‘HAMMER,’ Sig bellowed through cupped hands and heard a faint rumbling roar drift up to her as the Kadoshim hit the hillside and bounced away, spun through the air a good fifty paces and crunched and rolled as the ground levelled out.

Sig continued her sliding fall down the hill, saw Hammer appear lumbering out from between boulders. Rimmon had stopped rolling now, was still for a few moments and then slowly extricated himself from the net and began to drag and crawl away through the grass, wings trailing behind.

Hammer stopped at the foot of the hill, looking up at Sig, who yelled snatched commands as she made her way down the slope. The bear turned, head swaying on its thick-muscled neck, and then thundered after the Kadoshim.

The ground levelled beneath Sig and she half ran, half stumbled towards Hammer. The huge bear stood over the Kadoshim, one paw upon his chest, pinning him to the ground. Rimmon writhed and squirmed beneath the bear’s weight, limbs and wings batting feebly at it, but Hammer did not move.

Sig drew her sword as she reached them and stood over the Kadoshim. He was bloody and broken, limbs and wings twisted, one leg showing bone, his pale, dark-veined face splattered with blood, but his eyes still radiated a malefic fury.

Sig levelled her sword at the creature’s throat.

‘I would like nothing more than to kill you now,’ she grated, ‘but I have questions for you: so many followers here? The man you sacrificed – why? And the message you sent?’

The Kadoshim stilled a moment.

‘I will tell you nothing,’ Rimmon spat, voice as broken as his body. A trickle of black blood leaked from the corner of his mouth.

‘We shall see,’ Sig said, retrieving her net from the ground a dozen paces away. ‘Perhaps not now, and I am not the most patient of questioners. But I shall take you back to Dun Seren . . .’

Something swept across the Kadoshim’s face at the mention of Sig’s home, the fortress where the Order of the Bright Star were based.

Have the Kadoshim learned to fear us? A hundred years of bloodshed has given them good cause.

Suddenly the Kadoshim had a knife in his fist and he was stabbing frenziedly at Hammer’s paw, sinking deep, blood spurting. The bear roared and jerked away, the Kadoshim – abruptly free – was up and stumbling at Sig, knife lunging for her belly.

Then Hammer’s jaws clamped around Rimmon’s torso, lifting him bodily from the ground, jaws snapping tighter as it shook the Kadoshim furiously, blood spraying, bones snapping. The bear hurled the Kadoshim to the ground, slammed one paw upon the winged demon’s torso and grabbed its head, ripping it from its shoulders with a wet, tearing sound.

Sig stood and stared. It was all over in a handful of heartbeats.