After agonizing minutes in the dark, jackboots approached Kera’s hiding place.

  The door flung open. But a familiar silhouette slipped into the maintenance access.

  “Kerana?”

  “Did you…?”

  “I… not know. I took… what seem best, of I could find fast” said Roskvir.

  He popped open a cylindrical canister to extract pages rolled inside. With her vision adjusted to the darkness, Kera made out familiar letters and words scrawled over the papers’ original foreign text.

  “This… is… message. Very recent.” He handed her the first of the sheaf. “From… big navy war superior. Back in my country — powerful men, even over my master. They are surprised, and angry, about him using city-weapon. Say we must be careful, because making of next city-weapon is… slow. So must be careful, to use, or save it, when comes. They say, my superior, even when next city-weapon is ready, he may not use. Only if… emergency, and only if he ask of them, and they say to. On purpose, they make this message less secret. Not for everyone to know, but, less secret. So many big men around, now know what they want. Makes of it… much more harder, for my master disobey.”

  Kera shivered. That was almost the best she could’ve hoped for.

  So the enemy didn’t have an arsenal of such weapons. Far from it. Creating another would take some time, and even then, Roskvir’s people and leaders would be disinclined to use it. She’d been right: their threats were bluffs, at least in part.

  “And here, reply of my master,” Roskvir continued. “He says strongly that, law says… may allow to use any weapon of what he has… when needed of that weapon. But it has feeling of… backing down. He accepts to ask of them. Admits they are above him. His master. Says that here. I wrote over meaning in Setet word, best try I can. Now this one… copy of new-thing-telling paper.”

  “Newspaper?” said Kera.

  “News-paper, yes. Show what back home say, in news-paper, of using city-weapon. Back home find out by now, of it. Here, it say about wishes of… I do not know name, in Setet words. Zaibjoten, they are called. Very big, rich company. Different family master each one, like little kingdom. They control much of… things-making. Making metal, and ship, and gun… and cloth, and cooking pot… many things. Understand? And says, zaibjoten become not happy. They expect many things gain of here. Not just take back treasure. But… trading. They want make them more rich, with what is producing here, with trade. Zaibjoten not happy, if they think must look for rich in… broken place. So, not want use more city-weapon. That is how they say… in their special way, not plain word, but still… how they ask my master… to holding back.”

  “How obligated is your master to obey these groups?”

  “I… not know. I not understand of politics. Zaibjoten are… powerful. But my master, he is powerful also. I know little.”

  A troop of bootfalls jogged past outside, an evermore constant rhythm.

  “Will it be enough?” he asked.

  Kera bit her lip.

  At the very least, it was evidence that Roskvir’s master was exaggerating his strength. Which could mean he needed to bluff his way to a quick victory, because he couldn’t actually afford a longer war. But bluffing could also just mean Roskvir’s master simply thought a shorter war more convenient, even while commanding an army well-prepared to crush entrenched resistance.

  It all came down to a calculated risk. They would never have had the luxury of certainty, she knew. Not until it was too late to turn back one way or another. All they would ever have was a gamble.

  The page crinkled in her fist.

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  “It’s enough,” she nodded.

  “Then we must now, immediately, to the princess.” He cracked open the hatch, scoping out the way ahead. “Keep papers in metal holding-thing. Wind strong on walk outside. We must very fast, now. Running not will draw eyes—“

  The warningless blare of a klaxon siren preempted all else. Long, shrill tones repeating some unknown sequence wailed loud enough to oppress thought itself.

  “What—“ Kera recoiled, clutching her ears.

  Roskir looked as if broken. His previous determination had melted into anguish.

  “Aktionsstationer. Battle-places,” he said, his voice breaking. “No time, now, almost.” He threw open the door, sparing nothing more for stealth.

  “Follow me.”

  * * *

  The westerners’ transports should’ve arrived already, thought Tanhkmet.

  He’d waited on the ridge for hours, watching for those airships. But as he scanned the western horizon through his spyglass once more, still he found nothing but level savanna.

  Dampness hung in the air, and a chilling wind slipped through the slits between his armor plates. Besides those portents of the approaching thunderstorm, though, neither had anything come from the east during those last hours. Not least the suicidal sergeant Iumatar. He was certain by then she’d perished.

  That damn sergeant.

  She’d had a contradictory charisma, he had to admit. Perhaps even a sort of logic, buried beneath her awkward yet impassioned confusion.

  But he should’ve known she was too dangerous.

  Virgil had vouched for her. That had been the crux of it. Placing his trust in that man’s wisdom had never before led him astray, in all his years. Until then. But of course, he and Virgil had been apart for so long, until just a few weeks before. Maybe even Virgil had changed.

  The distance glinted, then.

  Through his spyglass, two distinct forms limped above the horizon at last, then two more. Four indeed, as he’d requested. They’d be smaller, slower vessels than the newest pleasure yachts the wine-drinkers could’ve spared in that time of crisis, he knew. But they were coming.

  The first droplets of rain wet his hair, plinking against the metal that decked his shoulders.

  The sky flashed an instant bright behind him, where the eastern tempest blew in. He started to count seconds until the thunder to follow, to gauge the storm’s distance.

  Wait— that wasn’t—

  Before he could finish the thought, the ground beneath him ceased to exist.

  A gut-punch of sudden explosive force threw him down, and at once the whole world was but nausea and tremorous ringing. Hot earth erupted in a great pillar yards away, like the forearm of some buried giant reaching skyward. Distortions ripped through air, as malformed darts of shrapnel just missed him, powerless as he was to protect himself.

  A blinding shower of dirt then fell back on him. But even through the all-muting shock, still he registered the staccato double-rumble of battery fire that followed the impact in place of thunder’s roll.

  “Captain!”

  Ringing in his ears faded and surged. In its troughs, the shouts reached him, distant like a dream.

  A patrol officer staggered over, falling to his side. Others of her watch were sprawled motionless across the obliterated section of ridgeline outworks behind her.

  Assuming she’d come to assist him, he threw his arm over her shoulder, as he fought to plant one foot back upright. But instead she gestured elsewhere.

  He wiped more dirt from his eyes. She was pointing at the clouds.

  Of course.

  From between anvil towers of charcoal storm, a floating island fell from the sky.

  But it was a warship cutting apart the thunderhead, he saw, not some airborne landmass. Just the length of its hull yet visible was dozens of times more massive than any he’d ever seen. Long, and wide, indeed almost as an island. A behemoth sea monster from the clouds above, instead of rising from the sea.

  Another double-flash of false lighting lit the dark once more from beneath the island-warship’s keel, and Tanhkmet knew he had an instant to act. But he’d already unslung his shield by veteran reflex, and that great steel wall was at once a conduit for his clay-soil fire.

  Red-hot shrapnel met his barrier, as two more devastating eruptions cratered the terrain ahead. His aura’s heavy thrum dipped in pitch, but not a single errant shard grazed him or the officer he protected.

  “We must evacuate the stronghold!” he cried.

  Lagging thunder of the guns resounded, sharp and piercing but flat and without echo across the broad and open plain, as he tried to shepherd the patrol officer down from the heights.

  “Go down! The enemy is here! Get Commander Junius! Everyone must evacuate!”

  She almost wasted the time for a salute. Tanhkmet threw her off of him, sending her stumbling toward the stronghold’s entrance.

  Then he turned back to face the stormfront, and raised his shield once more.