He wondered whether he should slip away and tell the others. He couldn't really say he liked the woman much, not near enough to get his head broken for her. But if he left them to it, three against one, the chances were they'd have knocked her to pieces by the time he got back, however tough she was, and dragged her off to who knew where. He might never get out of this damn city then.

He started judging the distance, thinking about how best to go at them, weighing his chances, but he'd been too long doing nothing, and his mind moved slowly. He was still working on it when Ferro suddenly jumped on one of them, yelling at the top of her voice, knocking him on his back. She gave him a couple of vicious-looking punches in the face before the others caught hold of her and dragged her up.

'Shit,' hissed Logen. The three of them wrestled, lurching around in the lane, knocking against the walls, grunting and swearing, kicking and punching, a tangle of flailing limbs. It seemed that time had run out for a clever approach. Logen gritted his teeth and charged towards them.

The one on the floor had rolled to his feet, shaking the fuzz out of his head while the other two struggled to get a good grip on Ferro. Now he lifted his stick high, arching back, ready to smash her on the skull. Logen let go a roar. The masked face snapped round, surprised-looking.

'Huh?' Then Logen's shoulder crunched into his ribs, lifting him off his feet and sending him sprawling. Out of the corner of his eye he saw someone swing a stick at him, but he'd got them offguard and there was no real force behind it. He caught it across his arm then pressed in under it and smashed the man right in the mask with his fists, a full-blooded punch with each hand. He reeled back, arms flopping, already falling. Logen grabbed him by two fistfuls of his black coat, hauled him into the air and flung him upsidedown into the wall.

He bounced off with a gurgle and crumpled on the cobbles. Logen spun round, fists clenched, but the last one was lying on his face with Ferro on top of him, one knee jammed into his back, pulling his head up by the hair and smashing his face into the road, shouting meaningless curses all the while.

'What did you fucking do?' he shouted, grabbing her under the elbow and dragging her off.

She tore free of his grip and stood there panting, fists bunched up by her sides, blood leaking out of her nose. 'Nothing,' she snarled.

Logen took a cautious step back. 'Nothing? What's this then?'

She bit off each word in her ugly accent and spat them at him. 'I . . . don't . . . know.' She wiped her bloody mouth with one hand, then froze. Logen glanced over his shoulder. Three more masked men, running at them down the narrow lane.

'Shit.'

'Move, pink!' Ferro turned and started running and Logen followed her. What else could he do? He ran. The horrible, breathless running of the hunted, shoulders prickling for a blow in the back, sucking in air in gasps, the slapping footfalls of the men behind echoing around him.

High white buildings flashed past on either side, windows, doors, statues, gardens. People too, shouting as they dived out of the way or flattening themselves against the walls. He had no idea where they were, no idea where they were going. A man stepped out of a doorway right in front of him, a big sheaf of papers in his arms. They crashed together, tumbled to the ground, rolling over and over in the gutter with papers flapping down all around them.

He tried to get up but his legs were burning. He couldn't see! There was a piece of paper across his face. He tore it away, felt someone grab him under the arm and haul him along. 'Up, pink!

Move!' Ferro. She wasn't even out of breath. Logen's lungs were bursting as he struggled to keep up with her but she pulled steadily away, head down, feet flying.

She charged through an archway just ahead and Logen laboured after her, boots skidding as he turned the corner. A great shadowy space, timbers reaching up high above, like a strange forest of square beams. Where the hell were they? There was bright light just ahead, open air. He plunged out into it, blinking. Ferro was just beyond him, turning round slowly, breathing hard. They were in the middle of a circle of grass, a little circle.

He knew where they were now. The arena where he'd sat among the crowds, watching the sword-game. The empty benches stretched away all round. There were carpenters crawling amongst them, sawing and hammering. They'd already taken some of the benches to pieces near the back and the supports stuck up high into the air alone like giant rib bones. He put his hands on his wobbly knees and bent over, gasping for air, blowing spit out onto the ground.

'What . . . now?'

'This way.' Logen straightened up with an effort and wobbled after her, but she was already on her way back. 'Not that way!'

Logen saw them. Black masked figures, again. The one at the front was a woman, tall with a shock of red hair sprouting off her head. She padded towards the circle silently on the balls of her feet, waved her arm behind her, pointing the other two out to the sides, trying to get on the flanks, surround him. Logen cast about, looking for a weapon, but there was nothing just the empty benches and the high white walls beyond. Ferro was backing towards him, not ten feet away, and beyond her there were two more masks, creeping out around the enclosures with sticks in their hands. Five. Five altogether.

'Shit,' he said.

'What the hell is keeping them?' growled Bayaz, pacing the floor. Jezal had never seen the old man annoyed before, and for some reason it made him nervous. Whenever he came close, Jezal wanted to back away. 'I'm having a bath, damn it. Could be months before my next one. Months!' Bayaz stalked out of the room and slammed the bathroom door behind him, leaving Jezal alone with the apprentice.

They were probably close enough in age, but they had nothing else in common, so far as Jezal could see, and he stared with unconcealed contempt. A sickly, weaselly, puny, bookish sort. Sulking like that, moping around, it was pathetic. Rude, too. Damn rude. Jezal fumed silently. Just who did he think he was, the arrogant pup? What the hell did he have to be so upset about? It wasn't him who'd had his life stolen out from under him.

Still, if he had to be left alone with one of them, he supposed it could have been worse. It might have been the moron Northman with his fumbling, thick-tongued small-talk. Or that Gurkish witch, staring and staring with her devil-yellow eyes. He shuddered to think of it. People of quality, Bayaz had said. He would have laughed had he not been on the verge of tears.

Jezal cast himself down on the cushions in a high-backed chair, but he found scant comfort there. His friends were on their way to Angland now, and he missed them already. West, Kaspa, Jalenhorm. Even that bastard Brint. On their way to honour, on their way to fame. The campaign would be long finished by the time he returned from whatever pit the old madman was leading him to, if he returned at all. Who knew when the next war would be, the next chance at glory?

How he wished he was going to fight the Northmen. How he wished he was with Ardee. It seemed like an age since he was happy. His life was awful. Awful. He lay back listlessly in his chair, wondering if things could possibly be any worse.

'Gurgh,' growled Logen as a stick cracked into his arm, then another into his shoulder, one in his side. He stumbled back, half on his knees, fending them away as best as he could. He could hear Ferro screaming somewhere behind him, fury or pain he couldn't say, he was too busy taking a battering.

Something smacked across his skull, hard enough to send him reeling away towards the seats. He fell on his face and the front bench hit him in the chest, driving the air from his lungs. There was blood running down his scalp, on his hands, in his mouth. His eyes were watering from a blow to the nose, his knuckles were all skinned and bloody, near as ripped as his clothes were. He lay there, for a moment, gathering whatever strength was left. There was a thick length of timber lying on the ground behind the bench. He grabbed hold of the end of it. It was loose. He dragged it towards him. It felt good in his hand. Heavy.

He sucked in air, summoning one more effort. He moved his arms and legs a little, testing them. Nothing broken except his nose maybe, but it was hardly the first time. He heard footsteps coming up behind. Slow footsteps, taking their time.

He pushed himself up, slowly, trying to look as though he was in a daze. Then he let go a roar and spun round, swinging the timber over his head. It broke in half across the masked man's shoulder with a mighty crack, half of it flying up off the turf and clattering away. The man gave a muffled wail and sank down, eyes screwed shut, one hand clutching at his neck, the other hanging useless, stick dropping from his fingers. Logen hefted the short piece of wood left in his hands and clubbed him across the face with it. It snapped his head back and drove him into the turf, mask half torn off, blood bubbling out from underneath.

Logen's head exploded with light and he tottered and sagged down on to his knees. Someone had hit him in the back of the head. Hit him hard. He swayed there for a moment trying to stop himself falling on his face, then things came suddenly back into focus. The red-haired woman was standing over him, raising her stick high.

Logen shoved himself up, flailed into her, fumbled with her arm, half pulling at her, half leaning on her, ears ringing, the world swinging madly. They staggered around, tugging on the stick like two drunkards wrestling over a bottle, back and forth in the circle of grass. He felt her punching him in the side with her other hand. Hard punches, right in the ribs.

'Aargh,' he growled, but his head was clearing now, and she was half his weight. He twisted the arm with the stick around behind her back. She punched him again, a knock on the side of his face that brought the stars back for an instant, but then he got hold of her other wrist and pinned that arm as well. He bent her backwards over his knee.

She kicked and twisted, eyes screwed up to furious slits, but Logen had her fast. He freed his right hand from the tangle of limbs, brought his fist up high and mashed it into her stomach. She gave a breathy wheeze and went limp, eyes bulging. He flung her away and she crawled a foot or two, pulled her mask down and started coughing puke onto the grass.

Logen stumbled and swayed, shook his head, spitting blood and dirt out onto the grass. Aside from the retching woman, there were four black, crumpled shapes stretched out in the circle. One of them was grunting softly as Ferro kicked him over and over. She had blood all over her face, but she was smiling.

'I am still alive,' Logen muttered to himself, 'I am still ...' There were more of them coming through the archway. He swung around, almost falling over. More, four more, from the other side. They were trapped.

'Move, pink!' Ferro dashed past him and sprang up onto the first bench, then the second, then the third, springing between them with great strides. Madness. Where was she going to go from there? Red Hair had stopped puking, she was crawling towards her fallen stick. The others were closing in fast, more of them than ever. Ferro was already a quarter of the way back and showing no signs of slowing, bounding from one bench to the next, making the planks rattle.

'Shit.' Logen set off after her. After a dozen benches his legs were burning again. He gave up trying to spring between them and started scrambling however he could. As he flopped over the backs of the benches he could see the masked men behind following, watching, pointing and calling, spreading out through the seats.

He was slowing now. Each bench was a mountain. The nearest mask was only a few rows behind. He scrambled on, higher and higher, bloody hands clutching at the wood, bloody knees scraping across the benches, skull echoing with his own breath, skin prickling with sweat and fear. Air loomed suddenly empty before him. He stopped, gasping, arms waving, teetering on the edge of a dizzying drop.

He was close to the high roofs of the buildings behind, but most of the seating near the back had already been taken down, leaving the supports exposed single looming pillars, narrow beams between them, and a lot of high, empty space. He watched Ferro spring from one soaring upright to another, then run across a wobbling plank, heedless of the plunging space below. She jumped off onto a flat roof at the far end, high above him. It seemed a very long way away.

'Shit.' Logen teetered out across the nearest beam, arms stretched out wide for balance, feet moving in an old man's shuffle. His heart was banging like a smith's hammer on an anvil, his knees were weak and wobbling from the climb. He tried to ignore the scrambling and shouting of the men behind him and look only at the knotted surface of the beam, but he couldn't look down without seeing the spider's web of timbers below him, and the tiny flagstones of the square below them. Far below.

He lurched onto a stretch of walkway still intact, clattered up it to the far end. He hauled himself up onto a timber above his head, locked his legs around it and dragged himself along on his arse whispering 'I am still alive,' to himself, over and over. The nearest mask had made it to the walkway, was running along it towards him.

The beam ended at the top of one of the upright struts. A square of wood a foot or two across. Then there was nothing. Two strides of empty air. Then another square at the top of another dizzying mast, then the plank to the flat roof. Ferro stared at him from the parapet.

'Jump!' she screamed. 'Jump, you pink bastard!'

He jumped. He felt the wind around him. His left foot landed on the square of wood, but there was no stopping. His right foot hit the plank. His ankle twisted, his knee buckled. The dizzy world pitched. His left foot came down, half on the wood, half off. The plank rattled. He was in the empty air, limbs flailing. It seemed like a long time.

'Ooof!' The parapet crashed into his chest. His arms clawed with it but there was no breath left in him. He began to slide back, ever so slowly, inch by terrible inch. First he could see the roof, then he could see his hands, then he could see nothing but the stones in front of his face. 'Help,' he whispered, but no help came.

It was a long way down, he knew that. A long, long way, and there was no water to fall into this time. Only hard, flat, fatal stone. He heard a rattling. The mask coming across the plank behind him. He heard someone shouting, but none of it mattered much now. He slipped backwards a little further, hands scrabbling at the crumbling mortar. 'Help,' he croaked, but there was no one to help him. Only the masks and Ferro, and none of them seemed like the helping kind.

He heard a clunk and a despairing shriek. Ferro kicking the plank, and the mask falling. The scream fell away, it felt like for a long time, then it was cut off in a distant thud. The mask's body smashing to pulp against the ground, far below, and Logen knew he was about to join him. You have to be realistic about these things. There would be no washing up on a river bank this time. His fingertips were slipping, slowly, the mortar was starting to come apart. The fighting, the running, the climb, they had all sucked the strength out of him, and now there was nothing left. He wondered what sound he would make as he plunged through the air. 'Help,' he mouthed.

And strong fingers closed around his wrist. Dark, dirty fingers. He heard growling, felt his arm being pulled, hard. He groaned. The edge of the parapet came back into view. He saw Ferro now, teeth gritted, eyes squeezed almost shut with effort, veins standing out from her neck, scar livid against her dark face. He clutched at the parapet with his other hand, his chest came up beyond it, he managed to force his knee over.

She hauled him the rest of the way, and he rolled and flopped on his back on the other side, gasping like a landed fish, staring up at the white sky. 'I am still alive,' he muttered to himself after a moment, hardly able to believe it. It wouldn't have been too much of a surprise if Ferro had trodden on his hands and helped him fall.

Her face appeared above him, yellow eyes staring down, teeth bared in a snarl. 'You stupid, heavy pink bastard!'

She turned away, shaking her head, stalked to a wall and started climbing, hauling herself up fast towards a low-pitched roof above. Logen winced as he watched her. Did she never get tired? His arms were battered, bruised, scratched all over. His legs ached, his nose had started bleeding again. Everything hurt. He turned and looked down. One mask was staring at him from the edge of the benches, twenty strides away. A few more were scurrying around below, looking for some way up. Far below, in the yellow circle of grass, he could see a thin black figure with red hair, pointing around, then up at him, giving orders.

Sooner or later they would find a way up. Ferro was perched on the peak of the roof above him, a ragged dark shape against the bright sky. 'Stay there if you want,' she barked, then turned and disappeared. Logen groaned as he stood up, groaned as he shuffled to the wall, sighed as he began to search for a handhold.

'Where is everyone?' demanded Brother Longfoot. 'Where is my illustrious employer? Where is Master Ninefingers? Where is the charming lady, Maljinn?'

Jezal looked around. The sickly apprentice was sunk too deep in self-centred gloom to answer. 'I don't know about the other two, but Bayaz is in the bath.'

'I swear, I never came upon a man more attached to bathing than he. I hope the others will not be long. All is prepared, you know! The ship is ready. The stores are loaded. It is not my way to delay. Indeed it is not! We must catch the tide, or be stuck here until-' The little man paused, staring up at Jezal with a sudden concern. 'You seem upset, my young friend. Troubled, indeed. Can I, Brother Longfoot, be of any assistance?'

Jezal had half a mind to tell him to mind his own business, but he settled for an irritated, 'No, no.'

'I'd wager that there is a woman involved. Would I be right?' Jezal looked up sharply, wondering how the man could have guessed. 'Your wife, perhaps?'

'No! I'm not married! It's nothing like that. It's er, well,' he fumbled for the words to describe it, and failed. 'It's nothing like that is all!'

'Ah,' said the Navigator, with a knowing grin. 'Ah, a forbidden love then, a secret love is it?' Much to his annoyance, Jezal found that he was blushing. 'I am right, I see it! There is no fruit so sweet as the one you cannot taste, eh, my young friend? Eh? Eh?' He waggled his eyebrows in what Jezal felt was a most unsavoury fashion.

'I wonder what's keeping those two?' Jezal didn't care in the least, but anything to change the subject.

'Maljinn, and Ninefingers? Hah,' laughed Longfoot, leaning towards him. 'Perhaps they've become involved, eh, in a secret love like yours? Perhaps they've crept off somewhere, to do what comes naturally!' He nudged Jezal in the ribs. 'Can you imagine, those two? That'd be something wouldn't it? Hah!'

Jezal grimaced. The hideous Northman he already knew for an animal, and from what little he'd seen of that evil woman she might well be worse. All he could imagine coming naturally to them was violence. The idea was perfectly revolting. He felt soiled just thinking about it.

The roofs seemed to go on forever. Up one, down another. Creeping along the peaks, one slippery foot on either side, edging across ledges, stepping over crumbling bits of wall. Sometimes Logen would look up for a moment, get a dizzying view across the tumbling mass of damp slates, pitted tiles, ancient lead, to the distant wall of the Agriont, sometimes even the city far beyond. It might almost have been peaceful if it wasn't for Ferro, fast-moving, sure-footed, cursing at him and pulling him on, giving him no time to think about the view, or the nerve-wracking drops they skirted, or the black figures, surely still seeking for them below.

One of her sleeves had been torn half off some time in the fighting, flapping around her wrist, getting in the way as they climbed. She snarled and ripped it away at the shoulder. Logen smiled to himself as he recalled the efforts Bayaz had gone to in getting her to change her old stinking rags for new clothes. Now she was filthier than ever, shirt sweated through, spotted with blood and caked with grime from the rooftops. She looked over her shoulder and saw him watching her. 'Move, pink,' she hissed at him.

'You see no colours, right?' She clambered on, ignoring him, swinging around a smoking chimney and slithering across the dirty slates on her belly, sliding down onto a narrow ledge between two roofs. Logen scrambled down behind her. 'No colours at all.'

'So?' she threw over her shoulder.

'So why do you call me pink?'

She looked round. 'Are you pink?'

Logen peered at his forearms. Aside from the mottled bruises, red scratches, blue veins, they were sort of pink, it had to be said. He frowned.

'Thought so.' She scurried away between the roofs, right to the end of the building, and peered down. Logen followed her, leaned out gingerly over the edge. A couple of people were moving around in the lane below. Far below, and there was no way down. They'd have to go back the way they came. Ferro had already moved away behind him.

Wind flicked at the side of Logen's face. Ferro's foot slapped against the edge of the roof, and then she was in the air. His jaw hung open as he watched her fly away, back arched, arms and legs flailing. She landed on a flat roof, grey lead streaked with green moss, rolled once then came up smoothly to her feet.

Logen licked his lips, pointed at his chest. She nodded. The flat roof was ten feet below, but there might have been twenty feet of empty air between him and it, and it was a long way down. He backed away slowly, giving himself a good run-up. He sucked in a couple of deep breaths, closed his eyes for a moment.

It would be perfect, in a way, if he fell. No songs, no stories. Just a bloody smear on a road somewhere. He started running. His feet thumped on the stone. The air whistled in his mouth, plucked at his torn clothes. The flat roof came flying up towards him. He landed with a shuddering impact, rolled once just as Ferro had done, stood up beside her. He was still alive.

'Hah!' he shouted. 'What d'you think of that?'

There was a creaking sound, then a cracking, then the roof gave way under Logen's feet. He grabbed despairingly at Ferro as he fell and she slid through after him, helpless. He tumbled in the air for a sickening moment, wailing, hands clutching at nothing. He crashed down on his back.

Logen coughed on choking dust, shook his head, shifted painfully. He was in a room, inky dark after the brightness outside. Dust was filtering down through the light from the ragged hole in the roof above. There was something soft under him. A bed. It had half collapsed, leaning at an angle, blankets covered in broken plaster. There was something across his legs. Ferro. He snorted a gurgling laugh to himself. In bed with a woman again, at last. Unfortunately it wasn't quite what he'd been hoping for.

'Stupid fucking pink!' she snarled, scrabbling off him and over to the door, bits of wood and plaster sliding off her dusty back. She hauled on the doorknob. 'Locked! It's-' Logen crashed past her, ripping the door off its hinges and sprawling out into the corridor beyond.

Ferro sprang over him. 'Up, pink, up!' A handy-looking length of wood had split from the edge of the door, a couple of nails sticking out of the end. Logen snatched it up in his hand. He struggled to his feet, stumbled down the corridor a few paces, came to a junction. A shadowy hallway stretched away to either side. Small windows cast sharp pools of light on the dark matting.

No way to tell which way Ferro had gone. He turned right, towards a flight of stairs.

There was a figure moving carefully down the dim corridor towards him. Long and thin like a black spider in the darkness, balanced on the balls of its feet. A chink of light shone on bright red hair.

'You again,' said Logen, weighing the length of wood in his hand.

'That's right. Me.' There was a jingling sound, a flash of metal in the dark. Logen felt the piece of wood ripped out of his fingers and he saw it fly over the woman's shoulder and clatter away down the corridor. Unarmed again, but she didn't give him long to worry about it. There was something in her hand, something like a knife, and she threw it at him. He ducked out of the way and it hissed past his ear, then she jerked her other arm and something slashed him across the face, just under his eye. He lurched back against the wall, trying to understand what kind of magic he was facing.

It was like a metal cross, the thing in her hand, three curved blades, one with a hook on the end. A chain looped from a ring on the handle and disappeared up her sleeve.

The knife-thing darted out, missed Logen's face by an inch as he bobbed away, struck a shower of sparks as it ripped back along the wall and slapped smoothly back into her hand. She let it drop, swinging gently from its chain, rattling against the floor, jumping and dancing towards him as she edged forward. She jerked her wrist and the thing shot out at Logen again, slashed across his chest as he tried to get away, spattering drops of blood against the wall.

He dived at her but his outspread arms caught nothing. There was a rattle and he felt his foot dragged from under him, his ankle snapped round painfully, caught by the chain as she ducked by. He sprawled out on his face, started to push himself up. The chain snaked under his neck. He just got his hand behind it before it snapped taut. The woman was on top of him, he could feel her knee pressing into his back, could hear her breath hissing through her mask as she pulled, the chain growing tighter and tighter, cutting into the palm of his hand.

Logen grunted, scrabbling to his knees, lumbering unsteadily to his feet. The woman was still on his back, all her weight bearing down on him, pulling at the chain as hard as she could. Logen flailed around with his free hand but he couldn't get at her, couldn't throw her off she was like a barnacle stuck fast to him. He could hardly breathe now. He tottered forward a few steps, then dropped over backwards.

'Uurgh,' whispered the woman in his ear as his weight crushed her into the floor. The chain went slack enough for Logen to drag it clear and slither out from under it. Free. He rolled over and grabbed the woman's neck with his left hand, started squeezing. She kneed at him, dug at him with her fists, but his weight was across her and the blows were weak. They snarled and gasped and croaked at each other, animal sounds, faces only inches apart. A couple of spots of blood dripped from the cut on his cheek and pattered on her mask. Her hand came up and started fumbling with his face, pushing his head back. Her finger forced its way up his nose.

'Aargh!' he screamed. Pain stabbed up into his head. He let go of her and staggered up, one hand clasped to his face. She scrambled away, coughing, landed a kick in his ribs that bent him over, but he still had a grip on the chain and he yanked on it with all his weight. Her arm snapped out and she yelped and flew straight into him, his knee sinking into her side, crushing the breath out of her. Logen grabbed hold of the back of her shirt, half lifted her off the floor and flung her down the stairs.

She rolled and flopped and bounced her way down, slid to a stop on her side near the bottom. Logen was half-tempted to follow her down and finish the job, but he had no time. There'd be more where she came from. He turned and hobbled back the other way, cursing his twisted ankle.

Sounds crept up on him from all around, echoing down the corridor from who knew where. Distant rattling and banging, shouts and cries. He stared into darkness, limping, running with sweat, one hand on the wall to steady himself. He leaned round a corner, trying to see if it was clear. He felt something cold across his neck. A knife.

'Still alive?' whispered a voice in his ear. 'You don't die easy, eh, pink?' Ferro. He slowly pushed her arm away.

'Where d'you get the knife?' He wished he had one.

'He gave it me.' There was a crumpled shape in the shadows by the wall, the matting all round soaked with dark blood. 'This way.'

Ferro crept off down the corridor, keeping low in the darkness. He could still hear the sounds, beneath them, beside them, all around them. They crept down a flight of stairs, out into a dim hallway panelled with dark wood. Ferro ducked from shadow to shadow, moving fast. Logen could do no more than limp after her, dragging his leg, trying not to squeal with pain whenever he put his weight on it.

'There! It's them!' Figures in the dim corridor behind. He turned to run, but Ferro held her arm out. There were more, coming the other way. There was a big door on his left, standing open a crack.

'In here!' Logen shoved his way through and Ferro darted in after him. There was a heavy piece of furniture beside it, a big cupboard thing with shelves on top, covered in plates. Logen grabbed hold of one end and dragged it across in front of the doors, a couple of the plates dropping off and smashing on the floor. He pressed his back against it. That should hold them for a moment, at least.

A big room with a high vaulted ceiling. Two huge windows took up most of one wood-panelled wall, a big stone fireplace facing them. A long table stood between, ten chairs on either side, set for eating with cutlery and candlesticks. A big dining room, and there was only one way in. Or out.

Logen heard muffled shouting beyond the door. The big cupboard wobbled against his back. Another plate clattered from its shelf, bounced off his shoulder and smashed on the stone flags, scattering fragments across the floor.

'Nice fucking plan,' snarled Ferro. Logen's feet slid as he strained to hold the teetering cupboard up. She dashed over to the nearest window, fumbled at the metal frames round the little panes, prising with her fingernails, but there was no way out.