Rescue strode a little way through the grassland and tugged out a large bag. He removed five mirrored helmets, five thick blindfolds, several sets of heavy leather straps and nine primed flintlock pistols. Two of the helmets were specially made, one for the vodyanoi and an elongated one for the dog.

Each left-handlinger bent its host down to retrieve its helmet, each right-handlinger a blindfold. Rescue fitted his canine partner’s helmet on its head, strapping it tight, before attaching his blindfold, tying it tight so that he could see nothing at all.

Each of the pairs moved away. Each blind right-handlinger held its partner tight. The vodyanoi held the debutante; the old woman the clerk; the Remade held the khepri; the street-child, bizarrely, clasped the muscled man protectively; and Rescue held on to the dog he could no longer see.

“Instructions waterclear?” said Rescue aloud, too far apart to speak the handlingers’ real touch-tongue. “Remember training. Hard and bizarre, tonight, no question. Never tried before. Sinistrals, you must steer. Your onus. Open to your partner and never close tonight. Your battle rages. Keep with other sinistrals, too. Slightest sign of target, mental alarm, grab all the sinistrals up tonight. We’ll join forces, there in minutes.

“Dextriers, obey without thinking. Our hosts must be blind. Can’t look at the wings, not anyhow never. With mirror-helms we could see but not spitsear, looking wrongward. So we face forward, but without seeing. Tonight we carry our sinistral as our host carries us, without mind or fear or question. Understand?” There were muted sounds of acquiescence. Rescue nodded. “Then attach.”

The sinistral of each pair picked up the relevant straps and attached itself tightly to their dextrier. Each sinistral host wound the straps between its legs and around its waist and shoulders, ensnared their dextrier and locked themselves to their partners’ backs, facing behind them. Peering into their mirror-helms, they saw behind their own backs, over their dextriers’ shoulders and out in front.

Rescue waited while an unseen sinistral attached the dog uncomfortably to his back. Its legs were splayed absurdly, but the animal’s handlinger parasite ignored its host’s pain. It moved its head expertly, checked that it could see over Rescue’s shoulder. It yelped in a controlled, canine gasp.

“Everyone remember Rudgutter’s code,” shouted Rescue, “case of emergency after? Then hunt.”

The dextriers flexed hidden organs at the base of their vivid, humanoid thumbs. There was a quick sough of air. The five ungainly pairs of host-and-handlingers soared straight up and out, away from each other at speed, disappearing towards Ludmead and Mog Hill, Syriac and Flyside and Sheck, swallowed up by the impure, streetlamp-stained night sky, the blind bearing the afraid.

Chapter 38

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT