She jerked her chin at their feet and Jack saw a rush of flowing water wash over his boots and begin to pool at the end of their guttered entry bridge.

He hadn’t noticed it before, but the knee-high gutters of this metal half-bridge extended not just down its sides, but also across its end, making the whole hundred-metre bridge essentially a superlong tray.

‘Water?’ Lily said, confused.

‘Not just water,’ Jack said. He nodded at the bridge beside theirs, the one with the Omega monk embedded in a shallow layer of greystone being eaten by the Vandals.

He then looked straight up . . .

. . . and saw some inverted mini-pyramids sticking out from the ceiling of the cavern directly above their half-bridge.

‘I’m guessing that some greystone pellets are about to drop out of those little pyramids up there and into this water and turn it solid,’ he said. ‘We have to get past this silver guy before that happens or else we’re gonna end up like that monk.’

Their guttered bridge was filling quickly.

The water was pouring out of a spout at its far end, positioned above a trapezoidal stone doorway set into the upside-down skyscraper.

The steady flow funnelled down the length of the half-bridge, passing the feet of the silverman, before pooling around Jack and the others at the end.

‘What do we do?’ Lily said. ‘I don’t think that silverman’s gonna just let us pass.’

Jack glanced over at the Omega monk being torn apart by the Vandals . . .

. . . at the exact moment that one of the Vandals looked up from its gorging and spotted him and his group.

The Vandal froze . . . and grinned.

Its mouth was smeared with blood and flesh.

‘Why, hello, hello, hello!’ it called in a shrill voice.

‘New meat!’ the second one squealed in delight as it also saw them.

Like hyenas that had spotted fresh prey, the two Vandals leapt away from the monk and nimbly swung hand-over-hand down the length of their bridge—gripping its gutter with their fingertips and thus skirting the silverman on it—heading for the central skyscraper.

‘Oh, shit . . .’ Jack said, seeing them go.

His mind was reeling, once again trying to keep up.

Not only did he have his own bridge to traverse—a bridge that was filling with water, water that would soon become greystone that would solidify over his group’s feet—he also had his own silverman to get past.

And now the two Vandals were on their way over.

Keep calm, he thought. Keep calm.

Break down each step, then figure out your plan.

Okay.

First step: get past this silverman.

Jack drew his pistol. It still had a clip full of specially-tipped rounds in it: bullets with shavings from the sword, Excalibur, that Easton had painstakingly attached.