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Mothers dandled children in the shade of skull-covered buildings while young men–making sure the unmarried girls could see them–jostled each other and pushed forward through the blackened sticks and bones of old fires towards the platform. More experienced hunters with families chafed at being kept away from the never-ending quest for prey. Still, they too were worried. Their task had become even harder now that a whole territory seemed closed to them.
    Chief Speareye projected an air of calm. He smiled at his people and waved them silent. But just as he opened his mouth to speak, a great
whoosh
filled the air. Under the Roof, two formations of Globes swept towards each other from opposite ends of the world. Fire and beams of light leaped between them and the crowd cried out in surprise and no little worry at the ferocity of the hunt. Stopmouth felt his jaw go slack–this must have happened the day he’d saved Wallbreaker from the Armourbacks. A sight such as this had distracted his enemies.
    One of the Globes suddenly spun higher and exploded. A heartbeat later the watching humans heard the sound of it and saw a huge, perfectly square section of the sky turn black. Beams of light licked out from the other Globes until more of them burst into flames and fragments hurtled down upon the world. Nobody moved until a piece of metal the size of a head landed on a boy in the middle of the crowd, and suddenly everyone was screaming and running for shelter even as the earth rocked with further impacts. More pieces rained down on the Ways, rattling against the roofs of houses, bringing wails from terrified children. A fragment the size of five men plunged into a Wetlane and sent clouds of steam over the tops of the guard towers.
    Finally one of the Globe formations fled towards a far section of the Roof. The other followed and soon the air was free of them again. Only one human had died, but it was a full tenth before any of them crept out from their shelters.
             
    Night fell and grids of tiny tracklights on the Roof cast the world into shadow. Fires of moss and bone flickered all over Centre Square and hissed under drops of Roofsweat. On the largest roasted the body of the boy who’d died when the Globes fought. Relatives and friends of the family sat around the other fires in sombre mood while the smell filled their eyes with tears and their mouths with saliva.
    For once Wallbreaker wasn’t talking much. He’d found a piece of metal from the battle as big as two hands. He poked at it with slivers of bone and bashed at it with rocks. Nobody else wanted the stuff, except for one of Speareye’s wives, who’d wound fragments of it into her hair to catch the firelight. Stopmouth expected others to follow her lead within days.
    Wallbreaker kept pounding at his prize until a finger-sized piece came away to reveal a dozen strands of metal hair underneath. He didn’t notice that Mossheart seemed to be losing patience with his investigations. She caught Stopmouth’s eye.
    Stopmouth nodded back. He knew what she wanted.
    ‘Wallbreaker?’
    ‘Yes, Stopmouth.’
Clunk!
    ‘R-r-remember, tomorrow w-we h-hunt?’
    Wallbreaker was still pounding at the metal and mightn’t have heard. Stopmouth opened his mouth to speak again, but just then the hunter, Roofhead, approached their fire with a shell-plate full of steaming meat. The man kept his composure as he offered the food around. Each person whispered a word of condolence before taking a token sliver of the dead boy’s flesh. Most would be left for what remained of the family.
    Roofhead thanked them and moved on.
    Stopmouth tried again: ‘W-Wallbreaker?’
    At that moment Wallbreaker gasped. ‘Look! Mossheart, Stopmouth, look!’ He held the metal he’d been working on up to the firelight.
    ‘I don’t see anything special,’ said Mossheart.
    ‘Oh, but it
is
special!’ said Wallbreaker. ‘Watch this. Watch it carefully.’
    He hit the metal with a rock. A