Salute the Dark sota-4

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  He leant his elbows on the wall. ‘I have seen so many sieges and battles,’ he said, ‘and I’m not sorry to have this one cut short.’

  ‘Nor I,’ said the Spider-kinden man beside him.

  ‘But you’re Lord-Martial,’ Stenwold pointed out. ‘Surely war is what you do?’

  Teornis chuckled. ‘Purely a ceremonial title, War Master. One I’m happy to be stripped of. I’m merely a man. They’ll put me back in my place when I go home.’

  ‘No hero’s welcome?’

  ‘You don’t know my people very well,’ the Spider pointed out. ‘I have defeated an army and won a war, and brought my people new allies, and if I’m very, very lucky they’ll post me somewhere so far away that nobody can even remember what that place is called. I took risks with my family’s wealth and station, Stenwold, and with the very sovereignty of the Spiderlands. Even though the Wasps have withdrawn from Seldis, my family won’t easily forget. No, I’ll be taking my time in going home to face the music.’

  * * *

  The Collegium airfield was still quite bare. Between the Vekken siege and the war with the Empire, the air trade had yet to regain its hold on the city. There was a chill wind gusting off the sea, and Stenwold wished that he had thought to bring a cloak. Getting old, he thought. Arianna would claim differently, and he would know she was lying and love her for it. She, at least, was one of the people determined to profit from the end of the war. It was a Spider-kinden’s natural instinct he supposed. She was somewhere in the city even now, probably trying to talk people into appointing her a member of the Assembly.

  The broad-shouldered Sarnesh man was waiting for his response. ‘Come on, Master Maker, what do you think?’ At least he was not still saying War Master. The title otherwise showed alarming longevity.

  ‘I don’t know if I can imagine it,’ Stenwold said. ‘A new city in the Lowlands.’

  ‘I don’t need to imagine it,’ said the big Ant. ‘I’ve seen it already being laid out. All of Salma’s people that survived, and a whole load more from the Foreigners’ Quarter in Sarn. They’re all out digging the foundations right now. They want a free city. A city without a kinden.’ Balkus shook his head in wonder. ‘I’ve never heard of anything like it, but it’s happening. He made the Sarnesh promise, you see, and he made sure everyone else knew it.’ His hands squeezed the shoulders of the frail little Fly-kinden woman with her head nestling against his stomach.

  ‘Who’s running it?’ Stenwold asked.

  ‘Oh, you’d certainly approve. They got a kind of a council of people chosen by all the other people, like you got here. Some old boy, Sfayot, he’s Speaker there – or at least, they call him the steward or some such. Her steward. You know, that colourful girl.’

  Stenwold nodded. He had never really met Grief in Chains, the woman who had become Salma’s lover. ‘How is she taking it?’

  ‘She doesn’t see anyone,’ Balkus replied sombrely. ‘Anyone except her advisors, I mean. They love her even more than the Sarnesh loved their queen. They say they’re doing it all for her – and for him. He was a good man.’

  ‘Yes, yes he was.’

  ‘They’re calling the new place Princep Salmae.’

  Stenwold had to take a moment to fight down the lump in his throat. ‘I’m surprised you didn’t stay there. It sounds quite remarkable.’

  ‘Oh, I’m going back,’ Balkus said, with absolute conviction. ‘I just came to pick up Sperra, then we’re both heading back. After the fight with the Wasps, I reckon I can live that close to Sarn again without them wanting my head, or me wanting to go back, but I’ll never be properly Sarnesh, and…’ And Sperra would never go to Sarn again. He did not need to say it. ‘Only I thought, before I went there, I might go with Parops to see them retake Tark from the Wasps. They reckon now, with things being like they are in the Empire, that as soon as the Tarkesh get word that an army’s on the way to relieve them, they’ll rise up and throw the Wasps out. They know nobody’ll be coming to set fire to their city again any time soon.’ He grinned suddenly. ‘Some of them are saying Parops’ll be king, but that’s rubbish. The man’s a commander, no more, no less.’

  The airship that Stenwold had been watching for some time was now slowly descending onto the airfield. It could have been one of two, and he saw that it was the Buoyant Maiden, property of the ever-reliable Jons Allanbridge. The man was here on his last errand for Stenwold before he went off, he claimed, to seek his fortune in the Commonweal. Stenwold started forwards, even as the airfield crew caught the ship’s lines to secure her down.

  Jons himself was shinning down from the deck, but the one person Stenwold really wanted to see just stepped straight from the rails, her wings catching her awkwardly and carrying her down to the ground.

  He wanted to speak, but he had no words.

  Her face said it all in that moment, as he ran towards her. Cheerwell Maker, in the uniform of a Mynan fighter, her sword slung at her side so naturally that he hardly noticed it. Her face was not that of a triumphant warrior but the face of a widow.

  She had known, in that instant at Myna, what had happened. Stenwold would later hear how she had forced Allanbridge to take the Maiden to Tharn, how a Moth woman had flown out to them and curtly told her no more than she had already known: Achaeos the seer, pawn of the Darakyon, was dead. She had begged, she had pleaded with them until they had drawn back their bowstrings and threatened to shoot her, and Allanbridge had been forced to manhandle her back aboard the Maiden. They had not even let her see his body.

  For a moment Che seemed so changed, so stern, that Stenwold ground to a halt, just staring at her. And then she saw him, and she was suddenly his niece again, throwing herself into his arms.

  ‘Uncle Sten!’

  You’re safe. Hammer and Tongs, but you’re safe. He just held her close for as long as she would let him.

  Taki arrived the next day, coasting in over the sea on a fixed-wing that she had flown on a single-legged journey from Porta Mavralis. At the airfield, nobody knew who she was, and they assumed she had come from Egel or Merro, until they had the chance to examine her flier. After that, the mechanics and artificers had a great many questions to ask her. Eventually, by repeating the name enough, she got them to go find Cheerwell Maker.

  ‘They made me an ambassador,’ she explained, as Che studied her, shocked by the changes she found in the woman. The lively spark had gone, replaced by a listlessness. ‘It was the price of the machine. I’m now ambassador to all the Lowlands, because I was the one person that cared a curse about the place.’

  ‘What will you do?’ Che asked her. She had done her best to make herself Stenwold’s right hand, since her return. Her mind was thus kept busy, because it was the only way through the pain.

  Taki shrugged. ‘All I want to do is fly my Esca…’

  She had told Che all about the retaking of Solarno, and Che had felt a hollow pang when she heard that she would never see Nero again. Another name to add to the list of the fallen and the missing. It was clear where Taki’s heart had gone, though.

  Che had already spoken at length with one of the airfield artificers and with one of Stenwold’s colleagues at the College. She pursed her lips. ‘I have an idea, while you’re here.’

  Taki cocked an eyebrow at her.

  ‘After the war with the Wasps, everyone is thinking about the future, and it’s clear to everyone that flying machines are part of that. A big part, too. The Wasps took Tark by air. We defended ourselves by air. There are artificers all over the Lowlands just waking up to the fact.’

  Taki nodded, showing finally at least a mote of interest.

  ‘Well then, you Solarnese have been fighting in the air in a way we never did. Maybe it’s because of your Dragonfly neighbours. Here in the Lowlands we’ve been dragging our feet, because fighting on the ground was always enough for the Ant-kinden. So you’re ahead of us, with your designs. Even that fixed-wing you brought here has people excited, and I know that it isn’t…
’

  Taki nodded. ‘What are you trying to say, Che?’

  ‘What we’ve got here is a city full of very clever artificers,’ Che continued. ‘Any one of them would be more than happy to work with you – to design a new flier for you. That way you’d save them ten years of trial and error. We’re not a naturally airborne race, we Beetles. We badly need what you can teach us.’ An idea struck Che suddenly. ‘And you know what else we need? Pilots. There are people all over the Lowlands who’d come here just to learn.’

  The Fly-kinden was looking slightly alarmed by now. ‘Teaching? I don’t think I…’

  ‘Who better?’ Che insisted. ‘At least consider it. Uncle Sten could get you a place at the College. They’d create a whole new post for you, I’d bet on it. So at least think about it.’

  The other woman’s look was still cautious, but at least something had surfaced that hinted at the same Taki she had known in Solarno.

  ‘One other thing,’ Che said slowly. ‘If you’re now ambassador to the Lowlands, I think I already have an official appointment for you.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘We’re expecting a… special guest shortly. His airship’s on its way, due to be here any day now. If you’re here on behalf of Solarno, you should definitely be there to meet him.’

  The airship manoeuvred ponderously above the Collegium airfield. Looking up at it, Taki had to fight the urge to run for her flier, to take to the air and fight. Some quirk of supply had produced the exact same blimp carrier that she remembered so vividly, even down to the four stripe-painted orthopters that roosted beneath its pontoons. She supposed that an important Wasp envoy would inevitably travel well protected, but still…

  There were only a few of them waiting there on the field itself, comprising Stenwold’s personal retinue. The great and the good of Collegium, and of Sarn and Seldis and the Ancient League, had taken their stand closer to the walls of the city, with guards of honour and flags and musicians. For now it was just Stenwold and those few who had walked his road with him, or done his work: namely Arianna, Che, Balkus and Sperra, Parops of Tark, Taki.

  Veterans, Che thought. Survivors. There were too many faces that should have still been there. She knew the same thought must be in everyone’s mind.

  The Wasp airship finally lowered itself to where the ground crew could secure it. The hatch above was already opening as they rushed to wheel the steps over. From this distance, the man who appeared could be any other Wasp-kinden, with his gold-edged black robes left open over his banded armour.

  About half a dozen of them came out, trying to maintain proper military order whilst coming down the steep steps. In the end their leader lost patience and just opened his wings to touch down the faster, so the descent of the others, too heavily armoured to follow suit, became an undignified scramble to catch up with him.

  Stenwold stepped forwards, aware he had wanted it this way, this moment at least, before the ponderous bulk of the Collegium bureaucracy could heave itself into motion.

  ‘Welcome to Collegium,’ he said. ‘Is it… Regent, I should call you, or General?’

  ‘Formally it’s Regent-General,’ the Wasp replied, ‘but you can call me Thalric, since I know that titles coming from your mouth wouldn’t mean much anyway.’ He turned to one of his followers. ‘Major Aagen, have the men stand down and our passenger sent for.’ Thalric looked older, Stenwold observed, and he wondered whether it was his visitor’s incarceration by his own people or his being the consort of an Empress that did it.

  ‘Aagen will be our imperial ambassador to Collegium, at least as long as we need one,’ Thalric explained. ‘I named him so for two reasons. He understands machines, so maybe he’ll understand you Beetle-kinden as well, and also he’s an honest man. I’m experimenting with good faith. I don’t know whether I’ll take to it, but we’ll see.’

  ‘So you think there’s room for good faith?’

  Thalric shrugged. ‘Probably not.’ He looked back up at his airship as Aagen returned with…

  Stenwold felt his heart skip, just as he heard Che exclaim in surprise and delight. He glanced at Thalric, seeing the same hard-to-read expression the man had worn whilst a prisoner at Collegium.

  Stenwold rushed forwards just as the woman reached the ground, throwing his arms around her. ‘We thought you were dead,’ he said hoarsely. ‘We’d heard nothing. We thought you were dead, Tynisa! Where have you been?’

  She was now shaking in his arms, her face buried in his shoulder, and he realized she was weeping, desperately trying to speak. He held her at arm’s length but she would still not meet his eyes, and eventually he made out her words.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Stenwold. I couldn’t save him.’

  She had something in her hands, two metal tokens, and it was a moment before he recognized the sword-and-circle badges. One was her own, the other… The other was the badge that Tisamon had not felt himself fit to wear when he left Collegium. The message was clear.

  Stenwold felt as though he had been holding his breath for tendays, in anticipation of this moment. Things left unknown but long suspected had fallen into place, ends tied up. So, he is dead, and it occurred to Stenwold that, of the little band of fools who had set out to fight the Empire all those years ago, he himself was the only survivor. Marius and Atryssa were long gone, Nero and Tisamon so recently, and only he had lived to see their work even half done.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said to Thalric. Behind him, Che and Tynisa were embracing, not-quite-sisters reunited.

  Thalric shrugged. ‘It will never be believed of me, but, left to my own devices I’m an honourable man.’

  ‘How are things in the Empire – what’s left of it at least?’ Stenwold turned to guide Thalric towards all the waiting delegates and Assemblers.

  ‘We progress,’ Thalric told him. ‘Seda and her advisors have already managed to convince almost half the Empire that an empress can rule just as well as an emperor. The central cities remain loyal. The South-Empire has disintegrated entirely, a mass of generals and governors and colonels who each of them want to rule the world. We’re taking it back piece by piece. I don’t know what you’ve heard about the West-Empire…’

  ‘I’ve heard enough to know it’s not the West-Empire.’

  Thalric smiled at that. ‘We have given a lot of employment to the map-makers recently, haven’t we? No, Myna and Szar and Maynes have made this Three-City Alliance nonsense.’

  ‘And Helleron has redeclared its independence, I hear – whilst retaining close ties to the Empire, of course,’ Stenwold recalled cynically.

  ‘Whatever pays the most,’ Thalric agreed. ‘When we start looking west again, none of that will make any difference.’

  ‘You think it will come to that?’ Stenwold asked unhappily.

  Thalric stopped abruptly. ‘I will have to become the diplomat in just a moment, and tell pleasant lies to people. Stenwold, you know there will be war again, between the Empire and the Lowlands. We will all put our names to the truce today, the Treaty of Gold, and everyone will rejoice, but every man who signs it will know that they are writing in water, and that the ripples will be gone soon enough. The truce is convenience, until one of us is ready for war again, and we both know it. I’d like to hope that it doesn’t come in either of our lifetimes.’

  Stenwold looked at him and nodded briefly. ‘I believe you in that. Have I misjudged you?’

  Thalric shook his head. ‘Not that I noticed.’

  Stenwold moved on, then, to join with the other great men of his people, leaving Thalric and his retinue waiting for their formal introduction. Whoever had decreed that the peace should be signed outside the walls of Collegium had not reckoned for the wind today, and vitally important documents were being hurriedly weighted down with stones.

  ‘Thalric?’ Che approached him almost tentatively. He had been many things to her, after all, comrade and captor and fellow prisoner, undoubted enemy, even doubtful friend.

  ‘Cheerwell Ma
ker.’ He gave an odd smile, as he looked on her, and she suddenly wondered if he were thinking What if… while contemplating a world without the Wasp Empress or the war.

  ‘I owe you a great deal,’ she said. ‘But that’s all right, because you owe me as well, from before. I’ve done the tallying, and I think I’m in debt to you still, overall. At the end, you did a lot. For Myna.’

  She saw him go to make a flippant comment, to shrug it all off, but something dried up the words in his mouth, and instead he just gazed at her sadly. He had told her once how he had a wife back in the Empire, and now imperial writ had decreed a new one for him, and anyway she had felt throughout that the pairings of the Wasp-kinden were merely intended for progeny and convenience. Yet there was regret in that glance of his, a fond regret from a man too pragmatic to act on it.

  She hugged him briefly, feeling his armour cold against her, and then let go. ‘Thank you,’ she said, and then they were walking onwards – with treaties waiting to be signed, history to be made.

  * * *

  The workshop’s owner ducked back into the room, under the sloping ceiling. A garret room and, after the machines had been moved in, precious little space to move about.

  ‘This is all I can spare you,’ he explained to the solemn young man who followed him. ‘You make good, then maybe you’ll get something better. You waste my time, you’ll regret it, understand?’ His expression was all suspicion and dislike, but it was free of prejudice – because he was a halfbreed, just like Totho was.

  Chasme was a city of halfbreeds. Since arriving the day before, Totho had never seen so many. One out of any two of this ramshackle place’s occupants was of mixed blood: Ant and Bee, Spider and Dragonfly, Solarnese Soldier Beetle and Fly-kinden, or a bastard mingling of any combination. A man like Totho attracted no stares.