Allanbridge and Gaved were both used to a loner’s life, each having had livelihoods that sent them off to many places in furtive solitude: the Wasp hunting and the Beetle shipping. By three days into the voyage Gaved had begun to regularly assist the aviator in small ways, with the ropes, with the mechanisms, even helping him cook on the airship’s burner-stove. An easy understanding had developed between the two of them – without need for speech since they thought alike. Save when Allanbridge brought the Maiden down for supplies or repairs, the company passed whole days in quiet routine.

Thalric leant on the rail, watching the Lowlands pass below him, wreathed in cloud, seeming so distant as to resemble nothing he had ever seen. He was a fair flier, for a Wasp, but he had never ventured so high, and it was so cold that he wore a greatcoat with two cloaks draped over it. Despite that, the odd freedom, the leisure of it here, in the upper reaches of the air, had all the appeal of the unfamiliar.

Earlier that day he had watched Jons Allanbridge rewind the Buoyant Maiden’s motor by releasing the great weight in the base of the gondola, the unreeling of its wire trace tensioning the spring of the airship’s clockwork heart. Then Thalric, Gaved and Tisamon together had, simply by muscle power, hauled the weight back in. Allanbridge boasted that he could do it on his own with a crank, if he needed to, and Thalric supposed that must be right, even though his own muscles were still burning with the strain of it. The whole business had become a regular daily ritual for them, over the tendays they had been aloft.

Mind you, he was no longer as strong as he had been. The wound that Daklan had inflicted on him, during the Empire’s attempt at executing him, still leached at him. Halfway through the winding process today he had seen spots before his eyes and had been forced to step away beneath Tisamon’s contemptuous stare.

The gondola was mostly open to the elements, with a low, flat hold beneath it where Allanbridge would normally stow whatever contraband he was currently smuggling. Some of the passengers were sheltering below even now, but Achaeos remained at the stern, talking in a hushed voice to their captain, who was obviously unhappy with whatever he was being told to do. The Moth was another invalid at the moment, still walking with a stick, but he wore nothing but his usual grey and darned robe, whilst Thalric and the rest were swathed in every piece of cloth they could get their hands on. Up here the sun was bright but the air was icy cold: the harsh winter everyone had predicted was coming with a vengeance. Some days back, passing over the hilly terrain between Sarn and Helleron, Thalric had even seen snow falling, snow that must be descending like dust down around the Seventh Army, which was currently encamped somewhere below. The Lowlands seldom saw snow and most of the Wasp Empire was likewise blessed, but Thalric had his own memories, bitter for many reasons, of winters endured during the Twelve-Year War in the Commonweal with snow lying a foot deep and unprepared soldiers freezing to death by guttering camp-fires.

Even thinking of those frozen days brought a great lump of loss into his throat, because all that was gone now. He was an outcast, a hunted man. First the Empire had betrayed him and now he was betraying it in return.

Or was he? This fool’s treasure hunt the Moth had set them on hardly seemed a betrayal. A hunt for some trinket, some curio of a raided collection, and yet the Moth had decided it was the be-all of creation. But what did it matter, really, if some imperial courtier had decided to suborn the Rekef into acquiring for him a choice antique? Was that not the precise degree of rot that Thalric had uncovered at the heart of the Empire? Could he therefore not reinterpret this mission into something that was ostensibly even to the Empire’s benefit? Of course I can. You always can. The Empire would not appreciate his help, though, and he suspected the others did not realize just what danger he might land in by going back there. Gaved was right about Jerez, though: if he could hide himself anywhere, it would be there: that shifting town was the bane of imperial bureaucrats, governors and tax-collectors, a vast lawless pond of Skater-kinden who paid lip-service to the Empire and then ambushed its tax caravans. Just the sort of place Scylis would run to, if he now had something to sell.

Would Scylis be aware of Thalric’s disgrace? Having counted the days since, Thalric suspected not. It seemed mad that, on recognizing Thalric, Scylis might take him for the avenging hand of the Empire.

Or Scyla. Achaeos swore that Thalric’s old agent had been a woman all this time. The Wasp did not know what to think about that. Or perhaps I do not want to admit I didn’t know it.

Complications, complications. He shook his head. Allanbridge was shouting at Achaeos now, claiming that something or other was too dangerous.

‘You have me aboard,’ the Moth argued. ‘I shall shield you.’

‘And what if his lot are there?’ the artificer demanded, pointing at Thalric. ‘Who shields us then?’

‘Are they likely to be?’ Achaeos turned to the Wasp. ‘Had the Empire taken Tharn, when last you heard?’

‘Tharn?’ It took a moment for Thalric to recall the name of the Moth-kinden mountain retreat that was situated just north of Helleron. ‘There were no plans afoot when last I heard,’ he admitted. ‘It will happen, though. I take it you wish to bid your home farewell while you still can.’

‘A farewell of sorts,’ Achaeos replied.

‘If the Empire is there, you will see flying machines aplenty as we near the mountain,’ Thalric suggested.

‘If we catch any sight of them, we’ll instantly steer clear,’ Achaeos promised Allanbridge, who grumbled for a moment but acquiesced.

By the time they were in sight of the Tornos Range they were starting to make very heavy going, Allanbridge was wrestling with the engines to combat the force of the crosswind and the airship was slipping northwards, so what had seemed a leisurely course towards a distant skyline became a battering progress that soon could see them dashed against the mountain peaks.

‘I’m taking her lower!’ Allanbridge announced with a shout. The airship’s bag was filled with a gas he had called distillate of sphenotic, which could carry the ship’s weight but would take them higher when it was heated. Now he was stifling the burner, that served as a stove on better days, and the airship began to descend through the layers of cloud even as it gusted towards the mountains.

The first they knew of company was an arrow that sang across the gondola’s bows and lanced into the balloon.

Achaeos began waving his arms, a flick of his wings took him up onto the rail, then either the wind or his own volition whisked him off, and he was airborne. The shimmer of his wings ghosting from his back, he circled the gasbag, gesturing and shouting, while the rest clung to whatever they could find, waiting for their flying machine to begin its plummet to the ground.

Allanbridge laughed at them. ‘One arrow?’ he called. ‘Even your worst ship can take a dozen before it falters, and Collegium kitted me with Spider-silk! See, arrows just stick in her!’

‘But will they stick so happily in you?’ Thalric yelled in return.

Then Achaeos was back, clinging to the rail doggedly until Tynisa helped him on board. Looking pale and exhausted even from that brief flight, he pointed towards the mountains.

‘Mount Tornos,’ he announced. ‘Take us there.’

‘Your fellows going to shoot any more arrows at us?’ Allanbridge asked. Beside him Gaved shrugged his sleeves back a little, freeing his hands for his stinging Art.

‘I convinced them not to cut your machine open,’ Achaeos said. ‘No more than that for now. Bring us in, and I can talk to them further.’