The minutes were very slow. Tanner thought about Shekel, at home where Tanner had ordered him to stay. Waiting with Angevine: both being armed, no doubt, by the yeomanry left behind. But he ain’t yet sixteen, thought Tanner desperately. He wanted very much to be back there with them, with Shekel and his lady. Tanner hefted his huge harpoon and thought about the fighting that was coming, and he pissed suddenly in his fear. His urine warmed him briefly, then dissipated with the current.

Everywhere, throughout Armada and across all the free-floating ships preparing to defend it, there were weapons.

The city’s armories and arsenals were unlocked, and the military technologies of thousands of years and hundreds of cultures were brought out and wiped clean: cannons, harpoons, and flintlocks; swords and crossbows and longbows and rivebows; and more esoteric weapons: stingboxes, baan, yarritusks.

Across the city, dirigibles of all sizes were rising slowly above the rooftops and rigging, like sections of architecture broken free. Over the horizon to the west, smoke could be seen from the Crobuzoner engines.

There was a huge scrum on the deck of the Grand Easterly as all the lieutenants, officers, captains, and rulers of all the ridings jostled to hear Uther Doul, the soldier, give them orders. Bellis stood motionless nearby, ignored by everyone around her, and listened.

"Their gunboats outnumber ours," he said tersely, "but look around." He pointed out at the morass of steamers and tugs that had until recently spent their days pulling Armada across the ocean, and that now circled it in aimless freedom. "Tell the crews manning those vessels to turn them by gods into gunboats.

"Word’s been sent to the Brucolac and his cadre: they’ll be informed as soon as they wake. Send some fast boats or airships to the edge of Dry Fall, to wait for them.

"We don’t know the Crobuzoners’ strength underwater," Doul continued. "Submariners, you’ll have to judge when to attack. But they’ll have no airships. The likes of that are our only real strength." He indicated the Trident bobbing from the Grand Easterly ’s tail. It was being loaded with gunpowder and fat bombs. "Send them in first and fast. Don’t hold back.

"And listen-concentrate on the warships. The ironclads and scouts will hurt us, but we can withstand their firepower. Those warships… they could sink the city." A rill of horror ran over the deck. "They’re carrying the fuel reserves: the Crobuzoner fleet is depending on those warships to get home."

With a stunned jolt, Bellis realized what was happening. Her mind slipped like a broken gear, ignoring the rest of Doul’s instructions and grinding over and over the same pattern of thought. A ship from home a ship from home…

With sudden, desperate eagerness, she gazed out at the faint shading of smoke in the west. How do I reach them? she thought, disbelieving, exultant, and giddy.