Poison, poison!

Don t touch the fucking food!

Spit it up, man. Spit it the fuck up!

And then the new cry, the new terror. Possessed, possessed! The Dark Court has him. Hoiran comes! Don t let him touch you, he ll break the chains like a

Hoiran! Hoiran! Abase yourselves, it is

Hoiran walks!

Back, get back

The march-masters arrived. Gerin was barely aware of them, vision torn back and forth in splinters as his neck spasmed front and side, front and side, front and side. The spittle was gathering in his throat he coughed and spat desperately, felt it start to foam and blow on his lips. A dimly seen form stooped across him, a fist clobbered inaccurately down. The blow glanced off the side of his head. His spine arched, and he made deep snarling noises at the base of his throat. A second march-master joined the first.

Not like that, you fucking twat. Get a grip on his

Yeah, you fucking try to

Just hold him still, will you!

Someone got fully astride Gerin, tried to pin him down by the arms. He thought he recognized the march-master s face from days earlier hair grizzled and receding beneath a knitted wool cap, brow creased, and eyes worried. Another younger, angrier face loomed behind him and to the side. Deep in the fit and foaming, Gerin glimpsed the second man raising a fist wrapped in metallic knuckle-duster gleam. Saw the way he angled carefully for the punch. This one would break his face for sure.

Something thin and glinting whipped loosely upward in the night air, dropped down again over the younger man s head Gerin knew it for a length of chain. He dropped his Strov-practiced spasming like a peeled cloak, hinged furiously up against the grip on his arms, nuzzled into the older march-master s neck like a lover.

He bit deep and hung on.

The march-master yelped and tried to smack him away. The younger man s steel-loaded punch misfired, hit his struggling companion in the shoulder.