Che found Salma lounging in the common room, but the news she had was not news to him. He indicated the trio of Wasp soldiers who were lurking along one wall. ‘The ugly one in the middle came in just now, and since then they’ve obviously been on watch-and-wait. Something’s changed, all right.’

‘This new officer,’ confirmed Che, who had put on something more action-worthy, tunic and breeches, with her possessions slung over her shoulder and her sword at her hip.

‘They’re onto us.’ He shrugged. ‘Whether they know for sure we’re in service or they just think we can lead them to Stenwold, it doesn’t really matter.’

‘But what can we do now?’ Che asked. ‘We can’t just sit here forever, and besides, if they get impatient, Totho says they could take over the whole ship and just fly us to the Empire, or something.’

‘By the customs of my own people, there are two things we can do,’ he told her, his customary sardonic expression creasing further. ‘Firstly, I can get my steel out and hunt them down all across the ship, shadow to shadow. Kill them in ones and twos until they’re all dead, or I am. That would be one option.’

She stared at him, wide-eyed. He sounded as serious as he ever could be. ‘You’ve done that, before?’

‘No,’ he admitted. ‘But it’s a done thing, where I come from. Happened a lot during the war, I’m told.’ He stretched. ‘That, then, is the right hand. However there is always the plan of the left hand.’

‘Which is what?’

‘Watch and learn, O scholar.’ He stood up abruptly and she saw a sudden shifting of stance amongst the Wasp soldiers, but he ignored them contemptuously. Instead, his meandering path took him over to a table occupied by a group of Beetle merchants, and before her eyes he proposed to them a game of chance.

It was a short while, minutes only, before the table was scattered with coins. Gambling was one of those frowned-upon pastimes that the poor were dissuaded from indulging in by a middle class that could not itself resist the lure, turning many a member of the latter class into one of the former in the course of a single profligate night. In short order Salma was matching cards happily with three cloth merchants and a brace of Fly-kinden, including the formerly aloof dulcimer player. Betting was fast and fierce, and Che kept having to remind herself that their lives were on the line here, because she had never seen Salma play cards before. He played as though he could not lose, and when he lost he was careless of it, but mostly he won.

The Wasps were watching even more closely now, suspecting some device, but Salma paid them no heed whatsoever, seeming utterly absorbed in his game. They barely glanced at Che, meanwhile, and she realized that they must be working on very limited information, secondhand descriptions. Salma was the only Dragonfly-kinden within a hundred miles, but she, a Beetle amongst Beetles, was safe in her anonymity.

Even as she thought this, there was a shout from the table and all chaos broke loose.

In the first few seconds of furious argument Che tried to piece together what was going on. Someone had been caught cheating, or suspected of it, and she soon realized that it was Salma. He, for his part, was outraged at the very suggestion, knocking his chair back and standing up, and then simply flipping the entire table over. Cards, money and angry gamblers were suddenly all scattered about the common room.

She saw Salma moving fast, but one of the merchants still managed to bounce a fist off him before himself sprawling over a chair. The Wasps were trying to move in but everything was now in an uproar. A pair of stewards were trying to restore the peace, for there were at least three private fistfights going on, and one large one to which everyone was invited. In the midst of all of this, Salma grabbed her wrist, and a moment later he had extricated them both from the room, and they were running for the stairs.

‘Where to?’ she asked.

‘No idea,’ he admitted. The shouting from behind them was picking up in volume. She glanced back and saw a flash of black and yellow.

Without any warning, a whole panel of wall beside them was open, and they saw Totho framed in it, wreathed in cloud with the chill air plucking at him.

‘I’ve been looking for you,’ was his understatement. ‘Out this way, quick,’ he said, and then disappeared from sight. Che peered through the hatchway and saw Totho descending the Sky Without’s very hull, hand over hand on iron rungs. Below was an open walkway that must surely connect to the lower deck.

Che did not want, under any circumstances, to be out there with nothing but the strength of her grip to save her from a dive into infinity. The Wasp soldiers were coming, though, so her preferences seemed irrelevant.

‘You first,’ she said, and Salma simply dived straight through the hatch. As soon as he was clear of it, his Art-wings blurred into life about his shoulders, catching him in the air, where he hovered and spun while waiting for her.

She bundled herself through the hatch and hauled it closed behind her, balancing precariously. A moment’s extra thought showed her how to secure it, and by the time the Wasps had reached it, there was no obvious way for them to follow.

The wind tugged at her, seemed to get between her fingers and the slick chill of the metal rungs. She concentrated only on her hands, trying to make her descent as mechanical and unerring as an automaton’s. Salma kept pace with her, and she knew he would try to catch her if she slipped, but she was not altogether sure whether he could.

And then there came another hatch, at last. Totho was holding it open for them, practically hopping from foot to foot. She shouldered past him into the cramped walkway.

‘Where now?’

‘Tynisa’s waiting in the hangar.’ He bared his teeth nervously. ‘They’re after us and I’m not sure there’s anywhere we can safely hide. Maybe amongst the freight.’

Che closed the hatch after Salma, who said, ‘Run,’ remarkably quietly. The walkway stretched the length of the airship’s gondola, but at the far end they could see movement: black and yellow yet again. Wasp soldiers were now forcing their way along the narrow space with their hands outstretched before them.

Totho took off at once down the walkway, with an engineer’s practised hunch, and then almost immediately dropped through another hatchway. By the time Che had caught up, he was in the cavernous space of the hangar, where Tynisa was already coming out of hiding to greet them. As soon as Salma was clear of the hatch Che slammed it shut and threw the bar.

‘No time!’ she warned. ‘They’re coming!’

Salma looked about them. ‘Where do these other doors go?’ he asked.

‘Engine room, a dead end,’ Totho explained. ‘And the other leads to the freight holds.’

‘But we don’t need to run anywhere on board!’ Tynisa interrupted them. ‘If we stay here they’re bound to find us. So let’s use this thing and just go.’ She was pointing at the fixed-wing. ‘Totho, start it up, make it go.’

Totho goggled at her. ‘I can’t pilot a flier.’

‘But you’re Apt, you’re an artificer. You like machines.’

‘I could repair it, yes, if it was broken.’ He kept shaking his head at her, and Che saw a whole bucketful of hope drain from Tynisa’s expression.

‘But… that was my plan,’ she said weakly.

‘I can fly it, maybe’ Che announced, to disbelieving stares. ‘I can try, at least,’ she amended. ‘I did a course on aviation at the College.’

‘Then let’s do it!’ Salma said. Totho was already running for the loading ramp wheel, unlocking it and spinning it so that the ramp descended into its full slope with a shriek of abused metal. The fixed-wing flier shifted a foot downwards against its rope restraints, pointing backwards down the ramp, about to re-enact its arrival in reverse.