At least he could have a good, honest working relationship with Isabelle.

Bitterlich let the air currents carry him a little higher. The city looked different from on high, the cutting, curving canyons of the streets like the cracks in a desiccated oil painting. To his right rose the Rivencrag, to his left the deep sky fell away with only this thin strip of civilization between. From high above the slanting, stone-tiled rooftops he espied the Thunderclap still at anchor. Though only a frigate, it dominated a skyway filled with catch boats, reef hoppers, and merchanters like a hawk amongst ducks. The anticipation of her formal loft stirred his blood.

A cry of alarm on the street below him jerked his attention down. A gang of Last Men had boiled from the alleys. They’d knocked Quill and his porter to the ground and were beating them with clubs.

Bitterlich squawked in alarm, tucked his wings, and dove in the form of a peregrine. Down and down like a javelin he plummeted. Quill rolled into a ball to defend himself. The Last Men bashed him with staves and stones. One pulled a knife.

Bitterlich flattened out of his dive and changed, weaving together parts from a bear, a lion, a crackback. He exploded into the fight, twice the size of a cart horse, plowing into the knife wielder and crushing him underfoot. With claw and maw he dismembered two of the Last Men before they’d even realized what had happened, then let loose a roar that set the others to flight, their bowels giving out in terror.

Bitterlich bounded after a knot of them, plucked one off his feet, and held him dangling in a massive paw. “Who sent you?”

The Last Man squealed and tried to curl up in his own skin like a snail withdrawing into its shell.

“Who?” Bitterlich bellowed.

“Hasdrubal,” the Last Man wailed. “Please, don’t eat me!”

“Why?”

“Kill the sagax. Leave his body in the streets, a warning to others,” said the Last Man, who had apparently decided on a life of cooperation.

“Where is Hasdrubal?” Bitterlich growled.

“I don’t know,” said the Last Man. “He comes to us, see.” The sweat and tears pouring down his face smeared the profane symbols painted there. Apparently he wasn’t enough of a true believer, or unbeliever, to commit to the full regalia of tattoos. He was likely not high enough in the ranks of the depraved to know any more than his mission.

Bitterlich considered chasing down a Last Man who might know more, but his priority had to be seeing to Quill.