Salute the Dark sota-4

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  ‘Good. Rational debate, I never tire of it. I always knew that you were trying to install yourself as my conscience. I am glad that you felt you could bring your problem to me rather than dwelling on it in silence, as the Twins did. You have already learnt your lesson, after the issue with the girl.’

  The girl: Che. The mention of her jarred in Totho, wrong-footing him. ‘I cannot believe that you would willingly do what you are about to do, if you had… if you had properly considered the consequences,’ he got out.

  ‘Consequences,’ echoed Drephos. ‘Do you mean political? Technical?’

  ‘Moral,’ Totho blurted out. ‘What you’re about to do is immoral. It’s wrong.’

  ‘Why?’ Drephos asked. Totho just stared at him. After a beat had passed without an answer, the master-artificer added, ‘There is a matter of scale, undoubtedly. I have found certain… obstacles within my own mind. Morality does not enter into it, but there are other matters that have given me pause.’ For the first and only time in Totho’s knowledge, he sounded uncertain.

  ‘You are a war-artificer,’ Totho said, ‘and you know it is not flattery if I say that you are the greatest I have known. This is not war, however. This is beneath you. You constructed these weapons for the battlefield.’

  Drephos smiled with the pure, simple expression of a clever man who is understood. ‘I have considered this myself. War, though – war is not a static thing. A war is not just the sum of its battles and skirmishes, Totho. It is the same as the difference between strategy and tactics: the great war and the little one. This is the great war.’

  ‘But most of those people who will die tomorrow will not be warriors,’ Totho pointed out. ‘They will be… just citizens of Szar: the young, the old-’

  ‘And on the field against the Sarnesh, my opponents would be soldiers?’ Drephos finished for him. ‘Yes, I asked myself that. What is the great war, though, if it is not the Empire against the world? That world is not built on soldiers. The soldiers are merely the sword, not the hand that holds it, nor the body to which that hand belongs. Those people out there, you consider them as innocents in war? Mere bystanders, detached and uninvolved? Surely you were better schooled in logic than that.’

  Drephos’ manner made Totho think of his studies at the College, the same dry approach to theory, and here it was trotted out with a whole city’s fate resting on it.

  ‘Have they fed a soldier? Then they are the war,’ Drephos elaborated. ‘Have they clothed one? Taught one? Given birth to one? Will they grow to be one? Have they lived their lives fed and aided by the achievements of the soldiers gone before? You cannot say that they are not the war, Totho. The soldiers themselves are merely the tip of it, but beneath the waters is a great mountain building towards them. You see, Totho, I have already considered all this. I am not some irrational tyrant.’

  ‘Yes, but-’

  ‘If they survive, they shall rise up again, the next generation, or the next. If they are whipped down by main force, they shall merely nurse their wounds and resharpen their blades. If a single Szaren still stands after tomorrow, then the Empire is doomed sooner or later, for inevitably the war will be lost, in ten years or a hundred or a thousand. If we wish to win the war, then we must make war on all our enemies – not only those that now present themselves with a blade in their hand. Can you honestly refute my logic?’

  ‘But there are other ways to solve a problem, surely?’

  ‘Now that is an old argument, and you are merely echoing it,’ Drephos replied, as mildly admonitory as a schoolteacher. ‘Yes, there are truces and treaties and accords and concords and all of that, but they are merely games, Totho. They are games to give both sides time to prepare for the real thing, and that is war. Treaties can be broken. In fact most are made with that in mind. There was a philosopher of Collegium a hundred years ago who thought that, instead of wars, your Ant cities could resolve their differences by playing games, thus saving the loss of countless lives. You must see the inevitable flaw in his idea, for what if the losing side refused to accept its defeat? In war there is no such uncertainty. The bodies left on the field give a finality to what happened, however each side dresses it up in its reports. And in this war, my new war, I will expunge even the most lingering doubt. The Empire will win and Szar will lose, and the proof of it will be that there will be no Szar left, no Szaren people, no trace of those who defy the Empire.’

  ‘So that the other cities, Myna and the others, they’ll never rebel again, is that it?’ Totho asked him. ‘Surely-?’

  ‘Surely I can see that it isn’t the case? Yes, the Maynesh and the Mynans and the rest, they will rise up again, and, when they do, do you know what they will have? They will have weapons of their own to counter this one, to bring a new war against the Empire, and we will have to find weapons more terrible still to defeat them. Don’t you see, Totho? That’s the point. This is war, and it is also progress, the living, breathing engine of war. Your snapbows, the incendiaries that took Tark, they’re just stopgaps. This is the next step, and that, beyond any other reason, is why I must take it. One cannot deny history its prize, Totho.’

  Totho opened his mouth, once or twice, but no words came out. Drephos’ smile, kindly enough in its way, broadened.

  ‘If you will be my conscience, well and good,’ he allowed, ‘but from where do you derive yours?’

  Totho stared down at his hands as they gripped the rail, realizing as he did so that he was now copying one of Stenwold’s mannerisms, when the old man felt harried on all sides and beset with unsolvable problems. ‘From her,’ he replied, and it was true. ‘From Cheerwell Maker. I always ask myself if she would approve, and if she would not, then it’s wrong. But then I’ve already done so many things that she would not approve of, so where am I now?’

  ‘Quite,’ said Drephos. ‘Be thankful that reason and calm thought can prevail over such vague notions.’ Abruptly his head turned, and he was looking past Totho at something below them. ‘And here,’ he said, ‘is my other expected guest.’

  Totho turned to see Kaszaat herself being led towards the engine, firmly pinioned between two Wasp soldiers.

  Twenty-Four

  They had chosen the island of Findlaine as their staging point. The Wasps, still focused on holding on to a turbulent Solarno, had not further expanded their influence out over the waters of the Exalsee. But Findlaine was close enough to undertake the flight and still have fuel and fire to do battle over the city itself; far enough that the flying machines and beasts could muster there without sharp eyes from Solarno’s garrison spotting them.

  There was an old tower on Findlaine, its provenance lost after successive changes of ownership. The style was Spider-kinden of centuries before, a delicate once-white spire that the years had brought down so that only a stump still remained, rising mutely out of the screen of surrounding trees. Taki had taken it as her vantage point. Looking north, she could see the pale blur on the shoreline that was Solarno, while looking south, down into Findlaine’s broad and shallow bay, she…

  They were now gathered there, every flying machine that the free pilots of Solarno could muster, as well as a contingent of pirates and freebooters from Chasme, with some concerned mercenaries and a flight of dragonfly-riders from Princep Exilla. She had never seen so many pilots in one place, and it was all she could do to hold them together. They were at each others’ throats all the time: no natural allies but bitter enemies and rivals reluctantly pressed into service side by side. When the time came, they would fight as they always had, as individuals. She only hoped that they would concentrate on fighting the Wasps.

  In her hand was a crumpled note recently brought to her by a messenger who was even now skimming back in his little sail-boat towards the city. It reported that Nero had organized what resistance he could. The Wasp governor’s ceremonial confirmation was nigh. The entire Wasp garrison would be out on the streets, waiting for trouble. They would certainly not be disappointed.

  One sin
gle strike, to shatter their power. Very little word had come from the west, but Taki knew that the Spider-kinden were engaged in fighting up on the Silk Road, at places she had barely heard of, seen only briefly in passing.

  She spared a thought for Che: I hope your plight is not as bad as ours. She also hoped that, in making this push against the Empire, she would be aiding the Beetle girl, just as she hoped that whatever trouble Che was in would take some of the pressure away from Solarno. Even the Empire only has so many soldiers, so many armies.

  That was the theory, at least.

  She consulted the little pocket clock that had been a gift from her brother, years before. She angled it at the sun until the little shadow told its tale. It was telling her that she would have to get started.

  Without giving herself time to think, Taki sped down the slope towards the bay. Nero had better have his end of this action in hand. Even the thought of the man made her uncomfortable, because she knew he was not really here for any love of Solarno or hate of the Empire. A man ten years older than she was, and bald and not well favoured and, most of all, not a pilot. She could have overlooked the rest but she had never glanced twice at a man who wasn’t a flier. It was something in her heart and blood, needing a man who would share in the places that she really belonged.

  Old fool that he is. She still hoped he would be all right. She wanted no more guilt on her shoulders than was there already. There will be a great many people by sunset who will not be ‘all right’.

  Freedom, though – freedom for Solarno and the Exalsee and perhaps, just perhaps, for the world. We cast our little stone now in the hope of a landslide.

  ‘To your vessels!’ she shouted as she descended the slope. She saw men and women starting up from their card games and campfires, and mechanics make a final twist or turn, then scrambling out from beneath or within a machine. Niamedh flipped her a salute before vaulting up to the cockpit of her sleek Executrix. On the water, the bulky Mayfly Prolonged already had its propellers moving sluggishly as Scobraan started up the engines.

  A big female dragonfly some thirty feet long lifted out of the woods with an armoured rider perched on its back. She marvelled at the sight, viewing it from the ground like this, and for this fragile moment as an ally not an enemy. They were fleet, jewelled anachronisms, those beasts – far nimbler than a flying machine, but what could the rider’s lance or bow do against Taki’s vessel’s metal hide?

  There were more insects in the air by now, all circling and hovering. She saw Drevane Sae’s own mount take flight, identifiable by the emerald banner streaming behind his saddle. From the water the ugly, blackened hulk that was Hawkmoth’s Bleakness, most infamous pirate vessel of a piratical age, was planing over the wave-tips, fighting for height.

  ‘Luck.’ The word was spoken briefly by its owner passing her by. It was the Creev, the slave-mercenary of Chasme. She watched him climb up the spiny hull of his vicious-looking new fixed-wing Nameless Warrior, his previous Mordant Fire having been lost in a duel with the Wasps. Beyond him she saw the flash of the Fly-kinden te Frenna’s red scarf as she dropped into the seat of her slender heliopter, the Gadaway. It came to Taki that this might be the last time she saw many of these people, whether friends, foes or strangers. She had brought them together and now she was sending them into war.

  She let her own Art wings bring her out to the Esca Volenti as it bobbed just off the shoreline, and then started the clockwork of its engine determinedly, trying to lose such mournful thoughts in the comfort of her old routines. Her elegant orthopter leapt from the waters in a spray of silver, passing up and up through the strata of carefully circling machines and beasts, and flung itself like an arrow across the waters towards Solarno, with a train of others following immediately in her wake.

  The Empire had found a scapegoat in the local branch of the Demarial family, former supporters of the Path of Jade. With most of that family’s Aristoi having fled to Porta Mavralis, the Wasps had simply seized their expansive townhouse with its prime view over the Galand Square and the bay. The new imperial governor himself intended to live there in style, it was clear, and the gesture had even brought a measure of approval from the Solarnese.

  Galand Square was full today, the people of Solarno jostling shoulder to shoulder and Fly-kinden roosting on the three outsized martial statues that the square was famous for. One of those trespassing Flies, a bald, lump-faced creature, was doing his best not to keep glancing behind him at the glittering waters of the Exalsee.

  Nero felt as tense as he had ever been. The hammer was about to fall – or at least that was the plan. He had to take it on faith that the hammer was poised at all. There were so many pieces to come together and, although he was high up here, sitting like a privileged child on the shoulders of the great stone soldier, he could see none of them. Even the Wasp governor had yet to show himself. The balcony – and perhaps the confiscation of this house had been solely to acquire that great balcony, so suited to public declamation – currently hosted a half-dozen soldiers in heavy sentinel armour and two Fly-kinden slave-scribes, but nothing that resembled an officer, let alone whichever imperial colonel would be governing here.

  Finally the game was about to begin. Nero had spent the last two days urging people into position by sheer force of will. Jemeyn and Wen, and the other Solarnese who were willing to take up arms, were split into bands of ten and twenty now within a quick dash of the square. Odyssa and her Scorpion mercenaries were on ships out in the bay, equipped with a telescope and a Solarnese artificer to use it, closely watching Galand Square for the signal. Somewhere out across the waters, Taki and the other free pilots were waiting. The frustration in seeing none of it was maddening.

  Nero, old boy, you’re only an artist. What are you doing starting revolutions?

  Then there was Cesta, of course, who must already be lurking somewhere close, ready for whatever he intended to do to light the fuse here. A blade thrown from a good distance was Nero’s guess, but first there would have to be the right target.

  By now there were soldiers lining the square, marching forth with black and yellow pennants on their lances. Nero shifted his balance on the statue, resisting the urge to glance back towards the sea (were there black dots he could see, in the distance over it?) or to check that his dagger could be easily drawn through the buttons of his breeches. The incoming crowd, hustled together by roving Wasp soldiers to witness the new governor’s inauguration, had already been searched for blades, but few Wasps were diligent enough to feel up the inside of a Fly-kinden man’s thighs, especially one as grim-looking as Nero.

  The mood in the square was very quiet. Some spoke together in low voices, but many simply stared up at the imposing balcony or at the encircling soldiers. They were not taking their subjugation well, and today would be either kill or cure. Nero was willing to bet that there were more than a few hidden weapons among the crowd. The Wasps had not won any great love amongst the people here, nor was Nero the only player whose pieces were out of sight. Only the day before, a third of the Solarno garrison had simply packed up and marched north again. Rumour said that the siege of the Spider-kinden city of Seldis was dragging, despite the Empire’s mechanical might. Nero himself knew how the Spider-kinden dealt with sieges: assassination, mass poisonings, sabotage, infiltration and incitement, and all the time there would be mercenaries and Spider levies gathering to the south, along the Silk Road. The news had helped stoke the smoulder that was Solarno and he reckoned it was all about to catch ablaze.

  Myna all over again. But of course he had not been there at Myna when the gates came down. He had carefully weighed up the odds, and then told them – Stenwold and Tisamon and Marius – that he wasn’t game for it. After all, Fly-kinden were not noted for their warlike tendencies. It was the nature of his small kinden to bend before the storm. That was why they fitted in so well, why they had settled everywhere from Collegium to the Ant city-states and the heart of the Empire. But here in Solarno he had met a d
ifferent breed of them: fighting Fly-kinden amongst the free pilots. One in particular, actually.

  All this for a pretty face. But it was a very pretty face, and a lively manner, and though she was young enough to be his daughter, still he had been drawn to her like a moth to a flame. I am, let’s be honest here, too old for all of this, so if I’m going to start playing the young man in going to war, why not play him elsewhere too?

  The thought put a smile on his face, but it vanished as the governor appeared.

  There were abruptly a dozen Wasp officers up there on the balcony, looking interchangeable in their armour and peering down at the resentful mass of their new subjects with disdain. Amongst them, only the governor had dressed for the occasion. Over his banded hauberk he wore open-fronted robes of black with gold trim, and from somewhere, doubtless some pillaged loot of a Solarnese Aristos, he had found himself a golden circlet.

  Drama, Nero thought. I can’t deny that the man has drama. He then realized that he did not even know the governor-to-be’s name. But you shouldn’t be wearing that crown just yet…

  The governor was a broad-shouldered man, with greying hair, an imperial colonel whose loyal service had earned him this prestigious post. He went over to grip the balustrade, visibly scowling down at the brooding Solarnese below. His officers stood back, giving him the moment. Was this because they respected him as a commander, or because they did not want to draw the ire of the natives onto themselves? Nero shifted his balance again, aware of the dagger strapped to his thigh as though it were scorching him. The crowd had gone quite quiet, even the murmur of private thoughts expressed to a neighbour had ceased. Only the pounding surf of the Exalsee and the occasional clink of a soldier’s armour broke the silence.

  As the governor opened his mouth to speak, Cesta was magically there.

  Nero never noticed whether he had leapt from a neighbouring building, or flew there, or even pushed his way through from the interior of the Demarial house, but he was suddenly there, dressed in the loose white garments of a Solarnese citizen and cutting the governor’s throat in public. Perhaps it was the world’s most witnessed assassination. Nero felt his jaw drop, and a shock eddied through the crowd as if recoiling away from the spray of blood that spattered the front rows of those watching like a benediction.