‘Circle up!’ Cal-Brinn ordered, and the Crimson Guard closed into a tight circle that pushed Kyle, Fisher and Jethiss inside.

Kyle fought to join the line. ‘You will need my blade!’ he shouted to Cal-Brinn.

‘You may yet have the chance,’ the Dal Honese answered grimly.

Their pursuers, further T’lan Imass that had risen behind, reached their circle first. Flint blades swung, meeting Crimson Guard shields in a clash of stone on bronze and iron. Kyle was startled to see the Imass using the flat of their blades upon the guardsmen and women. One of the women fell to a blow from an Imass fist.

Then he realized: they do not want these people … They are after us alone. His back shivered in a sensation that only hunted prey could know. He hefted the white blade, waiting for one to break through.

Next to him, Jethiss, his two hatchets readied, saw his chance and bounded out to join the defence. A blow of one hatchet split the skull of an Imass and shattered the haft of that weapon. He flung it aside. Another thrust for him but Jethiss swung, severing the arm at the shoulder.

Kyle watched this, amazed. Who could do such things to the T’lan Imass?

Then the newcomers from above closed upon them then, washing round the mêlée, and Kyle was further stunned as these Imass assaulted their attackers. Imass fought Imass in a ruthless terrifying whirl of flint swords and hard dry limbs, and then it was done, seemingly in an instant.

Eight standing T’lan Imass stood motionless, regarding them with their eerie empty sockets. One raised an arm of bone and hanging dry flesh to point upslope. ‘Run, now,’ it breathed in a voice like falling sand.

‘Who are you?’ Kyle called, even as Leena tugged at him.

‘We are of the Ifayle. I am Issen Li’gar. I came seeking my sister Shalt Li’gar, gone so very long ago. Now, run. We shall guard.’

Leena pulled Kyle backwards. He wanted to ask much more of this Ifayle, but of course to delay would defeat their purpose. He turned and kicked up the loose gravel as he went.

They pushed their way across a muddy flat of thick grey-green silt. It clung to his leather shoes and smeared all the way up to his knees. He’d served for a time in the Guard, and had heard the stories that the Imass had never attacked them. At the time he’d dismissed such tales as rather too self-promoting. ‘They wouldn’t kill you,’ he panted to Leena, still amazed.

‘They never have.’

‘Why?’

‘I believe they respect us,’ she answered, short of breath as they tramped through the thick mud. ‘Everyone calls us mercenaries, but the truth is we do not fight for money. We have honour, and this is their way of respecting that.’