"Seems strange, not having the Brigadier with us," said Harper gloomily.

They were sitting around the campfire, eating their evening meal in silence. A stew made from a couple of rabbits Cotton had caught, along with some chopped vegetables that Crane had found growing beside the road. There were no globs in their meal. No-one else seemed to have the skill that Malone had had for finding the small, gelatinous creatures, and although they all told each other how much they preferred their meals without them Harper was surprised to find that he was beginning to actually miss them. Or perhaps it was the batman that he missed, along with the leader of their patrol.

"Still can't believe he just went off and left us," said Spencer, stirring his stew with his spoon while staring at it gloomily. It had begun to grow cold and bits of solidified fat were beginning to appear around the edges.

"If you don't want that, I'll have it," said Crane, whose own bowl sat beside him, already scoured clean with some dried Marestail stalks he'd found growing nearby. The particles of silica they secreted on the their leaves, to deter herbivores by wearing down their teeth, made them ideal for cleaning bits of dried food from plates and bowls. When he'd passed on this tip to the others, though, they'd all passed their empty bowls to him for cleaning, which hadn't quite been what he'd had in mind.

Spencer gave him a sideways look and took a half hearted spoonful of stew from his bowl. He looked at it as if wondering whether fending off starvation would be worth the effort, then lifted it to his mouth. He screwed up his face in distaste. "It's cold," he complained.

"It wasn't cold when I gave it to you," said Crane. "half an hour ago."

"Still can't believe he just went off and left us," Spencer repeated, stirring the rest of his stew. "Just went off like that."

"He didn't just go off," said Blane with a warning gleam in his eye. "He had a mission. He had his mission, we've got ours."

"It wasn't a mission. He just decided to go off sightseeing."

"That's enough, Spencer," warned the Sergeant. "If he thought it was necessary to visit a Radiant city then it was. He knew we were quite capable of completing the mission without him. We have to trust that he had a good reason."

"Who cares about the Hetin folk. So they were different from us. So what? Who cares? Leave it to the scholars and the ark...ark..."

"Archaeologists," said Quill helpfully. He had the saddlebags containing the precious bluecap mushrooms on the ground beside him. Since parting ways with the Brigadier he hadn't let them out of his sight, and kept them within reach whenever possible. The Brigadier had entrusted him with the keeping of them and it was a responsibility he took seriously.

"Right. Let them worry about it. What's it got to do with us?"

"Aren't you curious?" asked the wizard. "If the Brigadier's right and there were no Radiants in the time of the Hetin Folk, that meant that humans were the highest form of life back then. The very top of the ladder."

He looked out across the surrounding countryside, at the small stream that ran a short distance from the road, at the trees still visible in the distance despite the encroaching gloom, at the mountains on the horizon, their topmost peaks still lit by the setting sun. "Imagine being able to wander anywhere across the face of the world knowing that you would never encounter a creature more highly evolved than the human being. Imagine knowing that your kind were the Lords of Creation. Can you imagine what that must have been like?"

     “What about Those Above?” asked Harper.

     “There are no Those Above. It's just a silly superstition.”

     “You don't know that. My family have always believed in Those Above. They care for us, look after us...”

     “Have you ever seen them? Has anyone?”

     “I have faith! I know in my heart that they exist! Who do you think created the world, then? You think it just created itself?”

     “If Those Above created the world, who created them?”

     “They've always existed. Didn't you ever go to templeschool?”

     Quill found himself losing the will to continue the argument. Arguing with a believer, he'd always thought, was like a kickball match between the Marboll Sovereigns and the Bywell Champions. The Sovereigns might score goal after goal, but it was the Champions who decided when the game was over and they would insist on continuing until the Sovereigns just got fed up and went home, whereupon the Champions would declare victory.

He looked back over the darkening countryside, and saw three tiny points of light drifting high up in the sky, like three hydrogen balloons lost by careless children. Radiants, on their way somewhere. Perhaps looking for a human to adopt. Perhaps on some other errand whose nature was beyond human understanding. They were such a familiar feature of the world in which they lived that it was hard to imagine that there might once have been a time when they hadn't existed. A time when humans might have looked up into the sky and seen nothing but birds and clouds.

One man after another passed their empty bowls to Crane, who sighed in resignation and began scrubbing them with marestails. "Any more in the pot?" asked Harper hopefully. Crane looked in, scraped the inside with the ladle and transferred a few cold dribbles into the other man's bowl. Harper drank them up, then licked his bowl clean before handing it back.

"You still making sure he always gets the same bowl?" asked Spencer, eyeing Harper with disgust.

"Of course I am," said the tracker. "Look, it's the one with the dent on the side. You think I want to risk ending up with it myself?"

Harper glared at them both, then decided that it was beneath his dignity to rise to the bait. He pulled his sleeping roll out of his backpack and looked for a comfy place to bed down for the night.

One by one the others also prepared their sleeping places. "I'll take first watch," said Blane, getting up and walking across to stand beside the horses. "Cotton, you wake me in an hour."

"Will do," replied the other man. "Should be a quiet night, I reckon. We're still well outside Wilterland. Won't be any outlaws and bandits this far out, and any smugglers will want to avoid us even more than we want to avoid them."

"Maybe so, but complacency kills more men than swords and pistols. Stay alert."

Cotton nodded and started preparing his own bedroll.

"How come you always take first watch for yourself?" asked Spooner.

"You want it, you can have it," replied the Sergeant. "I'll take last watch instead."

Spooner glared at him, Blane glared back. They glared at each other for several moments, and it was Spooner who looked away first, standing and taking the Sergeant's place by the horses. "Don't fall asleep," chuckled Harper.

Spooner glared at him as if he was imagining what it would feel like to plunge his sword deep into his chest.

"Don't get him riled up " warned Spencer in a low voice. "I'm uncomfortable enough as it is, having him awake, with a gun in his hand, while the rest of us are asleep."

"Don't be daft," replied the other man. "He wouldn't actually do anything."

"You sure of that? There's something wrong with him. He scares me, I don't mind admitting it. There's something in his eyes. Something, something not right."

"He's one of us," Harper reminded him. "He saved your life in Nassley, remember?"

"I remember the look on his face when he shot that Carrowmen. No-one should enjoy taking a man's life that much. Not even a soldier."

"Oh?" said Harper, his eyes widening in surprise. "Is this the same man who shouted 'Die, you Carrow filth!' when you stabbed that guy in the guts in Pollock?"

"That wasn't the same, and you know it. He likes killing. He gets off on it. And I've seen the way he looks at us. He'd enjoy killing us as much as killing Carrowmen."

"Now you're just being daft. He's one of us, you remember that. He'd probably give his life for you, just like any of the rest of us would, and if it came down to it you'd give your life for him too. Right?"

"Right," the other man grudgingly admitted. It was the unwritten Ranger code, after all. All for everyone. Save the life of the man at your side, and he'll do the same for you. Spooner might be mad, but he was a ranger. A brother. A comrade-in-arms. "Right," he repeated. "Let's go to bed."

☆☆☆

An hour later, Cotton got up to take Spooner's place. "All quiet," said Spooner as he holstered his pistol and moved towards the camp. "Nothing moving out there."

"Okay," replied Cotton. "See you in the morning." Spooner just grunted and Cotton drew his gun, staring out into the darkness. There was no moon and no stars. The only light came from the dying remains of the camp fire. Around the camp was total, impenetrable darkness. There was a light wind blowing through the branches of the trees below which they'd made their camp, and for a few minutes the sound of rustling leaves fought with the sounds of Spooner getting comfortable on his bedroll. Then, there was only the wind, just loud enough to drown out the soft breathing of the rangers.

Cotton settled down to wait. He wanted to make sure that Spooner was as deeply asleep as the others. He spent the time going over in his head the things he was going to do and the order he was going to do them in. He didn't waste any thought for what he would do after. The task he had to undertake would require all his attention, all his concentration. One mistake would lead to disaster, so he would focus his whole mind on not making any mistakes.

When his wristwatch told him that half an hour had passed he crept slowly back into the camp and carefully stoked the fire, doing it slowly so as not to make any noise. He added a few small branches. Thin twigs that would burn quickly, giving off enough light for him to see what he was doing and that were unlikely to pop or crackle. Sounds that might wake someone. After a few minutes the fire was blazing brightly, revealing the shapes of the sleeping rangers. A couple of them were turning in their blankets, brought fractionally back towards wakefulness by the brighter light and greater heat. Cotton watched them carefully for a few moments, but they didn't wake.

He holstered his gun and drew his knife. Ten inches of razor sharp steel that gleamed murderously in the light of the silent red flames. Cotton crept through the camp towards where Blane was sleeping, the most dangerous member of their little troup. He was lying on his side, his face resting on his arm, snoring gently. Cotton took a firmer grip on his knife, reached his other hand out towards the Sergeant's shoulder. He paused one moment longer. This would have to be done perfectly. Do it right, what his training instructors had called a quick kill, and the Sergeant would die quickly and silently. One mistake, though... Blane would only have to make one noise to wake the rest of the camp. Even if he died a moment later, Cotton would die soon after and his mission would have failed.

He had no way of knowing that the political need to harm the Princess had long since passed, and he wouldn't have cared if he had. He'd been placed in the Brigadier's command to carry out a mission, and unless he received official instructions from his superiors to call it off, he would carry it through. He took one last deep breath, therefore, and grabbed the Sergeants shoulder. He threw him into his back, moved his hand to clamp hard over his mouth, and stabbed down hard with the knife.

His execution was flawless. The Sergeant's eyes had time to open, but he was dead before they had time to register what he was seeing. Cotton paused, his hand still over the Sergeants mouth, waiting as the corpse shuddered one last time, then lay still. He gently removed his hand, allowing the man's last breath to softly leave his body, then froze, looking around the camp to see if the killing had awoken anyone.

They were still sleeping peacefully. Totally oblivious, patiently awaiting their own deaths. Cotton went to Harper next, the man he judged to be the next most dangerous. He didn't allow his first success to make him careless. He took just as much time, just as much care, killing Harper as he had with the Sergeant. Five minutes later there were two corpses lying around the camp fire, and five minutes later there were three as Spencer joined his comrades in the next world.

He thought about killing Spooner next. He knew the man was probably mad, but if anything that probably made him less dangerous as it made him careless and impetuous. He lacked the self control to make a really good killer. Save him for last, then. And Crane was a tracker not a fighter. Oh he could fight, he could hold his own in a battle beside his comrades-in-arms, but killing wasn't where his true talents lay. The wizard next, then. Take him out, and Cotton could easily take the last two even if they were fully awake and alert.

Quill was lying on his back, which would make it easier, but he hesitated before putting his hand over the wizard's mouth. Human wizards, unlike demons, needed skin contact to apply a curse. He knew that. What he didn't know was how long it would take. A demon's curse was quick, almost instantaneous. If the wizard was that quick, would he be able to curse Cotton even as the knife penetrated his heart, using the hand over his mouth as the skin contact?

He thought back to the blessing Quill had given Smith following the demon's attack. The wizard had had to take several moments to prepare himself for that, but a curse might be different. The wizard probably wouldn't care if the curse had unintended side effects on the victim, and It would need to be quick anyway to be of use in a battle. Cotton thought about it for a few moments longer, then wrapped his hand in a polishing rag.

It turned out his worrying had been for nothing. The wizard died just like the others, before he was even aware of what was happening to him. Cotton breathed a sigh of relief. The hardest part was over. Only two to go, and they were the least dangerous of the six. He allowed himself to relax a little in relief.

At that moment, though, a large branch in the fire popped with a shower of sparks. Crane stirred awake and looked up, bleary eyed. "Whassat?" he mumbled. Cotton froze in alarm, expecting the tracker to jump to his feet and attack him, but Crane just stared around the camp, seeing nothing apparently wrong. The others were still asleep in their bedrolls and there was Cotton, come to wake him for his turn on guard duty. "Just the fire," he muttered sleepily. Then he came awake more fully. "Why's it so bright?" he asked, sitting up.

"It was cold," said Cotton, holding the knife out of sight behind him. "Didn't want you catching your deaths so I thought I'd stoke it up a bit."

"It makes our camp more visible." He looked around to make sure they weren't surrounded by a gang of outlaws, slowly creeping closer. "Suppose it's safe enough way out here, though." He got to his feet. "Okay, I'll take over. Go get some sleep."

"Can you take over quietly?" said Spooner, turning over to face them. "People trying to sleep here."

"Sorry," whispered Crane, looking at the others to see of they'd been woken up too. They all seemed to be fast asleep, though. All lying on their backs, which was unusual, and Quill had his mouth open. There was something else about his face. Something glittering where his closed eyes should be, and the tracker couldn't resist the urge to lean over for a better look. Nearby, Cotton crept closer. This was a complication, but not a serious one. He just had to get close enough without arousing his suspicions...