‘Keld,’ Sig said, pointing at the hurrying messenger who was disappearing into what Sig had thought was a shadowed alcove, but as she looked now she saw it was an exit from the chamber.

‘The Kadoshim gave him something,’ Sig said. ‘Whatever it was, I need to see it.’

‘It’s done,’ Keld grunted, running and leaping from the dais, two fingers in his lips and whistling, an answering snap and snarl came from within the chamber.

‘Where is the Kadoshim?’ Sig growled, standing back to back with Cullen as they turned slowly, searching for the Kadoshim in the guttering red-flicker of light and shadow.

‘There!’ Cullen yelled, as the Kadoshim swooped down from the murk of the chamber’s roof, chopping at one of Elgin’s men, lifting another one bodily into the air and burying its sword in his belly, hurling the dying warrior back down into the chaos.

Without a word the two of them left the dais, forging a way towards the Kadoshim.

A man leaped at them, axe raised over his head, Cullen’s spear darting out and punching through his open mouth, dragged free in a burst of blood and teeth. Cullen shrugged his shield from his back, caught a sword-blow aimed for Sig, slammed the iron rim into the sword-wielder’s throat and sent him gasping and choking to the ground. Sig stamped on the fallen man as they pushed on, bones cracking beneath her iron-shod boots.

Then the Kadoshim was only a handful of paces before them, hovering above the conflict as its wings beat up a storm of dust.

‘FALLEN ONE,’ Sig bellowed, her cry ringing through the chamber, a momentary lull as both sides paused. The Kadoshim stared at Sig, saw Cullen beside her raise his shield, the bright star of their order upon it, and hissed at them, spraying spittle. Then it was flying at them, a dark blur. Sig hefted her blade and swung two-handed, the Kadoshim’s wings tucking tight together and somehow it was spinning, Sig’s sword slicing wide by a handspan. A crack as Sig turned, Cullen grunting as the Kadoshim swooped over him, raining down a flurry of blows, Cullen bending beneath them in a burst of incandescent sparks as the Kadoshim’s blade crashed into the iron rim of his shield, shearing through it.

Cullen yelled in fury and stabbed up with his spear, the blade grating along the Kadoshim’s mail shirt, links twisting and snapping. The Kadoshim just laughed and grabbed the shaft of Cullen’s spear, ripping it from his hands.

Sig charged in, her sword slicing an overhead arc at the Kadoshim, who somehow saw the giant coming and with a beat of its wings swept higher, Sig’s sword-tip cutting through the leather of its boot. Blood dripped a spatter of red rain from the wound as it hovered above them.