As soon as they reached the ants’ megalopolis, the dinosaurs began to stomp down extra hard and kick even more wildly. Most of the buildings in the Ivory Citadel were no higher than the dinosaurs’ calves, and whole blocks were squished beneath a single clomp of their feet.

Field Marshal Donlira had a depressingly good view of the destruction, for she and several other ant soldiers were still scurrying back and forth over the Tyrannosaurus’s helmet, desperately trying to find a way in. Looking down from their scarily high vantage point, they surveyed their ruined city and the fires that raged through it. This was truly a dinosaur’s-eye-view of the Ivory Citadel and what a sobering experience it was: to Donlira and her soldiers, their species appeared astonishingly small and insignificant.

The Tyrannosaurus strode over to the Imperial Trade Tower. At three metres high, this was the tallest skyscraper in the Formican Empire and the pinnacle of ant architecture, but it only came up to the beast’s hips. The Tyrannosaurus dropped to its haunches – the abrupt loss of height causing the ants a moment of weightlessness – and then the top of the tower appeared over the horizon of its helmet. The crouching dinosaur studied the tower for a few seconds, then grasped its base with its claws and plucked it from the ground. It stood, examining the tower curiously, as though it had found an amusing toy. The ants on the dinosaur’s head gazed at the tower too. Blue sky and white clouds were reflected in its sleek navy-blue surface, and its countless glass windows sparkled in the sunlight. They still remembered how, on their very first day of school, they had followed their teacher to the top of the tower for a panoramic vista of the Ivory Citadel…

As the Tyrannosaurus turned the tower about in its claws, it suddenly broke in two. The dinosaur cursed and flung the pieces away, first one bit and then the other. They arced through the air and landed among a distant cluster of buildings, shattering on impact and knocking down many other homes and offices in the process.

It took only minutes for the tread of 2,000 dinosaurs (who were so ridiculously bulky that they couldn’t all fit into the Ivory Citadel at the same time) to reduce the Formican capital to a heap of fine rubble. As clouds of yellow dust bloomed above the ruined city, the dinosaur soldiers began to cheer. But their triumphant cries were cut short when they turned to look in the direction of their own Boulder City.

Columns of black smoke were rising from the capital of the Saurian Empire.

*

Urus, with his imperial bodyguards clustered around him, lumbered from the palace through swirling smoke, only to collide head-on with the panic-stricken minister of the interior.

‘It’s terrible, Your Majesty – the whole city is burning!’ shrieked the minister.

‘What’s happened to your fire brigade? Get them to help!’