‘It’s no secret why we’re here,’ Taki announced, as soon as they were finally settled.
‘Solarno needs bailing out,’ said the man called Hawkmoth. He was a vicious-looking specimen, almost as small as a Fly-kinden, bald and leathery with a fierce forked beard. ‘But what do most of us owe Solarno?’
Taki grinned at him, matching fierce for fierce. ‘Oh, if you really thought that, Sieur Hawkmoth, you’d not be here. You and I know each other: we have crossed paths before. Still, if you cannot see there is now an enemy greater than all of us, then there’s no point me staying longer.’
Some of the Dragonflies scoffed at that, and Scobraan stood up angrily, his big hands rocking the table. Taki had to shout at all of them to shut their mouths and just listen to her.
‘All right, you want me to shame you with the facts? I will then,’ she told them. ‘All right, Sieur Hawkmoth, let’s look at the freebooters of the Exalsee, shall we? Why are you still free and living, Sieur?’
‘I’m a better pilot that any man or woman here, is why,’ Hawkmoth growled.
‘And you never sleep? And your flier never needs to land? No, you’re free because the Exalsee is so big, and those who would hunt you down can never quite net you in. Do you think the Wasps would seriously want for men and flying machines, Sieur? Attack one of their ships or fliers and they’d search every island in the Exalsee until they had rooted you out of every possible hiding place – and once they’re established there will be no ship or flier that is not flying their flag! And you know it, and that’s why you’re here.’
Hawkmoth glowered at her for a moment, and then nodded slowly.
‘And you warriors of Princep Exilla,’ Taki went on, ‘you must see that your sovereignty’s days are numbered. What do you think the Wasps will do, on finding a city of Dragonfly-kinden on their southern doorstep? The Lowlander Cheerwell Maker once told me something, she told me about the Twelve-Year War – a conflict between the Wasps and your kinden.’
‘Those we left centuries ago,’ Drevane Sae said dismissively. ‘Those in the north. They are not our people any more.’
‘The Wasps won’t care,’ Taki insisted. ‘You are still their enemies. In fact, we’re all their enemies. And as for Chasme itself? You tell me, Creev.’
The Creev inclined his head. ‘They will either take us over or wipe us out.’
‘So what are you suggesting?’ Drevane Sae asked harshly.
‘Drive the Wasps from Solarno,’ Niamedh replied instantly, standing up.
‘So easily said? If it is so easy, then they are not a threat!’ Hawkmoth snapped. ‘If they are as you claim, it is like trying to hold back a tide. It cannot be done.’
‘Listen to me!’ Taki said again. ‘I have travelled a long way west – further than anyone present here, believe me. I have flown past Porta Mavralis to lands that half of you haven’t even heard of, but where they are also fighting the Wasps. I have come back in the company of a Spiderlands lord who, too, is looking to fight the Wasps. I even have a few hundred Spiderlands mercenaries stashed ready for my signal. The problem is that none of you, not one of you, has any sense of the world beyond the Exalsee. You don’t understand that the world – the whole wasting world – has been pulled into this war.’
She realized that, for the first time, they were absolutely, genuinely silent.
‘The Wasp invasion of Solarno is nothing, in the eyes of their Empire,’ she continued softly. ‘They reacted like a greedy child reaching out for something bright, for no other reason than because it is there. North and west of here, there are Wasp armies tens of thousands strong currently marching on other lands. The Wasps aim to conquer the whole world, a city at a time, so they are always fighting. And right now they are fighting a greater, stronger enemy than they have faced before, so their men, their machines and resources, are more and more being committed to this larger fight. If Solarno sits still under her shackles, then she shall remain a slave forever, and the Exalsee with her, but if she rises now, if we come to her aid now, then perhaps we shall throw the enemy off – because the Wasps have their swords primarily directed elsewhere. Otherwise we lose our chance, and the Exalsee shall become an imperial province, city by city, and every one of us will be lost even to the histories.’
‘I commit myself to nothing,’ said Drevane Sae, and then, ‘but what do you ask?’
‘I ask for every flier that can be spared,’ Taki said. ‘Even now I have insurrection being stirred up in Solarno, and I have Spiderlands troops ready to march. But I need orthopters, heliopters, fixed-wings, whatever you can give – all of you. From the Principality to the free corsairs of the Exalsee, I need you. I need you, every one.’
She realized that she was standing upright to her full minuscule height, and that they were all listening to her as though this was something entirely reasonable and necessary she was asking from them, and the responsibility of it scared her half to death.
It was raining in Solarno, a light, lukewarm drizzle coming in off the Exalsee and clouding the streets with mist. Late in the evening, the setting sun was striking rainbows far off over the water, and Nero was hurrying. The Wasp-kinden had imposed a curfew now, and for the next tenday. They were turning the screws of their power, constantly raising the pressure in the city as if to see what steam might escape.
We’ll show them steam. But Nero himself was not a fighter by choice, and this entire plan was looking more and more like a wild gamble.
He ducked past an imperial patrol, making himself just one more Fly-kinden in a city full of them, worse dressed than most and nothing remarkable. His path took him down an alley, and then he went straight up, flying along the vertical wall, into a second-storey window carelessly left unshuttered.
Jemeyn and Wen, the resistance fighters, were already there. Wen studied him, eyes hooded, from her seat in the corner. Jemeyn had been pacing the floor.
‘Where is everyone else?’ Nero demanded. ‘What’s gone wrong?’
‘Mostly downstairs,’ Wen explained briefly, and added, ‘Nothing is wrong.’
‘You might say say nothing,’ Jemeyn snapped at her, ‘but three of my men were arrested only today. Clearly we’ve been compromised-’
‘They were arrested while agitating against the Wasps, what else do you expect?’ Wen shot back angrily.
‘Can they lead the Wasps to you if interrogated?’ Nero asked nervously.
‘I don’t think so. The only place they know, I’m not there any more,’ Jemeyn said, and would have said more had there not been footsteps coming up the stone stairs. Nero shifted closer to the window just in case, but relaxed when he saw Taki enter. She spared a glance for the two resistance fighters, and then looked at Nero.
‘Not dead yet?’
He gave her a smile and it was returned. ‘If you want me to stop saving your city, you can ask any time.’
A Spider-kinden had slipped in with Taki, and Nero recognized her as Odyssa, Teornis’ agent. Alongside her was a heavily built halfbreed who presumably must be one of the free pilots of the Exalsee.
‘We’re all here?’ Taki enquired.
‘Not quite,’ Nero said. ‘I was expecting someone from the reds at least.’
‘They’re lying low, trying to get the Wasps to like them,’ Jemeyn said disgustedly.
‘We can’t do this without them,’ Nero pointed out. ‘We just haven’t got the numbers.’
‘If it kicks off,’ Wen decided, ‘they’ll join in. They just won’t help us start it.’
‘That’s a shaky place to stand,’ he said, looking to Taki for support.
‘For what it’s worth, I’ll get a message to Domina Genissa. I think the Satin Trail will rise,’ she said.
‘We’re all on the wire if they don’t,’ Nero insisted.
Taki nodded, shrugged. He was right but what could they do?
‘In four days’ time the Wasps will stamp their image on this city,’ Wen explained. ‘They’re doing it in proper Solar
nese style: a full ceremony right out in front of everyone. They’re testing our boundaries. If they can perform their inauguration without trouble and get their governor installed, they’ll know we’ll stay beaten.’
‘So we strike later?’ Nero said. There was a silence; he looked from face to face. ‘What, now?’
‘You’re not Solarnese,’ Taki said.
He gave her an aggrieved look. ‘I’ve been risking my skin for Solarno, though.’
‘That’s not what I mean.’
‘Solarnese pride,’ said the big halfbreed. ‘That’s what she means. The Wasps know their business. Wait until it’s done, and no one will follow your flag.’
‘So…’ Nero took stock. ‘You’re saying now that the Wasps will be expecting trouble at the inauguration, and we should give it to them.’
It was indeed what they were saying. He shared a glance with Odyssa, and saw that she was as unhappy about this as he was.
‘There will be soldiers there, most of the garrison and-’ he started.
‘Precisely,’ interrupted Wen. ‘Which means that, if we can strike hard enough, we’ll finish them then and there.’
‘If,’ Nero echoed. ‘If. We’re going to need something pretty special to deal with that kind of opposition.’
‘I have pilots and machines,’ Taki said. ‘We have Spider troops and mercenaries ready to land at the docks. We have the resistance inside the city.’
‘Most of whom you hope will join you,’ Nero pointed out.
‘We can cut and cut at the Wasps forever, and that means they’ll just tighten their grip,’ Taki said, annoyed with him now. ‘The more time we give them, the deeper they’ll dig in. Your Lowlands is fighting them now, but for how long? If Solarno is to free itself, we have to break the chains before they can add any new ones.’
They were all in agreement. Nero ground his teeth. ‘If that’s the way you want to play it,’ he said, reluctantly. ‘We’ll need a signal…’ Before he could be pelted with their ideas on the subject, he raised a hand. ‘I’ll arrange the signal. Leave it to me.’
‘What will it be?’ Wen asked him.
‘Well, if I can’t arrange anything else, it’ll be me baring my buttocks and mooning the new governor. But let me work on it,’ he told them.
It got a smile out of Taki, and it was almost worthwhile, just for that.
When they had gone, he sat himself on the floor, as Fly-kinden from his part of the world were used to, and thought. After a while he said loudly, ‘You might as well come in now. I’m sure you heard it all.’
Cesta came into the room, head first through the window. He must have been crouching outside in the shadow of the eaves. With a lazy grace he dropped to the floor.
‘They’re right, you know,’ he said, ‘about the timing. I know this city. Let the Wasps have their ceremony, and any resistance will drain away. They’re all about fierce action and regret in this city.’
Nero gazed at him for a long time. Eventually he said, ‘I have no right to ask anything of you.’
Cesta nodded. ‘That’s true. So don’t.’ He wore a small smile. ‘What will you do if you win, Nero? What if the Empire is beaten back on all sides, and Solarno is saved? Back to the Lowlands with you, then?’
‘I’m a traveller,’ Nero said. ‘There’s a whole world out there. I’ll find somewhere.’
Cesta shrugged. ‘Perhaps the Lowlands has need of another assassin.’ His smile twisted. ‘You’ll have your signal, Nero, so don’t you worry. It will be unmistakable.’
Thirteen
It was a long road to Szar, travelling only at the dragging pace of the machine wagons. Drephos’ mobile workshops, his mechanisms and tools, pieces and parts, furnaces and refineries, had all been carefully packed into a convoy of a dozen great hauling automotives. The master artificer himself spent the time cursing the lack of rails, and fitfully designing a rail-laying automotive that would allow him to go anywhere, with his entire surroundings, as fast as he pleased.
His staff received less preferential treatment than his working materials. A single automotive was assigned to carry them, and the huge Mole Cricket, Big Greyv, took up most of that. The others perched on top, or moved between the wagons, or dropped back and conversed with the soldiers who were escorting them.
Kaszaat had no talk, however. If not for Totho’s presence she would have passed the entire journey without one single word. For Kaszaat was going home.
At nights, Totho led her away from the others, to the camp’s fringes sometimes or into one of the wagons. She could not bear to be near Drephos, even to be anywhere he might turn his head and see her.
‘He thinks I will betray him,’ she said.
‘No,’ Totho assured her, and it was no more than the truth. Drephos did not think of her at all.
‘But the others do. They know where we’re going, and why. We’re going now to kill my people. My own people.’
Totho regarded her carefully. Tonight they were in one of the machine wagons, nestled amongst the canvas-wrapped crates and boxes.
‘How did you come to leave your home?’ he asked, hoping that there was some bad blood to uncover, some injustice she could cling to.
‘I was conscripted, sold into the army, what did you think?’ she snapped at him. ‘I had training, so they put me with engineers. I was passed hand to hand. Then Drephos saw me, took me. Now they will kill me.’
Though curled up in his arms, she was tense as a drawn bow. By ‘they’ he did not know whether she meant the Empire or her own people. Neither did he have any simple answers. What will she do, when we face her family? He did not want to find out, but each morning, as the lumbering caravan set off again, it took them closer to that inexorable confrontation.
It was Totho’s first experience of travelling officially through the Empire, rather than as on that hurried and furtive expedition to Myna to rescue Che and Salma. He was not sure that he preferred the change. The Empire was not so dissimilar to the Lowlands. Once they were past the Darakyon and the northern fringe of the Dryclaw, they passed into hilly farming country, with fields being ploughed by hand or with the help of draught-beetles, and with little goat- or sheep-herding villages huddled between the rises. The difference was in their reaction to the convoy. As soon as it was sighted, the locals, be they Soldier Beetles or Bee-kinden or Wasps, turned themselves more diligently to their work. They would not even look on the convoy or its escort, but Totho could read the sense of fear in them. The Empire was a harsh master.
And I am now a part of the Empire. Not a new thought either. If he let himself recall the despite he had suffered for his heritage, he could wash his guilt away easily. It was a constant effort to stave the idea off.
For the first tenday of the journey, Drephos had kept to himself in icy anger, not speaking to anyone, glowering at the crew of the automotives or at the soldiers of the escort if they dared approach him. He hunched over his drawings, scoring them through and making better copies, still smarting from being wrenched from the mechanical wealth of Helleron. After that, he recovered something of his usual character, and then it became a daily business of conference with the Beetle twins and Big Greyv, whilst the other artificers were let loose to do whatever they wished. Aside from sitting silently beside Kaszaat atop one or other of the automotives, watching the sparse countryside pass them by, Totho worked on his elaboration of the snapbow. He thought he had a design now for a repeating model, although he doubted it would ever prove economic enough to furnish an army with it. Still, he had no other project to hand.
When they were only a tenday or so from Szar, by their best calculations, the twins disappeared. The vehicles had set off that morning, no different from the last, but then one of the other artificers had remarked on their absence. Drephos had the convoy halted at once, sending the soldiers out in all directions to search for them. He was not overly concerned, and Totho could detect no thought in him that the two Beetles might have come to harm. Instead, Drephos
was inconvenienced. He merely wanted the two of them returned so that he could continue his work. All the while, Big Greyv dogged his steps solemnly, carrying cases of scrolls and books without complaint.
It took the soldiers almost half a day to find the missing artificers, and they brought them back nervously for Drephos’ inspection. Both were dead, though unmarked. All thoughts instantly turned to possible enemies in the villages around them. Perhaps the Bee-kinden had sent assassins out. Kaszaat found that idea ridiculous. Drephos himself conducted the examination of the bodies, hunched over them as though they were malfunctioning machines that he could bring back to life with the right repairs.
He did not speak to Totho about his findings, but he must have told someone other than the habitually silent Big Greyv, because rumour leaked out. The twins had been poisoned. They had, by all appearances, poisoned themselves.
From there it was a matter of remaining quiet and listening. Totho was good at that. The convoy meanwhile was rife with speculation. Drephos and Big Greyv seemed the only two not talking about it. Totho had not known the two Beetle-kinden, but posthumously he discovered a great deal.
After that, one night on which the convoy had stopped close enough to Szar for Kaszaat to be staring off towards the north-easterly horizon anxiously, Totho crept about the haulage automotives and inspected the contents, looking closely at form and function and drawing his conclusions.
It was something he should have been able to work out before, had he only thought of it. It was something, he suspected, that all of the other artificers had realized but were pretending otherwise. It was Drephos’ new weapon.
That night, after these conclusions, he sought out Kaszaat and guided her away from the convoy, passing between lax sentries until they were on a hilltop overlooking the circle of machines, and well out of earshot.
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