Prologue

 

Turin, November 19th

 

The rain didn’t stop so much as it paused, the last drops hesitantly grasping at the leaves they still coated and the pregnant, low cloud threatening to send more imminently. Through those broken clouds the pale light of the moon reflected from somewhere out of sight, illuminating the stark lines of the grey limestone wall below.

 

Centuries of use had worn obvious paths in the top of those walls, paths used by guards of innumerable factions down through the years. Italian nobles seeking solace and security had one after the other reinforced the relatively minor manor house, and their Masonic Lodge descendants replaced the mail and leather clad spear wielding sentries with overweight ‘family’ men with Israeli sub-machine guns tucked obviously beneath the arm-pits of their expensive suits.

 

Four times Gavin had sat on this hilltop – in the shade of the same tree – watching the routine of the guards, learning their methodology, predicting their routes and their timings.

 

Tonight it ended. The watch at his wrist vibrated gently, once, and he rose slightly, the blackened steel arms of the crossbow rising up from the earth beneath him, the stock nestling familiarly against his shoulder. One breath, two, the faintest of mists appearing in the cold mountain air as the last remnants of the day’s heat evaporated in the low pressure, and as the watch vibrated a second time the far side of the compound erupted in light and noise.

 

Four shaped charges detonated in a carefully timed sequence, dropping a section of wall away down the mountainside onto the road below, apparently blocking the only way to the secluded compound, followed twenty seconds later by an anti-personnel charge that wiped out a large contingent of the security patrol that immediately took up defensive positions around the breach.

 

Gavin’s Italian wasn’t up to the standard of his French or German, but he picked out hurriedly yelled commentary about air-strikes, and quickly the remaining members of the guards – those that weren’t moaning amongst the ball-bearings that had shredded their limbs – were hauling the tarpaulin from a squat missile rack that hummed into life in the midst of the courtyard.

 

Hoisting the crossbow skyward, Gavin let fly with the complicated electronically guided bolt, relying on the GPS system to guide it onto its target as he rolled over and pressed the weapon back into the padded case from which it had come. Slipping it back into the rack on the base of the field pack stashed against the bole of the tree he checked the sword on his back, the gun strapped to his thigh and the long knife secured at his waist, and set off.

 

Long, loping strides ate up the distance to the wall, and he passed through the last thirty feet of scrub without slowing, coming to an abrupt halt thirty paces from the stonework where the last of the vegetation ended.

 

The lofted, guided grenade impacted on the missile launcher with a muffled blast, igniting at least two of the rockets’ propellant sections, spewing the volatile mixture over the remaining guards. Hurling the knife into the one silhouetted figure on the wall, Gavin aimed low on the back, striking into the kidneys and bending his target towards him, ensuring he fell outside the wall – the knife had taken time to make, and he didn’t want to have to go hunting for it afterwards. Approaching the now undefended wall, he lunged out with a half-formed fist, the first knuckles of his hand driving up under the ribcage of the guard as he struggled to stand, driving the air out of his lungs. Stepping past him, his arm sliding up the ribcage and under his armpit, he swept his leg back, taking the figure upside down and then driving it headfirst into the rocky ground, collapsing the skull like a cracked nut.

 

Removing the knife he cleaned it briskly on a cloth he’d brought with him, and then slammed a pointed rock-shaving into the wound – when the pathologists made their report, the knife wound should be unnoticeable.

 

The walls, and their vantage points, had been designed to make it difficult for large bands of men to approach unseen, or to attack, but infiltration was an easier task. With the bulk of the defences either looking the wrong way or incapacitated, it was a simple task for the lithe, athletic man to spring up high enough to grasp one of the ornamental crenulations and haul himself up atop the wall.

 

Slipping the knife back into his hand as he landed in the flickering, flitting shadows of the fire-lit courtyard, he lunged quickly into the back of the guard before him, striking upwards with the blade parallel to the floor, and swiping quickly across to arc through the heart even as his gloved hand grasped the throat to prevent a cry.

 

Slipping backward, he rifled the guard for his radio earpiece – the channel was eerily empty – and the magnetic swipecard on  its retracting cord clipped to his belt before dropping the body in the nearest fire to mask the signs of his activity.

 

Inside, as he’d expected from the previous drills, the place was deserted. The first rule of battle had been ignored, all the troops committed to the outer defences, leaving no reserve. Despite the vague sense of satisfaction he felt at his deduction, the young man didn’t let up his guard, but quickly, quietly made his way through the house towards the master suite on the first floor.

 

Only one figure emerged to bar his path, a grotesquely oversized, moustachioed man in an expensive designer suit, his pencil-thin tie appearing even more ridiculous against his vast bulk.

 

He gabbled something unintelligible – the harsh guttural consonants sounded Eastern European – and fell to his knees, pissing himself in fear as he presumably begged for his life. Gavin’s foot lashed out, the blade along the side striking squarely into the corpulent throat, sliding past three chins to crush the fat man’s larynx and end his calls.

 

The alert was out, though, the loud cries carrying easily through the elaborately-panelled hallways. Pausing momentarily, Gavin listened to the sound of a shotgun being pumped, and rolled swiftly to one side, coming up on one knee with his short-barrelled gun at the ready, out in both hands in front of him.

 

The door beside him exploded in a blizzard of wood-chips as four-hundred years of oak and varnish dissolved under the buckshot blast that shredded the fat corpse before it had settled to the floor.

 

Dropping his shoulder, sliding along the wooden floor between the wall and the elegant gold-trimmed red carpet he emerged into the doorway at floor height, double-tapping the trigger to launch two rounds into the shotgun wielder. One struck in the groin, the high-velocity round lifting the guard off his feet, and the second – the aim adjusted now that Gavin could see clearly – struck into the centre of the chest, pivoting the Italian backwards to somersault onto the broad mahogany desk that dominated the study.

 

Sliding past the door, into the safe zone beside the wall, Gavin realised he’d found his target, and he stood to slip back inside the study, sword whipping out to block as a golf-club whipped around at his head.

 

Francesco ‘Fredo’ Bertolli, like so many of his brethren in the Lodge, had actually made his early money relatively legally, then peddled that influence in many ways, some legal and some not. The rich lifestyle had called to him, though, and he had long ago lost the youthful physique that had captured him a film-star wife and at least three teenage mistresses in his early years.

 

That slightly rounded bulk swung again with the fairway wood, but this time Gavin just ghosted inside the swing, the sword slashing down to slice the attacking arm off at the wrist, and Fredo fell to his knees, clutching the stump as it spurted onto the floor.

 

The aggressive, violent swearing, degenerated into whispered, whimpered begging, offers of money, promises of power, anything to spare the worthless life before him.

 

“Maria Luciano never did anything but work hard and accept her pay with gratitude.” Gavin explained, quietly. He didn’t think there were any recording devices at work, but if there were, the vocal modulator strapped to his throat and the slight but practiced soft Irish accent were not his own. “All you had to do was pay her severance when you shut down in Palermo. Nothing more than that, a few thousand Euros amongst the millions you’ve embezzled and defrauded.

 

But you sent three thugs round to make sure she didn’t tell what she’d seen, and sent them with bats so as not to waste money on bullets.” It was one of many incidents, one of countless acts of barbarism, violence and spite that littered the blubbering wreck’s career.

 

“I shall, at the last, show you more mercy than that.”

 

“All this,” he gurgled, disbelievingly, “over one dumb dock-worker?”

 

“No.” The single bulled blasted Fredo’s last thoughts over the bleeding corpse of his final guard, and Gavin turned to leave, stopping instantly at the sight of a figure in the hallway.

 

“Bravo, Gavin.” He applauded, almost mockingly, stepping forward into the light of the lamp on the desk. Shorter than Gavin by almost six inches, he had a little more weight to him, though the movement suggested little of it was fat. No weapons were obvious – which didn’t mean much – but a broad-brimmed fedora sat low over the eyes and a high-wrapped scarf obscured the face completely.

 

Unwilling to give anything away, Gavin merely waited, sword and gun still in hand, until the distant sound of approaching footsteps hurried them both along.

 

“I shall come find you, Gavin.” The figure explained, the slightly forced English accent failing to mask something else, though Gavin couldn’t quite catch what. “I might wish to employ your services.”

 

“I don’t work for money.” Gavin explained, careful to maintain the accent, which brought another respectful nod.

 

“If you were, my boy, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.” Slipping away from the doorway, Gavin made to follow the strange figure, but the footsteps suddenly grew louder, bursting into the hallway before he reached it, and he turned back to his original plan.

 

Two steps, a leap, and he was out the window and falling, four storeys above the burning courtyard. Tugging swiftly at his shoulders he deployed the brake – it wasn’t quite on the scale of a parachute, though the principle was the same, and shielded his head as the glass of the window rained down about him.

 

The grenade beneath the window detonated just as he landed, wiping out the two gunmen who leant out to try and pick him off, and leaving the burning wreckage of the villa behind him, he gathered up his pack, straddled the snow-bike, and set off back over the mountain wondering who the strange figure had been.

 

 

Paris – November 19^th

 

Sophie rested her head against the window of the Train de Grande Vitesse watching the suburban sprawl heave itself past through the drizzle, waiting for the vaguely remembered grandeur of Paris to slink into view.

 

Unlike most of her countrymen, Sophie felt no romance for the capital, a heaving testament to tourism and over-branding. The real charm of the city had been lost amidst the lights and the glamour, the history turned into a sideshow for the amusement of Americans and Germans who failed to appreciate it.

 

Despite that, she had fond memories of her time there, her internship at the hospital with the wizened little sprite that was Georg – Doctor Georg Roffmai. She’d excelled at university, and again through her general medical internship, topped her class as a surgeon, yet had still felt like a bumbling schoolgirl when first she’d stepped into the high-tech operating room of the neurology unit at Paris’ Pitie-Salpetriere hospital. Shuttling between there and his work at the Val-de-Grace military hospital, she’d learnt more in each day, it sometimes seemed, than she had in the previous nine years of training.

 

The low suburban homes were giving way to the strange band of squat, grey, ugly square office-blocks that separated the historic heart of the city from the homes of the people that pumped through its veins when she felt herself drifting off towards sleep, lulled by the gentle rocking and repetitive noise.

 

“Mademoiselle Barthez?”  a polite voice drew her back from the brink of sleep, and she looked up at the uniformed figure beside her seat. At first she thought it was a gendarme, then revised her opinion with a closer look at the uniform. It was a uniform, and he had a military manner, but there were no markings or identifiers at all to break the unrelieved black, and as he leant forward a little further, checking a clipboard, she saw the black painted pistol hanging at his belt. “Mademoiselle Sophie Barthez?”

 

“Oui, c’es moi.” She confirmed, regaining her bearings a little, relaxing as she settled, and as a gentle smile spread across the soldier’s face.

 

“Je m’excuse, Mademoiselle, mais nous sommes arriverent en quatre minutes.” He explained, pivoting swiftly on his heel to leave without any further word.

 

Four minutes? She thought, hurriedly packing her paperback novel and newspaper back into her bag and standing to take down her case. How did he know I was here? Staring out the window her confusion deepened as she realised they were still some distance from the station.

 

Clattering through a large junction, sweeping past the numerous trains that only came out for the twice daily rush-hour, she felt the brakes cut in as the train rapidly slowed to a halt.

 

“Mademoiselle.” The military figure called, quietly, beckoning her towards the door.

 

“Vous etes certain?” she asked, staring out the window and seeing no signs of life at all. He smiled, gently, nodded, and beckoned her again. Without any other information she dragged herself, wide-eyed and suddenly alert, to the door and out onto the narrow, concrete technician’s platform in the marshalling yard.

 

Following the man down the narrow stairs, only slightly disgruntled at having to lug her own case and bag on the treacherously thin steps, she found a blacked out military jeep waiting for them, the engine already spluttering to life.

 

A muffled, muttered conversation on an unseen radio, answered under a cloak of static, set the train in motion again, and she settled uncertainly into the passenger seat, bags clutched on her lap, as the jeep peeled away and began a less than gentle journey across the tracks.

 

The entrance, when they came to it, was in the brickwork of one of the tunnels that branched away from the marshalling yard towards the main western branch lines. Lights sprang up either side of them in the stark, white-painted brick walls of the tunnel, and the closeness suddenly made her realise how fast they were travelling.

 

Glancing back she saw the tunnel entrance seal behind her, bulky steelwork fronting the brickwork that presumably showed on the outside.

 

“Ou etes nous?” she asked, leaning across and raising her voice against the loud engine in the low passage, but the driver either didn’t hear or affected not to. The tunnel opened out, suddenly, into a bustling military camp, complete with guards, jeeps, and even a squat, ugly, tracked vehicle with a gun on the top. It wasn’t a big gun like a tank, just a machine gun on a mount, but it was… she didn’t know what it was, but it was undeniably military. It was built to kill people, and she found herself wondering, suddenly, exactly why her mentor was here.

 

As the jeep skidded to a halt she looked around, frowning slightly. She wasn’t sure he was even here, she realised, clutching her bag a little tighter and hunching down into her seat.

 

“Mademoiselle.” A different soldier stood at the side of the jeep, reaching for her case, which she reluctantly gave up after a moment, realising it was a little late to try and decline the invitation. Stepping down she saw, through a broad window in one of the walls, the short, twisted form of her mentor directing personnel in a ward of some sort, a row of occupied beds against the far wall.

 

She hurried after the long-striding soldier as he led her to a small, stark cell along a corridor, placing her bag down, saluting crisply and then just turning away and leaving her there, alone.

 

“Excusez-moi…” she called, belatedly, but he didn’t stop, or turn, and no-one else appeared ready to help her, so she returned to the small room, staring around again. A metal-frame bed, complete with thin mattress and sheets stamped with a stark black identification number, a green, sheet-metal footlocker and a similarly constructed cupboard stood out against the white-painted brickwork to look like an old prison. The gleaming, high-spec computer system chained to the wall seemed even more out of place for the quality of the plastic bucket-seat before it. She flicked the mouse, disturbing the screen-saver, but the system immediately asked for a password, and she turned away again, shutting the door on the noises outside.

 

What the hell’s going on? She wondered, perching on the edge of the bed, surprised at how uncomfortable it was, even given her low expectations. I expected a job offer, maybe, or… or… something that wasn’t this.

 

Steeling herself, she rose again, determined not to be overwhelmed, sure that Georg wouldn’t have wasted her time. Beside the computer, she saw, was a small envelope, and flipping the top she saw a clip on identity card – already complete with her picture, name, and an ID number. Opening the footlocker elicited nothing new, but the cupboard was stocked with a trio of matching white labcoats – her size, she noted with a slight frown – which removed her last excuse for staying in the room.

 

Flipping the first coat around her shoulders, she pinned on the badge, swung the door shut behind her and stepped out into the corridor, slipping into a space in the flow of traffic, and picking up her pace to match. The soldiers were, in their way, unremarkable. Short-haired, blank-faced and marching even as they walked, like so many identical, faceless ants in a colony. It was, she realised, an irony of the military that they trained their recruits to be as conforming as possible, then stuck name-tags and identifications on them so they could tell them apart.

 

Smiling gently, she rounded the corner of the entrance area the jeep had stopped in, and stared through the window at the ward beyond – whatever she had been called for it was, presumably, based around that room. Georg and an imposing figure in military uniform – not the green work-clothes she saw milling about her, but a proper uniform, like you’d see on a parade, though it wasn’t a uniform she recognised.

 

“Excusez-moi.” She reached out, attracting the attention of a nearby guard who turned a piercing stare on her. She was caught, for a moment, by the intensity of the stare, but smiled gently at the confused look.

 

“Sorry, Miss…” he looked down at her name tag as he spoke, briskly, turning his gaze back down the entrance tunnel. “Sorry, Doctor, but I don’t speak French.”

 

“You are not French?” that came as a surprise, reinforcing her thoughts on military training. “But this is a French military base, non?”

 

“JET, Doctor. Joint European Taskforce. I’m sure the Admiral will give you the details at your induction.”

 

“Is that him?” she asked, pointing at the figure in the unfamiliar uniform.

 

“Yes, Doctor.”

 

“I shall go ask him now.”

 

“I don’t think they want to be disturbed, Ma’am.” The guard offered, but he didn’t try to stop her, so she slid the ID card into the lock, depressed the handle, and stepped in.

 

“Sophie?” Georg called, turning on his twisted leg with surprising ease, causing the Admiral to look up.

 

“What the hell is she doing in here?” The officer barked, pointing, and two soldiers from against the far wall sprang forward, rifles dropping from being angled across her chest to point at her.

 

“Put those away.” Georg stepped in front of them, his gravely voice dropping an octave as he gave his order. “NOW!” Checking with the Admiral, who nodded his agreement, the pair returned slowly to their positions. “Sophie, you should have been sent to the control centre, has nobody come to pick you up?”

 

“No, Doctor, no-ones told me a damn thing.” She retorted, angry at having guns pointed at her.

 

“Doctor?” he smiled, gently. “When did I stop being Georg?”

 

“Oh, Georg, I’m sorry, I didn’t know how formal we were being.” She shrugged a little, disarmed with the ease with which he discharged the situation. She glanced sidelong at the stern featured Admiral, unable to see a great deal past the dark-lenses of his glasses.

 

“Come on,” Georg took her arm, “I’ll walk you to the control centre.” Dismissing the Admiral completely he started to walk her away when his phone rang. Snatching it from his pocket, he turned as the Admiral lifted a similar handset to his own ear, and for the briefest moment she thought they were going to talk to each other.

 

Deep frowns occupied both their faces as they listened, occasionally murmuring replies, their attention fully on their respective conversations. Stepping away, giving Georg a little privacy, she nudged one of he small, wheeled equipment carts, sending it rolling towards the nearest bay, catching on the curtain and easing it open.

 

Inside was not, as she’d expected, a bed, but a large, vertical tank, gurgling gently as gas bubbled up through the slightly tinted liquid inside. Blue and green strands of some fibrous material anchored at numerous points around the sides and lid, pulsing gently as the presumably channelled fluids into the figure suspended in the midst of the tank.

 

Hanging by his arms, sagging like some obscene crucifix, the distended, distorted figure inside bore dozens of gaping lesions on the little exposed flesh she could see, amidst coils of cables and tubes, hauling the figure half-upright. A jutting, angular jaw projected clear of the hairless, distended skull, a skull that reached back fully twice as far as she’d normally expect.

 

“Merde…” she breathed, drawing the Admiral’s attention along with Georg’s back on her. The Admiral snarled, sweeping three huge strides to whip the curtain back into place as Georg hung up.

 

“We need to follow this up.” Georg informed him, gesturing with the phone. Reluctantly, it seemed, the Admiral agreed.

 

“What about her?”

 

“Sophie will join us.” Georg informed him, and the tone brooked no argument.

 

“Join you in what?” she demanded, but neither responded directly, walking towards the door. Crossing her arms beneath her breasts, she waited for one of them to turn back, since they’d decided she was going with them.

 

“Ma’am.” The voice came from over her shoulder, and she glanced back to see the two guards now flanking her. Their rifles appeared exactly the same, slung over the shoulder and pointed across the body at waist height, but she was suddenly acutely aware of the fact that their hands rested on the trigger guards.

 

“Yes.”

 

“Time to go, Ma’am.”

 

Portland, Oregon, November 19^th

 

“Yeah, thanks asshole!” Caerys yelled at the car speeding away, drenched yet again by the roadside water thrown up. Hitching had seemed like such a good idea when she set out, the morning before. Thirty-six hours, one meal and four indecent propositions later, she and her washed-out hair were beginning to reconsider.

 

Admittedly, she’d only had to slap one of the propositioners, and she was a good eight hours further than she’d managed before, but that was scant consolation when a car finally did slow at the side of the road for her. The two tall, bulky men that stepped out were instantly recognisable for their lack of any sort of distinguishing characteristics.

 

“Busted, huh?” she shrugged, resignedly. There was no reply – she hadn’t expected one – and she knew damned well there wasn’t going to be any traffic, as she ambled towards the door the driver held open for her. “Who is it this time? Raven? Sable?” She bent at the door, peering into the dimly lit interior. “Snake. How wonderful… I shall be looking forward to some more stripes on my back, then.”

 

“That’s what happens when you upset Snake.” The oily little weasel-faced man in the back seat intoned, unctuously, his eyes never once straying higher than her chest. “Is that any way to talk to the man who will make all your dreams come true.”

 

“Fuck off, Snake.” She told him, bluntly, as a meaty hand shoved into her back knocking into the car on her hands.

 

“So eager?” he mocked.

 

“Even my nightmares aren’t bad enough to live up to being with you.”

 

“Even in, say… Paris?”

 

“What?”

 

“Paris, you dumb bitch. The City of Romance.”

”What the fuck do you know about romance? Romance means washing the same year you try and flip out that limp-dicked excuse for a love-muscle, doesn’t it?” The slap that rocked her head back and brought tears to her eyes was what she’d expected – what she’d been looking for – but she still felt bitter that the anger didn’t even begin to glimmer in his eyes.

 

“You’re going to Paris, Caerys…. Hehe… Paris, Caerys. It rhymes.” It wasn’t the mockery she’d expected, far too subtle for Snake, who was only used for the most menial and simple tasks largely because of his quite severely limited intellect.

 

“My father will never allow you take me out of the country. You know what’s going to happen to my father then.” She pointed out, more uncertain of herself than she had been since the car had appeared.

 

“Really? So… who’s meeting us there?”

 

“But… he knows that I’m free once we leave the country.”

 

“Free? You’ll never be fucking free.” Dirty, scabrous nails tore aside her blouse, baring the upper swell of her breasts and the large, rounded brand burnt into her skin there. “You were born a slave. You’re still a slave. You’ll be a slave when we get to Paris… briefly.”

 

“Briefly?”

 

“Briefly, ‘cause then you’ll be fucking dead.”

 

“You’re wrong. Paris is freedom.” There was steel in her voice, for the first time in… thinking back she realised it was quite possibly the first time ever. “It can’t be escaped, it can’t be avoided. I will be free.”

 

“Death is a freedom of sorts.”

 

“You’re wrong.” She smiled, calm, suddenly. It was finally going to be over, one way or another. She didn’t believe she would die, but it didn’t matter. It was going to be over. “You can carry on your sad little games of power and conquest, whilst the world carries on about you, ignorant of your very existence, but I will be free. You can’t stop it.”

 

“You’re starting to piss me off with all this.” She looked over, recognising the change in his leer. “Don’t you think you’re a little over-dressed?”

 

“No, I’m fine.” She folded her arms, knowing her role. If she didn’t fight, it’d just hurt more. If she could make him angry it’d be over even quicker, but she’d have to wait for that. First fighting.

 

She darted back as she felt something spray over her chest, fighting down the nausea as she wondered if he’d spat on her – it’d be something new – and looked up. The look of stark surprise on Snake’s face must have matched her own, save for the rounded bullet-hole in his forehead.

 

“Oh shit!” She threw up on the seat between them, mixing vomit with a surprising amount of brain – given that it was Snake – and yanked on the door handle to try and get out, but nothing happened. “Shit!”

 

Outside the car, more gunfire spat out, the *pink* of rounds piercing the bodywork of the car forcing her head down. Snake finally toppled, gravity overtaking shock as the prime motivator in his life, and she lifted her hands to push against his shoulders, forcing him. She was glad it had been Snake, suddenly, as she knew she’d have been buried underneath Sable’s bulk.

 

Thumping on the broken window behind the oily man, now punctured by a single small bullet-hole, she didn’t have the strength to do any further damage to it, and the gunfire sounded like it was coming from that side anyway.

 

Suddenly, behind her, the door was yanked open, and one of the silent, bulky drivers knelt down behind it, using it for cover as he aimed over the front of the car. Reaching in to Snake’s jacket she fumbled around, finding his gun, and drew it around quickly, loosing two rounds point blank into the point on the side of the gunman’s head where his sunglasses disappeared behind his ears.

 

The ringing gunshot echoed painfully in her ears in the close confines of the car, but she had the presence of mind to grab her bag and start running, head down and into the woods at the side of the road. It didn’t matter where she was going, she wasn’t looking anyway, as tears stained her cheeks.

 

So fucking close!!!! She screamed silently into the recesses of her own mind. Suddenly it occurred to her that the whole thing could have been a set-up. Her father was just about cruel enough to get her hopes up like that before dashing them, and he was more than capable of ridding himself someone like Snake to make it happen – the guy was practically a liability anyway.

 

“IS THIS YOUR SICK IDEA OF A FUCKING JOKE!” She screamed at the low, dark, heavy clouds.

 

“I assure you I’m perfectly serious.” A woman’s voice lisped from the treeline behind her.

”L..Lilith?” Caerys stumbled out of shock, seating herself on a cut-off tree-stump. Lilith had never worked for her father, which meant this was… “A war?”

 

“The last war, Caerys.” Lilith confirmed, beckoning for her. “This can go easily on you, or not, but you are com…” her words were cut off as a bullet ripped through her shoulder spinning her to the undergrowth, and Caerys took the opportunity to run once more, stumbling and staggering through the undergrowth, wondering what was happening. Her life had never been normal, but even then there had been a consistency, a sense of rules and order: suddenly, they were gone.

Huddling against a tree, gasping for breath and listening carefully for sounds of pursuit, she relaxed a fraction until she felt her hair suddenly pulled taut. Dragged up into the tree’s foliage she reached up, grasping for the arm to take the pressure off her scalp. She spun, slowly, reaching up but finding nothing, frantically scrabbling until a cold voice whispered down to her.

 

“It’s time, Caerys.”

 

“Father!”

 

“It’s time for you to be punished.” Her screams heralded the end of the hunt, and the first victory of the war.