I hope it’s livelier than this when it gets into the air.

‘Che!’ Nero called down to her. ‘Trouble!’

The Wasps had noticed them, at last, or perhaps they had simply begun loosing their stings on the bystanding mechanics. Che saw several of the Solarnese go down. A moment later the Cleaver’s hull thrummed under scorching impacts.

This is a wooden flier, Che reflected, with an engine that burns combustible fuel. She needed to get into the air immediately, where the swift passage of the Cleaver would hopefully put out any burning on the exterior.

A moment later she was sprawling on the floor beside the pilot’s chair, rubbing at her eyes and coughing at the smoke, whilst the narrow view-slit had acquired a charred new edge. She smelt burning wood behind her, and heard Nero clattering down from the hatch to stamp out whatever smouldering had started. The Cleaver was listing noticeably to the left, as she flung herself back into the seat, hauling at the sticks. By now the Wasps were concentrating their attacks, and the whole front of the Cleaver shook alarmingly. She heard wood splinter with the force of the combined assault and knew that, however solid her vessel looked, it was just like a wooden eggshell if they could apply enough pressure.

She threw the engine into a faster gear, and felt the cumbersome fixed-wing surge forward. At the same time the attacks fell off, becoming fewer and fewer, and she assumed that the Wasps must be throwing themselves out of the way. She peered cautiously through the damaged slot, hoping that she was still on course.

To her astonishment the Wasps were all dead. She caught a glimpse of their scattered bodies, a good dozen of them at least, before they vanished beneath her view. There was only one man standing there, a gaunt silhouette against the lights of the landing field. As the Cleaver advanced on him, he boldly waited until the last moment before ducking under its wing, and it was then that their eyes met for just a brief moment.

Cesta, the assassin.

Could Tisamon have done that? Che wondered. Killed so many, so swiftly? She imagined those little throwing blades flicking out in twos and threes, the Wasps falling before they even realized they were being attacked.

Thank you, Cesta, she thought, and then she was fully out in the open air, and she sent the much-abused fixed-wing over the airfield, putting everything she could crank into the engine, feeling the wheels lift from the earth just a moment before the Cleaver overran the edge of the field, teetering over the city of Solarno below, and then it flew.

Axrad broke away from the spiral, casting his flier over the city in a long, broad arc that gave Taki plenty of time to see that he had begun the fight.

Honour amongst Wasps, whatever next? She threw the nimbler Esca away from him, flitting back above the airfield, noticing the ponderous bulk of the Cleaver at last get airborne.

Good, she thought. Now I fight. She thumbed the lever that uncovered the rotating piercer and then danced across the sky, looking for Axrad.

He was above her already, swinging in from the sun, just as a good pilot should. She knew that he would do so and the Esca danced aside from the glittering lance of his repeating ballistae, and then ascended straight up without warning, as poised in flight as any insect, so that Axrad swept right past her, pulling furiously out of his dive even as he did. She put the Esca through three turns, spinning in the air, and shot at him, the piercer clunking over and over, sending its long bolts past his cockpit. But he was better than that, for he dropped his orthopter almost to street level, so that she had to stop shooting for fear of killing some innocent citizen. He then fell out of sight altogether, hidden momentarily by the roofs of Solarno, and no doubt terrifying anyone who happened to be passing beneath.

Taki soared overhead, searching for him, and without warning his flier flurried up out of the city, repeater firing as fast as it could reload itself. A bolt tore a narrow hole in her wing before she rolled the Esca out of the way, and then they were chasing over the rooftops, him directly behind her, and Taki always keeping out of the line of his ballistae.

She then saw that they did not have the sky to themselves. There were at least a dozen other vessels, of differing loyalties, flying above Solarno in this dawning light. Dragon-fighting! The phrase had reached Solarno from the people of Princep Exilla, who enacted the same kind of duels astride their insect mounts, but it was among the pilots of Solarno that the practice had found its true home.

And amongst the Wasps, too, because Axrad was proving very, very good.

In a moment the city was gone from beneath them, and Taki was skittering across the dawn-reddened expanse of the Exalsee. Can’t get too far from Che, she realized, and threw in one of her special tricks. It would normally be impossible in anything other than a heliopter, except that of course the Esca Volenti was special, endowed as it was with its little beating halteres that gave it more control and balance than any other man-made thing around that inland sea. With a single flip of her wings the Esca was simply facing the other way, for a moment speeding impossibly backwards, away from the city, until the wings wrestled the orthopter to a momentarily stuttering halt and then plunged, back towards Axrad.

She held down the trigger, watching the piercer bolts flash towards him, striking sparks wherever they struck. His orthopter faltered in the air and seemed to drop, and then she had passed over it, and a craning look backwards showed her that he was gaining height again, holed but not damaged, swinging in behind her doggedly.

She was enjoying herself now. Her city was being invaded, and her friends were fleeing it and needed her help and guidance, but it had been a long time since anyone had given her a run as good as this.

Then Axrad was soaring away, deliberately breaking off his pursuit, and she was instantly looking about her, towards all quarters of the sky.

There they were: two more Wasp orthopters angling in, lining up on her. Axrad had given her the only warning that he could, and she now turned to aim at them, flying right in their faces with her rotary piercer blazing, firepowder spitting the bolts at them far faster than any ballista’s tensioned string.

These were not Axrad, however, just Wasp pilots with basic training and no great skill. One of them dropped almost instantly, so swiftly that she must have struck straight through the cockpit and killed the pilot. The other swung wide of her, but she turned within his turn and her rotary raked the underside of his craft, scoring several hits but nothing that hampered him.

The Wasp orthopter rocked again, as another craft flashed past before them, causing both Taki and the Wasp pilot to haul their fliers out of the way. It was a big, armoured fixed-wing, and Taki knew it at once for Scobraan’s resilient ship, the Mayfly Prolonged. She dropped aside and saw the Wasp pilot take the bait, pointing on the apparently ponderous ship and shooting. A few of the bolts stuck, but most simply rattled from the Mayfly’s armour, and the Wasp was getting so close, so very close. Taki herself would never have fallen for it, but then she was already wise to the tricks Scobraan kept concealed within the Mayfly’s plated hull.

It was over before she knew it, the Wasp orthopter ripping into fragments without warning, as Scobraan’s incendiary struck it and exploded, and for a hundred yards the blazing wreck continued on its course before losing its integrity and dropping from the sky.