Ato did not have a basket hilt on her spear, a fact she had lamented until she realised that a spear shaft provided far more room for notches than a basket hilt ever could. Her spear had three notches on it. She felt very strongly that it should have more.

Ato was fourteen years old, and as such she contained may wants and desires and feelings. She had observed how happy Ora and Ryoko seemed to be with all the hand-holding and kissing, and she had filed that information away for later testing.

With her most recent want stymied by practicality, Ato’s current want was to talk to Lekko, famed inventor of the increasingly mobile stationary crossbow. Apparently mounting a severed head on the top of her spear would be too macabre and would sent the wrong message, more importantly, it might rust the spearhead.

Lekko, Weir, Mu, and Hobbs were all most commonly found in the watchtower, in the telegraph office. Ato wondered idly if any of them ever held hands and kissed. She suspected that they, too, were busy with other things.

When Ato arrived in the telegraph office, the four inventors were busy with wiring diagrams labelled ‘telegraph typewriter’. Ato didn’t think this was a very good use of their time, so she decided to interrupt.

‘Lekko,’ said Ato. ‘I’ve been reading about types of arrowheads. Do you think the stationary crossbows could break through logs if they had these crescent-headed arrows?’

Lekko looked over from the wiring diagram he had been looking at. ‘Ah, teenaged girl who’s name I certainly remember,’ he said. ‘I… had not thought about it. But I do not think so.’

‘Ato,’ Ato said.

‘Ato,’ Hobbs and Mu also said.

‘Ato,’ Lekko said. ‘I appreciate the enthusiasm, but we’re a bit busy with a different problem right now.’

Ato shook her head, disappointedly. ‘It doesn’t matter how fast a telegraph operator can sent a message,’ she declared. ‘It matters how fast reinforcements can arrive.’

Hobbs and Mu looked very upset by this knowledge.

‘Do you have an idea about that, as well, Ato?’ Weir asked.

‘Only conceptually,’ Ato said. ‘If a waterwheel could be made self-contained somehow, I don’t see why it couldn’t drive the wheels on a cart, and with the right gears, it could go much faster than a camel or people could pull it. I don’t know how you would make the waterwheel work without water, of course.’

Hobbs and Mu looked absolutely stricken. ‘Fuck. She’s a genius.’ Was approximately what they said.

All four of the inventors looked at each other for several moments. ‘Well,’ said Weir. ‘We’ve got those motors from the blacklands.’

‘Foolishness.’ Was roughly what Lekko said. ‘Where is that book?’

Hobbs produced a book very clearly labelled ‘the Function and Use of Steam Engines’.

‘This is a much better idea, and closer to what Ato suggested,’ Mu said, or something like that.

‘We’ve already talked about this,’ Weir insisted. ‘We don’t have anywhere near enough iron to lay tracks out here and to Outpost. And the machinery is too delicate for an untracked vehicle.’

‘We’re getting off topic,’ Ato announced.

‘Surely we don’t need stationary crossbows to cut down trees, Ato,’ Lekko said. ‘We have plenty of axes and saws.’

Ato shook her head, shocked by the lack of vision. ‘No, no. We need stationary crossbows to cut down trebuchets and catapults.’

There was probably a chorus of ‘she’s a genius’.

‘Perhaps a proper ballista might have enough power,’ Lekko said. ‘But it would not have the range and portability.’

‘Which is why I asked about the crossbows,’ Ato pointed out, reasonably.

‘A blade that was strong enough would be far too heavy,’ Mu said. ‘We would need a different mechanism.’

‘If the crossbows were more accurate, we could make an auger or drill,’ Hobbs said.

Lekko shook his head. ‘The quarrels don’t spin enough. That’s the entire problem with the accuracy.’

‘A drills spins,’ Ato pointed out, intelligently. ‘Could the quarrel not be made to spin by the shape of the arrowhead? It doesn’t get loaded all the way in.’

‘We’ve tried that, unfortunately,’ Lekko said. ‘The vanes are far too sturdy to make sure they don’t come free on release.’

‘Which is why I suggested using rubber for the vanes,’ Weir admitted. ‘But they were simply not rigid enough.’

‘Could they not be reinforced somehow?’ Ato suggested. ‘A bit of steel, perhaps?’

‘The problem is that curved vanes would be torn off by the bow itself, on launch,’ Lekko said. ‘Unless we raise the quarrel off the bed, which will only make it less accurate and less stable.’

Everyone went ‘hmmm’ and rubbed their chins or something.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Ato had another great idea. ‘Now, I’m aware that cheese and wood do not have the same properties,’ she started badly. ‘But I’ve seen Andros and some other people cut cheese with a thin wire. Could a thicker wire with more force cut through something stronger?’

The response was something like several fish gasping for water. Ato was prepared to consider that another round of ‘she’s a genius’.

‘Bolas,’ Mu announced, startlingly.

Ato had never encountered bolas, she was lucky in that way. ‘What’s that?’

Rather then answering directly, Hobbs said. ‘They would use a lot of iron.’

‘If you had two weights on each end of a thick wire,’ Weir said. ‘They would wrap around a log and pull the wire through it.’

‘Couldn’t we use stone weights?’ Ato said.

Mu and Hobbs shook their heads in unison. ‘Stone is not dense enough, the weights would be too big.’

‘Aren’t we getting back to the problem of them being too heavy?’ Weir asked.

Hubbs and Mu shrugged in unison. ‘Only one way to find out.’

The first of her pressing desires fulfilled, Ato left the grunt work of actually making and testing this new, trebuchet-breaking ammunition to the inventors. She had someone else she needed to talk to.

Ato knew from experience that Beln wasn’t good at remembering to lock his door. She also knew from experience that she didn’t just want to let herself in. So she knocked, hard, on the front door of Beln’s little house in Lookout.

Among the many problems with Beln, one was that he wasn’t always where Ato expected him to be. When no one answered the door, Ato let herself in. Beln wasn’t home. Thankfully, neither was anyone else.

On the one hand, Ato could just wait in Beln’s house for him to come back. She had no idea when that might be, or if he would be alone when he did come back. On the other hand, she had no idea where he was right then so it would be a struggle to track him down.

Ato decided it would be less boring to try to track him down, locked his front door behind her just in case, and left to meander around Lookout.

In the year since she’d arrived, Ato had gotten quite bored of Lookout. At first it had been a bit interesting to watch the town grow up around her. But she only left once or twice a month for short scouting trips or to hunt, and otherwise had very little to do.

Which is why she had set herself the task of making sure that Lookout would be able to defeat the next army sent by the Lord’s House. If Ora, Heft and Pest, Beln, and just about everyone else were to be believed, the next army would be much bigger, and would almost certainly be better prepared to counter the tactics that had worked this time.

Ato didn’t think people were taking the problem seriously enough. Sure the wall was being finished off to encircle the whole town, and was planned to grow another five metres or so. But what would the town do if the trebuchets got too close?

With that issue sorted out, the next was how to get the next army to give up more quickly. And the only person Ato knew who might know about that was Beln, who wasn’t at the archery range, main square, tower, or his house.

Beln turned out to be in the central dining room of the fourth apartment building Ato checked. He was sat with a man that Ato was pretty sure she recognised. They were sitting very close, talking quietly. Beln was chucking about something.

Ato didn’t have time for this.

‘Tarry, right?’ Ato guessed, sitting down across the table from the two of them.

Tarry jumped to put more space between himself and Beln. Beln sighed.

‘Oh, Ato,’ Tarry said. ‘Yeah. One of the loggers.’

Ato widened her eyes and smiled. ‘Yes. I knew it. Good to see you again. I need to talk to Beln.’

‘Oh, sure.’ Tarry grabbed his plate.

‘You can stay,’ Beln said. ‘Ato, we were clearly busy.’

Tarry didn’t release his plate, but didn’t get up.

‘Busy wasting time, Beln,’ Ato said. ‘I need some of your knowledge.’

Tarry got back to eating.

Beln sighed and rubbed his nose. ‘What do you want to know, Ato? I’m busy.’

‘The priests wear distinct clothes, but you can’t tell which ones are actually in charge. The soldiers commanders don’t wear anything special,’ Ato said. ‘They all look basically the same. How do you tell?’

Beln rolled his eyes. ‘That’s the point, Ato,’ he said. ‘It’s supposed to be about humility or something, and just so happens to make them much harder to assassinate.’

Ato did her best glare and pointed an accusatory finger at Beln. ‘You were around them for like, ages. You’ve got some knowledge somewhere in that silly head of yours.’

‘I would have said it was a handsome head,’ Tarry said, through a mouthful.

‘Thank you, Tarry,’ Beln said. ‘You’re…’

Ato interrupted. ‘A man can be silly and handsome at the same time.’

Tarry pointed his spoon at her. ‘A very good point, Ato.’

‘Thank you Tarry,’ Ato said. ‘So, Beln… get digging.’

Beln sighed again.

‘And stop sighing,’ Ato instructed. ‘The longer you make this take, the less interested Tarry gets.’

Tarry nodded along. ‘Not necessarily.’

Beln sighed, more. ‘Let’s say there were sixty five platoons. That’s sixty five platoon commanders. That should be about thirty three priests. So at least fifteen priest commanders. So at least five troop commanders, plus the actual army commander, who may or may not be one of the priests.’

Ato was taking notes. ‘Not very helpful.’

‘They get dressed up when they’re in town,’ Beln sighed. ‘If we could track them the whole way, you’d be able to keep track of who’s important.’

‘Bit hard to tell as eight kilometres, no?’ Tarry said, through a different mouthful.

Ato pointed at him. ‘Tarry gets it.’

Beln nodded. ‘Tarry’s the smart one, here.’

‘I mean, Ato has a good point,’ Tarry said, through the same mouthful.

‘I already said it,’ Beln groaned. ‘They’re supposed to be humble and shit. You can’t tell who’s who.’

Tarry patted Beln on the shoulder. ‘You’ll think of something.’

‘I’m not the smart one,’ Beln complained.

‘Do the commanders get paid better?’ Ato asked.

Beln shrugged. ‘Yes, but they have to wear the same uniform so it doesn’t matter.’

‘What about those necklaces they all wear, with the suns?’ Ato asked.

‘If you can’t make out facial features, how are you going to know how many carats are in their pendants? And not all of them will even have nicer pendants, because that’s showing off, which is not humble.’

Ato pouted.

‘If there was something, you’d already know it, Ato, along with everyone else,’ Beln said. ‘There’s really no way to tell for sure without close scrutiny.’

Ato sighed. ‘Fine.’

‘It’s a good thought, Ato,’ Beln said. ‘All I can suggest is targeting the priests. It’s not a guarantee, but it’s the closest I can think of.’

Ato made a final note. ‘Alright. Good effort Beln. You two can get back to huddling and giggling and whatever.’ She got up. ‘Oh, Beln, I locked your front door, by the way. Hope you remembered your key.’

Beln groaned.