Ferro's eyes were drawn up by a flash of movement. High above, a figure in white armour dashed across a roof. They made an impossible leap across the wide gap to the next building and vanished from sight. In the street below a woman flowed out of the shadows and into the square, dressed in glittering chain-mail. Her hips swayed as she sauntered forwards, a happy smile on her flawless face, a long spear carried loose in one hand. Ferro swallowed, shifted her fist around the Seed, gripping it tight.

Part of a wall collapsed behind her, blocks of stone tumbling out across the square. A huge man stepped through the ragged gap, a great length of wood in his hands, studded with black iron, his armour and his long beard coated in dust. Two others followed, a man and a woman, all with the same smooth skin, the same young faces and the same old, black eyes. Ferro scowled round at them as she slid her sword out, the cold metal glinting. Useless, maybe, but holding it was some kind of comfort.

'Welcome to you all!' called Bayaz. 'I have been waiting for you, Mamun!'

The first of the Eaters frowned as he stepped carefully over the headless corpse. 'And we for you.' White shapes flitted from the roofs of the buildings, thumped down into the square in crouches, and stood tall. Four of them, one to each corner. 'Where is that creeping shadow, Yulwei?'

'He could not be with us.'

'Zacharus?'

'Mired in the ruined west, trying to heal a corpse with a bandage.'

'Cawneil?'

'Too much in love with what she used to be to spare a thought for what comes.'

'You are left all alone, then, in the end, apart from this.' Mamun turned his empty gaze on Ferro. 'She is a strange one.'

'She is, and exceptionally difficult, but not without resources.' Ferro scowled, and said nothing. If anything needed saying, she could talk with her sword. 'Ah, well.' Bayaz shrugged. 'I have always found myself my own best council.'

'What choice have you? You destroyed your own order with your pride, and your arrogance, and your hunger for power.' More figures stepped from doorways round the square, strolled unhurried from the streets. Some strutted like lords. Some held hands like lovers. 'Power is all you ever cared for, and you are left without even that. The First of the Magi, and the last.'

'So it would seem. Does that not please you?'

'I take no pleasure in this, Bayaz. This is what must be done.'

'Ah. A righteous battle? A holy duty? A crusade, perhaps? Will God smile on your methods, do you think?'