Mallory curses. 'We need to get everyone indoors. Man the defences-'

'Already done.' Decebalus nods towards Caitlin in the garden below as they march to the stairs. 'You are concerned about her?'

'It's just difficult to get used to the new Caitlin. There was always something gentle about her. A healer, not a fighter.'

'Gentle she remains, deep inside. But she is so much more now. So many people in one small body.'

'Five personalities. It's not the human ones I'm concerned about – Caitlin herself, Amy, Briony, even that old crone Brigid with her doom-mongering and predictions.'

'It is the Morrigan.' Decebalus nods. 'A human possessed by a god. What good can come of it?'

'Not just any god. The Morrigan is terrifying. Blood and death-'

'And sex and life,' Decebalus interrupts with a wink.

'No. I love her dearly, but not like that. She's a friend.'

As they hurry along the cloisters where beams of sunlight and deep shadow form a complex interplay, they pass Brothers and Sisters of Dragons hurrying towards the rooftop defences, an Army of Existence brought to the Far Lands from their own long-gone times. To a person, they look to Mallory with hope and respect as he passes.

'The Brothers and Sisters of Dragons are ready for the fight ahead,' Decebalus observes.

'They shouldn't be. They don't stand a chance.'

'Do not let them hear you say that,' Decebalus cautions sternly.

'I'm not stupid. But I'm really not comfortable sending them all to their deaths.'

'This is their sole reason for existing. More than two thousand years of history… the shaping of the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons… it has all been leading to this point. Live or die, this is what they were made to do. It is their destiny.'

'I don't believe in destiny.'

'You are a strange and troubling little man. You do not believe in anything. I am a poor, uneducated barbarian, yet even I have learned to understand the thing you call "reason".'