‘Then…?’
‘Are you asking for an intercession from Tharn? Are you asking the Moths of Tharn to assist you in this quest of yours? Then halt the Eighth while we negotiate or, Worm or no, she will not get what she wants.’
Gjegevey regarded him with half-lidded eyes. ‘You are well appointed by your masters, Ambassador. They have a shrewd agent in you.’
‘I learned more of that right here in Capitas than I ever did in Tharn. So, can you do it?’
‘The Empress will trust my advice,’ Gjegevey declared, with all the confidence he could muster, before opening the door to usher Tegrec out. A knot of Wasp soldiers was revealed beyond: hard, scowling men in the armour of the Light Airborne.
And Gjegevey thought only, It’s happened at last, then, But not now!
There was an open palm aimed at him, and he retreated back into the study, the soldiers pressing in too, crowding the small room.
‘Well, now, two traitors,’ said their leader.
‘The Empress-’ Gjegevey got out, and then the open palm was suddenly in motion, slapping him hard enough to pitch him over the desktop, scattering fragile books and scrolls onto the floor.
‘Take them both,’ the soldier said. ‘Show them the instruments, and then lock them up. Let them reflect on how the Rekef exists to protect the throne from creatures such as them.’
‘A toast,’ proposed Colonel Harvang, ‘to governance guided by strength.’ He emptied his goblet, tossing the contents down his gaping throat and spattering his tunic.
General Brugan nodded soberly, his own brandy untouched. All over the palace his men were in motion even now. All suspects were being rounded up for the Rekef cells, all the mongrels and lesser races that the Empress inexplicably chose to associate with, taken to where they could do no more harm, and held ready for disposal later. The list had been surprisingly long, from long-time advisers like doddering old Gjegevey all the way down to dubious servants, Commonwealer slaves. It’s just as well we’ve stopped the rot here.
But, of course, that was barely the true reason, in his heart of hearts. He, Harvang and Vecter had just come from a full meeting of the conspirators. His collection of Consortium magnates, army officers and Rekef men were now out doing his bidding, and they all believed that this was simply about building a wall between the Empress and such undesirables, with themselves installed as gatekeepers of course. But it’s not about that. It was about control. Taking control of her. Taking back control of his own life.
She had called him to her, last night. He still felt the shudder inside him, recalling the blood she had offered him, in a goblet finer than the one holding his brandy. Then the sense of something vital being leached from him, as her skin met his… and yet he could not stay away from her. He wanted her, but he needed to redefine the terms on which he tasted her. He needed to make her his, for at the moment he was far more hers.
‘General?’ Harvang prompted, and he knew he had missed something — a bad failing in any high-ranking Wasp, and especially a Rekef general. He glanced from Harvang to neat little Vecter, and tried to recapture the echo of what had been said.
‘Ostrec,’ he agreed, almost heartily. It was a stab in the dark, but Harvang’s expression — a little too much relief for comfort — reassured him. The young major was lurking near the door, looking bland in his Quartermaster Corps uniform. He was quite the favourite with the Empress, Brugan knew, and that knowledge made him grind his teeth. Someone else for the cells, sooner or later. If only Harvang wasn’t so fond of him. There would be a time, though, when Ostrec slipped out of the greasy orbit of the colonel, and then he would disappear, sinking without trace.
‘We owe you a great deal, Major,’ Brugan declared, beckoning the younger man to approach. ‘You’ve managed to work up quite a list of names. The Empire thanks you, and so do I.’
‘Merely my duty, General,’ Ostrec replied smoothly.
Brugan suppressed a scowl. ‘All her mystics and hangers-on will be under lock and key before the day is out. The real test will come when we take her bodyguards. Mantis-kinden are too unpredictable. Having them within her presence is asking for trouble. After all, the Eighth is fighting the Mantis-kinden right now.’
‘The old Woodlouse was saying that we had to order the Eighth to hold its ground,’ Vecter observed, with a raised eyebrow.
Harvang snorted. ‘And why? Because the moon was in the wrong phase, or he’d seen a particularly foreboding shadow, no doubt.’
‘Something to do with worms.’ Vecter dismissed the thought with a flick of his hand.
Ostrec was still standing before Brugan, and for a moment his expression… no, not his expression, which was as placid as could be, but there was some shift, as though his face had been momentarily translucent, some other drowned features twitching beneath them. Brugan blinked, feeling ill with the dislocation of it. Nothing was amiss: it was Ostrec, nobody but Ostrec, now looking at him in concern.
‘General?’
‘That will be all,’ Brugan said, too forcefully. I have to get control before it’s too late. She’s ruining me, rattled through his head.
‘You, and me,’ Scain said, without warning. The Farsphex pilots and their bombardiers had been drawn up in neat ranks beside their machines on the makeshift field that the Second Army had cleared for them that day. Pingge jumped guiltily: there had been quite a long silence and her mind had wandered, and only now did she realize that the Wasps had been conferring.
‘What was that, sir?’ she whispered.
‘Going to talk with the general.’
‘ What, sir?’ Heads turned to look and she gritted her teeth.
‘We are mounting a delegation to General Tynan. He has some orders for us: a new phase of the war,’ Scain murmured. ‘We get to go.’
But I don’t want to meet a general, was a useless comment, and of course she did not say it. Pingge was nervous, though. A ripple of some kind of emotion had passed through the Wasp-kinden, one and all. Aarmon was doing something risky.
‘Come on.’ Scain stood forward, still just a gangling young Wasp-kinden, for all the flying and fighting experience he had lived through. Pingge saw Kiin pattering forward too, saluting at Aarmon’s beckoning gesture, and from further down the ranks came Sergeant Nishaana and her bombardier Tiadro.
‘ She’s coming too. Scain… I mean, sir?’
Scain looked back at her with a slight smile. ‘Aarmon says they can take us as they find us,’ he told her.
Six of them: two Wasp men, a Wasp woman, two Fly women and one Fly man, they marched smartly through the great sprawling camp that the Second Army and the Aldanrael forces had established between them. If it had not been for the Spiders, then Pingge guessed fingers would have been pointing from the first moment, but the brightly coloured variety of the Spiderlands troops provided a camouflage that almost anything could have hidden against. Nishaana drew a few glances from soldiers who had not seen a woman of their own kinden for some while who wasn’t a whore, but there was none of the comments, jeers and lewd suggestions that Pingge had been expecting. Compared with the Empire’s new allies, the aviators were positively normal.
Of course, Aarmon’s thunderous glower might have contributed to their reticence, she decided. For most of their way through the camp she could not work out what the man was up to. Only as they were practically at the general’s tent did she guess at it: their branch of the Engineers was both new and different, in a society that was suspicious of the first quality and outright hostile towards the second. A division of mind-linked soldiers using experimental machinery and taking on such an unprecedented selection of recruits would already have gathered many enemies back home, for no other reason than just how very new and how very different they were. Faced with that, Aarmon would have had two options: he could work to minimize the outward show, bow his head, hope to be overlooked, or he could look his detractors in the eye and dare them. And no prizes for guessing which way he’s jumped.
/> The welcoming committee within the tent was also some way from Imperial standard. General Tynan, nothing more than a bald and ageing Wasp with a fancy rank badge to Pingge’s eyes, stood with proper military decorum in the centre of the tent’s interior, an easel beside him with maps tacked on and annotated. Beside him, though, an elegant Spider-kinden woman reclined on a couch, attended by a couple of Fly-kinden men, while there were two more Spiders, both men and well armoured, right behind her. On the general’s other side were a pair of colonels, a thin one with the badge of the Engineers and a stockier one that she already knew as Cherten of Army Intelligence.
‘Major Aarmon.’ Tynan received Aarmon’s pinpoint salute, even as his eyes flicked over the aviators’ delegation. He nodded slightly, and Pingge saw the Spider woman smile a little in acknowledgement of the newcomers’ bravado. But, of course, the Spiders have women soldiers, more of them than the men, and they’ve been marching with the Second for tendays. This is probably the most receptive audience Aarmon’s likely to get.
‘Your people are winning a lot of credit for the Engineers, I understand,’ Tynan observed, ‘both for your machines and your training. You’ve made quite an impact. On the enemy as well, I’m sure.’ It was not a joke and nobody smiled. ‘I’m aware that you’re not a standard army detachment.’ His eyes made brief reference to the Fly-kinden and Neshaana. ‘If you’ve come here to fight that battle, then take it elsewhere. I don’t care. I have a city to capture, and the composition of your force is of no importance to me, so long as you do your job.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Aarmon, stiff-backed and outmanoeuvred.
‘What you need to know is that there have been developments back home regarding the engineers and your resources.’
‘Sir?’
Pingge could almost sense the words passing swiftly between Aarmon and Scain and Neshaana, and the other pilots back at the impromptu airfield.
‘Colonel Mittoc?’ Tynan prompted his underling.
‘Hm.’ the skinny engineer nodded rapidly, ‘General Lien has finally decided to trust us with a consignment of your fuel. It arrived yesterday, for my personal supervision. All very secret, not to let the enemy get hold of, and so on.’ His annoyance at being kept in ignorance was plain on his face. ‘However, it’s here now, which means no more long hauls to Capitas for you. As of now you’re operating from wherever the Second camp, and it’s only a hop from here to Collegium, I’m sure. You understand what this means?’
‘Yes, sir. Endgame,’ Aarmon said coolly.
‘Well put, Major.’ Tynan took over. ‘We will be engaging the ground forces of the Collegiates shortly, and then the battle will move to the walls. Your mission now is twofold: you are to continue your attacks on the city, but you must also target their air power wherever possible, as an absolute priority. And when we begin to take down their walls you must screen the army, and especially the artillery, from air attack. I leave the specifics to you, but the elimination of the enemy air power is paramount. At any cost, you understand?’
There was a second’s pause before Aarmon replied, ‘I do, sir.’ Pingge did not have to be a part of the pilots’ communion to understand. This is it then. This is when they throw us into the fire. And she thought of the skill and determination of the Collegiate airmen, and wondered how many people she knew would be dead within a tenday.
Thirty-Two
This time, when Averic returned to his meagre lodgings, after a day’s drilling with the Student Company and still wearing his purple sash, the lock on his door had simply been smashed.
Thieves, he thought first, but in his heart of hearts he knew otherwise. He had been trying to forget the Wasp woman who had come with her brown-dyed face, and told him he was a traitor, and he had been all along. She had marched away with the army, after all, and the episode had taken on a dreamlike quality, for of course he was not a traitor, not to anyone.
Yet he had spent his day drilling with Collegiates who fully intended to kill as many Wasp-kinden as they could, should the fight draw this close and, if he were to subject his position to the philosophical rigour beloved of the academics, he would have to confess that he was surely betraying someone. It was just that, so long as he attached his loyalties to the nearest available target, he could pretend that he was unshakably honourable and honest. These were qualities he had always assumed that he possessed, but now he was forcibly reminded that apparently it had all been an act.
Not the woman waiting for him, this time, of course, but a man: a Beetle with burn-scarring about his face. He sat on Averic’s bed, wearing the hardwearing patchwork canvas of a tramp artificer, cleaning his nails with a knife and grinning at the Wasp youth standing in the doorway.
‘Come on in, why don’t you,’ he suggested.
Averic directed a palm towards him wordlessly, but his lack of resolution must have shown very plainly in his face, for the man’s grin never faltered.
‘Very nice, always the posing. Now get over here and take your orders, boy. Stop pissing about.’
By accent, the stranger could have passed for a Collegiate.
‘You’re Army Intelligence?’ Averic asked, in a small voice.
‘Right in one. Expecting some sly Rekef bastard, I’ll bet. We’re ahead of them on this one, and you should be grateful. Rather deal with us than with them, I’ll bet. Sit down here beside me, youngster.’ He patted the bed with his free hand.
Averic shuddered, unable even to identify the emotions fighting within him, and then he slouched forward and sat down, feeling obscenely like a prostitute before a client. When the man put a heavy arm about his shoulders, he yelped and tried to spring up. The Beetle was strong, though, and the knife was close.
‘I hear you’re deep cover,’ the Beetle gave a smirk that gave onto a world of insinuation. ‘Listen, boy, it’s all going to come down any day now. We all do our part, the city gets its Imperial governor, and it’s commendations all round. This is Intelligence’s big chance, before the Rekef boys try to foul things for us. We all pull together, we Imperials.’
‘You’re no Imperial,’ Averic whispered. It was the accent: it was simply too genuine.
‘Clever lad. I was in the Empire for almost ten years before coming back here. You Wasps, you know how to run things, and how to look after your own. Flap-mouthed gutbags that run this place — would you trust any one of them? Do you really think they know the first thing about how to make a city go? Piss on them. Sick of this place when I left, I was, and twice as sick of it now I’m back. But that’s fine, because it’s going to be my sort of place any day now. And yours, too. I’ve my eyes on a lieutenancy, and I reckon you could scrape sergeant out of this. Could even stay in the College, if there’s still enough of it left, and if we let them teach still.’ Horribly, inappropriately, he hugged Averic to him. ‘Now, boy, our work is all about targets, foci of resistance. The people here will fight — surprised me with that, they have — but we cut off a few heads and they’ll fall apart. No chain of command, see.’
‘What do you want me to do?’ Averic asked dully.
‘Cut throats, boy. Burn them. Stick them with a sword. Dead leaders make poor tacticians, as we say. And, as you’re here on the inside, you’re going to be perfectly placed to catch them off guard. Sure, the Big Men around here, they’re out of your range, but you’re well placed for some College Masters who won’t be suspicious about a student turning up for a little extracurricular, eh?’ The Beetle chuckled throatily. ‘See here, here’s your homework, boy.’ He thrust a tattered scroll at Averic.
Averic stared numbly at the list, a meagre handful of Collegiate names, all they would trust him with, set against the grander tapestry of men and women the Empire wanted dead. Treachery seemed to be welling up inside him. So I was an agent all this time, he found himself thinking sadly. The Empress expected, apparently, and even at this distance her awful might seemed to weigh on him more than the Beetle’s arm. He tried to picture his parents, to review their part
ing words, parse them for some hint that this had been their plan all along.
He found that he could barely bring their likenesses to mind.
He saw the names of four lecturers who had taught him, three of whom had plainly resented doing so. Oh how I’ll make them twitch when they find out I’m no victim to be slighted. How I shall get even with them. But there was no fire in that thought. He could not muster the bitterness. Instead he foresaw the acts involved: saw himself stepping through a sequence of patient murders with the same focused attention he had applied to all of his College work. The burned man was right. For all their sneers and insults, they would never expect him to come after them.
He felt full of a venom that had corrupted him without him knowing. Reaching the end of the list, he closed his eyes.
‘Bold and swift and bloody,’ came the voice of the Beetle-kinden. ‘Say it.’
‘Bold and swift and bloody,’ Averic echoed. He was holding himself deliberately still, because otherwise he would be shaking. He had read to the end of the names, the last addition seeming almost like an afterthought.
The bed lurched as the man stood up suddenly. ‘When the army breaks the wall, surrender to the first soldiers you see, ask to be brought to Colonel Cherten for debriefing. They’ll spot you for one of their own. I’ll have a tougher job, believe me. We won’t meet again before then.’ He clapped Averic on the shoulder, startling the youth into opening his eyes, staring up into the man’s own gaze with a determination tempered like steel.
‘Good boy,’ the Beetle said, approving, and then he was at the doorway. ‘Good luck.’ And he was gone.
Still sitting in that dingy, wretched room, Averic stared after him, only now allowing himself to start to shake. Traitor, I’m a traitor after all this time. Any doubt had fled him, leaving only a terrible emptiness in its wake. He was going to betray them all.
The Air War sota-8 Page 49