In front of them, the Circle Seven mages, ever quick when self-preservation was needed, had scrabbled to stand and were diving for cover behind the statuesque Protectors or running headlong for stairs or other passages. Denser saw Dystran take a single pace and disappear, a look of thunder on his face as he went. Another of the Circle Seven did likewise before all of them had taken themselves from the immediate vicinity.

Hirad snarled and lashed out at a mage too slow to rise. The blade caught him on the top of the skull, splitting it apart and spreading gore across the stone flags. Darrick fenced briefly with a soldier before dragging his blade hard across the enemy’s stomach and stepping back smartly as entrails disgorged through his wrecked armour.

It was carnage, all watched with total detachment by the men in the masks, the former elite fighting force of Balaia. And it was all over in moments.

‘Back off, back off,’ said The Unknown. ‘Auum, leave the Protectors. Sian, keep the shield going. Rebraal, make sure they understand. ’

A shout went up behind Denser, urgent. Rebraal answered and the TaiGethen backed away into and down the corridor. Protectors watched them go, weapons slack in their hands.

‘How is she, Denser?’ asked The Unknown into the sudden uneasy calm.

‘What are we going to do, Unknown?’ Denser felt his world collapsing around him. ‘What the fuck are we going to do?’

Sha-Kaan bellowed and tore a hole in the roof big enough for his head. He plunged it inside and snatched up a Protector, crushing his bones and spitting him aside. Somewhere a woman was screaming. He looked around again. A mage was backing away. Nyam.

He swivelled and took in the room. One Al-Drechar was dead. The other, apparently unaware, was asleep. Other Protectors stood in the room but none made a move. There was something altered about them. None made any attempt to cover the mage but three still stood in front of Diera who had run in, sensing something at the last moment. She was too late, though at least was safe. But it was she who was screaming. The babe in her arms was too traumatised even to cry.

He turned back to Nyam, arrowed in his head and stopped inches from the mage’s face.

‘Speak,’ he ordered, knocking the man back against the wall with his breath. ‘Explain now. Your life hangs by the merest thread.’

‘We can’t stay here,’ said The Unknown. ‘Denser, can you get up?’

Below him, Denser nodded and pulled himself up. ‘Be careful with her. I’m shielding her but I won’t be able to do it for long and it isn’t protecting her, only us.’

‘All right, Denser, all right. Let’s get ourselves away from here,’ said The Unknown, dragging the mage towards him. ‘Keep your concentration. Thraun, carry Erienne. Be careful.’

Thraun nodded and padded over, smoothing Erienne’s hair from her face before picking her up, resting her head in the crook of one arm, her knees across the other.

‘She is fading,’ he said.

‘Just look after her,’ said The Unknown. ‘Ideas. Darrick?’

‘Gods know how much time we’ve got,’ said the erstwhile general. ‘Not long. The Circle Seven mages all got out and they’ll be back in strength. All we can do is lose ourselves from here, I guess. The TaiGethen are at the access points right now but whatever we’re going to do, we need to do it now. What about them, Unknown?’ He pointed at the Protectors.

There were fifteen of them standing in the centre of the hub room amongst the blood and bodies covering the floor. Weapons had been stowed and they stood in a loose circle, saying nothing.

‘I think you’re needed, Unknown,’ said Denser, levering himself away, ‘I’ll be all right. Go on.’

‘Right,’ said The Unknown. ‘Rebraal, Hirad, go with Denser into the research room. Take what he says we need. Everything else destroyed, all right? Oh, and make sure Kestys is dead. He knows far too much about all this.’

The Unknown walked into the hub room, his heart heavy when it should have been singing. He had released them, all of them. So simple in the end. And that made him angry. Dystran wouldn’t ever have done it, however easy, and might even have increased the number. Behind him, Erienne was probably dying because of what that man had chosen to do, and in front of him were men he wasn’t sure would thank him for returning them their souls despite the dream he knew they had harboured in the Soul Tank. It was different when you lost the brotherhood. He knew.

The circle opened when he approached, admitting him to its centre. It closed around him again. He turned slowly, taking them all in, still masked, unwilling to test their freedom. He understood that too.

‘I know what I have taken from you,’ he said. ‘I know the loss you are all feeling. I know the quiet in your minds feels like the murder of your family. But I know the prayers of the Soul Tank too. The desire of every Protector. The legend of the free man. Me. I have survived. I have known the love of a woman and the joy of the birth of my son.

‘There is life for you. It is different to anything you can remember from your pasts. But it is what you craved. And you will always have a bond as close as I enjoy with The Raven.’ The Unknown allowed himself a pause. ‘Tell me I have done the right thing by you. Tell me you can forgive me all that you have lost for all that you have gained.’

They said nothing. For a timeless moment the eye of every Protector bored into his head.

Hands moved to the backs of heads and buckles were snapped free. Slowly, nervously, masks were taken from faces and, one by one, dropped on the ground at The Unknown’s feet.

He turned full circle again, saw youth, saw the strength of full manhood and the craggy knowledge of early middle age. Every face, pale and covered in red streaks and weals where the masks had rubbed, gazed back at him and on their first moments of a new life. Every eye held fear but it also held hope. It was enough.

‘Good,’ said The Unknown. ‘Now if you’ll take my advice, you’ll put those back on for the last time and bluff your way out of the gates of the college. Find your other brothers. Get out of the city. Please. You owe nothing to anyone.’

‘No,’ said one, a voice The Unknown recognised as Myx’s. ‘We will not abandon you here.’

‘You must. Ally yourselves with us and you’ll be killed. Don’t waste the opportunity. Please, I beg you.’ There was no movement. ‘If you respect me, you’ll go. We will prevail. We’re The Raven. Please, pick up your masks and go.’

‘Do it,’ said Myx but he kicked his own mask aside as his brothers stooped to retrieve theirs, watching it kick up a trail in the blood. ‘I will come with you.’

‘Why?’ asked The Unknown.

‘Because one with you means all are with you. We are brothers. We are one.’

The Unknown looked into his eyes, saw his conviction. His was a face that had seen so much beneath his mask. The first lines of age were on him and grey flecked his temples.

‘I understand.’

‘And,’ said Myx, a glint in his eye, ‘there is another way.’

Deep blue light flared in the corridor left.

‘Move!’ yelled Auum, flinging himself right.

The Protectors and Unknown scattered. Duele and Evunn turning to face the danger and dancing aside. The FlameOrb seared into the hub room, scorching blood into steam, baking dead flesh and splattering against the far wall, setting hangings on fire.

‘Raven!’ yelled The Unknown. ‘We are leaving!’

‘Brothers, obstruct,’ said Myx ahead of him, running up the Soul Tank corridor, TaiGethen in his wake.

‘Go, go!’ shouted The Unknown. ‘Follow Myx. Come on, Hirad. Anything you haven’t got to hand, forget.’

‘We haven’t—’

‘No time. Come on.’

The Raven, Al-Arynaar and TaiGethen charged away into the depths of the catacombs.