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and cut her friend’s head from her shoulders. She had promised, she owed Sara that much at least.
    Margaret sprinted to the Melody Amiss ; struck by a horrible epiphany. The first glimpses of an answer to what was going on; how the Jut had been obliterated just seconds after the alarm bells started ringing; and why the Four Cannon had fallen so quickly. The Roil was affecting people, transforming them as it had transformed the land beyond the Outer Wall.
    What had happened to her parents? She could not bear to think of them as changed.
    Margaret guided the Melody Amiss through the broken gateway. As she drove onto the bridge, she took it all in, not daring to get out, there was no one left standing, just human wreckage amongst the bare stone. More death than she had ever seen, sightless eyes and still, bloodless limbs. But that was not the worst of it.
    As the Melody Amiss passed them, they rose. Sentinels, faces wreathed with moths, their movements stuttery at first, as though their muscles were new to them. Soon they quickened, their shambling turned to sprinting as they shook free the cowl of their deaths. They rushed the carriage, their fingers reaching. Eyes not empty but alien and terrifying, black as the moths that crawled and tumbled from their wounds and their lips. But they were not as swift as the Melody Amiss ; she left them behind as she had left everything else.
    A hundred yards from the gate, rubble was all that remained of the Jut. Roilings massed there, some humanoid, others sluglings or crab-octopuses, and around them in their thousands, barking and baying, circled packs of Quarg Hounds. Into the monstrous clamour dived Endyms: huge eyes shining in the fire, their leathery wings showering the ground with dusty Roil spores as they scooped up creatures and dropped them over Tate’s walls. Above it all, the city’s nets blazed and fell in great fiery clumps. A few battle drones remained raining endothermic weaponry upon the enemy, but they were not enough. Even as she watched, Endyms dashed them from the sky, the burning remnants tumbling to the city, setting even more buildings alight.
    Margaret neared the end of the bridge. The whole structure shook and the valves that had before ejected icy slush now churned with a liquid fire.
    The moat beyond was still thick with ice, but it would soon grow warm as blood. Bodies floated on the surface, drifting backwards and forwards as more water rushed in. Margaret wondered how many of her people the Roil had infected.
    Not now . Do not think of it now.
    She was running out of time. The banks of the moat would not contain the rising water for much longer. She could already see dark cracks spreading across its outer edges; water seeped from them as blood from a wound.
    A crab-like Roiling, legs spiked and furious, almost as big as the Melody , scurried in front of her. Its fore-claws slashed out and its mouthparts flexed.
    Margaret slowed almost to a halt, gave her front cannon a full charge and fired, tearing the Roiling apart.
    Fingers tapped against the Melody ’ s side window: a little girl struggled frantically with the handle. Margaret popped the door open.
    “Get in! Quick!” A blast of cold air shot out into the night. The little girl screamed as the air crashed against her face. Her head folded back, unveiling grasshopper-like mandibles. Luminous eyes stared from the pit of the girl’s skull. The creature hissed at her then bound away on prickly legs that had been hidden by the little girl part of its body.
    Margaret slammed the door shut.

Chapter 7
    Carnival. The sweetest dreams for the darkest times. No common opiate, it was wilder, crueller in its denial. It had appeared upon the streets of Mirrlees, in its dens and its parlours, only two years before the end.
    In those last days its use was commonplace, both lowlife and highborn drawn to its comforts. It did not discriminate. Only the most paranoid would suggest it was addiction as assault.
Doyle’s