Isaac saw him from slightly behind, illuminated in the sudden cold light from some phlogistic lamp. His face was turned away, towards the militia. His cloak was patched and shabby. Isaac could just see a stubby little gun in his left hand. As the impassive glass masks glimmered in the light and the four officers seemed to falter into momentary stillness, something extended from the man’s right hand. Isaac could not see it well, squinted carefully until the man moved slightly and raised his arm, uncovering the toothed thing as the sleeve of the cloth fell away.

A massive serrated blade, slowly opening and shutting like wicked scissors. Gnarled chitin jutting ungainly from the man’s elbow, recurved razor tip gleaming at the end of the trapping jaw.

The man’s right arm had been replaced, Remade, with a vast mantis claw.

At the same instant, Isaac and Derkhan gasped and shouted his name: “Jack Half-a-Prayer!”

Half-a-Prayer, the Escapee, the fReemade Boss, the Man-’tis, stepped up lightly towards the four militia.

They fumbled with their guns, jabbed out with the glinting bayonets.

Half-a-Prayer sidestepped them with balletic speed and snapped his Remade limb shut, then backed easily away. One of the officers fell, blood bursting from his lacerated neck and welling up behind his mask.

Jack Half-a-Prayer had gone again, was stalking half in, half out of sight.

Isaac’s attention was diverted as an officer appeared over the brim of a window five feet below him. He fired too quickly and missed, but something snaked out above him and smacked violently against the man’s helmet. The officer reeled and fell back, gathering himself from another attack. Yagharek quickly gathered up his heavy whip, ready to strike again.

“Come on, come on!” screamed Isaac to the sky.

The airships were fat and looming now, descending, ready to pounce. Half-a-Prayer danced rings around his attackers, leaping in to maim and then dissolving into the dark. Derkhan was crying out, a little defiant shout every time she shot. Yagharek stood poised, his whip and dagger trembling in his hands. The militia were encroaching, but slowly, cowed and fearful, waiting for relief and back-up.

The Weaver’s monologue grew slowly louder, from a whispering in the back of the skull into a voice that crept forward through flesh and bone, filling the brain.

. . . IS IT IS IT THOSE NAUGHTY MAULERS THOSE TIRESOME PATTERNVAMPIRS THAT BLEED WEBSCAPE DRY IT IS THEY THEY COME THEY WHISTLE FOR THIS TORRENT THIS CORNUCOPIC SLEW OF FOOD THAT IS NOT TAKE CARE AND WHISPER WATCH . . . it said . . . RICH BREWS SIT UNEASY ON THE PALATE . . .

Isaac looked up with a soundless shout. He heard a fluttering, a buffet of disordered air. The raw emblazoning, the blast of invented brainwaves that made his spine tremble inside him continued unabated as a sound approached, oscillating frantically between materia and æther.