Salute the Dark

Nineteen

Stenwold was unsure whether to be impressed by Collegium’s response or to laugh. Certainly it had all the hallmarks of people desperately doing the right thing without any real expertise, or even a clear idea regarding it. As the Buoyant Maiden drifted into the skies over the city, there arrived a succession of visitors to the airship: first a handful of Fly-kinden wheeling past it, ignoring Stenwold as he waved at them, and darting away to get out of range of any notional attack. But the customary curiosity of their race kept them in the air to watch, rather than returning to the ground to report, and so the next wave of airborne defence turned up spoiling for a fight. This was a dozen armoured Beetle-kinden with mechanical wings buzzing away in a blur, moving through the air with a surprising speed and grace. Stenwold recognized the design: namely Joyless Greatly’s one-man flying machines that had done such sterling service in the Vekken siege. At least one of them had survived the conflict, and Collegium artificers had since been industriously copying the design and improving on it.

The leader of the heavy airborne, as he proclaimed his troops to be, landed on the Maiden’s deck with a sword in one hand and a cut-down repeating crossbow in the other. He looked as ferocious a figure as any Beetle-kinden had ever cut, and instantly demanded to know who they were. Jons Allanbridge, who found this reaction from his native city somewhat galling, proceeded to get straight into a row with the man and the exchange became sufficiently heated for the passengers packed below to come up to see what was going on. Because they were who they were, and in a foreign land, they came up fully armed and expecting trouble. There was very nearly a diplomatic incident as a dozen of Collegium’s new heavy airborne faced off against a score and a half of Dragonfly-kinden warriors with every apparent intention of hacking fearlessly through them. It was then that Stenwold was able to intervene and, thankfully, at least one of Collegium’s defenders now recognized who he was.

Of course, in all the confusion, nobody had informed the city what was going on, and so Stenwold had just managed to make peace with the airborne when a long shape slid alongside the Maiden, and put it entirely into shadow. It was another airship, and not much smaller than the colossal Sky Without, but this one was brand new, coming straight from the Collegium foundries. Stenwold later discovered that the design of it had been kicking about Helleron for ten years, and had been repeatedly turned down on the basis that nobody in their right mind would have need for such a thing. It had finally been brought to Collegium by a Helleren exile, whereupon somebody had realized just what they were looking at.

They called it the Triumph of Aeronautics, and they called this type of vessel a Dreadnought. The craft’s individual name spoke truest, though, for the city’s chemists had needed to concoct an entirely new kind of lighter-than-air gas just to keep the weighty thing in the sky. It was an armoured dirigible, a great wood-reinforced balloon beneath which lay a long, narrow gondola plated with steel. From his privileged vantage point on the wrong side of it, Stenwold could see two dozen open hatches, with a lead-shotter behind each, and he guessed there were other hatches in the underside to bombard any enemy on the ground. Meanwhile the rail bristled with mounted repeating crossbows and nailbows. It was certainly a magnificent piece of engineering, and it sent a shiver through him to think that it was something his people had made.

By that time, the officer of the airborne had explained what was going on to the captain of the Triumph, and someone had the presence of mind to send a Fly-kinden messenger down to the city to stop them sending anything else up. It was in such august company that the Buoyant Maiden touched down.

The city walls were lined with engines, Stenwold observed, and everywhere they went, every step of the way from the airfield to the Amphiophos, there was armed militia evident in the streets. The same kind of people who had been sent off to help the Sarnesh were now distributed all over Collegium, and most especially on the walls.

She met him before he was three streets into the city: Arianna, rushing out of the crowd so swiftly that several of the Dragonflies drew their swords on her. Stenwold flung his arms about her, noticing her stricken expression.

‘I didn’t know,’ she got out. ‘The news has been so bad, I didn’t know if I would ever see you again.’

As he looked at her face, Inaspe Raimm’s prophecy came back to him, and he said, ‘There are no certainties.’ There were a lot of people waiting for him to move on, but he did not care. ‘I’ve missed you. I have missed you, but I’m glad you stayed here, safe.’

‘War Master, the Assembly-’ interrupted the commander of the heavy airborne. Stenwold shrugged him off.

‘Safe?’ Arianna asked him, and laughed, a wretched and unwilling sound. ‘I’d ask you where you’d been, if I didn’t already know. Sten, there’s a Wasp army marching east of here. It’s no more than three days away.’

Passing into that familiar great chamber, he was at least relieved of one fear: there were not hundreds of Assemblers waiting there to pick his own news apart. That would come later, no doubt. In his mind, the Assembly of Collegium seemed a worse prospect even than the approaching Wasps. Instead there were only two people there, in that great amphitheatre: a fat Beetle man and a Spider-kinden Aristos.

‘Hello, Stenwold,’ said the Beetle, with a faint smile. His name Stenwold now recalled as Jodry Drillen, and instead Stenwold had expected to see the Assembly’s Speaker, old Lineo Thadspar. After a moment, Stenwold decided that question could wait.

‘Master Drillen,’ Stenwold said, and then, to the man next to him, ‘Lord-Martial Teornis.’

The Spider nodded. He was wearing sombre colours, his features drawn, as if that indefinable varnish of Spider grace and charm had rubbed off in places

‘May I introduce Paolesce Liam.’ Stenwold gestured at his companion. The bulk of the Dragonfly-kinden were, he hoped, being billeted even then, but he had brought their leader along with him. Paolesce was a tall, slender man whose age was hard to tell at a glance, but whom Stenwold had pinned, after speaking with him, as being around the Beetle’s own years. He wore his gleaming armour still, standing with feet apart, gazing about with apparent equanimity at a city that must seem overwhelmingly strange to him.

‘Master Liam is…?’ probed Jodry Drillen.

‘Master Paolesce,’ Stenwold corrected, ‘is here as… as a gesture of solidarity. He has brought thirty soldiers. The Commonweal will, I hope, be raising a force to trouble the Wasps on their own border, but-’

‘But you thought we had more time,’ Drillen finished for him. ‘Didn’t we all.’

‘How…?’ Stenwold looked from him to Teornis. ‘The Wasps have come by ship?’

‘They came by land,’ the Spider said. ‘They simply didn’t stop for anything. Egel and Merro rolled over, as we knew they would. Kes declared itself uninterested in war, and most of the surviving population of Felyal is here, within Collegium’s walls, or north with your Prince of the Wastes.’

‘And,’ Stenwold frowned at the Lord-Martial, ‘what about your own people? What about the Spiderlands?’

Teornis gave a smile, but it was painful. ‘Why, when their army was sufficiently far west, we sallied forth and attacked the garrison force they had left behind. We had a battle and, in short, we lost. We lost in a sufficiently flamboyant manner that enough of our army got back to Seldis to man the walls. Some of the mercenaries we hired fought a bloody enough rearguard that I managed to save my own hide. Seldis is currently under siege. We’re having our turn on the rack right now.’

‘The Sarnesh are probably fighting even as we speak,’ Drillen said softly. ‘If they fall, then the first we’ll know is another Wasp army marching south on us. We are now where the metal meets, Master Maker. The war, the real war, has finally come to us.’

‘And how far is this south-coast army from Collegium?’ Stenwold asked hollowly. ‘Three days? Is that accurate?’

Teornis’ smile was sad and genuine. ‘At the pace they are capable of, that may even become two. War Master, you have arrived just in time for the war.’

Stenwold stared down at his hands. It was something he had been doing a lot recently. He had always considered himself a practical man, a trained artificer who belonged to a kinden that made and built things, whether those things were machines or trade agreements. But he was beyond his range of ability now. He could not repair this crisis, or even patch it. Events had overtaken him, as he now sat at the bedside of a dying man, and waited.

The man was Lineo Thadspar, still nominally Speaker for the Assembly of Collegium. The old man had weathered the Vekken siege but, with that conflict over, he had been fast fading. He had taken to his bed a few days before, barely a few hours after the scouts’ reports had come in.

You knew, Stenwold surmised, and you couldn’t face it.

Lineo was asleep and, without the energy that had burnt in him until very recently, he looked as old as his years at last. Stenwold did not have the heart to wake him. What would be the point, save to put more weight on a life already burdened and failing?

Out of respect, the Assembly had not chosen a new Speaker yet. They would not, in any event, choose Stenwold. His much-loathed title of War Master had instead been confirmed once again.

He smiled in relief at that thought. He did not want to head up the Assembly, for the very notion of tying his future to that room full of squabbling merchants and academics made him shudder. Yet they were frightened he would demand it. A War Master, however, was something that could be made and unmade at will. At the end of this business, if the Assembly was still in any position to do it, they would cast him off. He could not say that he minded very much.

Just now his responsibility felt very heavy, and it seemed he had no shoulders to share it with.

He stood up just as Arianna came in. One look at her face told him the news.

‘They’re here, then?’

‘Within sight of the walls. People want you to come and look. And yes, I know it’s not as though that will make any difference.’

‘Perhaps they think that I’ll see some vital flaw in their strategy just from how they pitch their tents,’ Stenwold said. ‘And I suppose if I was an Ant-kinden tactician, that’s just what I’d do.’

She had asked him, only the night before, if he felt so very bound to stay here. She had known the answer, but she had asked him. It was not too late even now, her look said, for them to go.

Go where? Where does the Empire stop, if not here?

As he followed her out of Thadspar’s house, the sun shone very bright, endowing the white stone of the houses of the wealthy with a special radiance.

There were a lot of people just standing about in the streets, as though they had all received a summons from some city magnate who had failed to appear. When they saw Stenwold, he realized that he had apparently become that magnate. They pointed at him and told each other that, now War Master Stenwold Maker was here, everything would be all right. He assumed that was what they were saying, anyway. Possibly they were telling each other that he was the wrong man for the job, and would doom them all. Possibly they were just commenting on the Spider girl who was young enough to be his daughter. On balance he would have preferred that.

Up on the walls he found Teornis, who had yet to return to his own people despite sporadic reports received regarding the ongoing siege of Seldis. The Spider-kinden noble looked every bit as though the city at his back was devoted to his service, and the soldiers appearing along the east coast road were a parade in his honour. Stenwold envied him his poise.

‘We’ve come to the sharp end, then,’ Teornis said, quietly and for Stenwold’s ears only. On his other side were some members of the Assembly who fancied themselves as strategists, as well as Paolesce Liam, commander of the small Commonweal detachment.

The Wasp army was not looking hurried. Detachments of airborne were lazily spiralling down and taking up position, and Stenwold could make out what must be automotives and beasts of burden following them up. The first few tents were being set, but if there was any great tactical lesson to be learnt from these activities it was lost on him.

‘Reports suggest their numbers to be in the region of eighteen thousand, with slaves as extra,’ Teornis said. ‘They came out of Felyal a little grazed, but nothing serious.’

‘You should leave now,’ Stenwold advised him. ‘You have your own battle to fight.’

‘It’s all the same fight in the end,’ Teornis replied. ‘Moreover, the Kessen navy has decided that the current political situation makes all Spiderland ships fair game for plunder. I don’t honestly see that I’ll be getting away from here in the near future.’

‘War Master,’ began one of the Assemblers, who taught engineering at the College, ‘they’ve come too close to establish their camp I think. If we let fly with light loads, we could bombard them. Just give the word.’

Stenwold looked at the industrious Wasp soldiers, just starting to pitch their camp.

‘Let them get all their tents set up first,’ he suggested. ‘Then, if we decide to do it, we can put them to the most trouble possible. No point in making their lives easy.’

‘Someone’s coming to talk,’ Arianna observed, and Stenwold saw a party of soldiers heading towards the Collegium gate.

‘I can’t imagine that we have much to say to one another,’ Teornis drawled, his casual pose seeming for a moment too obviously studied.

Stenwold shrugged. ‘We’re Beetle-kinden, so we always talk first – and plainly. We need to know exactly where we stand.’

The leader of the Wasps introduced himself as General Tynan. He was a broad-shouldered man who must have matched Stenwold year for year, although those years had left him thinner and with even less hair. He and his escort were received in one of the gardens abutting the Amphiophos, an open space that was complete with mechanical fountain, tiered pools and a dozen antique statues representing virtues. By the fashion of that time, the said virtues were all young women wearing too few clothes, which inevitably inspired thoughts that were less than virtuous. The tastes of the time had clearly also favoured undergrowth, for the garden was thick with ferns and moss and creeping skeins of ivy. General Tynan took his time in examining his surroundings whilst his personal guards and officers, some two dozen in all, stood impassively nearby.

‘You’re not Lineo Thadspar, I take it.’

‘He is indisposed. My name is Stenwold Maker.’

‘Acceptable.’ Tynan nodded briskly. ‘My intelligence suggested that you would be managing the defence. You performed well against the Vekken, I am informed.’

Stenwold shrugged, indicating with a gesture that the city was still here, and the Vekken were not.

Tynan smiled. ‘We are not the Vekken, of course.’

‘I had not thought for a moment that you were, General.’

‘We have a sound record of defeating the Ant-kinden whenever we meet them,’ Tynan added. ‘Our forces have routinely proved themselves superior.’

‘We are not the Ant-kinden either,’ Stenwold pointed out. Somewhere hidden in the foliage, a clock began to sound the hour with intricate chimes.

Tynan’s smile returned. ‘Remarkable,’ he said, strolling over to the mechanical fountain. ‘I am impressed by your city, General Maker.’

‘Really.’

‘Do not think that I am just some brute with an army. I read. I admire art. Your city here is beautiful, both in its society and its construction. Collegium will be a worthy addition to the Empire.’ The Wasp turned, his face now hard. ‘I have my orders, General Maker. Your kin in Helleron, when faced with this decision, became willing partners to our imperial rule. I am now offering you the same choice.’

‘That we surrender?’ Stenwold clarified.

‘Even so.’ Tynan made a small gesture that encompassed Collegium and all of its futures. ‘This city will not be able to stand against us. You will have hosted sufficient refugees from Tark to know how thorough we can be in bringing a people to its knees. I do not wish to see Collegium thus consumed by bombs and incendiaries. That would be a waste.’

‘We must decline your gracious offer,’ Stenwold said heavily, ‘or what did we fend off the Vekken for?’

Tynan’s pitying expression suggested that domination by a provincial Ant warlord was an infinitely different prospect to inclusion in the all-powerful Empire. ‘General Maker,’ he said. ‘I will welcome any embassy from you, and I would advise you to send one soon. You will surrender, in time. Consider how much of this city you will see laid waste before you do.’

The imperial bombardment of Collegium had begun that same evening, just an introductory barrage delivered before nightfall. The walls had held firm: even the Vekken had done worse. Collegium artificers had already made their measurements for a nocturnal retaliation, but the Wasps must have had some reports from Vek because they moved their siege engines out of range at the end of the day, rather than leave them at the Beetles’ mercy. It would slow their artillery, having to find the ranges afresh each morning, but at least it would preserve them. General Tynan was clearly playing a careful game.

The next day the air war began. Whilst the artillery of both sides thundered loud around the walls, the Wasp airborne commenced attacking the city. Stenwold recalled the words of Parops, about how the Wasps had drawn out the Tarkesh air support before firebombing the city into submission. He hoped here they could put up a sterner aerial defence.

The snapbows helped, of course. Collegium soldiers, half-trained and untested, stood ready at the walls and on rooftops across the city, and shot at the Wasps as they dived overhead. Each neighbourhood and district deployed its own little force, though the College itself was the heart of the defence. Totho’s weapons, more accurate and far-reaching than crossbows, broke apart the first two Wasp assaults, but the afternoon saw a redoubling of the imperial offensive. The Empire committed two score of orthopters and heliopters to the fray to complement their innumerable soldiers, and the houses of Collegium began to come under direct bombardment. To counter them, Collegium launched its own flying machines, its heavy airborne and Paolesce’s Dragonfly-kinden.

The Triumph of Aeronautics had positioned itself directly above the College, thus making itself the bastion of the city’s air defence. From its vantage point its heavy weapons thundered away at the orthopters and the enemy siege emplacements, whilst scores of snapbowmen and repeating crossbows picked continually at the light airborne. The airship’s wood-reinforced canopy shrugged off shot and sting both, and Collegium saw out that first full day of siege without the enemy gaining an inch of Beetle soil.

The next day General Tynan unleashed the full force of his army. He brought in the remaining half of his artillery and flooded the sky with men and machines and 500 Wasp-riders. His heavy infantry marched in under their cover, alongside automated rams and drills. His Mole Cricket- kinden engineers rushed ponderously at the walls, holding great pavises over their heads to ward off the defenders’ shot. His Skater-kinden Auxillians attacked along the river-banks, penetrating all the way into the heart of Collegium, there spreading terror and confusion, setting fires and killing anyone they could catch.

Stenwold took the command of the eastern wall, which was most heavily under assault. It was not because he desired the glory or did not fear the danger. It was because it meant he did not have to think about anything else while he bellowed commands at the defenders there. He spent the day with a snapbow in his hands, which he never loosed, but he directed the shooting of 5,000 Collegium irregulars onto the encroaching enemy. They loosed their snapbows at the infantry, the short bolts penetrating heavy armour without pause; they launched leadshot and explosive bolts at enemy automotives and siege engines; they dropped rocks and grenades on the Mole Crickets.

Towards the end of the day, one of his officers came towards him, pointing and shouting. The Triumph of Aeronautics was moving.

That was not the plan, and the Triumph’s captain had been at the war council. Stenwold watched helplessly as the monstrous airship drifted away from its mooring above the College.

‘Hammer and tongs,’ said the man beside him helplessly. ‘It’s coming down.’

The Triumph of Aeronautics was on fire, was losing height even as they watched it. Those crew that could fly were bailing out, but most were Beetle-kinden and could not escape. The Captain was amongst them, still guiding the huge dirigible on its final flight.

He took it beyond the city walls, out over the besieging army, and here he brought it low and then fired its powder magazine.

The explosion almost hurled Stenwold off the wall. A great host of Tynan’s army had also been caught by it, scythed down like wheat, their siege engines broken to matchwood and their automotives sundered, the entire heart of the Wasp advance consumed in one terrible moment.

In the concussive quiet after that explosion, the Wasps ended their assault for the day and returned to their camp