Blood of the Mantis

Twenty-Five

Coming home was the sweetest thing he had ever done: Stenwold, sitting in the train carriage with Arianna huddled against him, her head resting on his rounded shoulder; and poor bandaged Sperra sleeping fitfully, sprawled across a whole seat. On the other side of the carriage, Parops sat with his head tilted back, his eyes closed: whether asleep or awake, Stenwold could not tell.

But it was Collegium the rail automotive was pulling into, with the white spires of the College visible over the rooftops, with the dome of the Amphiophos right before them. Collegium, that jewel of civilization, which planned no invasions nor tortures.

He had given the new weapon of the age into every hand that wished it. He would now be responsible for the world that such an act created. It was easy for the great and mighty to sign their scraps of parchment, easier still at the time to convince themselves that they intended to keep their word. Expedience was the great eroder of moral stances.

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 protege, 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.

It was over before she knew it, the Wasp orthopter ripping into fragments without warning, as Scobraan’s incendiary struck it and exploded, and for a hundred yards the blazing wreck continued on its course before losing its integrity and dropping from the sky.

Then the Mayfly Prolonged shook and shuddered, and Taki saw a line of holes being punched in its wing as Axrad dived on it from above. Scobraan threw the fixed-wing in a straight dash across the rooftops, trying to use his engine’s greater power to offset the nimbler orthopter, and Taki put the Esca pointedly behind Axrad, not shooting, but inviting attention. He broke off his chase of the Mayfly and made a surprisingly tight turn, so that they were for a moment heading straight at one another.

Perhaps he thought that she would be the first to flinch, but they shot at the same time, repeating ballista against rotary piercer, bolts flashing swiftly between them.

There were very few Fly-kinden amongst the fighting pilots, as the martial mindset did not sit well with their race. Those there were, though, were very good indeed. They were lighter than other pilots, so they could fly defter machines. Their reflexes were second to none.

A bolt ripped into the Esca’s hull, ripping apart the canvas and narrowly missing the motor beyond. Another gashed the right wing, and a third shuddered to a halt somewhere amid the folded landing legs. She saw the impact of her piercer bolt even before the ensuing flash of flames, and knew that she had landed a successful strike in Axrad’s engine. Only then did she dart aside, pulling the Esca round in a steep turn to come back and check what she had done.

She spotted Axrad’s machine by the smoke, as she came back to it, saw it falter in the air, and held off her attack. Before she had flown past, she spotted the man as he climbed out of his cockpit and jumped, wings flaring to catch him, and she found that she was glad he had survived.

Another time, she told herself, and went to look for Che and Nero in the Cleaver.

They found land at Porta Mavralis, the sole outpost of the Spiderlands situated on the shores of the Exalsee. Here Taki called on favours and raised credit in the name of the Destiavel, and obtained barrels of mineral oil for the Cleaver and a winding engine that the Cleaver could carry to retension the Esca Volenti’s clockwork engine.

‘We must fly to your home, you and I,’ Taki explained to them. ‘We have a common cause now.’

‘Ain’t you worried about what’s going on back home?’ Nero asked her.

‘I shall return to Solarno, but first I want to see your war. I want to understand what the Wasps are fighting. And perhaps I want to find help for us.’

While she was waiting for her fuel, the battered bulk of Scobraan’s Mayfly Prolonged dragged itself into port, listing dangerously. The burly Solarnese had only bad news: names of the pilots killed or fled, the well-known buildings burnt, the imperial flag of black and gold unfurled over the houses of the great and the good.

Taki asked him to come with them, but he declined. ‘I’m for Chasme,’ he told her. ‘That’s where we’re mustering and gathering allies. We will strike back when time gives us our chance. I hear Niamedh made it out, was heading to Princep Exilla even. The sea…’ He stopped for a moment, shuddering with fatigue and emotion. ‘The whole cursed Exalsee will run red with blood before those Wasp bastards get away with what they’ve just done.’

Taki nodded vigorously. ‘Hold out, then,’ she said. ‘Che and me, we’re going for help. Her people, who are fighting the Wasps already, they’ll see us right, I’m sure. It’s a long haul, but for a couple of fliers it’s not so very long. I’ll be back, Scobraan. So you just wait for me.’

Che’s return to Collegium was so much faster than the sea voyage of her departure. The Cleaver might have been slow for a fixed-wing but it danced effortlessly down the coast, and Nero had found a hatch in the underside to peer from, and call out landmarks for navigation.

‘There’s Kes,’ he said at one point. ‘Looks like a navy gathering there. Wonder how far away the Empire is right now.’

At last, and after many stops to refuel and rewind, they had sight of Collegium. Che was leading the way with the Esca following docilely behind, and Che wondered how Taki was taking it. She was so far from her home now, seeing more of the world in this frantic flight than she had witnessed in her whole life. The Exalsee and its independent cities lay far behind them now.

There were more lines on Stenwold’s face than she remembered, and his greeting was full of simple joy at seeing her so well when others were not.

‘Uncle Sten, this is…’ Che paused to get the complicated name right, ‘te Schola Taki-Amre, an aviatrix of Solarno. Taki, this is my uncle, Stenwold Maker.’

Taki squinted up at the bulky Beetle. ‘You’re the one who set her onto our city, are you?’

‘I am sorry for your loss, but you know we all fight the same enemy now,’ Stenwold told her. ‘The Wasps will acknowledge no borders or limits to their ambition.’

‘Yeah, well, I saw that all right,’ Taki said. She kept blinking about her at the buildings of the College, so very different from the red-roofed houses of Solarno. ‘Sieur Maker, I mean to return to my city soon, and I’d be glad of whatever you could spare me. Consider: the more trouble the Wasps get from Solarno, the more their attention is taken off you, right?’

In reply to that, Stenwold took her to see Teornis, and Che explained haltingly that their mission had failed. Instead of allies they had found only another Wasp conquest.

Teornis had merely nodded sympathetically.

‘It may not be so hopeless as you think,’ he said gently. ‘After all, Solarno is a Spider city – not Spiderlands, perhaps, but it has a sentimental place in the hearts of many of my people. If things get so very bad, they say to one another at home, there is always Solarno to retreat to. Solarno is a place where my people can play their games in miniature, for smaller stakes, so I rather think that there are some who might take its invasion poorly. Perhaps this will finally motivate some of the Aristoi families to take a stance on the issue of the Empire.’

Stenwold had been watching him closely as he spoke and, with those last words, something seemed to break through on Teornis’s face, some little window onto the mind that lay within. Stenwold was not sure whether he had been shown it deliberately, or caught that rarest of things, an unguarded thought from a Spider mind, but it seemed to him that Teornis was privately delighted with the news that Che had brought.

And then, five days later, while the Assembly was still collating news of Wasp military movements, the Buoyant Maiden was sighted drifting towards Collegium.

They were all there to greet it, even Sperra, who had found herself able to fly a little the day before, just a dozen yards before exhausting herself. Jons Allanbridge’s airship touched down with unusual solemnity aboard, though, and the faces of its passengers were dour.

Tynisa was first out, and it was to Che she went.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, trembling, almost falling into her foster-sister’s arms. ‘Che, I’m so very sorry.’