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essentially the same. The wood of the wagon cracked and burned as the God’s Razor ripped through it.
    “Jahn, get down!” Saimura gripped the hem of his cassock and jerked desperately, but John remained where he stood.
    Tremors of fear shook John’s hands as he reached out to block the advance of the God’s Razor. The Gray Space bit into his palms and that sick, familiar pain flickered through him, but it felt like nothing compared to the rush of fury that surged through John at the contact. He burned with rage and the single desire to destroy the God’s Razor. He clenched his fingers down, crushing the thin expanse of the Gray Space closed. The length of the God’s Razor trembled and then collapsed.
    John slumped against the wagon. Exhaustion played through his muscles in tremors and sweat soaked his cassock. His hands felt as if they were on fire. He didn’t want to look down at them and see how deeply they had been cut. Still, he forced himself to take in the extent of his injury. The gashes in his palms were deep but not the worst he’d endured.
    “How did you do that?” Saimura stared up at him from the ground. Sheb’yu slowly lifted her head.
    “He broke the God’s Razor,” Saimura told her.
    “Can he do it again?” Sheb’yu stared past both Saimura and John to the city wall. John followed her gaze. The ushiri’im and ushman’im once again raised their hands and ripped open the Gray Space. This time the sound rang out like a monstrous howl. The flames shot feet into the air. John’s stomach flipped with sickness and he felt the blood draining from his face.
    “You both need to run,” John said. “Now!”
    Neither Saimura nor Sheb’yu argued. They bolted from the cover of the wagon and raced for the woods beyond the blood market. City guards let arrows fly after them but the arrows burst into dust the moment they struck the God’s Razor. All around, wounded and terrified survivors followed Saimura’s and Sheb’yu’s example. They ran, not for the security of the city wall, but away from it.
    Behind them, the God’s Razor descended with terrible speed. John didn’t wait for it to reach him. He concentrated on the searing line it cut across the sky. He focused on the air around the God’s Razor, willing it to withstand the advance of the cutting edge. Suddenly a wind rushed up. The air seemed to thicken in John’s lungs. The God’s Razor slowed—sparks and flames skipping along its length. John’s skin felt hot, as if the fire were burning around him. Pain throbbed through his hands.
    He felt the ushiri’im and ushman’im pushing the God’s Razor against him and once again anger flared through his chest.
    He would not allow them to win this.
    Massive geysers of flame shot up along the gaping edges of the exposed Gray Space. Scorching sensations blazed across his outstretched arms as if he were burning along with the searing air.
    He forced the God’s Razor back, slowly, painfully. Narrow slashes split open across his skin. As he fought the God’s Razor, the cuts ripped wider. Pain rose to blinding intensity. Sweating and swearing under his breath, John felt another pulse of rage rush over him and he almost welcomed it.
    Lightning crashed through the sky and the wind howled. Strength surged through John. He concentrated all of his remaining will into one action. He hurled the God’s Razor back from him. On the wall, the priests scrambled to collapse the God’s Razor as it swung towards them. Stones split and cracked. Priests and city guards braced themselves as the wall shuddered.
    Then came a perfect silence. John waited. One after another the ushiri’im disappeared from the wall. They were done.
    John fell to the ground. It seemed to catch him, gently. He closed his eyes, hardly aware of the light rain that pattered down on him.

Chapter Forty-Six
     
    Ravishan had found him among the dead and mutilated in the remains of the blood market. John remembered that but not the rest of