As the team got to the intersection the woman with green hair held up her hand in a signal to stop. The others gathered in line beside her. Above them, on the cliff, the watcher rotated her arms in a repeating pattern: a signal to those on the ground. Two of the men immediately stepped forward, rounding the corner, and ran at the closest krik: mine. Their spears raised, they both hit him fast, one in the back, and one through the head slit. The tips of their spears went right through his shell and head, emerging in a spray of blood and gore which was visible even from where we were standing. At least I think it was. Lana said I was exaggerating as usual when we talked about it later. Anyway, it all happened very fast, and the krik crumpled into a crabby, shelly pile on the floor, shaking like a piece of wet seaweed as the men pulled their spears out.

The other kriks hadn’t even noticed; they continued with their scrabbling-based activities. Lana’s krik was happily staring at the cliff, bobbling up and down and snapping his mighty pincers.

‘Look at the way they got through that exoskeleton,’ said Soldier John. ‘Beautiful.’

‘Like a tentacle through water.’

‘Pow!’ said James.

The team on the ground were running on towards Kate’s krik now. One of the men was walking backwards behind the others, to guard them in case of attack from the rear.

The two women ran on ahead, their spears raised and ready. The green-haired woman reached him first, and leapt, kicking him to the ground and holding his pincers out of the way with her spear. The second woman jumped on his head slit. Then again. Then she raised her spear and struck a third time. It would definitely be dead. I couldn’t see the blood, but I imagine there would have been a lot of it, and it would have been mixed in with shattered exoskeleton.

‘God,’ said Lana. ‘They’re amazing.’

And they really were. They were so slick, so brilliant. So practised. It was like watching a dance – but a dance where only half the people have bothered to rehearse.

James’s mottled krik ran towards them now, and then a fourth, their pincers raised and their powerful legs moving in attack. But the two men already had their crossbows loaded, and first one krik fell, then the other. I didn’t even see the arrows, they were so quick.

‘Yeah!’ shouted James. ‘Come on!’

‘Beautiful,’ muttered Soldier John again. ‘What training. Fabulous!’