Plop. An eyeball slid through the slowly enlarging hole, dangling from its optic nerve. A red-raw tongue slithered through another hole as the charring spread across the canvas.

Then, to Nish’s disgust and horror, a smoking face, bare of skin, flopped down on its skinless, wattled neck. The canvas parted to reveal the other eye, staring at them, still alive. It was Scrutator T’Lisp, all that was left of her.

Ullii cried out in horror and tried to throw herself out of the way. Nish crushed her to him with his free arm as the blue-lipped mouth opened, the yellow, angled teeth parted in a smile that was mostly rictus. For a moment Nish thought T’Lisp was going to scream a death spell at him, but a revolting sucking gurgle cut off what she had been going to say. Her jaws were forced open, she heaved once, twice, three times, then her intestines oozed out of her mouth, popping and squelching as they came.

Nish’s stomach heaved, though all he brought up was a thin green trickle of bitter bile that burned his throat and mouth. He spat the residue carefully to one side of a now limp Ullii and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

By the time he’d finished, the other eyeball had popped out, but the charred canvas gave way under the ruined creature’s torso and, thankfully, it fell through.

Framed by the hole, not two spans away, was the horrified face of Chief Scrutator Ghorr, spattered with the indescribable remnants of his former colleague. Red-brown fumes wisped from the sable collar of his coat and, to his left, Scrutator Fusshte was doubled over, choking. Behind him a pair of soldiers reeled in circles as if drunk. Whatever Ullii had done, it hadn’t just affected T’Lisp.

‘There – are,’ slurred Ghorr, sluggishly raising his arm at them.

Acting purely on instinct, Nish swung the crossbow up and fired through the smoking hole. The bolt struck Ghorr in the left shoulder, driving him backwards out of sight.

‘Ullii,’ Nish gasped. ‘Get a grip. You’ve given us our chance!’

With eyes screwed shut, she reached up for the rope. Nish fumbled a rag-wrapped bolt out of his pocket, slipped it into the groove of the crossbow and wound furiously. He touched the tails of the rag to the smouldering canvas and the rag flared. Taking careful aim at the nearest of the naphtha-soaked knots, he fired.

The bolt went true, embedding itself in the knot, and blue flame flickered there. Nish fired three more flaming bolts; each hit their target. Fire licked up and down the vertical cables and ran around the circumferential ropes between them. It was done.

The people on the amphitheatre began shouting, screaming and stampeding away from the fire, whose flames were already nibbling at the edges of the canvas. The cables were thick and it would take a good while for fire to weaken their tightly woven cores, though the canvas would burn through in a minute. Flame ran up one cable like a wick, causing cries of panic from the scrutators, rightly terrified of an explosion of floater-gas that would threaten all their craft. Two of the soldiers hanging over the side fell, ropes blazing. The others swiftly pulled back out of sight.

‘Put it out!’ someone screamed.

Across at the nearest knot, cloaks were flapped as the soldiers tried to smother the flames, though after each thump the fire sprang out again.

Someone shouted, ‘Water, quickly!’

Nish didn’t dare stick his head up through the hole, but he put his ear to the canvas and their voices came clearly to him.

‘You can’t put out naphtha with water, fool,’ came Ghorr’s halting voice. Though in much pain, he was still in control. ‘Cut up sheets of canvas … roll it round the ropes … smother it. Guards – carry me to my lifting chair. What’s it doing way up there? Lower it at once. Healer? Where’s my healer, dammit?’

‘Are we to abandon the executions, then?’ said Fusshte. He spoke thickly, as if his tongue had swollen to fill his mouth.

‘Of course not,’ Ghorr snapped, regaining control of himself. ‘The spectacle must go on. The Council has to show that it’s in control. We can’t be driven away by a renegade traitor and a squeaking mouse.’

‘If a spark rises up to one of the airbags and sets off the floater gas –’

‘It won’t if you take control of the fires. Get on with it! Get a squad of soldiers to each fire and check the rest of the cables. And shut that rabble up.’ The prisoners were shouting, cheering and urging Nish on. ‘Where’s my captain?’

‘He’s trying to put out the cable fires.’

‘Take charge here and calm the witnesses. Order must be restored at once.’

Fusshte ran and gave the commands, then came back. ‘And if we can’t put out the fires?’

‘Have the baskets lowered halfway, just in case,’ said Ghorr. ‘Separate out the most important witnesses to go in the first lift. Where’s my healer? My shoulder …’

‘He’s coming down now. What about the others?’ said Fusshte. ‘It’ll look bad if you sneak off and abandon them.’

‘How dare you speak that way!’ cried Ghorr. There was a heavy thump, as if he’d slumped to the canvas, and a gasp of pain. ‘If the cables burn through, the rest of the witnesses will be sacrificed. They’ll be doing their duty. I’ll allow no risk to the air-dreadnoughts.’

‘What about the prisoners?’

‘Let them fall to their doom, all but Xervish Flydd. Without him they’re nothing, and I’ll see the rest of his blood run before the day is out. Bring Irisis Stirm too.’

‘And Cryl-Nish Hlar?’

Nish reached over and lifted the naphtha flagon off Ullii’s back. It gurgled satisfyingly. He whipped out the stopper, folded over a twist of soaked rag and screwed it in so that it was tight.

‘Take him alive, if you can,’ Ghorr said. ‘And if you can’t, I want him dead with a thousand crossbow bolts in him. I’ll not be made a laughing stock by that treacherous little cur.’

‘It’s a bit late for that,’ said Fusshte softly.

‘What did you say?’ Ghorr hissed.

‘You wanted all the credit for this victory for yourself,’ said Fusshte in a low and deadly voice. ‘So you must take the blame for the scrutators’ humiliation and failure.’

‘There is no failure,’ snarled Ghorr. ‘We’ve got all we came for, and more.’

‘But you’ve lost more, and that’s what’s going to be remembered. The amphitheatre can’t last ten minutes.’

‘I’ve strengthened the cables with our Secret Art.’

‘Against fire? When it falls, the whole world will know that the chief scrutator has had his nose pulled by a renegade traitor and a squeaking mouse. And won’t they laugh.’

‘Anyone who so much as smiles will be executed on the spot.’

‘Which will only prove that you’ve lost it. You’re finished, Ghorr.’

‘Then why aren’t you doing anything about it?’

‘I’m waiting for you to abdicate.’

‘Be damned! Lower my chair, fools,’ Ghorr roared.

‘Leave it where it is,’ Fusshte ordered.

Nish was astounded. Revolt among the scrutators was unheard of. How could he make use of it?

‘Yesterday you might have destroyed me with a snap of your fingers,’ Fusshte went on. ‘After today you won’t have the authority. The chief scrutator survives only so long as he proves worthy of the office, Ghorr, and you’ve failed in front of your fellows. Without my support you’ll suffer the same fate as Ex-Scrutator Flydd. Scrutators leave office only one way, as you should know. You made the rule, after all.’

‘Where’s my chair?’ said Ghorr. ‘Why isn’t it coming?’

‘I signalled the operator to pull it back up. The chief scrutator can’t flee like a rat from a burning hold. It wouldn’t be good for the dignity of the Council.’

‘Damn you, Fusshte,’ Ghorr ground out. ‘I’ll see you flayed alive for this.’

‘I doubt it,’ Fusshte chuckled. ‘Look! They’ve obeyed my orders, not yours. You’re finished, Ghorr.’

‘We’ll see about that.’