The glow was still there the next morning, but as it grew lighter it gradually became washed out by the bright morning sunlight. The rangers kept a nervous, watchful eye on it as they ate a quick breakfast of cold venison and cornbread, but by the time the sun was fully risen it was no longer noticeable and their superstitious fears gradually ebbed to be replaced by curiosity.

     “We'd only have to climb that ridge and we'd be able to see it,” said Cowley as he saddled his horse. “It's only a couple of miles out of our way.”

     “We keep to a straight course,” replied the Brigadier. “We keep to the mission. No risks, no distractions.”

     “That time you saw a Radiant city,” said Cowley, “was it because you allowed yourself to be distracted from a mission by curiosity?”

     “No. The mission was to capture a Carrow saboteur. He thought I wouldn't follow him to the city. He was mistaken. Then he had to be taken back to Marboll as quickly as possible for interrogation.”

     “But if you hadn't caught him in sight of the city, If you'd caught the saboteur just over the hill from the city and that light had been just over the horizon...”

     “I would still have taken him straight back to Marboll. The mission takes precedence over idle curiosity.”

     “Yes, of course.” The Brigadier and Blane both glared at him, and the ranger got back to the task of adjusting his saddle.

     They found the wagons they'd been following just before noon. Crane had gone a few hundred yards ahead to take a look over a low ridge they'd be crossing and the others halted when they saw him galloping back. “Something happened to them,” he said as he reined in beside the Brigadier. “Looks like they were attacked. One wagon’s overturned. The other’s half a mile further on, abandoned. No horses, no traders but...” He glanced around at the sky, as if to make sure it was still empty. “I saw clothes. Complete sets of clothes scattered over a wide area, including underclothes, as if they'd stripped themselves naked while running away.”

     Everyone went pale. They all knew what that meant, and they all started searching the sky, hands going to their weapons. “Demon,” whispered Harper, as if just saying the word would summon it.

     “Let's pick up the pace,” said the Brigadier. “All eyes on the sky. Quill, prepare yourself.”

     “Yes, Sir.”

     They passed the wagons a few minutes later and saw them just as the tracker had described. They all tensed up as they passed the site of the attack, in case the demon was still in the vicinity. Malone saw a pair of rabbits chewing a patch of grass to the side of the road. One was pure white, the other brown and half the size. Malone thought it likely that they'd been horses just a few hours before. He felt himself tensing up, felt his whole body quivering with nervous energy. The very idea of a demon was terrifying, even to experienced veterans. The thought that there might be one nearby, that all the humanity he'd struggled so hard to gain since the death of his parents might be stripped away from him... In fact it might be worse than that! He wasn’t fully human yet. The demon’s curse might throw him further back than to the dog he'd once been. He might be thrown back further, to become a rat, or a toad or a lizard. Whatever he'd been before some unknown dog had adopted him all those years before.

     There were small, dark specks visible in the sky as they cantered onwards. Just birds, probably, but Malone kept an eye on them, trying to see whether they had long tentacles hanging below them like the tails of fairday kites. They were too far away to see, but then his attention was caught by a movement off to his left and he turned in the saddle to look. There was something there, in the trees. Probably just a bird or something, hopping from one branch to another. There were meadowfowl here, he knew. The men had been talking about catching a few, to add a bit of variety to their trail rations. Or it could have been a Radiant, floating low to the ground the way he'd heard they sometimes did. The sun was in the sky behind it, meaning he might not notice a luminous cloud hiding there, waiting to ambush them. He looked more carefully, which it why he was the first to see it when it lifted into the sky and leapt towards them.

     “There it is!” he cried, reaching for his gun. The Brigadier was faster, though, and had his pistol in his hand and was taking aim before Malone had even cleared his holster. As the other men scrambled for their weapons, the batman got a clearer look at the creature. It lacked the graceful symmetry of the Radiants, the lobes on one side of its body being visibly larger than on the other, and it’s glow was duller and tinged with red. The Brigadier was already firing, and bullets ripped through the creature’s jelly-like flesh. “Demon!”

     The creature had coiled its tentacles under it, and now it used them to throw itself towards them with impossible speed. One of its tentacles lashed out, coiling around Dacson’s waist, and it pulled him out of his saddle and up into the air, crying out in fear. Harper yelled in alarm and aimed his gun, but he didn't have a clear shot. The demon was holding Dacson in front of it, as if using him as a human shield, while it lashed out with other tentacles, searching for more victims. The pelt of short hairs that covered its pulsating body rippled like a field of corn in the wind, and waves of brighter light flowed through it as if the creature was filled with liquid fire.

     Blane and Cotton, the best shots among them except for the Brigadier himself, fired their weapons, avoiding Dawson’s flailing body, and more holes were torn in the creature’s gelatinous body. Malone retched as a foul smell washed over them, the ammonia smell of rotting fish. Then he ducked as a tentacle swept by over his head. Dacson, meanwhile, had managed to pull his pistol from its holster and was trying to twist around in the demon’s grip so he could aim at it. A smaller tentacle wrapped itself around his arm, though, and the ranger screamed as his arm was pulled from his shoulder.

     Men cried out in fury and a barrage of fire shot up at the demon. Some of it hit Dacson, but everyone understood that he was as good as dead now. Nothing could save him, and a merciful death was the best they could do for him. The demon responded by lurching up into the sky, and then more tentacles wrapped around Dacson as he struggled and screamed uselessly. They pulled, and the man was ripped apart, his waist separating from his upper body with a scream and a sickening, tearing sound that haunted the others for the rest of their days. Malone threw his arms over his head to ward off the shower of blood and gore and he heard a scream of fury from someone. The air was filled with the noise of gunshots and the weird, piping sound that demons and Radiants alike made, and then silence fell as the creature retreated, flotation gases hissing from its bullet wounds.

     “Run!” roared the Brigadier, reaching across to slap the rump of the horse beside his. “It’s going to...”

   Malone felt a surge of terror and spurred his horse into a gallop, even as he heard the creature’s piping rising to a higher note. There was a sound that he felt rather than heard, vibrating through his body like the lowest notes of a gigaram’s horn; a sound that his body responded to with instinctive terror. His horse felt it too and it reared under him, its eyes staring and foam flying from its mouth. He had to use all his skill to keep it from throwing him and bolting. He felt a tingle across his back and heard someone cry out. More gunshots rang out, but then new notes were added to the piping noise and something bright flew across his vision. He looked around to see three Radiants, true Radiants this time, speeding across the landscape towards the demon, propelling themselves forward with blasts of air from vents in the sides of their bodies.

   The demon turned to face the Radiants, and the four creatures bumped into each other like rubber balloons, bouncing apart again until their tentacles entwined around each other like mating snakes. The demon struggled in their grasp, but was unable to prevent itself from being lifted high into the sky and carried away, the humans aiming their guns after it until it was clear that the threat was over.

   The Brigadier holstered his weapon and they dismounted, men and horses both sweaty and breathing heavily. They watched as the creatures drifted slowly away, the Radiants carrying the captive demon back to the city just out of sight behind the nearby hills. “You okay?” he asked Malone.

     The batman was trembling and staring at the splatters of blood covering his arms. Dacson's blood. There was more on his face and matting his hair. He managed a too quick, nervous nod, though. He was a ranger, as much as any of the others. He wasn't going to show weakness in front of them. He was sick with horror at the visual reminder of the fate that awaited the Princess if their mission failed.

     “I never heard of them attacking their own kind before,” said Fletcher, trying to wipe the blood from his uniform with a rag.

     “Strictly speaking, it wasn’t their own kind,” replied the Brigadier. “It was an aberration. That’s what happens when the transformation from human to Radiant goes wrong. It was probably insane, had no idea what it was doing.”

   “And they just let it run around free?” cried Harper.

   “They had no way of knowing there were humans here who might come to harm. They did intervene when it attacked us. Is everyone else all right?”

   “Smithie got hit, hard,” someone said.

     The Brigadier went back to look at him and his face grew even more expressionless than usual; a trait that told Malone that he was feeling shock and trying not to show it. “It tried to curse us,” the same man said. Cotton, Malone now saw. ”He caught the full force of it.” The Brigadier helped the others remove Smith’s clothes while other men cursed softly under their breaths. Much of his humanity, gained over many years from the loving care and attention of his parents, had been stripped away, leaving him half returned to the animal they had adopted.

   The creature that had been Corporal Smith bleated miserably, as if he still had enough intelligence to understand what had happened to him, and he stared at the humans around him with his wide pupilled goat eyes. The Brigadier added his own curse. “He’s been with me since Eldale,” he said, his lips thin and tight with anger. “He saved my life at Ballimore.“

     He looked across as Quill, who nodded and came forward. “Stand back,” he commanded. He laid his hands on Smith's body, cooing softly under his breath as his comrade in arms tried to pull away in fear. It was the first time Malone had ever seen a wizard casting a spell, and he leaned forward in fascination as Quill mumbled under his breath, his eyes closed in concentration. He was trying to create an instant parent bond with the ranger, making himself feel the same love for him as his parents had and then using the power of his own human form to accelerate the ontogenic change; something that normally required two human parents and took years. Malone saw Smith's body slowly change, the spine lengthening, the limbs becoming more human-like, claws changing to become fingers. Years of uplift taking place within minutes.

     Quill removed his hands from the ranger’s body and leaned back, gasping with exhaustion. Harper and Spencer helped him back to his feet. “I'm sorry,” he said. “That’s the best I can do.”

     Smith had failed to regain his full humanity. He was trying to stand but couldn’t quite balance on legs that still lacked the strength to bear the full weight of his body. He stared at his hands miserably, flexing fingers that weren't quite as long and dexterous as they should be. “I okay!” he insisted. “Okay. I okay.”

     “I'm sorry, Smith,” said the Brigadier, coming forward to stand before him. “You'll have to sit the rest of this mission out. When you've risen back to full human I'll be glad to have you back, but your part in this mission is over.”

     Smith looked as though he might protest further, but then he nodded his not quite human head and allowed Harper and Spencer to help him get dressed again. His clothes didn't quite fit, there’d be some tailoring required, but they were determined to give him the dignity of human clothing.

     “Will he be all right?” asked Malone.

      “If he gets back to his parents before too long. They raised him to human once, they can do it again. Tallion, Cowley, take him to Vidwell. It's a market town, about four day’s travel that way. He’ll have to walk the whole way, he can’t sit on a horse any more. You should be able to hitch a lift on a wagon back to Helberion from there. Return him to his parents. Their address with be in the personnel files, in Dreiberg.”

     “What about that?” asked Malone, looking at Smith's former mount which had been half transformed back to the small rodent from which it had been raised. In its present form, it wouldn’t survive in the wild for long.

     “I'll take care of it,” said Quill. He walked over to it, and the animal skittered away from him in alarm. He cooed at it and held out his hands, though, crouching over as he crept closer, and this time the animal stood its ground, perhaps feeling some residual loyalty and confidence around humans from before it had been stricken. Quill eased himself forward the last couple of feet, and when he was close enough he reached out a hand towards its neck, stroked its fur. Then he grabbed it firmly.

     It kicked and struggled, but Quill had it now and he once again concentrated on forming a parent bond with the creature. Once again he used the power of his human form, but this time in reverse, using it to pull the animal back down the rungs of life instead of raising it up. Curses always worked faster than blessings, and within moments the last trace of horse had been stripped away from the unfortunate creature. He released it, and a badger scampered away into the grass, disappearing almost immediately.

     "Those Above, but I hate doing that," he said, rubbing a hand across his mouth. He looked nauseous, Malone thought. As if he were about to throw up. "Always makes me think I'm committing a terrible crime. Doing something abominable."

     "It was an act of mercy," the Brigadier told him. "In that in-between state it would almost certainly die, miserably, before the end of the week."

     Quill nodded gratefully. “Not quite the right environment for the creature, but at least it’s got a chance now. Who knows, maybe it’ll be a horse again one day, or maybe a deer or a goat. It might even be human one day.”

     The Brigadier looked up at the sun, almost at noon above them. “Get ready to move on,” he said. “I want to be far away from here in case they come back.”