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They darted through alleyways, across a street as the lights went red -- people shouldered aside belatedly when the saw the outfights, less belatedly when they saw the very real gleam of rapiers. Hector walked, not ran, as Devourer left his belt.

"For the Prince!"

There was a woman lying on the pavement. Her head wound was the source of sticky red as Hector waded in: the youma were odd, malformed and triangular, consisting of flesh globs shaped like Fritos and extended mouths. They were ramming a parked car where a kid in the back huddled over an infant seat. A long glutinous tongue snapped out, but without flinching Hector's blade sheared off tongue to fall to the pavement.

The youma were circling them now, car forgotten. There were two. People all around were circling, saying immaterial things, screaming still: Hector was shoulder-to-shoulder with Laocoon. "Here's my plan," he said, grinning. "Have no mercy, if any was rattling around in your ribcage."

Devourer sliced two nearly-perfect halves in the youma at their right. Both halves fell down and lay still on the ground, and Hector was whipping forward as the other one continued its frantic pacing. Behind his back, both halves wobbled: and Laocoon watched as a whole new youma reformed from each half.

So did Hector, belatedly, over his shoulder. Frustrated, Devourer skewered this one through: as Hector kicked it off his sword, the youma's flesh left a long reforming tube of reknitting flesh.

"Yes," bellowed Hector. "I picked them to spite you and put both of us in danger, and afterwards I'll make you a rat poison cocktail. No!"

The youma were doubling in ferocity now. Hector's magical bond with Aphrodite meant Devourer did just that, devour, and the youma's desire for starseeds and their flesh turned them into baying wolves launching themselves at the two cavaliers over and over and over. Hector's sword flashed down, but the slightest shearing of flesh meant regrown tissue and a split meant another monster entirely.

Two youma jumped. Out of old habit, Devourer flicked to slice through both, Hector's shoulders dragging his slim sword through youma flesh like it was cardboard. As one lay wriggling and reforming, he chopped through it again: this multiplied each wriggling half.

Youma count: now eight, circling like sharks.

"What, every time something isn't funny," said his captain with gritted teeth, "or just this once?" (Jesse's sense of humour was more teenaged than Hector's.) "Got a plan, genius?"

Hector punted an oncoming youma like a football. It hit a storefront hard and fell, dazed.

Hector did not say 'your head,' but his impulsiveness served him well. He bashed the nearest youma as hard as he could with the pommel of his sword. This was followed by a footstomp to the area just above the grossly swollen node of the mouth, and at another footstomp the youma dissipated into gritty dust. He whooped in triumph.

Pommelbashing seemed to do the trick, so long as you followed it up with some vicious headstomping when they were dazed. The youma started to disappear one by one. They were the warriors of Prince Alexandros. They were nothing if not efficient. A single starseed rattled to the sidewalk: as Laocoon took care of the last monster, Hector took it over to woman a bystander was already taking care of. It sunk into her chest as he gently pressed it in.

"Nice," he said, and with the rush of adrenaline was laughing as he elbowed the other cavalier in the arm. It was all Hector saying, "Seems there's a brain in there. Should kiss you for winning us the fight, brother cavalier, but I should punch you in the gut for being a jackass. Which first?"

"You better forgive me, son. I'm your captain and blood-sworn brother, and I don't know why I put up with you at -- "

The sirens had blended in with the other background noise. There was a security guard. Maybe the city had gone too long with associating weapons with the Dark Kingdom -- they were in a city where associations were blurred either way -- but white-faced and wild he raised his gun at Hector and Laocoon. The bystanders were already yelling at him. That was nice, distantly. "Stop it!" a man was shouting. "Stop it, they were here to help!"

When he shot anyway, he was brought down by three other people. That was nice too: true bravery. Hector had moved in front of Laocoon and spread his arms out wide, mock-beseeching, and after the gun report he flinched. It had been a short, swift crack. "Go, move it, go," his captain was saying, and they both shot through the crowds still sheathing their swords.

Trust Laocoon to move through crowds with a mix of excuse us! Sorry! Thank you, pardon us, ma'am! -- as they wound their way through the back streets and back to the alley they'd started in. The cavalier of the Hollow leant back against the cool bricks and closed his eyes only briefly, but that was also enough to give the cavalier of the Maze enough time to guess. Deduct.

But it was Jesse who was more the wounded, irritated animal than Hector was. All he did was look at Laocoon, eyes half-shut with concentration or distance. His expressions were the direct opposite. He tended to show them as they came, accepted them for what they were, and he'd raged at him on more than one occasion: don't push down what you feel! You'll lose the moment!

"I need you to play doctors with me," he said carelessly. A slightly ghoulish grin. "You up for it?"

"Candy's dandy, liquor's quicker," said Hector. If Laocoon didn't know better, he wouldn't have guessed any wounds on him at all. The captain was many things, but he was also indefatigable. "You got a mirror in your room?"

Turned out he had. The moment they passed the skin of the mirror his captain was stripping off his cloak, fumbling with his quilted shirt. A glove went crashing to the floor. For all the comments the other cavalier could have made about captains and their urges to strip for their underlings, it went away at the hole in Hector's shoulder. Hector looked a trifle resigned.

"Turns out I'm not faster than a speeding bullet," he said. He was holding up the shirt and squinting at a minute tear. "Thought so. Took a piece of cloth with it when it went in. I saw this in Ma -- whatever, son, just take my word for it."

He was sitting down on Johnny King's bed, staunching the wound with a hand -- no, he was holding it open. "You ever played that game with the naked guy who buzzes, genius boy?" he said. "Operation?" He was blustering. He was probably a little afraid.

"No," said Hector, and fell back on his bed with a whumpf. "And stop it with the much-older-than-me s**t, my child, because your a** can't be older than nineteen and my driver's license says eighteen in September."

Which meant that Dylan's roomie had been set back a year. Which was all the more embarrassing for Dylan's roomie. He stared up at the ceiling. The ceiling was bare and clean and white. Sovereign Heights kids got nice rooms compared to the prison cells back home. Simmering with resentment was easier than ignoring the pain in his shoulder and the baffled shock of did I just get shot?

He shuffled, trying to get comfortable, but seeing a grim Johnny King approach you with tweezers and hot water set you not at ease. "I can take it," he heard his mouth say. "You probably think I'm too stupid to feel pain, right, Mr. King?"