Shapes, like ragged holes punched in the stars. Eight craft, low-flying and slick-winged, a painted shimmering oil-black.

‘It’s the Rooks!’ I yell.

The wagon picks up speed, rattling and groaning at a pace it will never be able to keep.

‘Whoever they are, they’re closing in,’ the General calls, kneeling on the seat beside me. ‘Convergence in five, four, three…’

‘Hold on!’ Falco bellows.

I grab for purchase as she wrenches the wheel, sending the wagon whipping out, fishtailing to one side, then the other. Pegeen and Boots do the same, kicking dust into a blinding cloud.

I can’t see, can’t breathe, all I can do is hold on. Nearby, someone yells. It takes me several seconds to realise it’s the General. I open one eye a sliver to see her crouching low in the seat, shouting something I can’t hear over the noise of the engines.

A rushing sound, and fire zips past. Too late I realise it’s on Falco’s blind side; I holler for her even as the explosion sends the wagon reeling onto two wheels before crashing back to the dirt. Falco swears, craning to see the damage. Something booms and splutters to our right; Boots’s mare smashes into the ground, billowing black smoke. Peg breaks rank to speed towards it, pale hair streaming out behind as Falco screams in rage.

My knuckles are white on the back of the seat, but beside me the General is on the floor of the wagon, scrambling with something as she’s thrown from side to side.

An almighty roar, a scream of metal and I know it is too late. The greasy belly of a craft appears above us; an automatic turret dropping down.

‘Low!’ the General yells. ‘Keep me steady!’

She leaps onto the seats, a rifle in her arms. Falco veers again, and the General almost falls before I grab her legs tight.

She stares up at the craft, her dark eyes narrowed in concentration. Even when the turret spits charges she does not flinch, just takes aim and fires.

There’s a hiss and liquid streams out behind the craft. I smell fuel and tug on her, yelling for her to get down as another round of charges smashes into the wagon, but she isn’t listening. Like a machine she lowers the gun, reloads and fires once again.

And in between the flashes of bullets and charges, I feel them. They are not here for me, I realise in horror; they want her. Can she see them as they whirl, tasting, feasting on her, savouring every eventuality that she embodies?

I want to drag her out of sight, hide her from them, even though it will not help. If they have seen her, they will follow us, they will tug at the threads of both our lives until we walk in chaos.