North, slow and inexorable. They were pulled on, days becoming weeks. The city waited. No one knew what would happen, but there was no way this steady gait could continue without incident. Armada became tense.

Bellis waited for word of Fench’s pamphlet. She was patient, envisaging him in the belly of the city, deep in some ship, collating information, controlling his informants.

Some nights, drawn by queasy fascination and shocked at herself, Bellis made her own way into the Grand Easterly ’s lower decks and huddled in the room below the Lovers’. In their spat and breathless love talk she heard a new tension.

"Soon," Bellis heard one Lover hiss, and "Fuck yes, soon," a whimpered response.

There were differences between their little cries, Bellis could now discern. The Lover seemed more intense, more committed. It was she who seemed impatient, hungry for resolution, it was she who whispered soon most often; she was the more engaged with the project. Her lover was engaged with her. He fawned and murmured in the wake of her words.

Time stretched out. Bellis became more and more frustrated with Uther Doul.

With the city’s passage north, it had passed quickly out of the storms and the heat and into a more temperate zone, warm and breezy like New Crobuzon’s summer.

Five days after Bellis and Silas met in The Pashakan, there was a commotion above Armada’s skyline, in the dirigible Arrogance.

While Bellis stood with Uther Doul on the Grand Easterly, looking over to the fringe of Croom Park, Hedrigall was on deck duty, working with others near the great ropes that tethered the Arrogance to the aft of the ship.

"Mail drop," he yelled, and the crews quickly cleared the area around the rope. A weighted satchel plummeted its length, landing with a bang on the cushioning of rags.

Hedrigall’s motions, when he pulled open the sack, were routine, and Bellis began to look away. But when the cactus-man unfurled the message within, his demeanor changed so violently that her eyes snapped back. Hedrigall ran toward Bellis and Doul with such astonishing speed that she thought for a second he was about to attack them. She stiffened as his great muscular body slammed down the boards of the deck.

Hedrigall held out the lookout’s message in a rigid arm.

"Warships," he said to Doul. "Ironclads. A New Crobuzon flotilla. Thirty-five miles off, incoming. Be here within two hours." He paused, and his green lips moved without sound, until finally he spoke with a tone of absolute incredulity.

"We’re under attack."

At first, people were bewildered, disbelieving of their orders. Great masses of men and women gathered in every riding, on every flagship, fingering weapons and pulling on pieces of armor, surly and confused.