When the explosion ended, Ylia still could not see. Whiteness clouded her vision. Her ears rang, even though sound had been partially muted by the bubble Danyil had thrown up. She lay on the ground—at least, she thought she did. There was no way of telling which way was up and which down.

  Her world was turning, turning. She rolled, trying to move with the turning, but only succeeded in vomiting.

  Sound whined, pulsed, undulated. She blinked. The whiteness was still there, but slowly, blotches of colour were appearing. I’m not blind! Thank the gods! She only just now had realised how much she loved her eyes, sight, vision. We only know what’s important when it’s gone. Like my House…

  How often had she complained about her life in Yarruk: the people, the late hours, the smell of ale she could not taste. But now she would give the world to have it back.

  Still blinking, but now able to see—albeit blurred—she rose. The world was slowing in its rotation. Fires burned. She smelled a horrific charred smell like sizzling pig-fat—horrific because it sparked her belly to rumble, because it was sweet. But she knew what it was. Best not think on it. Like with so many aspects of their adventure.

  And then she saw Azalton. Or rather, what was left of it.

  A blackened crater was all that remained. The buildings had been, to a man, levelled. Only the Temple of Koronzon still stood, though most of one wall was missing. The stones that’d been hauled from some far off land to build it grander and higher than the other buildings had been able to partially withstand the blast. The House of Death had held its deceased occupants in safety.

  But the living were no more. The ale-houses, homes, shops, and station were all gone. The sand around them had been cauterised and rendered glass. A single rail-line, on the far side of the town, had survived. The rest had been dissolved into slag that now seeped back into the earth.

  The winds howled. Ylia shivered, although the air was warm as a furnace, still buzzing with a static charge that reminded her of the dreadful golem.

  She cast her eyes about her. Her friends were all there, saved by Danyil’s bubble. Telos was dusting himself off, the least effected of all of them. Jubal was likewise rising. He had thrown back his hood, and cast his head to and fro, taking in the devastation. Xheng and Qala were still prone, though coming around. Urgal was on his feet, all his hackles raised, fangs beared. He was growling at something far off in the distance. A small, flickering light. It was approaching.

  The Warmaster!

  The Engine chuntered down the tracks like a slow reptile that had envenomed its foe. It knew the chase was up, that its prey was dying of the bite, and now only needed to pursue it with minimal effort.

  The others all drew near her and watched as the colossal Engine chugged towards Azalton. By the light of its furnace-fires they could see a figure hanging out of the driver’s cab. A small man. A dwarf, in fact. Ylia’s eyes widened.

  “Albron… He… He survived.”

  Telos stood open mouthed. She could hardly read his face for the conflict of emotions there: shock, guilt, regret, anger.

  “But not without scars,” Jubal said, darkly.

  It was true. The handsome dwarf was handsome no longer. His face was a mural of pain and withering fire.

  The Engine halted about two hundred paces from them. The dwarf leapt down and approached. Guards in armour, carrying spears and crossbows, began to file out of the carriages of the Engine.

  “Spread out!” she heard Albron call. “Make sure they number among the dead.”

  “We should hide,” Xheng said. “And quickly.”

  “Where?” Qala said, and the heiress had a point. Azalton was flat wasteland. There were great standing stones in the distance, formed from some crimson-coloured stone, but they would never reach them before Albron’s men came.

  “Wait… Where is Danyil?” Telos said.

  His voice was panic-stricken.

  Ylia turned. Telos saw him before she did, suddenly running. She realised a moment later and followed.

  The horror grew the nearer she drew to him.

  She hadn’t seen Danyil because she hadn’t recognised him.

  He had no only aged, but changed. What lay on the ground, in the midst of the devastation, less resembled a human form, and more resembled a kind of fossil. He had come to resemble the very Daimons they warred against.

  His limbs were folded in on themselves like a dead spider. His hair, what little remained, was white threads of silk sprouting from a diseased chrysalis. His clothes were a pile of motley blankets five times too big for the form they swaddled.

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  He was at once child and ancient, foetus and corpse. He moved but only in the most dismal way. There were eyes, but they were so sunken back into the sockets they seemed only pinpricks of white light like far-off stars. Those white pinpricks were all that was left of the magnificent Danyil she had once known.

  He opened a mouth of gumrot and pestilence and spoke. In some ways, Ylia wished he had not.

  “T-Telos…”

  Telos was less squeamish than she was. Or perhaps he simply had known Danyil better, so was more able to overcome his revulsion. He knelt by the Sumyrian’s side, clasped his hand, which was a ghastly appendage sprouting digits that did not move. The skin was oily and darkest brown, like leather incorrectly treated, about to spoil.

  “Danyil? Oh Danyil, how could this happen?”

  “It is… as I warned… her…” the thing that had been Danyil croaked, gesturing limply towards Qala. “Draw too greedily…” He coughed. There was no blood, but bile aplenty. “No time… for this…”

  “Qala!” Telos cried, turning to the Qi’shathian princess. “You can heal him? Reverse this?”

  Ylia could tell by the way Telos spoke that he knew this was impossible. He was clutching at straws. Qala shook her head gravely.

  “Nothing can undo this.”

  “The Godseed Protocol, then!” Telos said. “If it worked on me, it can work on a Sumyrian, can it not?”

  “Telos, there are two things you must know…”

  Ylia could see the straining effort it cost Danyil to speak so coherently. Every atom of his remaining being was bent on delivering this message. She turned from the horrific scene and saw Albron and his small army approaching. There were at least thirty guards behind him, possibly more. They were fanning out, inspecting the charred corpses. How they supposed to determine whether Telos was among the dead, given the extent of the damage, was beyond her. But then again she suspected Albron had gone a little mad, given what had been done to him. The wheel of Fate has turned on us. It is like Qala told me, all the way back in The Drunken Dragon. We have accrued bad Fate to ourselves with our misdeeds. We have erred from the Way.

  “First, the Godseed Protocol...” Danyil croaked. “It can only be enacted… When a god has died…”

  “Danyil, they’re coming. We have to go.”

  “No!” Danyil said, and it was almost a shout. The skin of his face stretched horribly about his skull with the effort of such a vocalisation, making him seem gargoyle-like. “No. Time. Listen!”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “You must know… You must… Hear. A god… died. It was Beltanus’s second wife. His true love…”

  Telos’s eyes widened. Ylia felt her heart hammering. So this is the answer as to why Beltanus is so emotional around Telos. He’s literally carrying a piece of his lover within him. By the gods…

  “You understand, now…” Danyil murmured.

  They were losing him. Telos gripped the hand tighter, leaned closer. Ylia and the others nodded to one another and formed a perimeter. In seconds, the search party would be on them. They had no choice now but to meet it. But whatever secret Danyil wished to impart was clearly vitally important.

  “What is the second thing?” Telos asked.

  “The Nergal…” Danyil licked lips with a tongue that was a shrivelled leaf. “I must tell you… Telos…”

  Ylia heard Danyil sputtering, gasping. He tried to form words but all was incoherence.

  “No… Danyil! Danyil, don’t go! You have more to teach me, remember?” Telos whispered. But it was clear to all Danyil was done. He was slipping. Immortal willpower had held him there, but now he was departing this life.

  And then suddenly a moment of clarity came, like a clear sky in the bleakness of Yarulian winter. Danyil cried out, and his voice was as it had been before: clear, musical. It drew them from their peril, drew them back to him one last time.

  “Mother? Mother, is that you?” A sigh went out of him. “Oh Mother, it was so hard to watch you age, to watch you die.” Tears formed in the horrid pits of Danyil’s eyes. But he looked no longer like a gargoyle, merely an unloved babe. Ylia was not a brooding woman, but she felt maternal instinct then, to scoop him up in her arms, to coo and tell him all was alright. Even Danyil had been a child, once. And his mother was human, she realised. His father was a god, and his mother was human. And he had to watch her grow old and die. No wonder, then, that he took pity on mortals. “But look at me now, Mother!” Danyil cried, tears streaking his withered cheeks. “The fires of Time have ravaged me, too. I go to you… I go to you...”

  The light in his eyes died and he went limp.

  Telos bowed his head, but the enormity of the moment was upon them all.

  “He rescued me from the fire,” Telos said. He started to weep. Ylia was more shocked by this than anything. The cool, calm Telos never showed his emotions so openly. But here he was, sobbing like a child. “He rescued me when no one else could. He…” He trailed off, clearly not knowing how to explain all that Danyil meant to him.

  “I know your pain, but now we must depart Telos!” Jubal said.

  “Too late,” Qala replied.

  “Telos Daggeron!” The voice was shrill and high, yet no less threatening for that. It rang in the night air like the aftermath of an explosion.

  The voice came from Albron, who stood now before them. The guards fanned out wide in a semi-circle. They were discovered. Ten crossbows were levelled at them. Spear tips gleamed. And Albron held a strange looking weapon in his hand, some kind of miniature cannon that made the hairs on Ylia’s arms stand on end.

  Urgal’s growls had reached fever pitch, and she realised it was this thing in Albron’s hand that was driving him crazy. He had sensed it long before they had even seen Albron. Was it that ruinous?

  She looked at the hard faces around them. There was no chance they were going to be taken as prisoners. This was an execution.

  Then Telos rose.

  “You have made a big mistake, Albron,” he said, striding forward to the front of their party. His sword, Darkbite, was unsheathed, glinting like a crescent moon with teeth.

  The dwarf snarled.

  “Mistake? The mistake was yours, Telos, for killing my master. THIS IS FOR GORM!”

  Albron raised the hand-cannon and pulled the trigger.