'At least you are alive,'said Grif. His fat cheeks were sagging with weariness; and when he moved, he favoured his right leg, laid open from knee to ankle in the death-struggles of his beautiful mare. 'Trinor could have killed any of the rest of us with ease. Except perhaps for Tomb.'

Of them all, the dwarf had suffered least: hung up there on his dented exoskeleton he seemed to have taken strength from the slaughter; his energy-axe flickered brightly, and his motor-assisted limbs moved as powerfully as ever. He chuckled morosely, gazing out across the valley.

'I would have done for him, all right. But to what point? Look there, Grif: that is our future -'

Out among 'the corpse-heaps, black, huge figures moved on a strange mission, a mechanical ritual a thousand years old. The geteit chemosit had lost interest in the fight. Their triplex eyes glittering and shifting as if unanchored to their skulls, they stalked from corpse to corpse. They performed their curious surgery on the lifeless heads – and robbed each Viriconese, like the dead smuggler in the Metal Salt 'Vtarsh – of his brain.

'They will come for us after the Northmen have finished,'said Cromis. 'What are they doing, Tomb?'

'They are beginning the destruction of an empire,'answered the dwarf. 'They will hack the brains out of the Stony City and eat them. They will take a power knife and a spoon to Viriconium. Nothing will stop them.

'Indeed, I wonder who are the actual masters of this battleground – it is often unwise to meddle with the artefacts of the Afternoon Cultures.'

'tegeus-Cromis should go at once to the tower of Cellur,'said the metal bird, but no one listened toit.

Theomeris Glyn, the old campaigner, sat some distance away from the rest of the Methven, hoping to reinvigorate his sword by stropping it on a dead man's boot.

'I think it is starting,'he called cheerfully. 'They have licked their privates for the last time down there, and gathered up their courage.'

With a wild yell, the Northerners threw themselves at the knoll, and it shook beneath the onslaught. A spearcast blackened the air, and when it had cleared, pikemen advanced unimpeded up the lower slopes, gutting the survivors and treading in their wounds.

Behind the pikers came a never-ending wave of swordsmen, and axe-men, and berserk metal-prospectors from the north-most reaches of the Waste, wielding queer weapons dug from pits in the ground. The shattered, pathetic remnant of Water-beck's expeditionary force fell back before them, and were overcome, and died. They hit the summit of the hill like some kind of earthquake, and they split the Methven, so that each one fought alone – Tomb the dwarf sniggered and swung his greedy axe. He towered above them, and they ran like rats around his silver-steel legs -Birkin Grif cursed. His sword was shattered at the hilt, so he broke a Northrnan's neck and stole another. He called to his smugglers, but all that brave and dirty crew were dead -Old Glyn lunged. 'You've never seen this one before,'he cackled, as he put his hidden knife in, 'eh?'His opponent was astonished -Cromis ducked and rolled like a fairground acrobat. The metal vulture was above him, the nameless sword was everywhere -They came together, and made their stand.

'Methven!'cried Cromis, and they answered him 'Methyen!'

Something in the grey air caught his eye, a movement beneath the cloudhase. But a blade nicked his collar-bone, and death demanded his attention. He gave it fully. When he next looked up, there were seven airboats in the sky where there had been four, and three of them bore the arms of Methvet Nian, Queen Jane of Viriconium. 'Grif! Up there!'

'If they are couriers,'said Grif, 'They come a little late.'

The crystal launches clashed with a sound like immense bells. As Cromis watched, the Northern squadron-commander closed to rain: but the sky exploded suddenly around his ship, and burned, dripping cold fire; and, tail-first and crippled, it dropped out of the sky. Faint violet bolts chased it down.

'There's a cannon aboard one of those ships,'said Tomb the dwarf wonderingly. 'It is the Queen's own flight.'

Confused by this sudden renaissance in the air, the Northmen drew back from their prey and craned their necks. The dying airboat ploughed through them and blew up, scattering limbs and bits of armour. Howling with rage, they renewed their attack, and the Methven on the hill were hard put to it.

Up above, one of the Viriconese boats left its sister-ships to a holding action against the remaining three northern craft, and began to cruise up and down the valley. But the Methven were unaware of this until its huge shadow passed over them, hesitated, and returned. Tomb crow ed. He tore off Cromis'tattered black cloak with a huge steel hand and waved it about above his head. The airboat descended, yawing.

Ten feet above the top of the hill, it swung rapidly on its own axis, and fell like a stone. The energy cannon under its prow pulsed and spat. A hatch opened in its side. Its motors sang.

It was a difficult retreat. The Northmen pressed in, determined to claim what was due to them. Tomb 'took a blow from a mace behind the knees of his exoskeleton: a servo failed, and he staggered drunkenly, flailing about him.

Cromis found himself some yards away from the open hatch, the old campaigner at his side. They fought silently for a minute.

Then Theomeris Glyn put his back squarely against a pile of corpses and showed the Northmen his teeth. 'I don't think I'll come, Cromis,'he said. 'You'll need some cover.'He sniffed. 'I don't like flying machines anyway.'

'Don't be silly,'said Cromis. He touched the old man's arm, to show his gratitude. 'We'll make it.'

But Glyn drew himself up. His age sloughed away from him. He had lost his helmet, and blood from a gash in his head had clotted in his beard; his padded doublet was in ruins, but the pride in his face shone out clear.

'tegeus-Cromis,'he said, 'you forget yourself. Age has its privileges, and one of them is to die. You will do me the honour of allowing me to do that in my own way. Get into the ship and I will cover your back. Go. Goodbye.'

He met Cromis'eyes.

'I'll gut a few of them, eh?'he said. 'Just a few more. Take care.'

And Theomeris Glyn, a lord of the Methven despite his years, turned to face his enemies. The last Cromis ever saw of him was a whirling rearguard of steel, a web such as he had been used to spin when the old king ruled, and his blood was young.

Trembling violently, blinded by the old man's courage, Cromis stumbled through the hatch. The metal bird rocketed in after him. It was still screaming its useless message of warning: he suspected that its mechanisms had been damaged somehow during the fight. He slammed the hatch shut. Outside, the Northmen were beating their weapons on the hull, searching for another entrance, grunting like frustrated animals.

The ship lurched, spun, hung five or ten feet off the ground. In the green, undersea gloaming of its command-bridge, lights moved like dust-motes in a ray of alien sun. Navigation instruments murmured and sang. 'I'm having some trouble here,'said the pilot, conversationally. 'Still, not to worry.'He was a rakish young man, his hair caught back with a pewter fillet in the fashion of the Courier Corps.

Birkin Grif lay on the vibrating crystal deck, his face white and drained. Bent over his injured leg, a woman in a hooded purple cloak was attempting to staunch the bleeding. He was saying weakly, 'My lady, you were a fool to come here -'

She shook her head. Russet hair escaped her hood. Her cloak was fastened at the neck with a copper clasp formed to represent mating dragonfles. Looking at her, Cromis experienced a terrible premonition.