‘I say again: today, we outnumbered them. But look around you, think of your time in the sky. The Wild is vast. Our people live in tiny stretches along the Godroad. All of them together, even if you include every road-born and sky-born across the seven houses, are nothing compared to what lurks out there.’

‘Hah, one of us is worth ten of them.’

‘What if a hundred came for every one of us? Or a thousand?’

‘Yes, if the whole Wild was to rise up together, that might be a problem.’ He paused, then grinned. ‘A glorious problem we would crush!’ Vasin shook his head in anger and Quasim held up a hand. ‘I see this troubles you but fear not, my noble friend. The demons of the Wild are terrifying, but most are little better than animals, and the clever ones stay well away in the deep places.’

‘And if that changed?’

Quasim scowled for a moment, then said, in an unnecessarily loud voice: ‘Then we would hunt them as we have ever done. There aren’t enough demons in the world to blunt my sword.’

Vasin sighed. ‘I have to go.’

‘Stay, please. Even with your determined stride, you won’t get back much faster than us. I haven’t had a chance to hear how you stopped the Weeper yet.’

‘I’m not planning to walk.’

‘What? Even you can’t fly back from a standing start.’

For the first time that day, Vasin found himself smiling, a bit of his old self resurfacing. ‘Watch me.’

He started to run, every step made longer and higher by his Sky-legs. The energies of the Godroad pulsed beneath him, giving each bound even more lift than usual. Behind him he could hear Quasim laughing, but it sounded good natured, even excited.

Unlike in the Wild, the essence currents around the Godroad were strong and constant. If one knew the right way to cut into them, it was possible to generate tremendous power quickly, enough to turn fall into flight. The problem was that if the approach wasn’t perfect, he would plant his face into the Godroad in front of his peers, and a new song of Vasin would be sung, one he’d never live down. But he wasn’t worried. Wrapped in his armour, working in his element, Vasin feared nothing.

When he had as much height as he could manage, he dived hard, catching the essence beneath his wings and compressing it under them so that it was trapped between him and the Godroad. In the space between them, the essence became so concentrated it began to fizz.