Acir’s mare shied, terrified by the noise and the oncoming horses – and bolted back across the bridge.

Acir swore.

The Guerrior, confused, seemed not to know what to do.

‘Go on, man!’ Acir shouted up to the driver. ‘Get going!’

‘Escaped Sanctuaree!’

Guerriors surrounded the fiacre and tore open the door, pulling Orial and Khassian out into the rain.

‘What are you doing!’ cried Acir, running forward. ‘By what right do you attack innocent travellers?’

‘Captain Korentan?’ One of the pursuing Guerriors had recognised him; he let go of Khassian to salute. ‘We have reason to believe that this is an impostor.’

A fleet phaeton was coming swiftly towards them. Its sole passenger held up a flimsy parasol, hardly any protection against the driving rain.

A parasol.

There was no time to think, hardly even time enough to react.

Acir threw himself in front of Khassian and Orial, flinging them against the side of the fiacre.

He felt the dart pierce his shoulder, a clean, pure pain, the sting of poisoned steel.

There was a stifled cry from the phaeton.

No time.

No time now.

Stumbling up, he pushed Orial and Khassian into the fiacre, clambering in after them.

‘Drive!’ he shouted to the driver. ‘For Mhir’s sake, drive!’

Lightning and thunder cracked immediately overhead. A tree on the near bank split apart in a plume of smoke and sputtering lightning fire.

The fiacre started with a jerk that flung them all to the floor.

‘Keep down,’ urged Acir.

The frightened horses charged on, scattering Guerriors to either side.

‘They’ve bolted –’ Orial whispered from the floor where they lay, all three tangled together.

Acir reached out with his other hand, clawing for a handhold on the leather seat to pull himself up. He could hear the driver shouting to the horses, he could feel the fiacre lurch each time he tugged on the reins.

Acir pulled open the window flap – and a cold rush of rain struck him in the face.

Behind them, their pursuers stood as though paralysed, watching. Some of the Guerriors who had been knocked over were scrambling to their feet. But even as the fiacre careered wildly from one side of the road to the other, they made no move to come after them.

Foremost amongst them he saw a woman, her gold hair windblown, darkened by the rain. She stood unmoving in the downpour beneath the dark trees. Behind her, the Dniera glistened silver with raindrops.

‘Fia,’ he whispered, ‘farewell…’

A sharp shaft of pain stabbed through his shoulder.

He pressed his hand to the place and felt a sticky warmth beneath his cold fingers.

Blood.

With every movement he made, her assassin’s dart would work further in, spreading its insidious poison into his bloodstream.

How long had the Sulien apothecary said before the effects of the venom began to work?

For a moment his mind went numb and blank. Then he forced himself to turn around to Orial and Khassian.