The Peridot Deathless started to turn, but his Sky-legs were held fast in the mud. He wobbled, regathered his balance, and tried to lash out with his sword, but he could not turn far enough, and they were too close for him to bring the huge weapon to bear. One Murker wrapped a rubbery arm about his neck, while the other grabbed an ankle and began to try and drag Quasim back into the swamp.

‘Protect your lord!’ urged Vasin, but the Peridot hunters were suffering similar problems, some forced to fight, others reduced to a creep, stopping to haul their Sky-legs free every few paces.

Pulling up at the last minute, Vasin lined up the point of his spear with the lower of the two Murkers swarming over Quasim and pressed the trigger on the shaft. With an eager hiss, the sapphire head of the spear shot forward, burying itself between the Murker’s shoulder blades.

As it let out a high-pitched scream, Vasin passed by overhead, tilting back, heading skywards, raising the spear in front of him, two-handed. The slender cable running between shaft and head went taut. There was a jolt, a moment of resistance followed by a sudden decrease in momentum, and then Vasin was moving again, the Murker dangling below him like a fish on a hook.

The essence currents were thin here, and Vasin could feel the power in his wings fading fast with the additional weight. Even so, he rose thirty feet straight up, higher than the tops of the scattered trees, before coming to a stop in the air.

Above, he could see the Ruby hunters circling, watching him. He could almost taste their eagerness to join in. ‘Wait!’ he shouted, hoping that they would understand. He couldn’t signal them, needing both hands to hold the spear. Tearing his gaze away, Vasin dived again, briefly passing the flailing Murker in the sky. It hovered there for a moment, skin wobbling on its bones like agitated jelly, before the cable went taut again, dragging it after him.

Vasin flew as low as he dared before pulling up, making the most of the weak currents to climb once more; the Murker swung below him on the end of the cable, describing a perfect curve as it arced towards its fellow Murkers engaging the Peridot hunters. Nodding to himself, Vasin twisted the shaft to free the spear head, and banked away, leaving the Murker to fly on, like a living stone cast from a catapult.