The girl that had collided with Georges in mid-air and that he had brought to the ground had regained consciousness. Immediately she started screaming again.

“Will you stop that?!” said Georges with a snarl.

He moved to subdue her but, to his surprise, the girl pushed herself up from the ground and span, bringing around some sort of weapon that seemed to appear out of nowhere from the folds in her garment. Georges raised his claws just in time and there was a metallic clang as the weapon—a shield with a bronze stud in the centre—clanged off of them. The girl struck and struck with it, aiming more blows at Georges, clearly acting out of panic and instinct. Georges blocked each one, his body reverberating with every strike. Then all at once the girl was on the floor again, unconscious, a black bruise forming on her temple. Khilliarkos, back in his human shape, had snuck up on her and bashed her across the head.

“Impetuous little blemish,” said Khilliarkos, standing over the girl.

“Who or what is she, Commander?” said Georges.

“I told you, fool. She’s a Larakian. She must be. She wears one of their ridiculous white robes and carries an enchanted weapon. Our mission is going well for us to have intercepted her. She must have been dreamtraveling in from Larakia, and our presence threw her off. Glory to Echthros. I suspect we are on the right track.”

The other soldiers had all landed by now, and stood to attention, waiting for Khilliarkos’ next order.

“What should we do now, Commander?” asked Stratiotes.

“We continue with our plan, you idiot! This can only be a good sign. Now we will fly over the wall into Ubal and find the base of our operatives in the city. They will brief us on whether they have found anyone matching the description of the Larakian heir. They have been using some bait in our possession to try to lure the heir to them. If they have located the so-called heir, we will help them find him and kill him. Georges, you will carry the refuse under your arm.”

“Yes Commander Khilliarkos, sir.”

Georges looked at the girl splayed on the floor. She had long dark brown hair, a pretty face, and wore a white robe that he could just make out had a simple pattern woven into it of some sort of eagle or bird on the breast. Her shield-weapon had disappeared again. For just an instant, he looked at her as George, not Georges, and he felt sorry for her. Could this girl really be one of the enemy? If she was with the enemy, could the enemy be so bad? But then the instant was over and his dragon nature took control again. Who was this girl to crash into him so presumptuously in the sky? Who was she to attack him in cold blood? Who was she to defy the might and glory of Echthros?

He put the girl under his arm and took off again with the others, following Khilliarkos as he twisted back into his draconic form with a snap and shudder of bone. She was fairly heavy, being not much younger than him, but easily light enough for him now that his muscles had been trained in the Shulite barracks.

The regiment made the short flight into close-by Ubal, which they had almost arrived at before the girl had appeared in the sky. They flew over the wall, keeping low enough to see where they were going but high enough not to be spotted, taking the utmost care that no one see them arriving in the city. Under Khilliarkos’s lead, they flew to a long, wide street made up of stately houses that they could pick out even from their vantage point far up high, then made their descent.

They stole into the city secretly, silently, one by one, like a coordinated group of spiders alighting to the ground on the end of gossamer threads. Their landing space was in the shadows of one of the big trees that stood along the road.

One of the soldiers said in a whisper, “Which house is it, Commander?”

Khilliarkos, back in his more human shape again, said “Hush, fool! Can’t you feel that something’s wrong?”

The soldiers looked around. They could see nothing out of the ordinary, just the rows of houses standing still in the quiet of the night. “No, Commander Khilliarkos, sir. What is it?”

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“There’s more of them. They’re coming here. I don’t know why. Maybe our position in this city has been compromised.”

“How do you know, Commander Khilliarkos, sir?” asked Georges.

“I can smell them. The gut-wrenching stench of Larakian effluence. We will wait here and watch what they do.”

Georges and the other soldiers copied Khilliarkos and pulled the moon-shadows of the nearby trees around them, concealing themselves completely, a trick they had learned how to do in Shul. The Shulites had many imitations of the same tools as the Larakians to weave with on the loom of the life, but they wove in a different way.

Then they waited and watched. Sure enough, within a few moments, three figures came walking down the road, all dressed in light-coloured robes of a single material. There was an elderly man with a staff, who walked along holding onto the arm of an old woman who had a long white plait of hair. And at their side was a young girl, who did not look unlike the one who still lay limp under Georges’ arm. In fact, she looked almost exactly the same as her. Was she a copy of her? What was this, some kind of strange Larakian trick?

The three Larakians walked down the street, stopping briefly at each house, the woman saying something they could not hear each time. Eventually they stopped in front of one particular house, which had some broken windows and a dim light lit behind one of them, and Georges heard the woman say “This is the one. We’re here.”

“That’s the house of our Ubal operatives!” Khilliarkos hissed in a barely audible whisper while the trio continued their conversation.

“Shall we attack, Commander Khilliarkos, sir?” said one of the soldiers just as quietly.

“Yes. But wait a moment. That’s an order. I want to see what they do. If they knock on the front door, we attack when the door is opened. Between us and our operatives inside the house, we will be able to trap them in a pincer movement and crush them. Georges, when we get in, you will put the prisoner down inside the house and guard her as you join the battle. We don’t want her to escape, or to be found by someone outside.”

“Yes Commader Khilliarkos, sir,” said Georges.

They waited some more. Just when it looked like the woman was about to knock on the front door of the house, something completely unexpected happened. A number of young boys suddenly appeared from around the two sides of the house, holding stones in their hands.

“Aha!” said Khilliarkos. “Watch those children closely! One of them could be the Larakian heir they are seeking!”

A conversation rang out in the street in loud whispers.

“Who are you?” said one of the boys, brandishing a stone.

“We mean no harm,” said the woman. “We are looking for a friend of ours, who we believe may be in this house.”

“Well you better not go in there,” said another of the boys. “They’re busy!”

Some lights appeared in the neighbouring houses.

“Busy with what?” said the woman.

“None of your business!”

“Young man, please could you tell me. Do you or any of your friends have a scar on your right cheek?”

At this point the doors of a couple of the neighbouring houses opened and some people came out of them, wondering what was happening that was so noisy.

“What in Mashal is going on?” said a rich-looking man in fancy clothes which he seemed to have put on back-to-front. “We heard the sound of glass breaking. We wanted to check if everything is alright.”

“It’s fine!” said one of the boys holding the stones. “Go away!”

“Goodness me,” said the woman, “are you robbing this house? That’s why the windows are broken, isn’t it?”

There was a gasp of horror from the neighbours.

“No! Never!” said the boy. “We were just…playing!”

By now the street was filled with the three Larakians, the boys holding stones in their hands, a handful of the neighbours, some still dressed in their nightclothes, and the Shulites, secretly still watching and waiting.

“This is getting complicated,” said the old male Larakian to the woman. “You’d better go in there and have a look at what’s going on, Katetheuna.”

The Larakian woman walked up to the door and knocked on it loudly, three times. “Hello! I’m sorry to disturb you, but we’re looking for someone, and there are people out here who would like to know what’s going on in there!”

There was a tense, deliberate silence. Then the front door of the house began to open.

“Now!” shouted Khilliarkos.