But there was nobody save Stenwold left of that world now and the Beetle walked over with a heavy heart.

It was only when he was almost at the table that he noticed the Moth, Achaeos. The small man sat as though he were not here in the very citadel of his enemies, a quiet shadow at Tisamon’s table. Nobody paid him any heed beyond the occasional puzzled look. Perhaps it was Tisa-mon’s lean figure that discouraged them, but Stenwold rather thought it was the simple difference in the way his own race and the Moths viewed each other. To the Moths of Tharn, Helleron represented evil on earth, come to rape their sacred mountains and infect their culture. To the industrial barons of Helleron, the Moths were a small annoyance in a larger world. They lost more sleep over fluctuations in the price of tin.

With a nod to Tisamon Stenwold took a seat. ‘I see you’re still here,’ he said, turning to the Moth.

‘Apparently,’ said Achaeos. His tone made it clear that Stenwold was still a Beetle, despite it all. ‘I intend to make good on my debts.’

‘You’re beginning to sound like him,’ said Stenwold, with a glance at Tisamon.

‘Masters of the Grey, Servants of the Green,’ said Achaeos, a little litany that Stenwold knew referred to the way things were before the revolution. ‘Who is to say we cannot learn from our brothers?’

‘Right, enough wordplay. I am about to go and rescue my niece from Wasp-kinden. So what do you want?’

The direct question at last scratched the composure of Achaeos, just slightly. ‘Your niece helped me,’ he said. ‘I was unable to help her later, and I wish to redress that.’

‘I’m going to speak very bluntly now,’ said Stenwold. ‘Are you Arcanum?’

The Moth’s white eyes widened at that name, at the fact that Stenwold even knew it. The pause stretched across the table. Tisamon watched impassively.

‘I am not,’ Achaeos said at last. ‘But… there are agents in the city, of course. I have spoken to them. They agree that the matter of the Empire of the Wasps may concern them, so I am to report to them.’ Inwardly, Achaeos cringed at the true memory, how he had nagged and nagged his uncaring contact within the Arcanum until he had finally secured the woman’s permission. The backwards-told story for Stenwold sounded so much better. He had not told the Arcanum about Cheerwell or his debt to her, for such things would not be understood. The secret society that passed for the Moth foreign service was not in a tolerant mood these days.

Stenwold, though, had taken this news strangely. ‘You believe that your people could be persuaded that the Wasps are a threat?’

Achaeos’s eyes narrowed, trying to judge his angle. ‘It is possible.’

‘They are a threat,’ Stenwold confirmed. ‘I’ve been saying it all along from here to Collegium and back, and nobody’s been listening. It’s about time though. After we get Cheerwell and Salma back, you and I should talk.’

Achaeos nodded, privately resolving that, once that rescue was accomplished, he would be gone.

‘I suppose we should join the others.’ Stenwold felt the oppressive weight of the near future settle on him with the words. ‘They’re waiting just outside the city.’ He stood, unable not to stare at Tisamon. Here it is, the moment. He had been gifted with so many years in which to ready himself for this, and how he had wasted all that time.

‘Do you know where they’re taking her?’ Tisamon asked.

‘East, either to Asta or deeper into the Empire.’ Stenwold shuffled, wanting to be gone now, to get it over with. Achaeos was standing, waiting, but Tisamon had other things on his mind.

‘I’ve hunted men east of here these last few years. I’ve tracked Wasp convoys. They’re creatures of habit. Do you want me to go ahead and scout?’

Stenwold paused, the doom on him suddenly staved off a little further. ‘Scout?’ No, it would not be fair on Tisamon. The inevitable would wait and wait, but it would always be there. Far better to face it right away. Even as the thought came to him, though, his voice was betraying him: ‘That would be good. In which case, I’ll trust you to find us by…’ And how long could this be put off, really? ‘By nightfall?’

‘Nightfall it is.’ Tisamon rose, and Stenwold wished they had more time together, there and then, with no rescues to perform. He did not know if he would still have a friend when he and Tisamon met again.

Scuto had secured transport for them, although Stenwold suspected they might have been better off walking. It was a rickety-looking automotive: a simple open cab balanced on a set of eight rusty legs.

‘Is it fast?’ he asked.

‘Faster than walking? Just about,’ was the Thorn Bug’s reply. Stenwold peered underneath the contraption’s high-stepping legs. Walking automotives had gone through a period of taking short cuts a generation ago and, as he feared, this one was very much a victim of its times. Instead of eight separate legs there were just two projecting from the engine, so the vehicle would be lurching along on two four-pronged feet.

‘It’ll go fine,’ Scuto assured him, ‘so long as you wind it each morning. Two-man job, but you’ve got Totho there to help you. Don’t forget, if you’re complaining, any fuel east of here’s going to have black and yellow stamped all over it.’

‘I suppose that’s true.’ A decent clockwork engine had a lot of advantages over steam or combustion. It would never run dry and it was easy enough to repair if it broke down. Stenwold had whittled cogs from wood before now to set one aright.

‘What’s troubling you?’ Tynisa asked him suddenly. ‘It’s not just Che, is it?’

He smiled at her, though his heart sank. ‘It’s…’ But he could not say it. Anything he said now would be too much of a lie. ‘I’ll tell you later,’ he added. When I have to. When I’m forced to it.

It had been a long day of walking. What rest stops the Wasps had allowed them were overshadowed by the slavers, who never allowed their charges to forget their presence. Water was rationed with a parsimonious hand. Hard bread and stale cheese was their only food. On the march, if any slave faltered he was whipped back into line without hesitation or mercy. Che had begun the day full of pity for her broken-spirited fellows and ended it thanking providence only that she was in better physical shape than most of them.

Towards dusk it became evident that they were approaching something at last. Some things, in fact: two structures that could not be made out clearly against the darkening sky.

‘Farmstead?’ Che suggested. Salma peered ahead, his eyes much better than hers in the gloom.

‘Not buildings,’ he confirmed. ‘But I can’t see just what they are.’ Then a slaver passed close to them and they knew well enough to be quiet.

It was near dark when they arrived, but Che recognized them by then, because she had seen similar constructions before. They were automotives, but monstrous huge ones. She had seen them used for bulk transport of stock, and stock, she realized, was just what she and the others had become.

For a score and a half of slaves, even one of these machines would have been too capacious, but the cages that made up the back half of each were already mostly full. It was more of the same, Che noticed, but she could not believe that all of these unfortunates were supposed to be escapees. Even as they approached the two great engines, another column of prisoners was moving up – from the south as far as she could judge. Hairless men with dead white skins, jutting jaws and pincered hands, the slave-runners of the newcomers loomed head and shoulder over their charges. Che watched numbly as their leader met with a delegation of Wasp slavers and began to haggle over the price of his wares.

‘From the Dryclaw,’ she guessed. ‘Or even the Spiderlands. It depends how far they’ve come. The Empire must provide a ready market.’