No more procrastinating. I step out of the ship and I'm instantly assaulted by a wall of noise.

  Thank the Twelve for Atrax and his clan. If they hadn't turned up, the mood in the fortress would be getting dire by now. Instead it's downright pleasant, verging on drunken revelry. The roast roaches have mostly been scraped clean of their meat, but there are still various delicacies of the commandant's going around, along with the bottles from his liquor cabinet. The clanspeople have brought their own booze, too, and the two groups are sampling one another's offerings and exchanging tips. For a few moments after I emerge, I just take in the scene and feel a little more hopeful.

  It doesn't last, of course. News of my appearance gets around, and before long Margie and Arborough turn up, still mid-argument. Margie looks even bigger under the open sky, standing straighter, while Arborough hunches in on himself and keeps glancing nervously upward as though he expects the nightsun to fall on him.

  "I told you," he's saying, "there's no hope of fighting them off. I served --"

  "On a battleship, we all heard you the first ten times," Margie says. "'It has guns like giant steel cocks and it can go all night long.' But that only matters if you give 'em a chance to shoot."

  "How do you plan to stop them?"

  "Ambush," Margie says promptly. "Wear guard uniforms, let 'em inside. Big guns won't mean shit when we're on the deck cutting throats."

  Arborough scoffs. "They'd see through it, and then we're all dead."

  "As opposed to your plan of dying in the desert?" She looks at me. "Kal, tell this old bastard he's a fool."

  "It is eminently possible to survive in the waste," Arborough says stiffly. "Look at the nomads. If a bunch of Sinister primitives can manage it, surely we can."

  "With what gear? What supplies?"

  "We might be able to convince them to part with some."

  I don't like the tone of that at all, so I intervene. "I think that's a bad idea. We're going to need the nomads as friends. And surviving in the desert may be but it isn't easy. There's Fifth-worshipping cannibals out there too, remember."

  "But the Navy is ," Arborough says, with genuine fear in his voice. "What we've done is an offense to the Princeps they cannot let stand. If we stay here, we'll be slaughtered."

  Margie snorts. "If you didn't want to fight the Princeps, you ought to have stayed down in the mines." She waggles her eyebrows. "Oh, wait. You did."

  "I to --"

  "," I cut in. "Arborough is right about one thing. There's no going back now. The Princeps let this stand, but the Princeps is back in the City. Anybody he sends after us is going to be flopping around at the end of a long, long line."

  "Small comfort to anyone on the business end of a twelve inch shell," he sniffs.

  "The ambush idea is a good one, if it comes to that," I tell Margie. "But I'm hoping it come to that."

  "Meaning what?" she says. "You've got a plan?"

  I'm aware of a sudden drop in the volume of conversation. People are listening. The three of us stand at the center of an expanding circle of silent watchers as we argue aloud over the anxieties every person here must be feeling.

  " is a strong word," I say carefully. "But I have a lead. There's a reason I came this way." I start slipping back in Rekka's revolutionary cadence. "Fighting the Princeps was always going to be all or nothing. Win or die. No point in half measures. What we need is a , something powerful enough to make him think twice about sending his soldiers and his Navy against us."

  "No such fucking thing," Arborough says. "If there was, the Princeps would have it by now."

  "He doesn't know where it is. I do." Or at least Gray does. Or at least Gray he does. Such a gossamer thread to hold all my hopes. "It's in the north."

  "There's nothing north of the waste but swamps and bugs," Margie says, looking at me sidelong. "Everyone knows that."

  "Somewhere even the Princeps' Navy doesn't go?" I raise an eyebrow. "Sounds like an excellent hiding place."

  "So … what?" Arborough says. "We'll all go north? We'd never make it."

  "Not all of us." I raise my voice. "I'll go. I'll take the cutter, secure the weapon, and bring it back here. Once we have it, we'll show the Princeps why he shouldn't fuck with us. And once we do the whole house of cards will start to shake. It's like I said: the Princeps is invincible only because everyone he's invincible, so they don't fight back. If we break through that lie, everyone who's ever lost family to the tithe will be ready to join us."

  " this weapon really exists," Arborough grumbles. "What is it? Some kind of gun? A ship?"

  "And what are we supposed to do in the meantime?" Margie says.

  I answer her question as a convenient way of dodging his. "Stay here. Stay free. Stay alive. Fight if you have to, run if you have to. Just trust that I be back."

  "," she pronounces. "That's a big fucking chunk of trust."

  I gesture at the celebration around us. "It's worked so far, hasn't it?"

  Cheers, at that. Actual cheers. These poor bastards are pinning their hopes on the whispers of a talking skull and the bluster of a con artist.

  Back home, I tried not to run my games on the poor and oppressed. Not out of any real moral compunctions, mind you, just because they don't have anything worth stealing. As a result I never really felt bad for the marks, who could usually afford their losses. But people have nothing left to lose but their lives, and that's what they're putting on the table. The weight of it makes my stomach clench.

  This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

  "What'll you do for crew?" Margie says. "Can't drive that thing yourself."

  "Racnaea's already said she's coming," I tell her. "Or more accurately, she's going wherever the engine goes."

  Margie smiles, but there's something bittersweet in it, an edge of sadness. "That sounds like Racni."

  "Ye'll need a pilot." Quarter's voice. I spot him a moment later, the short man pushing through the crowd with the others from our original escape behind him, along with Atrax and Theo. "And lucky for ye, I find meself at a bit o' loose end."

  "I, alzo, would accompany you," Raz says, quiet enough that it's nearly lost in the crowd noise.

  "And me, if you'll have me," Agni says. She leans close and lowers her voice. "If I stay here with this lot, they're likely to remember eventually that a guard who was on their side is still a guard."

  "Thank you." I'm surprised to find myself blinking back actual tears. It's been a long couple of days.

  "I'm coming too," Theo blurts.

  That gets a round of curious looks from the others, including me. Those of us who escaped from the have nowhere in particular to go; having been sent to the mines, we can't exactly return to our homes. But Theo…

  Theo is biting her lip and flicking glances at her brother, whose forehead is creased in deep thought. When she notices me looking, her expression turns challenging. "What?"

  "Not that we couldn't use your help," I say placatingly, "but … I did say it would be dangerous."

  "Life in the waste is always dangerous," she snaps. "Remember where you fucking found me?"

  "But you a life here." I glance at Atrax. "The rest of us have to find some way to escape the Princeps' justice or die trying. You and your brother can just … leave."

  "And the fucking Navy won't bother us when they get here?" Theo says. "They'll just clean up this mess and not ask questions about who helped? They won't come looking for their fucking ?"

  I think about the story I'd spun for Slaughterborne, based in truth. About what I'd said to the shift leaders down in the mine. She's not wrong.

  "Besides, how far do you think you're going to fucking get with a pack of Dextrals who don't know a sand dune from bug's asshole? Probably feed yourselves to the first hellpit trappist you can find."

  "That seem possible," I deadpan. Then, as delicately as I can, I venture, "Your brother …"

  "Doesn't get to fucking decide!" she says, bristling like an angry cat.

  "But he gives his blessing in any case," Atrax says. "It'll be good for her."

  "Don't act like it's your choice." She gives him a glare, shoots one at me for good measure, and then stalks off. Atrax shrugs and raises his eyebrows.

  "Take care of her, brother. She means well."

  "We'll be back as soon as we can," I tell him.

  "In truth I wish I could go with you. I have always wanted to see the far north. There are roaches there the size of ships, they say." He sighs, and claps me on the shoulder. "But a leader has responsibilities, eh?"

  ***

  Responsibilities. An unfamiliar feeling. Arguably something I've spent my life trying to avoid. A key part of any game is the exit -- when the web of lies you've built starts to come down around you, it's time to disappear and leave the mark to pick up the pieces. Somewhat to my surprise, though, I have no impulse to do that here. Maybe because it seems impossible. When you're up against an angry spouse or a bilked investor, you can move to a new neighborhood and pick a new name; where are you going to go when you're running from the ruler of the world?

  The narrow bunks of the cutter might as well be the finest mothwing mattresses compared to the caves, and I get some decent sleep for the first time in days. There's a lot of bleary faces the next morning, but enough people fight through their hangovers to help me get the cutter ready for the journey. We load food and water until the storeroom is full to bursting and extra barrels are stacked on deck. Racnaea and Quarter supervise filling the viscid tanks from the fortress' reserves. Atrax's people offer extra clothes, medical stores, and some precious rockwater, and I have a thimble-sized vial of water-of-life left for a dire emergency.

  And of course, there's the conversation I've been putting off.

  "Just say it," I tell him. "Go ahead."

  say what?

  "You can see my history, right? So I don't have to explain what's been going on."

  correct.

  "So just say it!"

  what exactly do you wish me to say?

  "'I told you so.'"

  why?

  "Because I can tell you want to."

  i am above such impulses.

  "Sure you are."

  but i am glad you have accepted that this is the only course of action. it is my purpose, but it is also your only hope of survival. we must bring down the princeps and reach the deep well.

  "You know that's not going to happen, right?" I keep my voice down so nobody gets infected by my pessimism. "I'm sure your weapon is great and all, but the most we can hope for is to keep the Princeps off our back for a while. Taking the fight to him is a whole other proposition."

  i disagree. you are right about the nature of his power. he cannot tolerate defiance anywhere, because defiance, unpunished, would break his hold everywhere. the very act of standing against him is the essence of revolution.

  "Lovely. You and Rekka would have gotten along great."

  i suspect so.

  "Any advice before we set out? Better directions, maybe?"

  directions will have to wait. the land has changed since i saw it last. but there is one more thing you should bring with you.

  "What's that?"

  the … substance. the product of this mine. i do not know your word for it.

  "The … You mean axonite? The glassy black stuff we were digging out?"

  yes. there is a quantity of it stored in the warehouse, waiting to be taken home on the supply ship. bring it.

  "Why? What's it good for?"

  you will need it when the time comes, Gray says, with that infuriating smugness that comes so naturally to him. I wish he had a face more suited to punching.

  Still, given that this whole expedition is happening on his say-so, I can't exactly ignore his advice. We grudgingly offload a few supplies and replace them with several sturdy crates of axonite, the black glass inside scrubbed and polished to a gleaming black sheen. The others give me curious looks, but no one is yet ready to question the mysterious source of my information.

  Eventually, finally, everything is stowed away. The ex-prisoners mob the courtyard one more time and the trikes of Atrax's clan line the path outside, ready to see us off. Racnaea, true to her word, has put the engine back together, though she mutters about the amount of work it still needs. She won't leave the engine room, but the rest of us gather behind the controls as Quarter tests the power and begins to gently ease us forward. Then, abruptly, he stops and looks back at me.

  "Nearly forgot," he says. "This ship o' ours needs a name. Terrible bad luck t' take a ship out with no name."

  "Hasn't it got one?" I ask.

  "Nameplate's scratched out," he says. "And painted over with 'Gutfucker'."

  We all contemplate that for a moment.

  "Well?" I asked the assembled -- crew, I suppose. "Any ideas for the name of this boat?"

  "Naming a boat is a stupid Dextral thing," Theo says with a shrug. Agni echoes it, and Raz stays quiet.

  So, up to me, then. I try to think of something inspiring, but not cheesy.

  "How about --" I begin.

  "" Mercy shouts from behind my shoulder.

  There's a long moment of silence.

  "I'm not sure that's --"

  "Murderboat!" Sprocket chimes in, giggling. Mercy beams at her. I stare around at the others, who are all fighting smiles.

  "Well," Quarter says, "it'll do as well as anything."

  He opens the throttle, and the goes forth.