One spread her arms and yelled, ‘Hey, Comet, where are you sleeping tonight?’

‘Wherever they leave me, lover!’

They doubled up with laughter. God, I thought, I can tell this is Fescue.

I couldn’t gain height and I flapped around low, making a complete fool of myself until I remembered the smelting furnaces. I circled the tall chimneys and went up like a kite on their updraught.

The roofs of Marram began to spin under me; the smoke-stained houses built in close terraces, the steep narrow roads with ridged cobbles so horses could find purchase. At the edge of town I went over the long, bronze-green roofs of the communal latrines which, by law, all the townspeople had to use. Marram villagers save everything; even barrels of urine for use in alum extraction and the nightsoil to spread as fertiliser on their sparse oat fields.

Higher on the rock face planks and girders shored up a five-metre-wide mine mouth. A dirty piebald pony walked round and round, tethered to a pump capstan at the pit head. The men were all underground already, rooting out copper, tin and lead. These Marram villagers were hollow-eyed and blue-toothed from shale dust and lead fumes, but they were wealthier than the farmers of the Plainslands. Everyone here could own his own house: Lord Governor Darne! Fescue keeps the trade for metals fair.

I was covering distance extremely quickly now, about a hundred kilometres an hour, and in a straight line. On the twisting dirt track roads below, people take a day to travel as far as I can in thirty minutes. I passed into Awia and over Cushat Cote village on Micawater manor’s southern border. I flew past Cushat’s ‘naming court’ house, a courtroom where an Awian marriage judiciary meet. They settle disputes as to which of the two married couples’ families is the wealthier-a hot topic for status-obsessed featherbacks as the richest bequeaths its name to the children.

The Circle broke.

I blacked out-for a second-came to so quickly I was still gliding, fifty metres lower in a steep dive. The ground filled my vision. I straightened my flight, brought the horizon level, wondering what the fuck had happened.

It had been the Circle, surely? The Circle had just stopped. One of my colleagues had died-I couldn’t tell which one. Or maybe-shit-maybe the Emperor has found out I’ve been in the Shift and that jolt was him dropping me from the Circle. Could I be mortal again?

I held my arms out and looked at my hands. Could time be passing for me? I had no way of telling. I can’t feel the Circle like the most experienced Eszai sometimes do. I was shaking but I pulled on the air and began to ascend.

The Circle broke.

A second time. It reformed promptly and I spun out of my fall yet lower in the sky. I yelled, ‘What’s happening?’

The Circle broke.

With a slow sense of void so horribly vacant I screamed. I blanked out for a few seconds and found myself descending still lower. My wingtips touched treetops on each down beat.

I gained height, bracing myself in trepidation of it happening again. Three times! Who’d been killed? Which of us-Lightning? Serein? Frost? The last one had died horribly slowly.

What could injure three Eszai in close succession so badly that the Circle couldn’t hold them? In what circumstances could the skill and strength of three of my friends be useless? They were surrounded by troops and fortifications. Could it be a fyrd revolt?

Perhaps I was lucky not to be there. I found myself sobbing, feeling light and drifting. A second of time had passed for me, for all of us, before San reformed the connections. It felt awful, much like the shock on hearing the news that someone you love has died-which is not fair considering that few Eszai love anyone apart from their spouses.

I examined myself. Did I feel tired? Could anyone badly hurt be pulling on the Circle? I couldn’t tell.

Shit, shit, shit. Another disaster at Slake Cross and I’m not there. The Emperor will have felt it and he’ll be expecting me to come and tell him why-and I don’t know! He’ll find out I wasn’t at the front!

I was cold with rising panic but I forced myself to concentrate. I’m in deep trouble-and so is Lightning-assuming he’s still alive. I spoke aloud: ‘There’s no time to hesitate. I must reach Slake, find out what’s happening, then race back to the Castle and take San the news. I’ll have to outpace all the dispatch riders and reach the Castle before them, because if any beat me there and tell the Emperor I was absent, he’ll have my balls.’

Where the fuck was I, anyway? I looked down on the valley. The oblique morning light cast a shadow of one valley side across the other and the stone buildings of Cushat Cote village at the bottom were still in darkness. The border of Awia. Having got my bearings, I turned sharply. I must steel myself to be prepared for anything. I beat my wings powerfully and flew my fastest towards Slake Cross.

I came upon the baggage train along the Glean Road. It was decimated-nothing was moving down there.

I descended and let the road stream along under me. It was solid with dismembered bodies of men and women, severed heads and limbs. Between the shafts of overturned carts lay the white or chestnut flanks of the hitched horses. Ragged green vegetables and leather-fletched crossbow bolts spilt from the barrels. Dead Insects lay among them, each two metres long. The devastation stretched into the distance along the road. If a swarm has reached this far, what’s happening at Slake?

I skimmed over them-the horses and mules were no more than jumbles of bloody hide and entrails, a semi-digested green-shit stench. I could see no sign of the attack having come from any direction-the people lay in equal numbers on both verges as if they didn’t know which way to flee. Few were armed. Horses had bolted dragging their carts off the road; they lay on the grass further off, their black hooves raised and rigid.

It didn’t make any sense. Where were the live Insects? Once they were out of danger they would always stop and feed but few bodies showed any signs of damage beyond the wounds that had killed them. It was as if a great force had swept through and torn them apart instantaneously.

Here was one of the armoured wagons-steel plate riveted to its wooden sides-designed to be a temporary refuge in case of attack. The worst Insects could do was eat the wheels off and cause it to tumble to the ground. Its doors were firmly shut. As they had to be bolted from inside, somebody must be in there. I landed squarely beside it. On the ground the silence was terrifying. The pools of blood between the carts had dried to brown but the corpses still smelt salty, like fresh meat.

I looked all around, drew my ice axe and banged the haft on the door. I called through an air hole, ‘Anyone in here?’

‘Just me,’ said a young man’s voice.

‘This is Comet. What happened?’

‘Comet!’ The voice degenerated into sobs. ‘Everything’s gone.’

‘Open the door. The Insects have left.’

‘No!’ screamed the man. ‘I’m not coming out! Leave me! Leave me here!’

I peered through the air hole but could see only blackness. What would I do with one man crazy with terror in the middle of the Lowespass countryside? ‘OK,’ I said calmly, ‘I’ll fly to Slake and send lancers. They’ll get you out; you’ll be safe.’

‘Fly? Safe?’ The man started laughing with a horrible high-pitched tone.

I took off and flew as high as I could trying to catch a first glimpse of the town. Beneath me, both sides of the road were ‘trap fields’ where iron traps had been set. Yellow signposts warned travellers not to leave the highway. The pressure of an Insect’s foot on the trigger plate will spring a trap shut and bite the claw off. Now I started to see them, maimed but still alive, moving slowly or spasming on the ground.