‘We have seen such,’ one of the tacticians confirmed.

‘But their airships can fly much higher,’ Totho explained. ‘So high, in fact, that the only thing able to threaten them would be something else capable of flying that high. I don’t even know if your orthopters could do it but the Wasps obviously thought they could, which is why they mounted the night attack that saw most of them destroyed. At a great cost to the Wasps themselves, true, but now they can safely attack your city from the air. They can drop explosives on you, or even just rocks or leadshot. They can deploy their soldiers, as well, over any part of the city that they choose. Even though they can’t fly up high of their own accord they can glide down without much effort. I am afraid that the Wasps have brought a new kind of war to you.’

Though the tacticians did not exchange glances or confer, Totho sensed the flurry of thoughts passing between them. At last one of them spoke.

‘We must destroy them, then, on the ground.’

‘That would seem to be your best chance,’ Totho agreed.

‘An attempt at sallying out with any affordable force would meet with defeat almost immediately,’ another tactician warned. ‘A sally with sufficient force would merely leave the city wide open, and the potential casualties amongst our troops would be unacceptable.’

‘A covert attack would be the only solution,’ a third concluded, fixing Totho and Salma with a fierce stare. This, Totho realized, must be the King of Tark.

‘We will trust your analysis of the situation,’ the man continued. ‘You have information and perspective that we lack in this. We distrust new wars, and we see this distrust has brought us to this point. We must mount a swift strike tonight to destroy the airships. Then we must destroy the Wasps in the field before they can construct or import more of them.’

‘Your Majesty,’ said Salma, ‘I would go with your men, if I may?’ The tacticians studied him, narrow-eyed, and he shrugged. ‘For one, I can fly. I can see better in the darkness than your people. And I am a sworn enemy of the Wasps.’

‘We have favourable reports of your fighting in the recent attack.’ The King nodded. ‘You indeed have talents we lack. Very well. And your comrade?’

‘No-’ Salma started, but, ‘Yes,’ said Totho.

Salma goggled at him, wrong-footed for once, and Totho felt obscurely proud of that. ‘I may not be the fighter that Salma here is,’ he said, ‘but I am an artificer of the College, and destroying the airships is an artificer’s work.’

‘You must stay always with our people,’ the King warned him. ‘They will know each other’s minds, but not yours. You must not stray from them.’

‘I will do what is asked of me,’ Totho confirmed, and realized Salma was still staring at him, shaking his head slightly. ‘I have one other request for Your Majesty, though.’

‘What request is this?’ The King and his staff were all suspicion again.

‘There was a halfbreed scout captured with us, when your soldiers took us in,’ Totho explained. ‘Her name is Skrill. Please let her out of the city when we start on our sally, so that she can head for Collegium and inform Master Maker what’s happening here. He is trying to organize an army against the Wasps, I think, and he may be able to help, so he needs to know exactly what’s going on here.’

There was a long silence between the tacticians then, as they passed their narrow thoughts back and forth, trying for a consensus. Eventually, the King nodded slowly.

‘It shall be so,’ he said.

‘Would you mind explaining to me just exactly what you’re doing?’ Salma demanded, once they were back in their rooms in Parops’s slightly skewed tower.

‘I don’t mind at all,’ said Totho. ‘If you don’t mind answering the same question first.’

‘I am going out to fight,’ Salma said, ‘because I have been trained to fight, and because the Wasps are the enemies of my people, and most of all because I know how to look after myself-’

‘That’s not it at all,’ said Totho. He now felt drained and miserable. The prospect of tonight’s activities oppressed him, and he sensed that he had been robbed of choice from the moment he had set foot in Tark. My last real choice was to leave Che to the Moth. And what a good choice that had been.

‘What’s not it?’ and even to Totho, who had no great ear for such things, Salma sounded evasive.

‘You don’t care about Tark. No, that’s unfair – but you sold yourself long to the Ants. You can fight, but you’re no good at destroying airships.’

‘The Moths of Tharn can destroy mine-workings. I witnessed that in Helleron.’

‘Because they’ve practised, they’ve learned particular things by rote. That’s not the same,’ Totho said. ‘But here you are charging out to fight thirty thousand Wasp-kinden, and you don’t care about Tark enough to do that. You’re looking for her, the dancing girl.’

Salma was quiet for a long time before finally getting his words in order. ‘You know, Toth, I really do underestimate you sometimes.’

‘All the time,’ said the artificer. ‘Everyone does. You’ve not spoken of her, barely mentioned her, since the Ants caught us. I knew, though – I knew you hadn’t forgotten. I never saw her but I hope she’s worth it.’

‘I dream about her,’ Salma said, surprising him. ‘I can’t put her out of my mind. Whenever I’m active, doing something, I’m all right, but then in the pauses she comes back to me. I didn’t even know her for long, and yet… here I am.’ He gave Totho a solemn look. ‘I suppose that we’re not so very different in that, since you’re in love with Che.’

Totho nodded glumly. ‘Since almost the moment I met her. Only, Stenwold doesn’t much like the idea… I even got the courage to ask his blessing, back in Myna, and he didn’t say anything much, but his face… you could tell. And then that cursed Moth, he just turns up from nowhere as though he’s her best friend in the world. And as soon as we got the two of you from the prison he was all over her. You must have seen it.’

‘I did,’ Salma admitted. ‘I had other things on my mind, but I saw it.’

‘And she… she liked him, I could tell. But it’s like Tynisa and the boys from the College. They go to her because she’s… graceful and… elegant… and sometimes she leads them on. But I can’t believe that creature feels anything for Che… and I tried to tell her how I felt, but she didn’t understand, and it all became… I just couldn’t stand…’ He found that he was sniffling now and wiped his eyes and his nose furiously. ‘And so I just left, put a note by her pillow and left. I… I feel gutted, literally gutted, Salma. Like my insides have been ripped out of me. I’m just hollow. And now all this… all the killing, the destruction. You know how I’ve always wanted to design weapons?’

‘I didn’t, but go on.’

‘I should feel that it’s wrong – after I’ve seen what those weapons can do. And yet… and yet people would still kill each other with sticks and stones if they didn’t have anything else. With their bare hands even. And it would be pointless, so pointless. I… I almost think that only the weapons make it all worth anything. At least something is learning from the whole bloody business. The people remain the same, killing and dying and dying and killing, but at least the weapons get better.’

Salma gave him a doubtful look. ‘I don’t think Che would like to hear that.’

‘No, I’m sure she wouldn’t.’ Totho rubbed at his face, as if trying to erase some unseen stain.

Salma decided to come to the point. ‘Listen, Toth, when Skrill makes her move, you should go with her. Get out of here and get back to Stenwold. The Ants have artificers enough. Go back to Stenwold. And to Che, even.’

But Totho was shaking his head. ‘You haven’t thought it through, Salma. Sorry, but you haven’t. What am I supposed to say to her? Yes, I left you on an ill-planned mission that seemed certain to see you dead. Yes, I just ran, at that point, and made sure that my skin stayed whole. That, you see, would look particularly impressive. Che likes you. You and she went through a lot together. When you decided to come here on this fool’s mission she was furious, and it was because she was frightened for you. She doesn’t like me half as much, I think, nor would she have shed as many tears for me. So if I go back with that story, that I left you to your fate, how could I look her in the face? I know it’s not practical, and I’m supposed to be a practical man, but that’s how it is.’