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Let’s see how funny you find this next part, you fucker.

‘Galass, can you feel the blood in each of us?’ I shouted over the din.

She was visibly trembling and would have fallen down, had she not had Aradeus on one side and Shame on the other, supporting her.

‘There’s so much,’ she whispered, ‘and it’s all so different. . . you, Shame, Corrigan, Alice—’

‘Alice! Just focus on Alice. I need you to make some of her blood– heressence–flow through each of us.’

‘How? What am I—?’

‘It’s just like when your magic exsanguinated those soldiers back in the camp, the ones who were attacking you. Only now I need you to make the blood pass through into each of us through our veins. Remember the way you could sense the shifting movements of life in the canal? Let your perception shift to the flow of blood, take that feeling and let it guide you so that you’re binding our essences to each other.’

Galass closed her eyes, her brow furrowing with effort. I could see sweat begin to glisten on her forehead. ‘I think. . . I think I can touch it now, move it from her to—’

‘Not so much!’ Shame warned.

Her shout roused me and I realised I’d started to pass out from sudden blood loss. Corrigan and Aradeus looked no better, and Alice’s face was ashen, her eyes glazed.

‘I’m sorry!’ Galass cried. ‘I’m sorry, I just—’

‘It’s okay,’ I said, ‘just share a little from each of us, that’s all we need.’

Please, if there’s any justice to this world, let a little be enough.

Galass’ hair whipped about her face in the opposite direction from the winds pelting us. Unlike the rest of us, she was looking stronger than ever. When she opened her eyes, they were blood-red. ‘It’s done, I think.’

I let go of Fidick and Shame’s hands and walked on unsteady legs to the brother in front of me. Copper-shelled insects were still pouring from his mouth; all too soon there would be enough to build another Pandoral. That one would either kill us outright or simply delay us long enough that the poisonous effects of the gates would leave us too sick to fight. Either way, our last chance to save our miserable little corner of the universe would be gone.

I lifted my still-bleeding hand. ‘Is everyone ready?’ I asked.

Each one had taken up position opposite one of the brothers. Our faces were grim, determined; no one needed to state the obvious; we all knew that the odds were against us. Five seconds from now, most likely all of us would be dead and this would all have been for naught– and yet not one of them hesitated.

Looking at them was. . . it was like that feeling I’d longed for so badly when I’d joined the Glorian Justiciars, the one promised to me by the Auroral Song and yet never fulfilled until this moment. The seven of us had started out with nothing in common. Hell, we could barely tolerate each other’s company most of the time. But in that instant, as we abandoned all our petty and selfish impulses so that we could share in one tragic, glorious act of defiance. . . we became our own army, our own family.

And brother, we were a sight to see.

‘Hey, Corrigan?’ I asked.

‘Go fuck yourself, Cade,’ he said, but he was smiling.

‘Fair enough. Everyone, it’s time to wave hello to our would-be conquerors.’

As one, we drove our hands inside the mouths of the Seven Brothers, whose bodies were being used as gateways between our plane and that of the beings who would enslave us to rework our world to their design. I saw the eyes of the man before me flicker open, just for a moment.

And then the world exploded.

Chapter 51

Blood and Guts

Something very hard struck me in the back of the head. It turned out to be a great chunk of rock from the fortress wall. Normally, such things aren’t much of a cause for celebration, but the wall was no longer undulating, so I took that as a good sign.

I reached back to feel how bad the injury was, but when my hand came back all bloody, I had no idea if it was mine, since I was at present covered head to toe in the flesh and bodily fluids of what had once been the Seven Brothers, the greatest wonderists of our generation.

Well, I suppose technically,wewere now the seven greatest wonderists of our generation, and all of us were similarly smothered in the blood, skin and organs of our newly obliterated hosts. I don’t think I had never seen anything quite so disgusting in my life as Corrigan, Galass, Aradeus, Shame, Fidick and Alice, drenched head to foot in stinking gore.

For some reason, I suddenly realised that hideous, stomach-churning sight was the funniest thing I’d ever seen.