Empire in Black and Gold (74 page)

Stenwold knew that nobody would move and nothing would happen until he gave the word and, once he gave it, the entire business would unfold without any chance for him to stop it or change its direction. It would leave his hands like some apprentice artificer’s flying machine, and whether it flew or fell would not be his to determine.

He found that, at this stage, he could not bring himself to give the word.

And then Sperra hissed ‘’Ware above! I hear fliers!’

The whole band of them scattered, crossbows dragged up towards the dark sky, but a moment later it was Che’s voice saying, ‘Calm! Quiet! It’s Achaeos.’

They clustered again, and saw the first shape come down a little way away. There was a waxing moon that gave a wan light and there were lights enough across the engine yard behind them, but even then it took Stenwold a moment to pick Achaeos out of the shadows.

He was about to go to greet the Moth when the other figures came down, and he stood, paralysed for a moment with the fear of betrayal, and then with sudden hope.

There were at least half a dozen other Moths, all with bows in hand, and a brace of Fly-kinden wearing cut-down versions of the Moths’ hooded garb. There were two Mantis-kinden as well, male and female in studded armour, as tall and arch as Tisamon ever was. There was a Dragonfly maiden with a longbow, and a Grasshopper-kinden with a pair of long daggers glittering in his hands. All of them were in shades of grey, mottled and patched so that, between the moonlight and the shadows, they might stand in the open before wide eyes and yet be near invisible.

‘Hammer and tongs,’ Stenwold said, some small piece of the weight on him lifting at the sight. ‘Your Skryres saw the light then? Or the darkness, however you want.’

Che pushed past him to fling her arms round Achaeos, and then suddenly looked back at Stenwold guiltily, but at that moment he could not care.

‘When I arrived back at Tharn, these men and women were already waiting for me,’ Achaeos said, one arm about Che. Even he sounded a little awed by it. ‘I now find myself their captain. The Skryres . . . deliberate, still . . . Tharn has as yet taken no stance on the Empire.’

‘Then who
are
these?’ Stenwold asked, and then the word welled unbidden in his mind. ‘Arcanum . . . ?’

Achaeos glanced back at his cohort. ‘They have said nothing but that they will fight the Wasps, Master Maker. Some Skryre has clearly made a personal decision on this, and called upon his or her own agents. Yes, they are Arcanum, Master Maker, and they are with you. For this one task only, Stenwold Maker, they are with you.’

‘So how’re we going to do this?’ Scuto asked, still sizing up the newcomers.

‘We have scouted this place before,’ Achaeos said. ‘It has been guarded, always. Now the Helleren guards are gone.’

‘Easier for us, surely,’ said Balkus from over Scuto’s shoulder.

‘No, for it means our coming is known,’ Achaeos said.

Stenwold had to agree. ‘All killed or bought off, or perhaps they were withdrawn on some magnate’s orders, some merchant-lord bought by the Empire. So where are the Wasps, Achaeos?’

‘There are some inside the machine itself,’ the Moth explained. ‘And we have also seen four sentries hidden about this place. We think there are more and that this is a trap.’

‘And we know it is a trap, and therefore we can do something about it, so the trap snaps both ways,’ Stenwold said.

‘If you wish to do this thing we will follow,’ Achaeos said. ‘Everyone here with me is sworn to it.’ He grimaced, squeezing Che just the once and then letting her go. ‘It will be a fight, Master Maker. We have seen two score Wasp soldiers lurking close to here, surely waiting for a signal from the sentries. Their main camp is close as well, no doubt by design, so they will be able to reinforce almost immediately. How long will it take to destroy the engine?’

Stenwold glanced at Scuto, who shrugged expressively. ‘Ain’t easy to tell. Never had a crack at a beast like this before.’

‘Then it will be a fight,’ the Moth said sombrely. He looked pale and very young, and then Stenwold looked over the other faces there. Apart from himself and Scuto, and Tisamon, and the Grasshopper-kinden brought by Achaeos, they all looked so young to him.

‘If anyone, I mean
anyone
, wishes to go now, then go,’ he said, and of course none of them moved. They were all scared, except a few like Tisamon who had death running like blood in their veins. It was pride and fear of shame that kept them here, and he wanted to shout at them that dented pride might heal where mortal wounds would not.

But he said nothing, for they were now
his
people. They were here for his plan, to live or to die as chance and their skills dictated.

‘How can we best use you?’ he asked Achaeos.

‘We will be able to strike without their seeing us. We will have the first cut of the knife,’ the Moth said. He glanced at the female Mantis, whom Stenwold guessed to be his tactician of sorts. ‘What we will do,’ he explained, ‘is attack the Wasps in the engine – and the sentries, those we have found. You will see it happening, and at that moment you should run for the engine. The alarm will sound, I am sure, but there will be confusion. My people, and those of your people who are not destroying the engine, will have to hold off whatever the Wasps produce, until the task is done. That is our plan.’

Stenwold nodded. ‘I have no better one,’ he conceded.

Achaeos and his war party melted into the darkness that for him at least was no darkness. Stenwold gestured to the others to keep low, and advanced to the lip of the works pit. There was a spoil heap below, so getting down there and over to the
Pride
itself would present no problems. Getting out again with a whole skin would be another challenge altogether.

He had started counting, and realized that he was counting towards no number he could guess, and so he stopped. The night was cool, with the faintest breeze blowing from the east, and silent beyond all measure. He could hardly believe there were two score Wasps lurking within spitting distance.

They must be holding their breath.

‘There!’ Tynisa hissed. Stenwold had seen nothing, but he was so keyed up he responded on her recognizance.

‘Go!’ he hissed.

‘Sir!’ one of his men called, and Thalric snapped out of his reverie. The night was quiet, and no signal had been called.

‘What is it?’ he demanded.

‘I saw something by the engine, sir.’

Thalric mounted the bank and stared. His people were not night creatures, but the gas lamps burning around the
Pride
were bold enough.

‘I don’t see anything . . .’ he said, but then he did, and a sentry got off his whistle at the same moment.

A shadow. It had only been a shadow between the light and him, but then a man had fallen out of the
Pride
’s cab. One of his ambush party. The attack had started.

‘Move out, the lot of you!’ he shouted. ‘Light airborne, secure the engine. Infantry—’ Even as he spoke he saw men surging down the side of the pit and across the engine field. ‘Take them down.’ He pointed. There were a dozen of his men in the air already, wings springing to life to propel them towards the engine with all the speed they could muster. Another dozen were surging past him, more heavily armoured with spear and shield. Thalric took one more brief look at the intruders and thought he spotted Stenwold at the fore. In these small actions a good commander should lead his troops, and Thalric respected him for that.

‘You.’ He turned on the Fly-kinden messenger at his heels. The youth was staff, not local, wearing imperial livery over a leather breastplate. ‘Go to Major Godran,’ Thalric told him. ‘Tell him to bring up three . . . make it four squads at all speed, and tell him to send in the automotive and the spotter.’

‘Yes, sir.’ And then the messenger was gone, darting into the night as he headed for the main imperial camp. Thalric, who had been surrounded by two dozen men and more a moment earlier, was now on his own.

Stenwold was no runner, and the fleeter members of his party were outstripping him before he had made half the distance to the
Pride
. He had heard a shrill whistle that spoke of at least one sentry the Moths had not found in time. Ahead of him fleet forms were flitting past the lights that festooned the
Pride
’s awning. He saw brief motes of gaslight on steel, heard grunts of pain, cut-off cries. Tisamon and Tynisa had the vanguard now, bearing down on the engine with murderous speed, but they would be unable to do anything with it once they got there save shed enemy blood.

A Moth raider flashed overhead, a confused image of grey cloth with white eyes and a drawn bowstring. Stenwold, his breath already failing him, saw most of the others had passed him now. He risked slowing down to save his strength, glancing right and left.

To the left the engine works were mostly clear until a pair of coupled carriages made a dark, curving wall on a veering section of track. To the right the darkness was mounded and humped, two spoil heaps forming almost perfect cones of debris. Past them, as he ran, he saw another rail engine, a midge compared to the
Pride
’s great bulk, and he caught movement through its windows: there were men running along the line of the vacant engine’s far side.

Ahead there erupted full-scale fighting all of a sudden. He saw the flashes of Wasp stings, the cries of the wounded. He was close enough to see one Moth-kinden flung backwards against the
Pride
’s unforgiving metal hide, the smoke of his burn-wound bright under the gaslight. One of the Tharn Mantis soldiers leapt into the air with her wings unfolding, cutting down the leading Wasp even as he tried to slow his charge.

‘To the right!’ Stenwold bellowed. ‘Che! Scuto! Tis and Nisa! Get on to the engine! The rest with me!’

Having ordained it, simply stopping was a difficult thing to do, skidding in the grit and gravel, while trying to bring his crossbow up. There was a squad of Wasp soldiers running straight for them, well armoured and formed into a wedge, shields high and spears levelled. Even as he got a bolt to the already-drawn string, two missiles had flashed past him to stand quivering in the Wasp shields. The wedge was coming at a brisk run. Stenwold reached into his pouch for a grenade.

He was deafened the next moment, because Balkus had opened up with his nailbow, three quick detonations that echoed across the whole sunken field. The point of the Wasp wedge was abruptly collapsing, two men falling backwards with holes punched through shield and armour. Balkus was kneeling now, fighting to clear a jammed bolt. Another crossbow bolt picked off a soldier near the rear as Sperra leapt into the air to shoot down on them. For a moment the wedge was broken before re-forming. Stenwold saw Wasps passing spears to their left hands so as to free up their stings.

Put in his place, perhaps greater commanders had all the time their genius required to weigh the balance of the moment, but Stenwold was no soldier and so he simply shouted ‘Charge them!’ Even as he said it, he had the grenade lit with a flick of his steel lighter, and was hurling the hatched metal ball ahead of him.

It struck a shield, rebounded and fell at the nearest soldier’s feet. The man had only a moment to see what it was before it ripped apart, sending out shards of metal that scythed him down and cut across his fellows. Stenwold, in the lead, felt one jagged fragment skin his own shoulder.

And then they were in. He had his sword out and in a second he was in their midst as they tried to pull together. He got one man in the armpit where the armour did not reach, who clung to Stenwold desperately as he fell. Beside him the Beetle-kinden in the sentinel armour slammed his poleaxe down, buckling a shield and breaking the arm that carried it. Balkus’s nailbow roared twice more at point-blank range and then he slung it over his shoulder and dragged a shortsword from its resting place, fighting always with the neat economy of his race.

Che was still running for the engine, seeing that there was a great deal of fighting there, and too many bodies. She saw, through that darkness, that they were mostly Wasps, but that three Moths lay dead, and any one of them could be Achaeos.

I must not think like that
. Even so she could not stop thinking like that, but her legs knew what to do and carried her onwards.

There were Wasps there now, and they were turning to face the newcomers. An energy bolt sizzled past her, over her head. Another lanced towards Tynisa but she sidestepped it nimbly, and then she and her father were in.

They had been seconds ahead, those two, just steps ahead. Che could not believe her eyes, despite all the evidence of Myna. She had never seen Tisamon fight before, and never realized her own foster-sister could come so close to matching him.

They gave the Wasps no chance, no time. They charged from the darkness into the harsh artificial light and they drank blood, or that was how it seemed to Che. Tisamon danced with his claw, as though it and he were two separate things, attacking from separate vantage points, but linked in the mind like Ants of the same city. Tynisa was never still, never where their swords drove at. The rapier in her hand could not be stopped or parried or ducked. Each thrust moved with her victim, followed and followed until it had run itself red in him.