Safest way was east through the Mercantile District. Then I’d go north and take the byways of the slums to avoid the streets. Even with the districts crowded full of desert people, eyes were everywhere, watching, and I felt naked with no hood. Cold too; the orange sky fast fading to eggshell blue. The day’s haze of industry still hung above the roofs of the city.

He’d always been faster than me: there wasn’t time to leap away before his grip tightened on my arm and his bug-eyes met mine from underneath his own swathe-hood.

‘Captain’s not with them other guards,’ Jerome said and flicked his head sideways. ‘C’mon.’

So he knew what guards were now. I fell in behind him, like old times, wondering what other things he’d learned; whether Loquar trusted him as Rusper trusted me. Or had. I wondered if we’d ever be friends again, or were we just too different now?

He took me back the way I’d come, around the domicile buildings on the incline of the hill and then shot up the terrace stairs. It was almost like the day we’d tried to run away from Plamen. And soon enough, just like that day, he was on the steps to the next level, scampering on and up past pigeon-hole dwellings full of folk, then scrambling up the final ladder that took us onto the rooftop.

Here the air still held the warmth of white brick baked by the day. No streets could be seen among the roofs that crowded round like heaped and jumbled puzzle-blocks. From the dusky roofscape the Captain turned around with hands on his hips. ‘Tools,’ he said.

Two guards were with him; like him, dressed in city swathes.

‘Captain,’ I greeted.

‘Smart move,’ he said, noting my haircut. ‘My mute found you then.’

I nodded. ‘But the plan’s got to change.’

‘Thought it might. In that case the signal we just spotted might make some more sense to you.’ I glimpsed the sword-hilt in his swathes but it was cloaked as soon as seen.

‘Signal?’

‘Mm, lights,’ he said, and turned to point. ‘From that fool Loquar’s roof. Old goat climbed up on the straw-bale with a lantern and dropped the hood four times facing west.’ I went to stand beside him to locate the place where the ramshackle structure of wind-vanes poked up out of the haze, not two hundred yards away. Mondric regarded me, stern. ‘Four lights answered from a window of the Ilovish.’

I ground my teeth. Zeek had been quick; dropped off the dragonfly already. It had begun.

But when I turned to start explaining he raised a hand. ‘Better you simply say what needs doing.’ It wasn’t impossible that he knew, but even if he didn’t something in his face said he didn’t want to. Whatever that meant now.

So I gave him my new plan. As expected it amused him at first but I stood firm all through the scoffs he couldn’t hold, and the amusement fell away with the last rays of the sunset. He gently argued, pushing a kind of deadened reason against the madness of what I was suggesting. But then his arguments ran out. Or maybe he remembered that these were my people he’d found himself protecting, and that sooner or later they were doomed anyway.

A frown settled on his brow. It was insane, I knew it was; easy enough to read off the guards’ faces. But if it worked . . .

Jerome looked sold.

Mondric took a lungful of breath. ‘So,’ he exhaled. ‘We’re to rely upon speed, upon stealth, the Lieutenant’s unlikely respect for civic order, and the chance—the wildest dream!—that you can achieve this thing you say.’

‘Yes.’

‘Yes Captain,’ a guard chided.

‘Ach, give it peace,’ Mondric grimaced. Then glared at me. ‘You understand that by halving the numbers I would post at the warehouse, defence of the area may become impossible? If Jharis launches any kind of assault . . .’

‘Let him!’ I blurted. ‘I can do this.’

His forehead furrowed with concern, doubts, who knew what. Not sure why, but I pitied him. ‘If just one part of this fails . . .’

‘It’s on me, Captain, not you.’ The words spoke themselves, although the look he gave me then was pitying too.

The look vanished. He set his jaw, turned to his guards and gave the nod. ‘Do it. As he says.’

‘Sir?’

‘Arrest the Naemian refugees.’

As the two guards left by the ladder, their eyes glanced back and seemed to warn: you’d better know what you’re doing. But I did know what I was doing, that was the craziest part. Their hoods had barely disappeared when Mondric strode to the southwest edge of the roof. Hands on hips again, alert, he looked to the Inner Wall only moments before a single duduk sounded out the Iron Shield’s flat note. My heartbeat quickened. ‘Here they come,’ said Mondric casually, as if about a pair of visiting aunts.

‘You said nightfall!’ I shouted over the duduk’s second wail. Jerome was right beside me now.

‘Eh, close enough,’ Mondric replied. ‘Not unlike them to adjust schedule, you know that. He’ll have got wind I’m prepared.’

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‘What does it mean,’ I said, ‘for us?’

Enormous suddenly, he turned and marched in our direction and the ladder. ‘It means we move, lads.’

The duduk blared a third flat siren. By rungs and steps we plunged back into swarming streets. Like two sons behind their father, we shadowed the Captain of the banished Fortress Guard over the boundary of the districts, where Jerome had found me, and on from there into the slums. From the edges of the junk shops and the tinkers and the dens, hooded eyes followed, but Mondric seemed to be aware of them. Always too quickly, when we’d passed, each pair abandoned its post to peel away into the shambles and invisible rank-and-file assembling in the ragged tail-ends of the North District. Soon I could see the tops of warehouses and hear the jostle of boots somewhere in between. Then, as we passed a dingy tavern full of eyes, Mondric jack-knifed left and strode across the thoroughfare.

There was our shelter. Hesitating just for a moment, I followed on, Jerome behind, putting all my trust in Mondric now. On either side of us, no longer hiding, swathed guards came out of alleys.

We entered the alley behind the warehouse and I looked ahead. Over a line of more swathed guards, Naemians were emerging from the side-door in a steady single file, to disappear between the walls of the warehouse next door. One of the men hurried from that line towards the Captain. ‘The wardens have been suspended and escorted to the gatehouse,’ he reported.

‘How many refugees to come?’ said Mondric, clipped.

‘Thirty, forty.’

The voices I could hear inside the building were confused and agitated, even panicked, but it had to be this way.

‘Quicker,’ said Mondric.

‘Let’s move!’ the guard shouted at the line and I flinched as a man I remembered was pulled out by the arm and pushed along. Philemon, that was his name, and in his old life he’d been a miller. I saw his fear, his pride all gone. But there wasn’t a gentle way to do this. Children followed. I saw Miss Nindry and her son—stronger now than when I’d last seen him, but scared.

Jerome and I were being bumped and shoved by more cloaked guards arriving.

The Shield’s duduk droned on high again.

‘Move out,’ ordered Mondric. ‘Ready positions.’ Around us the cloaks and swathes were shed like so many brown leaves to reveal the ruddy leather tabards of the guard-force. Their Captain cast his own cloak down and his men drummed past us in tightening lines, forcing us both to press close. He set a hand atop the pommel of his sword, which I’d never, ever, seen him draw, and looked at me as if my time had run out. ‘Luck to you, Tools. Remember, time’s all I can give you.’

‘It’s all I need,’ I said, breath short in the frenzy.

He left us there, marching out between the running files of guards, into the street.

Now it was up to me. ‘Let’s go,’ I said and led Jerome out at a dart between the rush of guards in both directions. Some of the guards were with us though, herding my people between the the close-pressed walls of buildings. We hurried down the moving line, both of us skipping over legs of ergish folk who sheltered here, watching us go. I heard the murmurs ripple with me: ‘. . . Flints’ boy?’

‘Keep moving and stay quiet,’ another guard was urging. Another one I recognised: the man who’d chaperoned me that day I’d risked my life in Loquar’s crane to clean the banner. His voice was hard but in a way that meant no harm. The younger children didn’t like it and some had started to whimper, but other folk were doing what they could to hearten them.

When I found him, Dewar’s eyes fed on the sight of me as if trying to make sense of what he saw. ‘What’s happening here?’ he growled but wasn’t worried for himself. His worry, as always, was for others, and now the fearsome butcher from my childhood was looking to me for answers.

‘Nothing bad’s to happen to you,’ I told him, ‘but you’re going to have to trust me.’

Ignoring the brooding doubt in his face, I kept in line beside him as we pressed on, side-winding out of sight of what had surely started back there now. I heard some shouts behind the buildings, doors and shutters slamming closed, and then a drone of raised voices.

The back door of the brewery was latched inside. The guard who led us, one of the sheriffs, forced it in and we crossed the dark, vacant interior. Shoulders forced out the front door too, and again our line moved on and out into the night air. Faster now, we wove between the sandstone houses at the top of the cluster; the shuttered dye-press and farriers, then broke from cover at the signal of the guards and crossed the way, all the while watched by more ergish Vedans on the verges. As we rounded the water-well near the base of the northwest wall, a crying woman snagged her shawl on the stone and tore it. She gave a cry, but then Jerome freed it for her and gathered it up at her shoulders.

I grabbed Jerome: ‘Go back,’ I urged him. ‘You’ll be safer at Loquar’s house.’

Pulling his arm away roughly, he shoved and overtook me, muttering something I didn’t catch.

So we climbed. There were few lights on the battlements, but even so we picked up pace. To our left the mostly dark shape of the citadel glowed in spots, ready for the Rite at which its sovereign would appear. The darkening city looked strangely beautiful. To our right rolled the deep blue plains. But there were lights below the hill; just specks of flame in and around some of the left-behind engines. Was someone down there? I’d thought the regiments had gone back to their home caliphies. The Antissan Regiment was here, also some Verunian and Laudassan troops, but they were inside the walls.

‘Move quickly, quietly,’ ushered a guard, keeping the ushering hand low. I peeled my eyes back from the plains.

In the torchlight on the street we’d just escaped, now I could see the blue-and-white grouped at the warehouse. Facing them, a block of guards. I stood and watched Mondric and Jharis until the full length of our line had moved past me, guard tailing. I recognised this man too; Garth, who’d been the one to hack the dwarf’s sandrat in half. He pressed me on, but when I saw him stop again and look back, I waited ‘We must go quickly now,’ he said, coming back. ‘Captain’s standing down.’

‘What?’

‘Go!’

We hurried out onto the last stretch of the northwest wall; ahead, the last turrets and the gatehouse after that. Knowing we were fully in view, I fought the urge to look across to those stirring lights down in the street, and still I failed. As my hands met the wall of the turret, I saw Jharis stepping out of the warehouse doorway. He stood chest-to-chest with Mondric, threateningly close.

‘Florian, don’t stop!’ beckoned Dewar.

I caught the shake of Mondric’s head even though his back was turned to us, and then a nod from Jharis who shouted some kind of order. As if in answer, a single line of Fortress Guards advanced, but Mondric held up his hand to stop them. Three Shieldmen approached the warehouse with torches.

‘Florian!’

Abandoning my view, I launched away from the turret door and followed, scaled the steps to street level and ran to catch up with the line. As I went, I saw the second group of guards holding the adjoining alley and, over their domed headpieces, a firelight was growing. I ran across the open way, past the silent quartermaster building, shut-up shops for lanterns, locks and silks and hats, through the sleeping marketplace and up the wide incline towards the Citizen District.

Through the teeth of that gate, I could could see my people waiting; a huddled throng of naked fear. And the orange light reflected on their eyes as their refuge went up in flames.