntered toward Wrenn, gazing fixedly at him.

“Revenge isn’t worth it,” I said quietly.

“Comet, aren’t you fast?” Gio sneered. “Is fame worth it? I walked through Wrenn’s party and no one spoke to me. When I entered the hall, the Eszai all fell quiet and turned their backs. You didn’t even notice me!”

He pointed his rapier at Wrenn. Gio still wore the blue frock coat, open to his naked chest. His dusty trousers were the same, tucked into scuffed boots with stirrup guards. He had probably been riding between manors, raising his rabble, for weeks. His fair hair was dirty; strands escaped his ponytail and hung around his face. His lip raised in loathing, hatred contorted his features; it burned in his eyes as he stared at Lightning. I thought: This is not the Gio I once knew. I must be careful until I know what he’s become. I said, “What do you really want?”

“I want to fight the novice.”

Wrenn’s whole body language was a swagger. He spun his poniard like a drumstick. “I’m Serein. I get to live till god comes back. What’s it like to be older, Gio?”

Gio kept his rapier leveled at Wrenn. He motioned with his dagger and the twenty or so men behind him placed their lamps on the ground and advanced.

Lightning stepped across in front of Mist. His gallantry annoyed Gio so much that he turned from Wrenn and made a thrust low under Lightning’s sword. Lightning evaded it expertly. Gio’s rapier was blacked with boot polish; the point was difficult to see. He stabbed in again. Up went his other hand to ward off an overhead blow from Wrenn.

“Oh, shit,” said Mist. She slid her Wrought sword from its scabbard.

“Keep a clear head!” I shouted to her. “They’re nothing but Insects-defend yourself!”

My old gangland fury seeped through my high. If these guys are attacking me it’s their funeral! A man squared up to me, tall and very broad. Everything was dark and indistinct but I glimpsed the purple ribbon of Ghallain Fencing School wound around his swept hilt. Bugger. There’s no way I can stand against one of Gio’s fencing instructors. The man smiled, his teeth incandescent white in his shadowed face. He watched me like a cat with a mouse many times its size. He strutted and said, “Comet?”

A fencing master wouldn’t use such bluster, only a poser apprentice. To bolster their own self-esteem town-boys have to believe they can fight. Heat rose into my head. I yelled, “What?”

I ducked under his blade, came up well in distance, kneed him in the balls and as he fell sank my ice axe in his throat. The pick emerged from the back of his neck, shining, covered in blood.

I didn’t see Gio’s next moves because I pounced onto the man’s body, both feet on his chest, to pull my pick free. I rolled and slammed it through the nearest foot with so much force that I fastened it to the earth. The foot belonged to the man Mist was fighting. He howled. He jerked his leg, tripped over the handle, which jolted the pick from his shoe. He reeled away.

It seemed that Gio was now the one prepared to die in the struggle for immortality. Wrenn stamped the ground and thrust at Gio. He blocked it halfway. His rapier and dagger moved fast as an Insect’s feelers, keeping Wrenn at bay. Wrenn failed to engage his sword and Gio reached right to cut at Lightning.

None of the Zascai were prepared to help Gio take on Lightning or Serein. They concentrated on me instead, stepping forward warily, trying to time their attack together. I backed against a tree and motioned for Mist to do the same. She never stopped swearing as she raised her katana with both hands. A gleam ran along its perfect edge, daunting the rebels.

Gio circled Lightning’s short sword with his rapier blade and then hit it hard under the forte. He flowed the move on with grace, beat away the straight thrust Wrenn made at his chest. He kicked a foot at Wrenn’s hips, shoving him off balance. Wrenn bounded back, spread his wings.

The man fighting me turned and ran. I looked to Mist; she was shaking, white hands wrapped around her hilt and an expression of disbelief on her face. Blood peeled off the blade’s razor edge. Her adversary lay on the ground in two pieces. For one beat, blood pumped out slickly around his solid guts. His lips moved, then set.

“Shit,” I said. “It went straight through him!” I hadn’t seen before what a blade designed for cleaving Insects could do to a human.

Mist said nothing, trying to think her way out of the horror.

Gio spun on the ball of his foot and lunged at Lightning. Lightning missed his parry but instinctively turned away from the point. It ripped through the left side of his shirt at the waist and into his back.