Ori was stunned. The New Quillers fired but ran.

"Who the fuck are you?" one of the Toroans shouted.

"Get up, shut up," Toro said. "Drop weapons, present yourselves."

A vodyanoi and the llorgiss shouted to the khepri in the church, and held open the doors as the terrified captives ran out and home. Some embraced their rescuers. An unclotting drizzle of khepri males-mindless two-foot scarabs seeking the warmth and darkness-scuttled back from the door. Ori shivered. It was only now he could feel the cold. He heard the fires that gave Creekside a shifting skin of dark light. In their up-and-down illumination he saw children come out of the church with their mothers. Young she-khepri with their headscarabs flexing, their headlegs rippling in childish communication. Two khepri women carried neonates, their bodies like human newborns, their little babies’ necks shading into headgrubs that coiled fatly.

He dropped his gun hand, and a khepri, one of these militant newcomers, was running at him, the spiked flails of her stingbox leaving spirals of sparks in the air. "Wait!" Ori said.

"Aylsa." The cactus-woman stopped her with her name. "He’s got a gun, Thumbs Ready," said a vodyanoi, and the cactus-woman said: "I know he’s got a gun. There’s exceptions, though."

"Exceptions?"

"They’re under protection." Thumbs Ready pointed at Toro.

In the fight-anarchy, it was the first moment that many of the xenians had seen the armoured figure. They gasped in their different racial ways, stepped forward with camaraderie. "Bull," they said, and made respectful greetings. "Bull."

Toro and Thumbs Ready conferred too quiet for Ori to hear. Ori watched Baron’s face. It was immobile, taking in each xenian fighter by turn. Ori knew he was working out in what order he could take them, if he had to.

"Out, out, out," Toro said suddenly. "You done so well, tonight. You saved people tonight." There were no khepri left in the tumbledown church. "Now you got to go. I’ll see you back there. Go quickly." Ori realised he was breathing hard, that he was bloodied from wounds, exhausted and shaking. "Go, get back, we’ll debrief. Tonight, Creekside’s protected by the Militant Sundry. Humans with weapons are legitimate targets."

In the Badside hide. Dawn was pushing at the walls. They lay and fixed each other with unguent and bandages.

"Baron don’t care, you know," Ori said. He spoke quietly to Old Shoulder while they made nepenthe-spiced tea. "I saw him. He didn’t care if them khepri women died. He didn’t care if them Quillers got them. He don’t care about anything. He scares me."

"Scares me too, boy."

"Why’s Toro keep him? Why’s he here?"

Old Shoulder looked at him over the pot, spooned resin in and honeyed it.