The Air War

Forty

There was fighting further down the line. Straessa could see that the troops to her far left were engaged in melee already, and that did not bode well at all. Her own maniple and its neighbours seemed to have fallen into an uneasy stand-off, the Imperial troops still reforming but refusing either to commit to the fray or just to go away. Straessa’s people were still shooting bolts at them, letting the Wasps know that they were still within range, but Gerethwy was reporting little harm done.

‘Well now,’ he said at Straessa’s shoulder, studying them again through his glass. ‘I think we’re about to get the hammer, frankly.’

‘Tell me.’

‘You can see how they’ve a mass of Airborne there — and their infantry has formed into smaller detachments, a bit like ours really only rather more of them.’ He sounded overly at ease, as if at pains to seem casual. Given his usual effortless calm, she read volumes of emotion into that. ‘They have a whole load of Spider-kinden skirmishers too, some sort of Ants and some Scorpions, but they’re getting them all in better order this time. I think…’ he coughed away a little dust, or that was the impression he tried hard to give, ‘I think they’re ready for us now.’

‘I don’t reckon we could do all that shifting and changing,’ Straessa remarked philosophically. It was dawning on everyone that everything up until now — the Wasp dead, the repulsed charges — had barely bloodied the Second Army: no more than a testing of the waters. Now the Imperial general had determined a suitable response to what was no doubt a slightly novel variation on some textbook tactical problem.

‘In fact,’ even Gerethwy’s careful voice had a quaver in it now, ‘I’d say that in three… two… ah, yes.’ And abruptly the milling crowd of Light Airborne redoubled in size, soldiers kicking themselves into the sky with their Art in a great unordered mass, whilst below them the ground forces began their advance, the loose screen of skirmishers rushing ahead of the slower blocks of Imperial infantry and shielding them from the snapbow shot that was sleeting down on them.

‘Pick your marks. Fire at will,’ Straessa ordered, because the oncoming Spiders and their allies were so spread that volley fire would be like punching at mist. The Empire had given up a fair extent of ground when its soldiers fell back, but the skirmish line was coming on fast, rushing to close with the Collegiates and silence their snapbows as swiftly as possible. Around Straessa, the pikemen stirred and braced themselves, watching that oncoming tide.

‘Rear ranks, shoot at the Airborne.’ And any moment there’ll be an order, and everything will change. Advance, probably, given the record so far. The Spider-kinden were nearer now and, to the right, a closer-knit band of copper-skinned Ants were loosing their own short-barrelled weapons as they approached, more to spoil their enemies’ aim than a serious attempt at killing. Any moment now.

She heard the whistles one after each other. Retreat! Stand and fire!

‘Oh, bollocks,’ she said softly, looking about her to see how the other maniples had taken it. As she might have expected, some were already pulling back, either into clear space or pressing against the troops behind them, Others were standing firm, often with both neighbours abruptly stripped from them, and Straessa saw her own leftmost neighbour stand, the wide eyes of its sub-officer show white as the man looked wildly around him. To her right the block was already pulling back.

‘Sub, getting real close,’ Gerethwy said. Around her, her soldiers were shooting and reloading, shooting and reloading, smooth as a drill because they trusted her ability to make decisions.

And if she stood and fought, she would be supporting her fellows. The pride of Collegium did not enter into it. There were other maniples now depending on her, as they had been relying on their fellows who were already falling back.

And if she retreated, then some of her people might live.

Piss on you, Marteus. Why aren’t you here to make the call?

She put her whistle to her lips and blew the signal: Retreat! Retreat! She could only hope her neighbours took the hint.

Moving backwards in square formation was not something that could be done at speed, but they were setting new records right then, their order fraying slightly with every step. She saw, to her lasting horror, that the maniple that had been on her left was not pulling back along with them, but standing firm, shooting and reloading.

Her people were saving their shot for the Airborne already coursing overhead, and the leading edge of the skirmishers would reach them soon anyway. All around her the Collegiate army was losing its cohesion. She saw the first few soldiers simply start to run, drawing the Airborne after them.

‘Hold firm and keep together!’ she yelled, but she was still watching that other maniple, its commander either too stupid or too much of a hero to pull back. She saw the skirmishers break over it for a moment like foam on the sea, and then it was overwhelmed, surrounded, the soldiers fighting with shortsword and pike and the weapons of their Art, and fewer and fewer, the opposing numbers and skill at arms eating into their formation and gutting it.

‘Steady!’ Gerethwy almost snapped. He had the Foundry snapbow levelled again at the onrushing skirmishers, awkwardly feeding the tape himself whilst another soldier steadied the barrel, even as they fell back with increasingly swift and ragged steps. And: ‘Now.’

The mechanized weapon hammered out its ugly tune, and this time he just let the mouth swing wildly, ripping across the swiftly approaching skirmishers, cutting down a dozen nimble Spider-kinden, before raking into the band of Ants beyond them. Straessa looked about her, noticing that they were amongst more Collegiates now — the rear maniples that had been held in reserve, unsure of what was happening but now hastily readying themselves for battle.

‘Hold now!’ she ordered her soldiers. ‘Hold and-’ and then the skirmishers were just a dozen feet from them and something slapped across her scalp hard enough to send her reeling, and her left ear was ringing with shock. Staggering, she looked about to see that Gerethwy was down, his breastplate and coat dabbled with blood. Shot? The truth came to her in the next instant, even as she was hauling her sword from its scabbard. Jagged pieces of the Foundry snapbow lay all about him, the barrel twisted where it had met the mechanism. Jammed, and then some.

‘Stretcher!’ she yelled, her voice shrill above the sounds of battle. The Woodlouse-kinden was curled about his hand, or what the exploding weapon had left of it. We’re going to stand and fight and die now, because we can’t pull back fast enough to get clear. But maybe you can get out, Gerethwy. Maybe I can accomplish that much.

Then the first of the Spider-kinden were upon them, leading with rapiers and short spears, and by old habit she found her swiftly drawn sword falling into a perfect duellist’s line, fending aside an oncoming blade and then, even as the attacker tried to pull back, playing her old Prowess Forum trick of flexing her game shoulder forwards for those few critical inches of extra reach, only this time it put the point of her weapon through her surprised opponent’s eye.

This experience seemed real in a way that the snapbows had not, but she had no chance to reflect on it just then. Her instincts clamoured at her, Survive! Just survive! And the only chance for that was her sword, the slender barrier between her and death.

The Esca Magni skipped through the air, zigzagging desperately as Taki felt the little impacts that were the outliers of a stream of piercer bolts trying to close in on her. There were at least two Farsphex behind her now, each taking a turn in following her twists and gyres while the other tried to come at her from below or above. The aerial battlefield wheeled before her, sometimes populated, sometimes not. When it was busy, she saw mostly the enemy, and the friends she did see were engaged in the same fierce flight as she was.

What the blazes is Maker playing at? But it was looking as though she would never find out. Chance and skill and mechanical superiority were eroding around her, moment to moment. The Wasps only needed to get lucky the once.

Abruptly another Stormreader shot across her nose, engaged in furious evasive flight — one of the Mynans from the colours. Something snapped in Taki then, the Exalsee warrior-pilot in her suddenly shouldering aside the cautious air-tactician she had become.

Curse the lot of them, she swore, and wrenched the Esca sideways after the Farsphex that was on the Mynan’s tail.

She knew she had no time and that she was laying herself open, that the orthopter in her sights would have been warned — was already taking evasive action and drawing her into a line that would see her cut up by her pursuers’ shot. Stupid. Hopeless. And she dragged all the power she could out of the Esca ’s springs and leapt forwards, her twinned rotaries blazing bolts, and the cockpit of the Farsphex exploded in broken glass and wood fragments, and the vessel dived purposefully for the earth with the pilot’s dead weight against the controls.

There’s one for Corog. Then she was flinging herself madly through the air, higher and higher, because the pursuing Wasps were on her, and fighting mad now, their comrade dying in their very minds. Oh, I went and poked your nest, did I? Well, see how you like it!

She darted higher, the city spread out like a model beneath her, smouldering where the bombs had struck. She had a brief impression of the battle about her: dozens of circling Farsphex, but so few of Collegium’s own. Had the Empire devastated the Collegiate numbers so thoroughly while she was not paying attention?

She tried to dive back down, and for a handful of seconds was engaged in a mad spiralling battle for control with one of the chasing Farsphex. Levelling out for a moment, she saw a couple of Stormreaders, not fighting but dropping — plunging recklessly down into the streets, heedless of the enemy or the bombs or…

What’s that noise?

It had been sounding for some time, she realized. It was familiar, though she had not heard it from quite this perspective, competing with the rush and clatter of an aerial fight while she was over the city itself. It was the Great Ear.

For a moment she could not think why anyone would be sounding the Ear now, when the enemy had so very plainly already arrived. Then she remembered.

Oh, no, no, no! Because that was the signal, the get-out-of-the-pissing-air signal, which meant Maker or whoever was ready to make something terrible happen.

Still cursing to herself, she rammed her Esca towards the ground, because if she was to die, let it be in the air, yes — but let it also be a pilot’s death. Whatever Maker had in mind, whatever the artificers of the College had cooked up, she did not want to know. Most particularly she did not want to find out in person.

A staccato rattle of impacts into her undercarriage made her pull the stick back by instinct, heading up again — the second Farsphex had second-guessed her and was trying to drive her into the aim of the first, but most crucially he was driving her away from the ground. How long had the Ear been sounding? How long did she have left? She tried to slip sideways, to lose them just long enough to cut down below the rooftops, but she had gone too high and they were wise to her piloting now, and they would not let her go, would not let her down.

A panicking glance showed her no hope of reprieve. The bulk of the Collegiate machines were down — or downed — and those still in the air were sharing her plight: unable to get out of the fighting without leaving it the hard way.

Frightened as she had not felt for a long time, she threw the Esca across the sky, never quite getting free of her pursuers, never quite able to push through the scythe of their shot to land — even to crash. And all around her there were more of the enemy, and they all knew exactly where she was.

Straessa lunged again, spearing a lean Spider — old enough to be her father — in the shoulder, her point piercing between the plates of his chitin mail. Around her, the bulk of her soldiers had resorted to their swords, with a few opportunists behind her still taking potshots with their bows, almost directly into the face of the enemy. The other maniples around them were also locked into the fighting, or else had fled, running back towards the camp and what scant salvation could be found there. Every so often — so incongruous she would have laughed — she heard someone sound the whistle for retreat, but the input of tacticians into this battle had come and gone. It was not even a matter of selling their lives dearly. The flesh wanted to live, and could not be made to understand that this was no longer an option. So they fought, and shed the blood of their enemies just to buy mere minutes more for themselves.

Overhead, the Light Airborne were a constant curse, shooting or diving about the battlefield, but they seemed most concerned about chasing after the runners: whole fistfuls of the black and gold stooping on the backs of fleeing Collegiate soldiers with sword and sting.

Then the Imperial infantry came. They struck over to Straessa’s right first, shouldering through the skirmishers and smashing into the already battered maniples with their close order and their years of experience; the Collegiate line simply cracked and fell apart, individual maniples disintegrating within moments of their charge, dying or fleeing. The Wasp soldiers, already bloodied in the initial exchange, were now recapturing their honour, solid, disciplined men in good armour going about their trade.

Straessa risked a glance behind her, because her maniple had now been stripped of a third of its numbers by the skirmishers, and a personal retreat was looking like a good idea, The soldiers behind her, the reserves and the rear squares, had lost formation, most of them milling, some running. She had never much liked trying to rush through a crowd.

‘Sub!’ someone yelled — possibly a soldier from another maniple calling a different officer altogether, but the cry drew her attention and her heart, already a battered thing, lost what little hope remained in it.

The Imperial infantry had not rushed her people yet, but only because there was a Sentinel on its way and they did not want to end up underneath it.

‘Anyone got a grenade?’ she shouted, fending off a sword blow, and then the enormous, armour-plated machine surged forwards, absurdly fast for such a weighty thing, and essentially obliterated the maniple to Straessa’s left, the force of its impact throwing a few boneless bodies high, crushing far more, and the survivors fell almost instantly as the Sentinel loosed a spray of snapbow shot around it.

Behind it, the Imperial infantry were abruptly in motion, closing the distance.

The Sentinel turned, legs moving in a careful little dance, until its great blind prow was facing Straessa, that covered eye boring into her — specifically her and nobody else, or so it seemed. Then the eye opened, the metal cover sliding up to reveal the gaping barrel of its leadshotter.

One of her people did have a grenade, and also the good sense to wait until that moment before hurling it, the hatched metal sphere arcing overhead towards that gaping hole. The missile was off the mark, though, striking the armour and rebounding, exploding pointlessly in the air. With a desperate war-cry the Dragonfly Castre Gorenn leapt into the air, loosing a final arrow that vanished, without trace or effect, into that gaping eye, her ancient Commonweal skills utterly surpassed by modern artifice, but the silver flecks of snapbow bolts were rebounding from the vehicle’s metal hide to no greater effect.

I resign my commission, Straessa decided, effective immediately.

Then the Sentinel rocked under a handful of impacts, lurching forwards a few yards, then spinning furiously on the spot to face this new challenge. From behind it, and cutting bloodily through the Wasp lines, a dozen automotives were on the move, the vanguard of the miscellany that Collegium had used for its strike at the enemy artillery.

Does that mean we won? was her first mad thought. But she could see only that dozen or so and, even as she watched, one of the machines at the rear simply exploded, and she saw that there were another handful of Sentinels in hot pursuit.

Oh. But then she saw what the automotives were actually doing — for the line of their charge cut between the Collegiate forces and the bulk of the Wasp army, ploughing into the enemy infantry with brutal abandon, forcing the lines apart.

‘Retreat!’ Straessa shouted, then she blew the signal on her whistle for all she was worth. After that, she took her own advice, first killing a final Spider skirmisher who was too keen for his own good and then turning to run, keeping pace with her maniple because she was still responsible for them. All around her, the Collegiates were doing the same — some retreating in better order, some simply dropping their weapons and fleeing.

The lead automotive struck the Sentinel at a narrow angle, rocking it back on its legs and rebounding onto a path that churned through the Imperial infantry. The Airborne were already returning to the fray, shooting at the automotives that were causing such havoc to their lines.

They’re going to destroy the machine! Stenwold thought, ripping his little snapbow from inside his tunic — the beautiful, vast and yet fragile machine that Banjacs and the artificers had been so frantically tuning, which was even now poised to wipe the skies clear of Collegium’s enemies. And now the Rekef had arrived to smash it.

He loosed desperately, because there were almost a dozen of the attackers, and the great vulnerable machine was all around them. There was no way that he could stop them all.

But they were not here for the machine, it seemed. Imperial intelligence extended just so far, informed as it was by Spider agents who were almost entirely Inapt. They began shooting hurriedly, almost wildly, but at the people.

A bolt passed across Stenwold’s scalp and he reeled back, but his own quick shot had taken one of the men down, and he was already loosing the second before the tight knot of enemy could break apart.

He saw Banjacs take a bolt in the chest and jerk backwards, a tangle of elbows and knees, blood abruptly appearing bold across his white robes. Almost as valuable as the machine itself was its creator.

The Imperials were not soldiers, and their skill at arms had played second to their intelligence training. After taking the two Company soldiers at the door, they had expected to face only Maker and a handful of scholars. They forgot, or never appreciated, that there were few College men or women who were complete strangers to the Prowess Forum, and that Collegium had been through two sieges over in the last few years.

A heavy workman’s hammer, thrown with remarkable skill, took one man full in the face. Another of the artificers had brought a sword, and rushed to meet the attackers blade to blade.

Then the burn-scarred man spotted Averic.

‘You little bastard!’ he shouted, seeing before him, in the flesh, that fatal miscalculation that had spoiled their operation. What went through the man’s mind then, viewing this pure-blooded Wasp-kinden of good family who had inexplicably betrayed all the generations of Empire, was written in ugly lines over the Beetle spy’s face. Immediately, he charged the youth, without thought for any aim beyond killing him.

Stenwold was trying to get to Banjacs, but a swordsman was suddenly upon him, a lean Beetle with a knife in his offhand and enough rough skill to force Stenwold on the defensive, driving him further away from his allies.

Behind Stenwold’s opponent, the Collegiate swordsman was being forced back by his own adversary, before tripping over the body of another artificer who had fallen to a snapbow bolt. His enemy reared above him, sword drawn back, and then Eujen appeared beside him, face fixed in a horrified expression, and rammed a blade through the spy’s ribs.

Stenwold pushed forwards again, realizing, after the initial surprise, that he was the better duellist — perhaps the best swordsman in the room for all that it said about the rest of them. ‘Leadswell! Get to Banjacs!’ he yelled. The Beetle boy looked at him briefly, and went sprinting over to the old inventor’s motionless form.

Averic’s wings had carried him up to a gantry, and the burn-scarred man stood below him, raging up at him. ‘You traitor! You coward filth! Can’t even fight? A shame to your own people, curse you!’ Abandoning his comrades to the fight, he found a shaking stairway leading up and took it three steps at a time, only to find the Wasp already balanced on the rail, ready to glide down.

Banjacs was plainly gone beyond anything that Eujen could do for him. The old man’s ragged form was so thin that it seemed he had died long before, dried out and desiccated until only this husk remained. And yet, as Eujen knelt beside him, those piercing eyes flew open, and the old man took a hacking breath that sprayed more blood over his robes.

‘My machine!’ he whispered, reaching out for it as if trying to encompass the entire radiant edifice with a clutch of a single hand. ‘Take me — take me…’ And, with the last dregs of a Beetle’s bloodyminded endurance, he began lurching across the floor on hands and elbows, a slick red slug’s trail behind him and his legs limp and useless.

Eujen caught his rasping plea, ‘Help me make it work. ’

A snapbow in his hand, a second man came at Stenwold, shouting for his fellow to get clear. The weapons were not meant for such close quarters, and the War Master ducked away from a blow to lash his blade at the barrel, knocking it up and away. Then the snapbowman was down, sitting with hands smeared red as they pressed at a stomach wound, and one of the two Company soldiers huddled in the doorway was fumblingly trying to reload her bow even though her breastplate had a puncture hole above her left breast.

And the burn-scarred man looked back towards his people and must have seen almost none of them left now, and that this desperate gambit had failed. ‘Traitor,’ he repeated, almost a whisper. His expression revealed bitter bewilderment, at why this Wasp had turned so far from his people, and why the boy would not now even finish the job. Looking into Averic’s eyes, perhaps he sought some grand answer, some hint of a greater plan, something to justify the waste and the failure.

‘I’m sorry,’ Averic said, and those two words plainly showed the burned man how Collegium had taken him, body and mind, and corroded all the hard edge of the Empire.

The Beetle spy rushed him, surely without any great hope of achieving anything, because by that time he had nowhere to go and nothing to accomplish. Instead of simply flitting out of reach, Averic’s hands came up by instinct and, even as the Wasp kicked back from the railing, his Art flashed and seared, and what fell from the balcony was just a singed corpse.

The swordsman artificer — the only one of the three still living — dropped his blade with a harsh clang. In the doorway, the soldier leant back with a groan, pulling weakly at the straps of her breastplate until Stenwold hurried over to help her.

And, before the lambent majesty of the machine, Eujen propped Banjacs up, the old man’s ashen face borrowing a radiance from the great assembly of glass above him. There were no words, but a trembling thrust of the inventor’s hands picked out a bronze lever from amidst the chaos of dials and wheels, and Eujen hoisted him higher until he could seize on it.

Banjacs summoned some last strength then, from some inner well or perhaps from the unseen source of all Beetle Art. He shrugged himself free of Eujen’s grip, and let his own weight pull down the lever.