And yes, the Wasp had been another human being with all a man’s hopes and aspirations, and now snuffed out by eighteen inches of steel. But also, there had been enough Dragonfly dead during the Twelve-Year War to make the numbers now massed outside Tark pale into insignificance. Amongst them, his own father and three cousins, including his favourite, Felipe Daless. Not just kinden but kin: blood that called out for a levelling of the scales; three principalities of the Dragonfly Commonweal that groaned under the boot of the Empire.

He hardened his heart. There would be more blood spilled before the end of this, and some of it could easily be his own.

Skrill had stopped ahead, waiting for them. Totho blundered up to her.

‘And how did they find us?’ he demanded.

‘Scouts, Beetle-boy. What do you think they were doing?’

‘They followed you.’

‘You take them words back, or we’re lookin’ to have a disagreement right here,’ she said hotly. ‘Nobody asked you to link with us.’

Totho swallowed whatever words he had been going to utter and, after a moment’s thought, said, ‘Well it’s just as well I did, or you’d have been spitted right back there. What do you think of that?’

‘Will the pair of you be quiet?’ Salma grumbled without much hope.

‘I was playing with him,’ Skrill said. ‘I was-’ Suddenly she fell silent, turning away from Totho with her hand plucking an arrow from her quiver.

‘Put the bow down! Put the swords down! Put the crossbow down!’ barked a voice from somewhere within the grass. There was an uncertain pause, and then a bolt spat out of a nearby thicket, ploughing the earth at Totho’s feet. Even as they watched men began emerging in a crescent formation in front of them, swathed in cloaks of woven grass and reeds, but all with crossbows levelled. For a moment Salma thought it was the Wasps that had them, but they were Ants – Tarkesh Ants – with their pale faces smeared with dirt and green dye. Beneath the cloaks they wore armour of boiled leather and darkened metal.