‘Easy, that’s it.’

The troll remained quiescent, only small amounts of soil spilling from its outer form, making no attempt to reveal the glowing spirit within. Perhaps it understood the effect it was having.

‘All right, stay like that. Good boy.’

He rubbed Kolr’s nose once more, then stopped. The spear – Heithrún’s gift to him –was shining at its point. The embedded rune, normally invisible or close to it, was glowing scarlet, as it had once before.

Perhaps it’s not just for killing trolls.

So he unslung the spear, walked close to the troll – ‘Stay back, Brandr’ – and planted the haft on the ground.

‘Do we hunt Stígr?’

More soil spilled from the troll-form.

<<Distance we slay.>>

<<One-Eye is there.>>

<<Tunnel to death.>>

<<Brother must die.>>

Ulfr had no brother. Trolls had no ability to speak clearly. But that did not matter so long as it could help him kill Stígr.

‘Which way do we go?’

And why were they wasting time instead of galloping after the bastard?

<<Come.>>

<<Come.>>

<<Come.>>

<<Come.>>

All of the Middle World began to rotate, in all directions at once.

Sorcery!

It curved, as the darkness surrounding Stígr curved, and yet this was different, as blueness sparked and hissed all around, and he knew he was not alone as reality revolved again and spilled him out onto ordinary ground.

Revealed in its true form, the troll-spirit hung beside him, a glowing tracery of scarlet lines, bright even in the sunshine.

Sunshine?

Ozone was in the air, and he was standing on a grassy promontory amid gleaming buttercups, while reflections like steel blades glinted off the crashing waves of the sea. In the distance, a stone building rose, taller than any man-made thing Ulfr had ever seen.

Neither Kolr nor Brandr were here.

Stígr?

From somewhere, he could hear the sound of nine dread notes.

Good.

The troll had carried him far from home, but his enemy was near; and that was all he needed.

FORTY

MOLSIN, 2603 AD

Tannier raised his hands like a witch-doctor calling down the thunder. He stared at Roger, focusing; and as he did so, a myriad tiny nozzles on the quickglass walls shifted to aim at Roger.

The three Zajinets, newly revealed in their hiding place, gleamed but did not move or communicate. Were they scared of the darkness they felt approaching?

‘What are you?’ Tannier’s face was blanching. ‘I don’t know your species.’

But he was staring at Roger, not the Zajinets. And he was controlling the surrounding inbuilt weapon systems currently focused this way.

‘It’s me,’ said Roger. ‘I’m no alien.’

Tannier shook his head, as if trying to shut out noise.

He thinks I’m an enemy.

‘Tannier, I’m your fr—’

Golden fire spat, coruscating across the quickglass walls. Then Rhianna flowed past Roger, whipping the heel of her palm against the side of Tannier’s jaw – he had not seen her approach – and the knockout was immediate. He did not fall, but his brain had short-circuited – out on his feet – and that gave Rhianna the opportunity to take hold of his head between both hands and say: ‘Relax.’

Already out of it, his mind dropped into a type of trance, as Rhianna continued, soft-voiced, to tell him to soften his muscles and let go.

‘And when you awaken you’ll see and hear everything that’s around you so do it now!’

She snapped her fingers.

‘What did you–?’ Tannier turned fast, locking his gaze on Roger. ‘Shit, you wouldn’t believe what I just saw.’

‘I bet I would,’ said Roger. ‘Keep sharp, because that bitch Helsen can mess with anybody’s mind.’

But the walls were melting open at two points in the room, some sixty degrees apart, seen from his position near the centre.

Rhianna’s gown had become jumpsuit and cloak. She whipped up the cloak as a white collimated beam of smartions tore at her, smashing apart on the shield her cloak had formed. Tannier gestured, causing a smartmiasma to propel itself from the walls and ripple through the air, heading for the man who had fired on them.

Which meant the other attacker had to be—

Helsen.

The nearest Zajinet was writhing and flaring, while the other two floated back, distancing themselves. Roger raised his fist, tu-ring pulsing.

Now.

Helsen’s face was a snarling mask surrounded by twisting darkness, and she was clearly about to attack but he had no idea how. A pre-emptive strike was his only chance.

His ringware attacked on two fronts, launching subversive infiltration against every piece of smart-tech Helsen wore, carried on her person or held inside her body, while direct control of D-2’s quickglass caused the walls to spit out a cloud of smartatomic needles. On a timescale of femtoseconds Helsen was fighting back; but the floor rose up around her, swirling, because Roger had intuitive, cerebellum-mediated control of the quickglass itself: he could move it as if it were his body.

Even that might not have been enough, were it not for the shrieks of public alarms, and Tannier’s grin. Whatever comms interference Helsen and Ranulph had put in place, Tannier had bypassed it. Perhaps they had failed to realize he was senior law enforcement with appropriate authorization; or perhaps they had counted on the mind-altering trance to keep him out of the fight.

Darkness whirled around Helsen. And something more, involving sparks of sapphire blue.

No.

Roger glanced back at the Zajinet, now thrashing against invisible bonds.

‘Stop her!’ he shouted to the other two Zajinets. ‘Don’t let her leave!’

They might not emit sound, but they could either hear it or process the neural patterns involved in speech production. Blue light ran along their quivering forms.

You think you can teleport away?

‘Fuck you, Helsen.’

He pulled away his smartlenses and let his inductive energies rip, tearing across the room. When his vision returned, smoke billowed from the place where Helsen had stood, but there was no stench of burning meat.

Shit.

She was gone but – he spun to check – the scarlet Zajinet remained, dimmed yet pulsing, free of whatever bonds had trapped it. Perhaps Helsen had tapped the Zajinet’s ability to transport itself along the realspace hyperdimensions, using it to teleport herself away from here; but she had failed to kill it.

Or she didn’t want it dead.

Rhianna and Tannier were fighting smartmiasmas that appeared to be closing in, both of them too busy to see Greg Ranulph stalking closer, ready to attack with primal violence while they focused on the high-tech battle. Ranulph’s teeth showed, lips pulling back as he neared his targets.

‘Ek em Ulfr-inn,’ said Roger.

And felt the blood-rage upon him.

When he snapped out of it, the world pulsed away then back, regaining focus as his arms and shoulders shook. At his feet lay seven unconscious men in dark-blue body armour – where had they come from? – while behind him, bloodied meat streaked the floor. Ranulph’s head was off to one side, tongue lolling and torn arteries leaking the last of its blood, its eyes swollen in death-fear, separated from the butchered torso and limbs.

Rhianna and Tannier looked ashen. Some two dozen armoured officers crouched near the walls, visors hiding their features, gauntlets raised to propel smartmiasmas at him.

‘I’m … all right,’ he said.

Quickglass and gore dripped from his hands. He did not remember security officers arriving. He did not remember death and blood.