The archer listened and then replied in the same twisted speech. Finally he turned back to the colonel. ‘Yva is hungry,’ he said. ‘She has begged me to allow her to remain here, so that she may devour you at her leisure.’ He smiled again, inclining his head towards the sharkskin woman writhing on the ground. ‘Of course Yva is lying. She wants that Drowned woman and is too ashamed of her addiction to admit it.’

‘Who are you?’ Ida asked.

The bowman looked at her with utter disdain, as though the question was one that ought to have required no answer. ‘I am Argusto Conquillas,’ he said, ‘Lord of Herica and the Sumran Islands.’

‘I know who you are,’ the colonel said. ‘You’re a long way from Herica.’

Creedy grunted. ‘He’s Lord of shit now, a dragon fetishist and a Haurstaf toy.’

Conquillas shot him.

Creedy tried to turn away. He was fast, but not fast enough. The arrow tore through the air like a thunderbolt, crackling with black fire. It passed clean through the bridge of Creedy’s nose and then out of the right side of his skull behind his eye, before disappearing into the vaulted wall sixty yards behind with a sudden bang. Ida gaped at the spot where it had vanished. She could still hear a furious snapping sound receding into the distance as it continued on its path beyond that wall and through the foundations of the city itself.

In the heartbeat before Creedy howled and clutched at his face, Ida glimpsed a bloody mess where his right eye had been.

The colonel’s men reacted with uproar. Banks grabbed Creedy, who was screaming and worrying his head with bloody fingers. The crows yelled and lifted their hand-cannons. Wheellock dogs clicked back.

‘Hold your fire!’ the colonel shouted.

Conquillas was holding up a green glass bottle the size of his thumb. It had a small copper stopper wedged in its neck. An arrogant smirk formed on his lips. Behind him, the dragon leaned closer and purred deeply.