The men ran for cover. Cormac turned to Thorn. ‘Get in the carrier. If it fires on us, use the turret weapons.’

Thorn nodded and ran for the carrier. Cormac watched the Sparkind leap Stanton, who was now face-down on the ground, with Arn tying his wrist behind him. That was covered, then. Cormac jogged over to Aiden, thinking to take cover behind the wrecked branches of the tree. The familiar pad of feet behind him abrogated that intention for the moment. He turned and drew his shuriken as the remaining dracoman came trotting in.

The dracoman halted.

‘One step closer. Go on—just one.’

The dracoman seemed to find this amusing, then boring. It looked up at the sky for a moment, then turned and trotted away. Cormac ran for the tree and dived down beside Aiden. He looked about and saw that everyone else was concealed.

‘The AGC is coming right in,’ said Aiden.

Cormac looked up into the red night and saw that the car had its running lights on. It was an Aston Martin replica, but with its underside constructed like the hull of a speedboat. Whoever was driving it seemed to be having some problem with the controls. It swayed to a halt above the camp, then slowly started to descend. That descent speeded at the last moment and it slammed down in the middle of the camp. Cormac had shuriken in his hand, even though he knew that plenty of other weapons were pointed at the AGC. The door clicked open and the missing dracoman stepped out. Cormac swore, stood up and walked over to it. Had the other one known?

As he drew close, Cormac saw blood on the inside of the car’s windows. A glance inside revealed to him a body slumped in the back seat with its head nearly ripped off. He went closer and saw it was a woman, a great mass of tangled hair spread about her, soaking up the blood. It was no one he recognized. She had to be the one that escaped. He would have to ask Stanton. He turned to the dracoman.

‘We could call him Scar now,’ said Thorn, from behind him.

Cormac studied the dracoman’s face and saw it had been opened from one nostril to just underneath its eye. Its blood was the colour and consistency of mustard.

‘And what do we call the other one?’ asked Cormac.

‘Nonscar?’

‘Yeah, good. Now let’s get this mess cleared up and a rota set up,’ he said. He looked up at the sky. ‘How long till dawn?’

‘Ten hours, solstan,’ Thorn replied.

‘We’ll sleep in groups of four in the carrier. Let the ES ones go first. We shouldn’t be any less secure than we were. Oh, I want someone at that turret gun at all times.’