The Air War sota-8

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  He buckled on his belt, feeling the comforting weight of his knife against his hip. A bow would have been grand, but his role as camp follower and freelance servant had not warranted it. Lissart, at least, was armed by default.

  ‘We go,’ he decided and she nodded with a single, determined jerk of her head. Then they were dropping out of the wagon, as the sleepers around them roused themselves or panicked or hid.

  There are thousands of soldiers here, Laszlo was thinking. You’d be mad to attack an army like this. What can they hope to gain? It was a rhetorical question, though, for so long as the attackers gained him and Lissart a moment’s breathing space to get out of the camp, he could ask for no more.

  General Tynan woke instantly as the first alarms were called. Some part of him had been waiting for this for a tenday or more, sleeping lightly in the absolute certain expectation that just this would happen. The Mantis-kinden are here at last. What kept them?

  There was a plan, of course, and he had made sure that the duty sergeants and lieutenants knew what to do. At this moment his sentries and night watch would be doing everything they could to contain and assess the attack: numbers, direction, intention. They would be fighting for a breathing space in which to take control, just as they had back in the first war. Many of them would even be veterans of that same battle, where the invincible Mantids of the Felyal were taught about the sharp end of progress.

  It came as no surprise that a kinden that had unchanged over five hundred years would not have learnt from that defeat either.

  He dragged on a banded cuirass, standard Airborne issue, and snatched up his sword as he strode outside, even as the first officers arrived to report.

  ‘You,’ he snapped, picking a captain from the pack of messengers, trusting that senior rank equated to more critical news. Even as the man started to speak, though, there were Mantis-kinden amongst them, a handful of warriors just dropping from the sky and laying into whoever was closest. The captain was their first victim.

  Tynan had no time to be startled by the attack, for there was a lean, savage-looking woman driving for him with a spear in the next moment, her fluid lunge little more than a suggestion of motion in the fickle lantern light. Long years of soldiering lent him enough instinct to save himself, anticipating her attack before he properly saw it, falling aside from the bright dart of the spearhead and lashing at the woman with his left-hand sting, staggering her. His right arm was already slamming forwards, and if he had been the young, strong major of fifteen years ago he would have killed her with the sword blow. As it was, he felt the blade grate off chitin armour, and she jumped back to get him again at her spear’s point, but another of his men blasted her from behind, the fire of his sting landing in the small of her back.

  By that time it was over: four Mantis corpses, half a dozen dead Wasps, but the sounds of fighting still came from all directions.

  ‘Get the towers lit, you idiots!’ Tynan shouted at his army in general, judging that the time for receiving reports was probably past. In that moment he heard the sharp retort of a grenade, and his mind flipped the scenario it had been devising, turning it on its head. Mantis-kinden were among the Inapt, grenades were not in their arsenal. Mycella said there were others. Mantis-kinden are insane, and they’d attack a thousand with a dozen, but why would anyone in their right mind go along with them for the ride? What are they after?

  ‘All of you!’ he snapped at the men still present. ‘Get men to defend the baggage train — the munitions, fuel stores, automotives, supplies. Go, go!’

  A runner came in, and nearly got himself killed by some of the more eager soldiers keen to guard their general now that he had no immediate need of them. Thankfully the long march with the Spider-kinden had given their allies just enough familiarity to slow the Wasps’ instinctive responses.

  ‘General, message from the Lady-Martial.’ The Spider was a lean, long-limbed youth, presumably picked for his running speed. ‘Large force of Mantis-kinden are in the north-camp.’ He was breathing heavily, forcing the words out.

  ‘Lieutenant!’ Tynan called, on the good officer’s principle that there was always a lieutenant within earshot. ‘Get me-’

  ‘General, no. We have them contained. I am to say that the flank is secure. My lady urges you to look to the east. Our spotters have seen other movement there.’

  East? That’s their quickest route to the supplies and vehicles. ‘Already being taken care of,’ Tynan told him. ‘What do you mean “contained”?’ Even as he asked it, one of the tower lamps flared up, casting a bright white glare across the camp, Tynan looked about for the other two towers, finding one standing but dark, the last one.. He blinked, for the easternmost tower was down, somehow. The attack there must be fiercer than he had realized.

  ‘We know about fighting Mantis-kinden, general. We have numbers and we can see in the dark as well as they.’ The Spider messenger bowed. ‘I must rejoin my lady.’

  Tynan waved him away. ‘You heard him,’ he growled. ‘Get men over to the east. Form up and sweep the vermin out of camp — and take some prisoners.’

  ‘But, General, we’re to trust these Spiders to hold?’ one of his bolder officers demanded.

  ‘We’re marching to war alongside them, so we’ll have to lean on them eventually. Now’s better than before the Collegiate gates,’ Tynan snapped. ‘Now move!’

  How close did I just come to dying? a tiny voice said at the back of his mind, but he was a soldier and he fought it down.

  All around them, in the maze of alleys and pathways running between the tents of the Spider camp, the fighting twisted and turned. There seemed to be Mantis-kinden everywhere, singly or small packs of them, and wherever the attackers went they met the Spiders, sallying forth to defend their own. That the Mantids wanted nothing more than to shed the blood of their most hated enemies was abundantly clear. This was no line-against-line soldier’s engagement, but a mad whirling skirmish, hundreds of individual duels and brawls, small bands of Spiders against smaller number of Mantis-kinden, whilst the more heavily armoured mercenaries formed up into solid units that became reference points for the fluid, unpredictable conflict going on around them. The Mantis-kinden were the deadlier, practically berserk, swifter than sight and utterly intent on blood. The Spiders gave before them, surged in on flanks and from behind, feinted and feigned and lured them into ambushes. The toll on both sides was fearsome.

  Laszlo and Lissart dashed from shadow to shadow, tent to tent. The nearest edge of the camp was where the Mantis-kinden were coming from — so no escape to that quarter for certain. Instead they were forced further into the camp, looking for some other way out.

  Then the tower lamp flared on, and its blinding glare froze the two Flies in their tracks, instantly feeling guilty as though the whole business was aimed only at them. It was an impartial beacon, though, and it stripped away half the hiding places they had been counting on, exposing them under its fierce fire. Above them and before them were Wasp-kinden, the night shift assembling into detachments and deploying, ground or air, wherever the sergeants sent them, the day shift donning their armour as swiftly as they could.

  ‘You! Identify yourselves!’ a Wasp sergeant snapped at them, palm forward and plainly keen to remove any further complications the night might offer him.

  ‘Messengers from the Aldanrael,’ Lissart shot back at him. ‘Which way to the general?’

  For a second the man was not buying, but then he nodded briefly, gesturing further into the camp, seeing they had nothing more than knives on them. They passed through the Wasp ranks, constantly jostled and pushed as the soldiers formed ranks.

  ‘We need to get a good look around,’ Laszlo stated. ‘From down here it’s impossible to guess where we can make a break for.’ He glanced up, but the sky was busy with Light Airborne and Mantis-kinden both, and flying into that kind of meat-grinder did not appeal to him.

  ‘Head for the tower!’ Lissart told him sharply.

  ‘
What?’

  ‘Just go!’ She shoved him towards the light, her face looking pale and strained. Even as they passed through, utterly beneath the Wasps’ notice, a surge of fighters broke away from the fighting about the Spider camps — more Mantids but others, too: Flies, Beetles, Ants, in a ragged but determined mob. They were making for the functioning tower, and the Wasps were instantly on to them, the Airborne taking to the sky whilst stings and snapbows began to rake into the attackers even as they rushed in.

  The pair of them ran, or Laszlo ran and buoyed Liss up enough for her to match his pace. Hiding was out of the question now — speed their only friend, which got them to the foot of the tower without challenge.

  ‘Up,’ she instructed him. ‘See what the blazes is going on, won’t you? Find us a way out of this mess.’

  Even as he ascended, she turned sharply, jabbing her hand out just as a Wasp would, and he caught a flash of fire from the corner of his eye. I hope that wasn’t one of ours, came the thought, and then he felt a wrenching sense of dissociation because, of course, nobody out there was one of theirs. There were just two contending groups who might have good cause to kill the pair of them.

  He was not the first up the tower, for a dozen Wasp snapbowmen were already perched there, taking long-range potshots at any enemy target that came close enough. They glanced at Laszlo, but he made a grand show of not being up to anything suspect, and apparently he passed muster. Businesslike, with nothing in his pose admitting guilt, he took a good look to all quarters, just as if he were up the topmast back on the Tidenfree. There was fighting to the east as well, a vicious melee swirling about the Imperial supply wagons there, and he guessed immediately that everything else was probably just to cover getting that strike in place. The Wasps were all over that part of the camp, though, ground and air, and the fighting was dwindling and dwindling, the remaining attackers a diminishing ripple as the Wasps stamped them out.

  Then there was a savage roar, and a plume of fire launching high into the air as something exploded. It had come from the very midst of the fighting, and Laszlo flinched despite the distance. The lamp immediately above him was hot enough to slick the back of his neck with sweat, but he almost kidded himself that he could feel an extra wash of boiled air from that eruption to the north.

  It’s not my business, he had to remind himself, turning his attention elsewhere, because the attack was plainly running out of steam, and the camp would be impossible to get out of once order was restored.

  Moments later he had picked his compass direction and he dropped from the tower top, finding Lissart swiftly and pulling her after him. Freedom or death, he thought dramatically, though it was probably not too far from the truth.

  In the aftermath, Colonel Cherten made his report: a mere hundred Mantis-kinden and around twice as many of various other insurgent kinden had fallen in or near the Spider tents, with perhaps a miscellaneous hundred breaking free and retreating in the direction of the Felyal. They were all from the forest or nearby communities, Cherten believed, who had seen the Empire burn their homes once, and had obviously thought they might make a difference with this sudden strike. Under cover of their noise, a determined band of Mynans had come in from another direction, attacking the towers and then turning towards the supplies. They had been utterly ruthless, fearless, each one selling his life as dearly as possible. As well as the towers, they had managed to ignite one fuel dump, which in itself made a spectacular end to most of the Mynans who had survived to that point, and a painful number of Tynan’s soldiers as well. The sabotage only went to prove Colonel Mittoc’s wisdom in ensuring that their fuel and munitions were not all kept in one place, as Imperial policy would normally have dictated.

  Possibly more serious a loss was the discovery that one of the Sentinels had been left near that fuel store, and the explosion had tipped the machine entirely over and damaged its underside, wrecking several of its legs. Tynan’s immediate plans for the Felyal, thankfully, allowed time for repairs.

  Casualties had been moderate, the Aldanrael forces bearing the brunt of it as they contained the Mantis offensive. Tynan recorded a formal vote of thanks to their Spider allies.

  Regarding two errant Fly-kinden, nobody had the time to spare a thought.

  Looking over the Felyal, with the old burn scars of his last visit still plainly visible and the fresh wounds of the night attack in his mind, Tynan gave his orders.

  ‘Burn every home, kill everyone who resists, take prisoner everyone who doesn’t. Wherever they make their stand, make it a wasteland of ash. Set the Sentinels on them. Bring explosives, firethrowers, everything we have. They’ve shown us how they won’t learn. Leave nothing behind us that will ever again dare raise a hand against the Empire.’

  Twenty-Five

  ‘Well now, about time,’ Banjacs Gripshod ground out through gritted teeth. ‘I wondered which of you lazy, self-obssessed midgets would finally dare speak to me.’

  He had been bearded in his own bedchamber, where house arrest had confined him because the Company men guarding him did not dare let him loose at the machinery that took up so much of his home. The sight of him was not encouraging: skinny, ancient and unwashed, he glowered out at Jodry Drillen as if imprisoned between his fierce eyebrows and wild beard.

  ‘If we can spare the pleasantries-’ Jodry began, then stopped. ‘ Midget? ’

  ‘Intellectual midget,’ Banjacs spat. ‘I always knew you’d never amount to anything, Drillen, and now you’re the man who does the Assembly’s dirty work, eh?’

  ‘I am the Speaker,’ Jodry said, wounded pride replacing his usual composure.

  ‘Who’d vote for you?’ the old man demanded.

  ‘You know I’m the Speaker, Banjacs, and this sort of behaviour isn’t helping your case.’

  ‘Case?’ As if Banjacs had never heard the word before.

  ‘You murdered Reyna Pullard,’ Jodry reminded him hotly.

  ‘She was a spy!’ the old artificer hissed.

  ‘She was my spy, spying on you because you were doing something that might endanger the city. Did you think all those materials and parts you were buying didn’t raise a few eyebrows?’

  ‘Jodry,’ a new voice came from outside the room, ‘this isn’t achieving anything.’

  Jodry sagged massively. ‘Right, well,’ he said, awkwardly. ‘I have been asked to at least give you a hearing.’

  ‘Well, isn’t that large of you,’ Banjacs snarled. ‘So you drag your carcass over here past midnight because speaking to me’s plainly at the top of your list. Who interceded anyway? Who still cares? Why should I deign to speak with you?’

  ‘Banjacs, be quiet.’ Another old Beetle man emerged from Jodry’s prodigious shadow. He was at least a decade Banjacs’s junior, but there was a certain resemblance in their faces, had Banjacs only been clean shaven. His presence chastened the older man instantly, the artificer having the grace to look a little shamefaced.

  ‘Berjek,’ he noted.

  ‘Banjacs,’ said Berjek Gripshod, his brother. ‘Believe me when I say that Master Drillen has very long list these days. However, he has granted me a favour and come to speak with you. Don’t waste the time.’

  Jodry looked about for a chair, and slumped into it with a creak. ‘Right, then, here I am,’ he announced. ‘The city’s fallen down about my ears, the Empire’s fliers are expected with the dawn, there’s an army that’s probably got as far as the Felyal and is now headed right here. What else, Banjacs? What am I supposed to do with you? I’m told you want to help.’

  Apparently this was the wrong thing to say. ‘ Help? ’ Banjacs cursed. ‘I won’t waste my time with whatever wretched plan you have, Drillen. You should be helping me! Give me command of the city’s defences, let me complete my machine, and you’ll never worry about anything again, believe me!’

  ‘I fear that may be true,’ Jodry managed to keep a level tone. ‘As for your machine, well-’

  ‘Did you truly think I didn’t see it co
ming?’ Banjacs almost shouted over him, his sudden vehemence rocking Jodry backwards in the chair. ‘From the moment that Lial Morless showed us what was possible, this day has been coming… has been inevitable! But nobody thought it through! Nobody looked ahead! Only me, me! You’ll give me what I want, Drillen, because there’s nobody else. Only I can save the city, but it’s men like you, cowardly men without vision, who stand in my way!’ He had his hands extended, as though trying to strangle Jodry at a distance.

  ‘Banjacs!’ Berjek snapped and, into the silence that followed, added, ‘Jodry, do you hear…?’

  They felt as much as heard the impact, the rumble of it from outside the window, the shudder beneath their feet.

  ‘They — ah — munitions testing? Over at the College?’ Jodry stammered.

  A second blast reached them, more distantly. Berjek was at the window. ‘Jodry,’ he said, his voice abruptly hollow, ‘I see flames.’

  Jodry shouldered his way to the window, looking out and seeing a red edge to the night, hearing faint cries, shrieks and a familiar — all too familiar — sound: engines over the city, but in darkness, invisible.

  ‘No,’ he got out. ‘It’s not dawn yet — only just midnight — I won’t have it!’

  But the third booming echo put paid to such illusions, and a moment later he was forcing his bulk out of the room, thundering down the stairs to get out of the mad artificer’s house and go… who knew where?

  Behind him the shrill tones of Banjacs Gripshod followed him down the street, ‘Coward! Run, why don’t you! You need me! You need me!’

  Straessa — Subordinate Officer Antspider to her troops — was already on the streets with as many of her followers as she could muster in a minute and a half. Thankfully, Chief Officer Marteus had insisted that the members of the Coldstone Company sleep in barracks like soldiers. The others, Maker’s Own and Outwright’s, went home to their own beds like proper Collegiate citizens, but the renegade Ant was used to armies, not civilian militias and, now there was a war on, he expected his followers to act like an army too.