Blood of the Mantis (50 page)

Arianna made a vague sound and pressed closer in against him, so he put a protective arm about her as he stared bleakly out of the unshuttered carriage window.

Collegium had not changed so much, but it had definitely changed. There were companies of militia drilling in what had been the Stockhowell Market: awkward-looking Beetle men and women, and various other kinden as well, some in heavy chainmail and others in breastplates worn over heavy buff jackets. He saw halberd heads weave and dip, and crossbows shouldered in mock threat.

He kept looking until he saw a company equipped with the slender, silvery snapbows, industriously going through the motions of loading them. He had operated one himself, of course, and he knew how effortless it was. The weapon seemed to have severed all connection between the hand that pulled the trigger and the man that fell dead twenty or fifty yards away.

But it is a Beetle weapon
, he realized. Totho had wrought it well. The Wasps were still half-savage, without the iron discipline of the Ants or the broader understanding of his own people. The Wasp-kinden were well suited to skirmish and raid, to vicious assaults and angry reprisals. His own people were civilized and cool-headed and, because of that, they would take to this new weapon as nobody else.
In time
, he thought,
we could conquer the world with our reason and our good intentions. Let us hope that our future shall not suffer from the Wasps teaching us how to make war.

The train shuddered to a slow stop, at which Parops reopened his eyes.

‘Returning to your men, Commander?’ Stenwold asked him.

‘I have spoken to them. They will march,’ Parops agreed. ‘We will go because, if Sarn falls, the entire Lowlands will tumble with it. It will be the first time, I think, that the Ants of our two cities have fought side by side.’

‘Long may it last,’ said Stenwold, though he knew that it would not.

He took Sperra straight to the College infirmary, where the most skilled of Collegium’s doctors would do what they could for her. She clutched at his sleeve briefly and he felt ill at having failed her.

*

The next morning he received visitors almost as soon as he was dressed. His drawing room was busy with a dozen functionaries, including two faces he knew: Lineo Thadspar, still Speaker for the Assembly of Collegium, and Teornis of the Aldanrael, who had returned to Collegium on the same train.

He studied their faces, the lined old Beetle and the smooth, agelessly handsome Spider-kinden, and he noted their expressions.

‘I take it the news is not good.’

‘No worse than expected,’ said Thadspar wryly. ‘We knew it would come to this.’

‘The Wasps are marching,’ Stenwold predicted.

‘They are, indeed. You have a source in Helleron, you will be surprised to discover, who has been sending missives by Fly-kinden messengers. He signs himself Wood-builder.’

Stenwold nodded. That would be the Helleron councillor Greenwise Artector, of course, who would be in a position to see a great deal of what went on in that occupied city. He did not speak the name, though, for his old habits as an intelligencer suggested it might be unwise. ‘What does this Woodbuilder have to say now?’

‘That a new army is marching from Helleron – the Sixth, known as the Hive. It marches to reinforce General Malkan’s Seventh, and from there on to Sarn.’

‘As you say, nothing unexpected.’

‘And he says also that he has given information to the Lord of the Wastes, so that that gentleman may impede the Wasps as best he may. I must confess I can make nothing of that message.’

‘I think we can, Master Thadspar,’ said Teornis. ‘Stenwold, you have a protégé, do you not, who is making a name for himself in Sarn and out in the wilderness.’

Stenwold nodded slowly. ‘Salma, yes.’

‘Apparently this Lord of the Wastes has been attacking Wasp supply convoys,’ Thadspar explained. ‘Presumably aided by your Woodbuilder’s intelligence. All very complex.’

‘It boils down to the same thing, though,’ said Stenwold. ‘Sarn must be defended, and the attack will come sooner rather than later. Do we have men we can send to Sarn’s aid, just as Sarn has aided us?’

‘I’m sure we do, although I have not had much involvement with the merchant companies . . .’ Thadspar started.

‘Perhaps you should not commit your soldiers so hastily,’ interrupted Teornis. ‘I fear you are not the only man with news, Master Thadspar.’

The two Beetles stared at him, waiting.

‘I am afraid there is another Wasp army, numbering I know not what, presently marching south from Asta to Tark. Word has come from the Dryclaw to my people, and was waiting here for me when I arrived. From Tark, I imagine that force will move on westwards down the coast, through Merro and Egel, through Kes and the Felyal, and then to here. The Wasps want Collegium, as you already know.’

‘And your people, what will they do?’ Stenwold asked him.

Teornis smiled. ‘Why, Master Maker, I have no idea. We are an independent, free-spirited lot. We might do anything.’ The smile hardened. ‘There are webs, though, of my own spinning, and we shall see what has been caught in them, by and by.’

The
Esca Volenti
’s clockwork motor started with a whir of cogs, and a handful of the mechanics began nervously to wheel the orthopter out past the Wasps, onto the field. Beyond it, Lieutenant Axrad’s own vessel was lazily powering up its wings with a deep grumble of its mineral-oil engine. The Wasp pilot threw Taki a salute before dropping into his cockpit and closing the hatch.

Back in the hangar, Che had already returned to the
Cleaver
, familiarizing herself with the controls. She heard Nero climb in behind her.

‘We’re going as soon as Taki’s taken off,’ she told him.

‘Right you are.’ He stood behind her, holding on to the back of her seat. ‘Roomy, this, but you can’t see a thing,’ he decided, and she heard the hatch rattle again as he opened it for a better view.

Out on the field, the
Esca
’s two wings began working their way up to a blur, and then the flying machine’s legs left the ground and slowly folded in, taking off on the vertical. Axrad’s heavier machine prowled stubbornly along the airstrip before slowly lifting into the air with great beats of its own four-wing arrangement. Then they were both aloft, spiralling about one another, gaining height: for a moment the sole point of concentration for everyone watching below.

Even when the
Cleaver
’s engines started up, there was a moment before anyone could distinguish the new sound from the two fliers receding above. Then the barrel-bodied fixed-wing was already moving, dragged forwards by its propellers and advancing slowly on the open hangar mouth. It was an unlovely thing in motion but it was solidly built, shouldering aside a smaller vessel that obstructed it in its hunt for the sky. Che felt it lurch and kick as she wrestled with the controls. It was taking all her strength just to keep the craft on a straight line.

I hope it’s livelier than this when it gets into the air.

‘Che!’ Nero called down to her. ‘Trouble!’

The Wasps had noticed them, at last, or perhaps they had simply begun loosing their stings on the bystanding mechanics. Che saw several of the Solarnese go down. A moment later the
Cleaver
’s hull thrummed under scorching impacts.

This is a wooden flier
, Che reflected,
with an engine that burns combustible fuel.
She needed to get into the air immediately, where the swift passage of the
Cleaver
would hopefully put out any burning on the exterior.

A moment later she was sprawling on the floor beside the pilot’s chair, rubbing at her eyes and coughing at the smoke, whilst the narrow view-slit had acquired a charred new edge. She smelt burning wood behind her, and heard Nero clattering down from the hatch to stamp out whatever smouldering had started. The
Cleaver
was listing noticeably to the left, as she flung herself back into the seat, hauling at the sticks. By now the Wasps were concentrating their attacks, and the whole front of the
Cleaver
shook alarmingly. She heard wood splinter with the force of the combined assault and knew that, however solid her vessel looked, it was just like a wooden eggshell if they could apply enough pressure.

She threw the engine into a faster gear, and felt the cumbersome fixed-wing surge forward. At the same time the attacks fell off, becoming fewer and fewer, and she assumed that the Wasps must be throwing themselves out of the way. She peered cautiously through the damaged slot, hoping that she was still on course.

To her astonishment the Wasps were all dead. She caught a glimpse of their scattered bodies, a good dozen of them at least, before they vanished beneath her view. There was only one man standing there, a gaunt silhouette against the lights of the landing field. As the
Cleaver
advanced on him, he boldly waited until the last moment before ducking under its wing, and it was then that their eyes met for just a brief moment.

Cesta, the assassin.

Could Tisamon have done that?
Che wondered.
Killed so many, so swiftly?
She imagined those little throwing blades flicking out in twos and threes, the Wasps falling before they even realized they were being attacked.

Thank you, Cesta
, she thought, and then she was fully out in the open air, and she sent the much-abused fixed-wing over the airfield, putting everything she could crank into the engine, feeling the wheels lift from the earth just a moment before the
Cleaver
overran the edge of the field, teetering over the city of Solarno below, and then it flew.

Axrad broke away from the spiral, casting his flier over the city in a long, broad arc that gave Taki plenty of time to see that he had begun the fight.

Honour amongst Wasps, whatever next?
She threw the nimbler
Esca
away from him, flitting back above the airfield, noticing the ponderous bulk of the
Cleaver
at last get airborne.

Good
, she thought.
Now I fight.
She thumbed the lever that uncovered the rotating piercer and then danced across the sky, looking for Axrad.

He was above her already, swinging in from the sun, just as a good pilot should. She knew that he would do so and the
Esca
danced aside from the glittering lance of his repeating ballistae, and then ascended straight up without warning, as poised in flight as any insect, so that Axrad swept right past her, pulling furiously out of his dive even as he did. She put the
Esca
through three turns, spinning in the air, and shot at him, the piercer clunking over and over, sending its long bolts past his cockpit. But he was better than that, for he dropped his orthopter almost to street level, so that she had to stop shooting for fear of killing some innocent citizen. He then fell out of sight altogether, hidden momentarily by the roofs of Solarno, and no doubt terrifying anyone who happened to be passing beneath.

Taki soared overhead, searching for him, and without warning his flier flurried up out of the city, repeater firing as fast as it could reload itself. A bolt tore a narrow hole in her wing before she rolled the
Esca
out of the way, and then they were chasing over the rooftops, him directly behind her, and Taki always keeping out of the line of his ballistae.

She then saw that they did not have the sky to themselves. There were at least a dozen other vessels, of differing loyalties, flying above Solarno in this dawning light. Dragon-fighting! The phrase had reached Solarno from the people of Princep Exilla, who enacted the same kind of duels astride their insect mounts, but it was among the pilots of Solarno that the practice had found its true home.

And amongst the Wasps, too, because Axrad was proving very, very good.

In a moment the city was gone from beneath them, and Taki was skittering across the dawn-reddened expanse of the Exalsee.
Can’t get too far from Che
, she realized, and threw in one of her special tricks. It would normally be impossible in anything other than a heliopter, except that of course the
Esca Volenti
was special, endowed as it was with its little beating halteres that gave it more control and balance than any other man-made thing around that inland sea. With a single flip of her wings the
Esca
was simply facing the other way, for a moment speeding impossibly backwards, away from the city, until the wings wrestled the orthopter to a momentarily stuttering halt and then plunged, back towards Axrad.

She held down the trigger, watching the piercer bolts flash towards him, striking sparks wherever they struck. His orthopter faltered in the air and seemed to drop, and then she had passed over it, and a craning look backwards showed her that he was gaining height again, holed but not damaged, swinging in behind her doggedly.

She was enjoying herself now. Her city was being invaded, and her friends were fleeing it and needed her help and guidance, but it had been a long time since anyone had given her a run as good as this.

Then Axrad was soaring away, deliberately breaking off his pursuit, and she was instantly looking about her, towards all quarters of the sky.

There they were: two more Wasp orthopters angling in, lining up on her. Axrad had given her the only warning that he could, and she now turned to aim at them, flying right in their faces with her rotary piercer blazing, firepowder spitting the bolts at them far faster than any ballista’s tensioned string.

These were not Axrad, however, just Wasp pilots with basic training and no great skill. One of them dropped almost instantly, so swiftly that she must have struck straight through the cockpit and killed the pilot. The other swung wide of her, but she turned within his turn and her rotary raked the underside of his craft, scoring several hits but nothing that hampered him.

The Wasp orthopter rocked again, as another craft flashed past before them, causing both Taki and the Wasp pilot to haul their fliers out of the way. It was a big, armoured fixed-wing, and Taki knew it at once for Scobraan’s resilient ship, the
Mayfly Prolonged
. She dropped aside and saw the Wasp pilot take the bait, pointing on the apparently ponderous ship and shooting. A few of the bolts stuck, but most simply rattled from the
Mayfly
’s armour, and the Wasp was getting so close, so very close. Taki herself would never have fallen for it, but then she was already wise to the tricks Scobraan kept concealed within the
Mayfly
’s plated hull.