The other two crossbow men looked at each other. The one who had now loaded his quarrel smiled nervously at Miz. He nodded at Miz’s gun, swallowing.

“We didn’t realise you was from the castle,” he said, and very carefully took the quarrel back out of its groove. The other man released the tension in his bow and let it fall to the ground. They both glanced at the dead man lying on the floor.

The man in the booth got the thief’s body off him and from behind the curtains shouted, “Me neither, sire!” A terrified bearded face poked slowly from behind the booth’s curtains.

Miz looked warily around. He smiled insincerely at the two crossbow men and the knife-wielder. “Boys, you’re going to see me out of this rather rough neighbourhood.” He glanced at the man in the booth. “You go to the front door and get the heroes out there to give you their guns.”

The bearded man gulped. He came out from behind the curtains, leaving the thief’s body lying half in and half out of the booth. He walked to the door. He opened it gently and called out. There was some conversation, which became heated, and then the sound of running footsteps. The bearded man smiled at Miz in a sickly fashion. “They ran away, sire,” he said.

“Why don’t you do the same?”

The man needed no more prompting; he was out of the door in an instant. Miz turned to the other two. “Chaps, you and I are going to go out the back way.”

The two men looked at each other.

Miz frowned mightily. “There must be a back way.”

“Yes, sire,” one of the men said, “but it’s through the tannery.”

Miz sniffed the air. “Is that what it is?” he said. “I thought the beer was off.”

“You stink.”

“Blame the tannery,” Miz said as Zefla dried his hair.

Sharrow poked at one of Miz’s locally made boots with the toe of her own. “These are falling apart,” she said. “I thought you only bought them two days ago.”

Miz shrugged beneath hiss towel as Dloan handed him a glass of wine. “Yeah; don’t know what the hell I stepped in.”

“So,” Sharrow said, “the local ruffians don’t want to play.” She sat down in the one comfortable easy chair in Miz and Dloan’s room.

“Apart from playing Let’s Perforate Miz’s Head, correct,” Miz agreed. He looked at Sharrow as Zefla finished drying his hair. “I’m worried. Cenuij talked about the King having spies and informers; what if word of this gets back to the castle?”

Sharrow shrugged. “What can we do?”

Miz nodded at Dloan. “Why don’t we all go with Dlo tomorrow? We can call it a safari; get out of town for a few days, camp somewhere near deep country, let Dlo-maybe me too-head in, try and contact these revolutionaries.”

“Cenuij doesn’t think much of the idea,” Zefla said, tossing Miz a scent spray.

“Thanks,” Miz said. “Yeah, well, he wouldn’t, would he? 1 think it’s worth doing just to get away for a while.”

“You really think we might be in danger after tonight?” Sharrow asked.

“It’s possible,” Miz said, spraying under his arms.

“What about Cenuij?” Dloan said.

“He’s not in trouble,” Sharrow waved one hand. “We can leave a message for him with the innkeeper; it’s not worth the risk of using the comm gear.” Sharrow nodded, looking thoughtful. “Okay, we’ll go.”

“Camping out in the bush for a few nights,” Zefla said, crossing her eyes. “Oh, the utter joy of it.”

The airship drifted over the sunlit jungle, a blue-white bubble against the blue-white skies of tropical Caltasp after the rainy season. The canopy slid slowly by underneath, the tops of the highest trees only five metres or so beneath the keel of the open gondola, where she, Geis, Breyguhn and Geis’s martialer knelt, their long guns poking over the gunwales of the boat-shaped basket.

The smells and sounds of the jungle wrapped up around them, mysterious and exciting and a little frightening.

“We’re on a perfect heading,” Geis said, talking very quietly to her and Breyguhn. “The wind’s taking us over one of the best areas, and our shadow’s trailing us.” He looked at the martialer, a small, rotund, perpetually smiling man from Speyr who looked more like a comedy actor than a combat tutor. “Is that not so, martialer?”

“Indeed, sire,” the martialer smiled. “A perfect heading.”

When Geis had first introduced the martialer to her and Breyguhn, in the arbor of the Autumn Palace, he had asked him to prove his skills as he saw fit. The fat little fellow had smiled even more broadly, and-suddenly flourishing a stillete-whirled and thrown. A white-wing, fluttering past a trellis ten metres away, was suddenly pinned to the wood. Sharrow had been impressed and Geis delighted. Breyguhn had been shocked. “What did you do that for?” she’d said, almost in tears, but the little man had held up one finger, padded to the trellis and removed the knife with barely any effort. The white-wing, which had only just been held by one wing, had flown away…

“There!” Sharrow said, pointing to the forest floor.

They looked down as they passed slowly to one side of a clearing. There was a water hole, and on the dusty ground near it a large animal with smooth green skin lay dead, its guts spilled onto the ground. Another animal-smaller, but powerful-looking-stood in the pool of intestines, biting and tugging at something inside the fallen herbivore’s belly cavity. The predator raised its head to look at the balloon, its golden-red snout covered in green blood.

“A rox!” Geis whispered. “Wonderful!”

“Ugh,” Breyguhn said, watching from the other side of the gondola.

The martialer took the airship’s control box from his pocket and flicked a switch. The drifting vessel hummed almost inaudibly above them, coming to a stop. The rox, its broad jaws still working as it chewed on its kill, looked up at them, unworried. It put its head to one side, still chewing.

“Cousin?” Geis said to her.

Sharrow shook her head. “No,” she said. “You.”

Geis looked delighted. He turned and sighted along the long powder gun.

Sharrow watched Breyguhn grimace, looking over the edge of the gondola but not really enjoying what she was seeing. Sharrow turned to look too.

“You become one with the gun and the line and the target,” Geis whispered, aiming (the martialer sat nodding wisely). “Damn; he’s gone back inside the guts of the thing.”

“Yeaurk,” Breyguhn said, sitting down on the other side of the gondola.

“Don’t rock us!” Geis whispered urgently.

The martialer put the airship controls down, raised both hands above his head and clapped them loudly together. Sharrow laughed; the rox’s head came up, freshly green, and looked at them again.

“Got you,” whispered Geis. The gun roared. Geis bumped backwards in the gondola; a cloud of smoke drifted down the wind. The rox had stopped chewing. It collapsed to the ground, front knees thumping into the dust; dark-red blood pumped from its head as it fell over, kicked once and was still.

“Yes!”

“Well done.”

“Fine shot, sire.”

“Ugh. Is it over? Have you done it? Is there a lot of blood?”

“Take us over there, martialer; I want to get down and cut a couple of trophies.”

“Sire.”

“Poor animal; what chance did it have?” Breyguhn said, peeking over the gondola at the two corpses lying side by side.

“The chance of not being seen,” Geis said happily, and shrugged.

“It was quick,” Sharrow told Breyguhn, trying to ally herself with Geis’s maturity rather than with her half-sister’s youth, even though she was closer in age to Brey, who was only twelve.

“Yes,” Geis said, preparing the rope ladder as the martialer guided the airship through the warm air towards the clearing. “It wouldn’t know what hit it.”

“It still seems cruel to me,” Breyguhn said, crossing her arms.

“Not at all,” Geis said. “It killed that heuskyn down there; I killed it.”

“It’s the law of the jungle,” Sharrow told Breyguhn.