At 4 pm on the twentieth, the preliminaries began. The smartroof polarised to winter dusk, belying the bright heat outside. Blazing scarlet and iridescent blue ran across the membrane-hung arena walls while music pounded, the high notes keening, the ba.s.s track deep and visceral as a pounding heart.

On the promenade, women as well as men moved among the faux concrete shards, the fake urban landscape whose graffiti glittered beneath ultraviolet. These people were the extras, bit players in the drama to follow; but for some of them, this evening would be mortal drama, life-changing or life-ending, because they were semi-pros and skilled with blades, most wearing only half armour; and they would skirmish against each other or even against the Blades or Bloods, provided they issued challenge within the rules, at the locations and times when the team fighters were obliged to respond, or face their comrades from their own side.

In this sport, being cut from the team took on a new and literal meaning.

Josh's phone showed near-live views from the separate changing areas for Blades and Bloods, the warm-up routines of the fighters, the priests giving blessings. And then the preliminaries began.

From the window he watched in reality, while casting glances at the five-second-delayed pictures in his phone, as a female Blade stalked into the outer arena the transformed promenade and saluted the glittering entrance to the inner arena, the theatre whose imminent production was an affair of sweat and whipping limbs and the sweet slick spurt of blood. Then she yelled out to the female extras.

"Which one of you needs a piece of me?"

There were fists pumped in reply and some swallowing but one young woman, lightly armoured, leaped out from the rest, ripping out her knife as she screamed "Challenge accepted!" and then they were into it. Blades flashing, they spun and closed distance, each making good use of the free hand for slapping escrima blocks, nicks on skin marked in red, then the Blade shin-kicked her opponent's inner thigh, slammed right wrist against right wrist, and reverse-hooked her blade point, stabbing shoulder muscle first, then the rubber-protected throat, hitting the carotid artery without penetration.

The challenger dropped. Across the land, pubs would be filled with cheers.

First casualty.

"This is awful," whispered Suzanne.

"I know." He touched her pale milk-chocolate cheek. "It's because we're waiting, not moving."

She shook her head, because there was more to it than that, and they both knew it.

Over the next hour, first Blades and then Bloods ventured among the non-team fighters, issuing or responding to challenges. One of the semi-pros took out two Bloods and a Blade, scoring with acc.u.mulated minor cuts. In return, he received a crimson waist sash, while medics escorted him to the Bloods' changing area for patch-up, because he had just gained a place on the team.

But that was a reward for competence more than spectacular fighting. Other combat took place among the rubberised concrete slabs, group confrontations that swirled across the artificial landscape, the fighters squinting against the pulsing red-blue lights, music reaching crescendo at the height of action. Some of the fights bordered on the acrobatic, including one high-jumping fighter who kicked against a slab to reverse direction while airborne, spinning behind his opponent to deliver a downward diagonal slash, scoring full victory.

Then, at 5pm, the first Blade-against-Blood one-onone confrontation began.

Reilly was the Blood's name: a whipcord-thin fighter who in training had shown blinding speed such as Josh had never witnessed. And it wasn't just the explosiveness from static posture; his ability to switch and even reverse directions was unparalleled. He was longlimbed, preferring to dominate from the outside range, edge rather than point, taking out his opponent's arms and legs before closing for the final strike, the unnecessary but dramatic coup to complete his victory.

The Blade was called Richler, heavily muscled and powerful, fast but not tricky, preferring to slam aside his opponent's arms and thrust hard to the body, sometimes smashing his fist into the other guy's face, before hammering back with the hilt, then slamming the point home to win.

At first the fight was Reilly's, as he curved around Richler, keeping the distance, drawing blood from Richler's forearms but only the outer muscles, not the vulnerable inner flesh. Then Richler powered in "Kick," said Josh.

and slammed his heel into Reilly's hip, knocking him back and folding him, then Richler's hand thundered down as if with a mace, hilt to skull, and Reilly was already unconscious when Richler kneed him in the face, followed his falling body to ground, and knelt on him while forcing his point under the chin, holding back from ramming it in, because he had already won.

Suzanne wiped a layer of moisture from her face, sweat that ran like tears.

Medics wrapped bandages around the victor's arms, while others carried Reilly away on a stretcher, stumbling fast, rarely a good sign.

Two more Blood-on-Blade fights followed, the first conservative and boring for distant spectators, though probably not for the fighters themselves who risked death right here and now, in the moment. The second was chaotic, a dance of abandon, with a spectacular in the moment. The second was chaotic, a dance of abandon, with a spectacular hamstring cut from a downed fighter who had looked to be beaten, followed by a stab to the Achilles tendon as he rose and performed a blistering hand and blade combination, chaining sequences together propeller-fast, overwhelming his crippled opponent and cutting him down.

The p.r.o.ne man died, blood gushing from a severed femoral artery, before the medics got to him. Josh continued to watch from the window; in the bathroom, Suzanne was throwing up.

At a slower pace, the next confrontation was among the semi-pros, a three-against-four duel, decided on points, the fighters finishing soaked in blood but all from surface wounds, including a slashed face: capillaries and smaller arterioles spilling blood but not at pressure.

Three more one-on-ones, and the last was Bloodagainst-Blade once more.

"Time for us to move," said Josh.

The corridors were deserted, making it easy for Tony to override the surveillance from afar. They went down fast, Josh's chest filled with the hot emptiness that always replaced his heart at moments like this, the void before action; and then they were at the doorway on ground level, ready to go through.

"Clear to go," sounded in his earbead. "And give 'em h.e.l.l."

He inhaled from his diaphragm, then tightened to exhale as he sank his body weight an inch, centring himself. Then, straight-backed as a samurai, he stepped through.

Three guards turned to look at him, hands reaching for the firearms on their hips.

As they did so, Suzanne slipped from behind him, smiled at the men and spoke a series of confusing words inaudible to Josh, his ears filling with the surf-like rush of blood that accompanies combat stress then three pairs of eyelids fluttered, Suzanne pa.s.sed her fingertips downwards, and three chins tipped forward onto chests.

Slowly, they slumped to the ground and curled sideways, eyes closed and deep in slumber. Then Suzanne looked at Josh and smiled.

Oh, my G.o.d.

Phase one complete.

Josh walked out onto the promenade. A football player on the turf at Wembley must feel like this; but the walls, hung with sheets of membrane rippling with patterns, replaced the live thousands; while it was music, not cheering, that deafened. As he advanced he pulled up his sleeves, revealing unprotected forearms: a provocation. Several fighters turned, eyes narrowing.

A Blade and a Blood were facing off against each other, preparing to fight. If Suzanne had taught him anything, it was the power inherent in unexpectedness, interrupting automatic behaviour to spin minds into confusion.

This is it.

Off to one side, someone called a warning. "There's a renegade!"

I'm worse than that.

He drew closer to the pair.

You just don't know it yet.

Drawing his blade, he said, "I challenge."

The crouching fighters paused.

"Which of us?" asked the Blood.

"Both of you."

Unlike the semi-pro extras, all of their training for months had been geared toward one-on-one confrontation with varying degrees of armour. Now he was going to take them into new territory. It was his only tangible advantage.

Sophie, my sweet girl.

She was his intangible strength, his sorrow and rage and love combining to produce determination beyond mission focus, beyond military discipline: the purity of Zen with purpose.

Then he was into the fight.

He whipped a low kick across the Blood's leading knee, driving him back, and continued the spin like a discus thrower, releasing now! and his knife flew at the Blade's face, straight for the eyes, and as the man reacted Josh used a sprint step forward to launch the jump, through the knife defence and bringing up his thigh, power in the hip and his knee ramming into laryngeal tissue, a flying knee-strike to the throat; and then the fighter dropped, still living only because of the protective gear. But there was another fighter behind Josh move fast and he shoulder-rolled straight over the downed Blade and came up on his feet, spinning to face the pursuing Blood, his own right hand held high.

In it shone the knife he had stripped from the fallen man.

Now, you start to realise.

He cut twice, fast and downward, and the Blood was on the ground, eyes open and unable to move as Josh's knee dropped, a crack as the sternum broke, then he hammerfisted hilt into temple and the Blood was out of it.

"Who's next?"

"I challenge," called a Blade.

Beyond him, two other fights were in progress the show must go on with a Blood against a semi-pro, and a two-on-two between semi-pros only. The music grew louder, and Josh wondered whether any of the viewers were watching him yet, or if all the webcast camera angles were on the official fights. Time to steal the attention.

He broke into a run, then dodged behind a near-upright rubberised slab, hooking his left behind a support and running up it, parkour-style, before rolling over the top and dropping. The Blade, realising the danger, spun as Josh closed on him from behind; but Josh used a backfist to knock the left arm, and hooked a cut inside, tearing the left biceps, then he elbowed the ribs and twisted back up, corkscrewed his body to stab beneath the chin then disengage, whipping sideways and out of range.

The Blade's face was red with blood from beneath his chin, but he came for Josh regardless, whipping figureeights through the air, as Josh dodged sideways, then went low.

To the j.a.panese this would be a sutemi-waza sutemi-waza, a sacrifice technique designed to win or die. It was a variant of kata-ashi-dori kata-ashi-dori, known in the West as a single-leg takedown; but Josh came from the side, rolling down the shin he had hold of, spinning the man down, continuing to roll across the fallen man's body, and stabbed downwards once before twisting away and staggering to his feet.

That had been a hard one.

"Behind you 7 o'clock high."

Without Tony's warning he would have died, but instead he spun, a high arcing kick hooking to the rear, heel across the b.a.s.t.a.r.d's face he was aiming for the temple but he followed with a left hook, collapsing to a downward elbow strike, then reversing the spin with a diagonal slashing uppercut and then to the other side, an X drawn with upward strokes, and blood spurted from beneath the fighter's arms, his hips giving way, dropping onto both knees, cracking them on the flagstones.

The final blow was an uppercut punch that Josh powered upward from the ground, smacking the guy straight back. Beyond him, all along the promenade, the other fighters Bloods, Blades, and semi-pros alike stood frozen, their other fights forgotten, the focus only on Josh.

I've got the limelight now.

Phase two accomplished.

Then phase three became insane.

First up was a Blood but affiliations were irrelevant now, and so were surprise tactics, as Josh blitzed forward with forehand and backhand cuts, his left hand creating a dance of independent movement, parrying and distracting, like the chi sao with Suzanne taken to another dimension: desperate to keep the other's blade from him, feeling a momentary sting, then he powered a right roundhouse kick to the thigh, stabbed down into the leg while his left arm was a shield, then he whipped the blade left-right and pushed the falling man aside.

Faster now.

These were pros, drilled to fight in certain ways, proven in sport, but his style used different angles and distancing; and they were fighting for money and perhaps the love of combat, while he was defending Sophie and the world, and that made all the difference.

He dodged left-right-left moving forwards, swept a Blade's forearm to deliver a lunging thrust with everything behind it, and then the Blade was down, wounded or a corpse, and he was onto the next challenge.

Faster still.

A blitzkrieg, two at once, and he elbowed one into the other, tangling them both, kicking down to shatter a knee, punching the side of a neck, stab-parry-stab and he was free of them.

Yes, like that.

Both arms up to defend, and he dropped into a bouncing squat, skewering the next man's foot with his blade, then leaping clear, because he was not here to score a contest victory on every fighter: he was here to plough through them while staying alive.

A group of semi-pros was rushing him and he did the only thing he could, surrounded as he was by obstacles and no time to get behind them: he plunged into the centre of the attackers, irimi irimi his strategy, deep in the heart of the whirlwind, and then he had a knife in each hand one of the men no longer had need of a weapon, and never would and he became a blaze of movement, twin blades cutting in all directions, and then he was through the bloodied group and out the other side. his strategy, deep in the heart of the whirlwind, and then he had a knife in each hand one of the men no longer had need of a weapon, and never would and he became a blaze of movement, twin blades cutting in all directions, and then he was through the bloodied group and out the other side.

None looked about to pursue him.

Good.

But there were plenty still ahead.

Keep going.

Next was the deadliest enemy: two men approaching on different diagonals, keeping the angle when he shifted sideways. They were coordinated and watchful, a greater threat than a mob-handed group, advancing at a pace to suit them. Facing them was dangerous, so he decided not to.

He turned and ran...

There.

...as far as the nearest tall slab, where he leaped high, left hand in an ice-pick grip, slamming the blade into the rubber, the knife forming a piton, hauling himself up, then throwing himself away from the slab, over the head of one of the incoming fighters, and he kicked downward before dropping, arms like cobras hugging the guy's waist, rolling him to the ground Josh's blade was point up beneath the liver as they went over and then Josh was standing, his right hand slick with blood, his blade glistening a metallic red.

His left hand was empty the other knife was still in the slab, high up so he took the downed man's weapon. Now he had two blades against the other fighter's one, and whether that was sporting he no longer cared, as he fell on the guy with criss-crossing attacks chained seamlessly, leaving no openings as he cut the right arm open, then sliced the face.

For a moment, the guy staggered back and looked about to quit; then he swung toward Josh Oh, for G.o.d's sake.

who stamped down hard enough to shatter the instep, smacked a headb.u.t.t into the guy's face, then whipped him over in a good old-fashioned hip-throw, because he could.

The double downward stab was unnecessary. He did it anyway.

Then a muscular man, one of the Blades whose name Josh actually knew Foster, known as Mad Mick and one of Fireman Carlsen's proteges stepped in front of him, and brought matters back to a formal footing, as though this were still a normal Knifefighter Challenge, and the Knife Edge Knife Edge finale. finale.

"I issue challenge."

Josh really did not want to face this one.

"Accepted."

Everyone else fell back because they knew Foster's reputation, and his other name was Wall of Death because the air around him came alive with danger, every limb a weapon, not just the blade. At least one fighter had gone down when Mad Mick bit in hard, tore away a chunk of the guy's carotid artery, then spat it out and grinned.