The lead armourclad now struck the capsized wooden ship and crushed it against the chain, forcing it half-over and then shearing through the planks until it itself met the grinding teeth of the chain. They scraped and screamed as they hit the metal, scratching at it but unable to bite. For a second Stenwold thought the ship would be lifted up by it, but its draft was too deep, and its engines kept urging it forwards. Explosive bolts from the tower artillery burst about its hull in brief flares, and then one of the towers was enveloped in a firestorm as the flagship found its range. The tower was still shooting, even though some of its slit windows leaked flame.
And the armourclad strained, and for a second its stern was coming around as the chain stretched taut, but then a link parted somewhere and the chain flew apart in a shrapnel of broken metal and the armourclad’s bow leapt forwards, making the entire ship shudder.
There was now nothing between it and the harbour. Stenwold knew he should move, but he could not. He just stared at the black metal ship as its unstoppable engines thrust it forwards. The repeating ballista mounted at its bows was swivelling to launch blazing bolts at the buildings nearest. Meanwhile another missile struck the east tower and caved a section of it in.
Impossibly small over its mighty decks, the miniature orthopters of Joyless Greatly swung hither and thither like a cloud of gnats. They had the swift power of a flying machine but the nimble size of a flying man, and Stenwold saw them dart and spin about the deck of the armourclad with their artificial wings blurring, releasing explosives one by one from their engine harnesses.
The cargo heliopter shuddered past, trailing smoke now, a trail of incendiaries falling behind it that were mostly swallowed by the sea. Stenwold longed for the telescope he had at Myna, but he had not even thought to bring one. He strained his eyes to see one of Greatly’s men dodge and tilt over the armourclad’s deck, leaving a trail of fire behind him.
‘Will you look at that!’ shouted Balkus, pointing. Stenwold followed the direction of his finger to see something glint beneath the surface of the harbour.
‘Tseitus’s submersible ship!’ he exclaimed. He had expected something like a fish, but jetting out from beneath the quay came a silvery, flattened oval as long as three men laid end to end, with six great powering paddles that forced it through the water in uneven jerks. It was fast, though, for with half a dozen of those laborious strokes it was most of the way to the armourclads. He lost sight of the submersible as it passed beneath the lead ship.
‘Everything we have,’ he heard himself say. ‘It must surely be enough.’
There was a spectacular explosion of fire and stone, and the east tower simply flew apart, some strike of the flagship having found its ammunition store. The flying debris battered the nearest armourclad, rolling it violently so that its starboard rail was almost under water. With a dozen great dents in its side, it began to drift towards the shattered tower, its engine still running but its rudder ruined.
Cabre had been in that tower, Stenwold recalled. He suddenly felt ill.
The lead armourclad was still forging forwards but it was on fire in a dozen places from Greatly’s ministrations. Even as he watched, Stenwold saw one of the diminutive fliers hover neatly by its main funnel. It was too far to see the descent of the bombs, but a moment later there was a cavernous bang from within the vessel, and the funnel’s smoke doubled, and redoubled. The flier was already skimming away, and the others were leaving too, making all ways from the stricken ship. Stenwold saw at least one of them falter and fall to the Vekken crossbowmen, spiralling over and over, out of control, until the water received him.
Balkus grabbed Stenwold and threw him to the quayside, more roughly than necessary, and then the stones beneath him jumped hard enough to throw him upwards an inch and smack the breath from him when he came down.
A single piece of jagged metal was thrown far enough to clatter onto the docks, but the centre of the lead armourclad had exploded into a twisted sculpture of ruined metal and burning wood that clogged the mouth of the harbour. Beyond it, through a curtain of smoke, Stenwold could dimly see other ships of the fleet making ponderous turns, still under attack from the air. One of them was listing already, its wooden hull holed beneath the waterline in what must have been Tseitus’s blow for Collegium.
The fliers began to return home, and there seemed so very few.
The powerfully-built Fly-kinden stepped from the dockside house, watching the ships retreat, his vantage a slice of sea and sky viewed down a narrow back alley. ‘I want my money back,’ said the treasure-hunter Kori to the women behind him.
‘Go to the wastes!’ the Madam spat at him. ‘You filthy little monster!’
He leered at her, lounging in the doorway, oblivious to the smoke on the air. ‘Come, now, the world’s about to end isn’t it?’ he demanded. ‘The city’s about to fall. Your ladies should be giving it out free, just for the joy of their profession. I’d thought I’d find some proper dedication to your trade here, in this city of learning.’
The old Beetle woman regarded him venomously but said nothing. Kori laughed at her. ‘Instead, what is there? The moment a little disturbance happens, and four streets away mind, all your girls lose their nerve and start crying and whimpering and begging for their lives. I mean, it’s not that I don’t enjoy that sort of thing but, still, if they won’t perform, what is there? The trade’s fallen into a sad state. It’s no wonder they call this a house of ill repute.’
‘You brute!’ the old woman said. ‘This is our home, our city! We can’t all just fly away through the air when the walls come down.’
‘Well, exactly,’ the Fly agreed. ‘But will you make the best of it? No, you will not. You could have had a few coins from me, woman, and they might have stood you in good stead. I’m sure there’s a Vekken Ant with a venal soul somewhere out there. My ardour has cooled though, so my purse remains shut. I leave you only with my own disappointment.’
He walked away from them, whistling jauntily against the misery of the city around him. He felt it incumbent upon him to at least keep his own spirits up. So Collegium was on the rocks these days. That was no business of his. Let the Ants and the Beetles sort their own lives out, so long as he got what he came for.
The other hunters were still outside the city, waiting for his return and report. He had decided that he was the most experienced man amongst them, and therefore that he should be their leader. So far, at least, they had followed his suggestions. He knew a few of them by reputation, had met with Gaved the Wasp once before in a bitter dispute over an escaped slave. There were no hard feelings, though. They were both professionals.
He holed up in a taverna until dusk, enjoying being the only unconcerned man in a panicking city. The prices were cheap but the service was poor, because the innkeeper’s son and daughter had both run off to join the army. That thought made Kori smile at the foolishness of the world. It was not that he feared risk, since risk was his business, but he always made sure that he was suitably reimbursed for any risks he took, and made sure he could always fly away if things got messy. In a world turned so badly on its head, there was no better life than that of a mercenary agent.
As dusk fell he made his silent exit, flying fast and high above the Vekken encampment, beyond any Ant-kinden’s view or crossbow’s reach, out into the hills beyond until he had tracked down his fellows’ camp.
‘You’re late,’ Scylis informed him, when he landed.
‘I set the clock, so I’m never late,’ Kori said. ‘I’ve been biding my time, is all.’
‘Well?’ asked Gaved.
‘Well I visited Collegium once before,’ Kori said, ‘but I don’t recall it as being quite so crawling with Ants.’
The four hunters looked over the camps of dark tents that had spread like a stain around the city. From their hilltop retreat they had heard the loudest sounds of conflict, the roars of the leadshotters and other firepowder weaponry.
Gaved had spent the day spying o
ut the walls with his telescope. ‘Well, they warned us to expect trouble.’
‘This is more than just trouble,’ the Fly considered. ‘This complicates things. We should be asking for more money.’
‘That’s your answer to everything, isn’t it, Kori?’ observed Phin the Moth, looking amused.
‘Never found a problem it couldn’t solve yet,’ he agreed. ‘You reckon this is the Empire, then?’
‘Vekkens,’ Phin corrected him.
‘Yeah, but that maggot patron of ours in Helleron knew there’d be trouble. So I reckon the Empire’s been stirring, eh?’
‘Of course it’s the Empire,’ Scylis, Scyla, told them. Her companions talked too much, and she was fed up with all of them. She always worked best alone. Phin and Gaved had even slept with each other a couple of times, which she viewed as unprofessional. There was no real affection there, she knew, just physical need, but it still irked her. Perhaps it was the price of her wearing a man’s face most of the time.
‘I reckon the Empire wants all of this,’ Gaved said distantly. ‘They’re starting fires like this all over, so they can just come over and stamp them out. Going to be a bleak enough place when the black-and-gold gets here.’
‘You? What will you have to worry about?’ Scyla asked him. ‘They’re your cursed people.’
That made him frown at her, and sharply too. ‘If you had any idea how hard I’ve fought to be free of their bloody ranks and rules, you wouldn’t say that.’
‘Still living off their table scraps, though, just like the rest of us,’ she jibed.
‘Yes I am. So what’s the plan?’
‘Plan hasn’t changed,’ Kori explained. ‘Go in, get it, get out – just the usual. A little war won’t stop us.’
‘And if there’s anyone here who can’t get himself in past the Vekken then he shouldn’t be doing this job,’ Scyla added.
‘Well, Master Spider, and when did you grow your wings?’ Phin asked acidly.
‘Don’t you worry about me,’ Scyla told her. ‘I’ll be through the Ant camp and up the wall, and they’ll never even know it.’
‘Best if we all make our own way, then,’ Kori said. ‘You need to find the main marketplace of the middle city. That’s about three streets south of the white College walls,’ he added, because none of the others had been there before. ‘There’s a taverna called the Fortune and Sky, a merchant’s dive, so we’ll meet out back of that. For now, let’s all pick our points of departure, as close to the action as you like.’
Gaved looked at Phin and Scyla, seeing them nod in response. ‘Agreed then,’ he said. ‘Luck to all, and no stopping for stragglers.’
Kori’s Art-conjured wings flared from his shoulders even as he spoke, lifting the stocky Fly-kinden into the air. Phin’s wings, when they followed suit, were darkly gleaming, almost invisible.
The warden obviously recognized him, a balding, portly man doing his best to stand to attention, as another balding, portly man came to call. Stenwold waved him down.
‘No formality, please. I have just escaped from a meeting.’
Memory of that meeting would stay with him for a long time, because the War Council had degenerated into a room full of people who had lost their grip on how the world worked. There was no continuity between them. Stenwold had seen the dull, aghast faces of men and women present who had fought on the wall when the Ants made their first sortie. There had been artificers manning the artillery, who had first experienced war when dozens of Ant-kinden died beneath the scatter-shot of their weapons. Then there had been those, in these sharp-edged times, who had found a new purpose: men whose inventions were finally being put to work, men who had always dreamed of taking up a sword, and now found that the reality was better. Stenwold would always remember Joyless Greatly, even when every other memory had gone. The Beetle aviator’s dark skin had been soot-blackened, and his calf was bandaged where a crossbow bolt had punched through it, but his eyes shone wildly, and he grinned and laughed too easily. He was living, Stenwold realized. He was consuming every moment. Flames that burned so brightly never burned for long, but Joyless Greatly, artificer and aviator, was burning so fiercely that it seemed he would not outlast even a tenday.
Kymon had been there, the lean old Ant-kinden become a soldier again after years in an academic’s robe, and Stenwold even found Cabre in the crowd, bandaged and burned but alive. When her tower had fallen she had escaped through a window so small that only a Fly-kinden could have managed it. Others had not been so lucky.
And Stenwold had made his excuses as soon as he could but found he had nowhere to go. Not his own house, certainly. They would find him there, and bother him with papers and charts when he really had nothing further to contribute. He needed a break. Most of all, he needed someone to talk to.
‘Has anyone been to see her?’ he asked the warden.
‘No one except the staff,’ the man said. ‘I go in and talk to her a little, sometimes.’
‘Good,’ said Stenwold. ‘What about charges?’
‘None,’ the warden said. ‘She’s your collar, War Master. They’re leaving her to you.’
‘Don’t call me that, please.’
The warden looked surprised, himself obviously a man who would love such a grand title. He shrugged and unlocked the door of the cell.
She was being well enough looked after, he saw. Save for the bolted shutters on the window the room beyond the locked door hardly seemed a prison at all. There was a rug on the floor, a proper bed, even a desk provided with paper and ink. For confessions, perhaps? Last testimonies and defiant speeches? This was certainly not the room of a common felon. Stenwold had made no particular arrangements, but he wondered whether his recent rise through the city’s hierarchy had effected this good treatment.
‘Hello Stenwold,’ said Arianna. She was sitting on the bed, dressed in her old student’s robes, her arms wrapped about herself. ‘I wondered when you would . . .’ She stopped herself. ‘I suppose I wondered if, really.’
Stenwold crossed slowly and turned the desk chair to face her, lowering himself wearily into it. ‘Things have been difficult,’ he said.
‘I’ve heard.’
‘But you can’t imagine,’ he said. ‘Just two days now and – the College halls have become infirmaries, and every student who ever studied medicine is there, doing what little can be done. And there are artificers that have fought all day who will now be working all night, on the artillery, on the walls. There were girls of fifteen and men of fifty who were out on the walls today and many, enough, who never came back to their mothers or their husbands or wives. And the Ants keep coming, over and over, as if they don’t care how many of them it takes. And they’ll get over our walls if they have to make a mound of their own dead to do it. Have you heard that?’
Numbly she shook her head.
‘And I . . . I’m here because – who else can I tell? I’ve sent them all away, my friends, and I keep asking myself whether it was to help, or just because I wanted to try and keep them safe. Because I have a record, there. I have a real history of sending people off to keep them safe. I even seem to have thought that two of them might be safe at Tark.’
For a long time he sat in silence, grasping for more words and finding none, until she said, ‘Stenwold – what’s going to happen to me? You can tell me that, can’t you?’ She bit at her lip. ‘I keep expecting your Mantis friend to turn up as my executioner.’
‘Or your Wasp friends to pull you out,’ he said bitterly. ‘No, that’s right, you told Tisamon you were fighting amongst yourselves, you . . . imperial agents.’
‘Rekef,’ she said. ‘Say it. I was a Rekef agent, Stenwold. Not a proper one. Not with a rank, or anything. But I was working for them. And, yes, we fought. We tried to kill a man called Major Thalric.’ She watched his reaction carefully. ‘You remember him?’
‘We’ve met,’ Stenwold allowed. ‘I wish . . . I wish it was so simple that I could just . . .’
‘Believe me? But of course, I’m a Spider and I’m a traitor. Twice a traitor therefore. I’m sorry, Stenwold, really I am. I . . . seem to have done a very good job of cutting myself off, here.’
He looked at her, at the misery in her eyes, the hunched shoulders, and knew that he would never be able to discern what was truth and what was feigning. By race and profession she was doubly his better at that game.
‘There were three of us in the plot,’ she said slowly. ‘If it helps explain. It happened when Thalric told us the Vekkens were getting involved.’
He shook his head. ‘I don’t understand. You were working against us. You sold us out to the Empire. I don’t understand why the change of heart.’
‘Because the Empire is different,’ she told him flatly. ‘We were expecting an imperial army to take Collegium. Not this year, probably not even next, but eventually. And the Empire conquers, and if you conquer, then you make sure that you leave the place standing so you have people left to push around. They would probably even have let the College go on, so long as they got to control what was being taught. And Collegium would still be Collegium, only with a Wasp governor and Wasp taxes, and Wasp soldiers in the streets. That’s what we thought. But the Vekken hate this place. It’s a reminder of a defeat, so they’ll not leave a stone standing given the chance. And that made us think and realize just what the stakes were. And we broke away, Hofi, Scadran and I. We tried to kill Thalric when he came to brief us. We killed his second, but the man himself was too good for us. He got the other two, and I’d have been next if your Mantis hadn’t found me. Lucky for me, wasn’t it? A quick and private death swapped for a public execution. Or perhaps just death at the hands of the Vekken when they burn this place around me.’ She stood up suddenly, and he knew she was going to ask for his help, to demand it, to impose on him in the name of the lies she had once shared with him. But the words dried in her throat and she just made a single sound, a wretched sound.
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