They arrived to pandemonium. The guards were in disarray. City clarions sounded alarm. It is good we did not delay, the Warden thought. It is good I did not falter.

  He had been restored to life and vitality. His right arm was still useless, but he was no longer at death’s door—far from it, in fact. The Daimon had granted him the bucking strength of his twenty-year-old self.

  Grygory had looked positively terrified when he returned from the woods.

  “Your skin, Warden… It… It glows!”

  The Warden had said nothing. He had climbed into the cart beside him and taken the reins in his good hand.

  “I heard… words…” Grygory had said, hesitantly.

  “You heard nothing,” the Warden had whispered in return.

  And that had been the last they had spoken of the event. They had driven on towards the city, stopping only once to water the horses, taking it in turns to drive all through the night. Their haste had now paid dividends, for they’d caught up to their enemy.

  Captain Mordred stood by the gate, cursing, a black eye throbbing on his face and dirt caking his usually immaculate war-gear.

  “What happened?” the Warden said, as their cart pulled level. Introductions could be dispensed with, given the circumstances.

  “That prisoner you warned us about came through, with a ragtag band at his heel,” the captain spat. “One of them was a damn theront. I’ve sounded the alarm. The entire city watch is looking for them.”

  The Warden felt a shadow pass over his heart, a blackness so absolute not even god-rays could perforate it. Even the Daimon he held within seemed to squirm at the presence of that feeling, so distilled and intense was it. So close, so close.

  “Then we waste no time,” the Warden said. “Grygory!”

  Grygory lashed the horses and they charged forward. Mud sprayed from the wagon wheels, plastering Captain Mordred’s greaves, leaving him even filthier than before. Mordred cursed as The Warden as their cart barged through the closing gateway. They wagon took the cobbled streets with the frenzy of a rampaging bullock. The path their enemy had taken was obvious—for overturned merchant stalls, disgruntled citizens, and furrows carved in gleaming mud-puddles marked their passage. But they did not need a trail, for The Warden knew their destination: they were heading to the Dragonport. It was the sole means of escape from the city now that the alarm had been raised.

  The Warden, though one-handed, took the reins from Grygory. He must be in control. He whipped the horses and steered them through the streets, though in truth there was little need to steer them, for they guided themselves down the narrow alleys. Ahead, he saw the enemy. The road turned eastward and the sun, approaching the zenith of its rising as it ascended between the gabled shopfronts either side of the road, framed four figures and the giant felidae.

  “Yah! Yah!” the Warden cried.

  Cityfolk leapt out of the way as their wagons careened dangerously down the sunlight avenue. Dogs barked. They splashed through puddles, equally drenching the refined dresses of nobles out shopping and the beggars who crowded the gutters.

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  The Warden’s two horses were faster and stronger than just the one. They were gaining on the prisoner and his co-conspirators. Blood thundered in the Warden’s veins. He felt forty years younger, felt the same bloodlust and rush of mania that’d accompanied him into battle with the theronts. Berserker, they had called him. Dremtalon Warrior. Some consumed the mushrooms of Yestermere to inflame their battle-lust, but the Warden needed no agents or chemicals. The fury came naturally to him.

  “Reins, Grygory!” He passed the reins back to Grygory as the cart began to draw level with their foes. The road had widened here as the avenue turned towards the seaport, allowing for cargo transports to and from the docks. He saw his enemy’s faces. Wide, frightened eyes stared at him—all except Jubal, who returned his gaze with a black hatred reminiscent of the Void itself.

  The Warden grinned, hefting his mace. He prepared to leap onto the back of their wagon.

  Then Telos, the scrawny thief, suddenly leapt up. There was a bag in his hands, full of coins. Does he think to bribe me? The Warden thought. How absurd. How desperate!

  “Left, Qala!” Telos roared. The Warden could hardly make out the words over the din of the horses’ hooves and the clattering of the wagons moving at breakneck speed. He saw a turning ahead up a steeply sloped avenue that led to the Dragonports. The hill will slow them. They cannot escape, now.

  But Telos was grinning at the Warden. He winked.

  The Warden bent his knees for the jump.

  Telos overturned the bag.

  Demons rained down on the cobbles, clattering and bouncing, sparkling in the sun.

  Where the people came from, The Warden would never know. Like ghosts, they emerged seemingly from the walls of the houses and up through the paved road, fearless of the crushing wheels or horse-hooves, careless of their lives with the prospect of gold.

  No!

  Grygory pulled and jerked the reins, trying to steer around the crowds that had suddenly thickened around them. People literally threw themselves in front of the charging horses, grasping the gold discs as though they were salvation itself.

  Grygory overcompensated and the cart veered, one wheel rising. The Warden—standing upright and with no way to center himself—went tumbling out of the cart, smacking the back of his head on hard cobblestone. Stars swam across his vision. When he tried to breathe his lungs wheezed like overused bellows.

  A pathetic display, the dark voice said in his head. And you said that you could aid me! He hadn’t known what to expect from his new “passenger”, but mockery had not been one of them. He gritted his teeth, forced himself onto his front. He pushed up to his feet.

  He saw Grygory trying to get control of the cart, wrangling the horses. They were slowing, but not in time to take the turn.

  Telos waved to the Warden as their cart disappeared around the bend and started to climb the hill.

  The Warden fought down the howl of frustration that threatened to break free. To release such a howl would be to admit he was beaten. He sprinted after Grygory. The cart had finally come to a halt—more because the horses had been forced to stop by a huge oak that split the pavement and overshadowed the nearby house. The sweat-drenched horses were clearly spooked, looking like they would bolt the moment they were untethered.

  But the Warden had no time to mind their feelings of exhaustion. He untied the nearest stallion and dragged it from the cart-harness. Using the cart to give himself a leg up, he mounted the beast and kicked its flanks. Responding to the iron will of its new rider, the horse obeyed, galloping off down the street in pursuit of the thief.

  I will catch you, Telos. I will catch you and kill you.

  He cared nothing for the law, now. He cared only for wiping that stupid smirk of the thief’s face—forever.