The Sea Watch

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  ‘We should talk,’ Stenwold told Rosander, gesturing at the table. ‘Amongst the land-kinden, one debates with one’s enemies around a table, to try and find another solution than war.’

  Rosander grunted and went over to one of the chairs, reaching out for it and turning it between armoured finger and thumb. As Stenwold headed about the far side of the table, the giant Onychoi brought his fist down on it, with no great display of force, and instantly reduced it to matchwood.

  ‘Got anything stronger, or should I stand?’ he growled.

  Stenwold, not the least put out, sat down across from him. ‘You are Rosander, Nauarch of the Thousand Spines Train.’

  ‘Well done.’ Rosander put his helm down on the table. ‘What do you want, Stenwold Maker? Amongst the sea-kinden, the Kerebroi may talk and talk, but we act. Debate is a coward’s excuse for putting off the strike.’

  ‘I’m sorry that you feel that way,’ Stenwold replied. ‘Nauarch, you are not Claeon.’

  Rosander’s lips twisted into an unwilling smile. ‘Nicest thing anyone’s said about me for at least a moon,’ he shot back. ‘So what?’

  ‘I mean you are not consumed by malice, nor are you terrified of losing your power. You are secure in what you possess, whereas Claeon is not.’

  ‘A fair assessment.’

  ‘Neither, unless I guess wrong, are you one of the Littoralist movement,’ Stenwold went on. ‘You don’t lap up all that business of theirs about the destiny of the sea-kinden to reclaim the land from the hated land-kinden, who drove your ancestors from it a thousand thousand years ago, or whatever.’

  ‘Fools and madmen,’ agreed Rosander.

  ‘So, why do you make yourself my people’s enemy?’ Stenwold asked him.

  Rosander shrugged, stone pauldrons moving massively. ‘I bear your kinden no ill will. Surrender to me and you’ll not be ill-treated, though we’ll be disappointed if we don’t get our fight. As you say, I’m no tyrant, but I am an adventurer, Maker. And now I know the land is there for the taking, that is the new adventure I choose. To be the man that conquers the land! To be remembered for ever as he who took that great step.’ Rosander was grinning even at the thought. ‘And my Train would follow me even beyond the sea, despite all the tales they have been told at their mother’s tit. I would reward them for that loyalty, because I would make them all princes of the land, with landsmen to wait on their every need. And I would do this, Maker, because I can.’

  There was now an odd vibration running through the wood of the vessel, which he assumed to be the engine working. ‘If your servant has any ideas about taking us elsewhere, be assured my people have orders to hole this barque and take it to the bottom, if necessary,’ he warned Stenwold. Listening out, he could hear voices over the rumble of the engine: Maker’s man explaining something to Chenni. ‘I thought it was the sails that made these things go, anyway. Obviously I was misinformed.’

  The hull lurched slightly beneath him, not enough to make him shift his balance, but a new movement he did not entirely like. ‘Maker,’ he cautioned softly, ‘do you think I cannot kill you if you’ve planned some treachery?’

  ‘With ease,’ Stenwold Maker agreed, although there was a tension to him that Rosander could clearly read. ‘Perhaps . . . some fresh air, maybe?’

  The hull shuddered and swung again and Rosander nodded. ‘You go in front of me, Maker, and gather your servant up too. I suddenly suspect that you are trying to be clever, and that may in turn mean that you’re being unwise.’

  ‘Jons!’ Stenwold called out. ‘Bring Mistress Chenni above decks, if you would.’

  ‘That time already, is it?’ the other landsman replied. ‘Well then, little miss, if you’d come with me.’

  Rosander waited at the foot of the steps for his aide, who came pattering around from behind the landsmen, looking enthusiastic.

  ‘It’s a fine piece,’ she said. ‘Not clockworks at all, but burning some kind of oily stuff to make it go. Knocks Mandir’s tricks into a barrel. We should certainly get one.’

  ‘Yes, but what is it doing?’ Rosander stressed.

  She goggled up at him. ‘Why, it’s . . . working.’ She frowned.

  ‘Go on up, Nauarch. You shall see all,’ Stenwold Maker said softly.

  Rosander glared at him and stomped up the steps, heedless of the tortured sounds they made as his weight bent and bowed them.

  ‘If you think . . .’ he started, but it was never clear what he imagined Stenwold might think, because his voice trailed off.

  The slack, bellying fabric he had taken for sails had grown taut now, forming a great rounded bulk above them. And the sea . . .

  The sea was gone. There was no horizon. Rosander stormed towards the rail, furious . . . and stopped dead.

  There was the sea, still, but it was a dark canvas far below them, glittering with pinpoints of reflected sunlight. He could see no sign of his people, or even their vessels. Instead the water was fast giving way to something lighter: green and grey and dusty tan. The land.

  ‘We are not just land-kinden, you see,’ Stenwold remarked quietly, beside him. ‘We are air-kinden also.’

  Rosander’s gauntleted hand lashed out and grabbed him by the arm, painfully tight. ‘Take us back,’ he hissed. ‘Take us back down, now.’

  ‘Oh, we will. This is no kidnapping. You can see for yourself we are in no position to overpower you,’ Stenwold assured him, his voice catching slightly with the pressure of that grip. ‘But look, there is your new kingdom. There is the land.’

  Despite himself, Rosander found his eyes drawn to the great expanse that now filled the whole of their view, stretching as far as his eyes could squint in the bright, dry light.

  ‘There is my city,’ Stenwold, pointed. ‘There is white Collegium, your intended victim. But inland of Collegium lies the city of Sarn, where the soldiers of the Ant-kinden march, and they would march to our defence, as would other allies. The Vekken from down the coast, for example, and the Tseni by sea. Who knows who else?’

  Rosander made a growling sound in his throat, whereupon Stenwold spoke swiftly on, ‘But the warriors of the Thousand Spines are fierce and brave, so perhaps you would best all who came against you, and then capture my city. But my city is not the land, Rosander, for beyond Sarn there is the city of Helleron, many tens of miles further inland, where they mine and smelt and craft – our own version of the Hot Stations. That marks the edge of the Lowlands, which is the region I call home.’ The landscape was still passing swiftly beneath them, with no sign that it would come to an end any time soon. ‘But perhaps, eventually, you would prevail, Rosander. Perhaps. So I must tell you that, beyond Helleron, there is the Empire of the Wasps, a warlike nation that in size is greater than all the Lowlands. Then there is the Three-City Alliance and the Disputed Principalities, and of course, if you go north past the great ridge, the Commonweal, vast and ancient, greater than all the rest. All this might you conquer – in twenty years or fifty years of never seeing the sea.’

  Rosander’s grip on his arm was looser now, the Nauarch staring out at the dust-hazy horizon.

  ‘And even then,’ said Stenwold, ‘you would not have conquered the land. To the east of the Empire, to the north of the Commonweal, to the south of the Spiderlands, the land goes on, with more and more peoples to resist you, and still no end in sight. My people have charted their own courses for five hundred years, and our maps do not define how far the land goes, any more than yours can delimit the sea. What would you conquer, Nauarch? All your warriors, all the warriors of a hundred such trains, would be lost for ever in just a fraction of all that land.’

  ‘I could take just your city,’ argued Rosander, almost desperately.

  ‘And we will fight you,’ Stenwold said. ‘And who can say how that fight would go? You would make many early gains, no doubt, by striking from the waters where we could not reach you, but we have submersibles now, and eventually you would find that we would carry the war down to you. But what
of it? Win or lose, what would you achieve in conquering a mere fistful of earth, against all this?’

  For a long while Rosander stared out over the rail of the Windlass at the wider world beyond, and Stenwold stepped back, out of the clutch of his now-loose fingers, and let him look. After a moment, the diminutive form of Chenni went to her leader, putting a small hand up to reassure him.

  Jons Allanbridge shook his head as Stenwold came over, leaving the giant sea-kinden at the rail.

  ‘I thought he was going to throw you over the side,’ he said.

  Stenwold shrugged. ‘It was always a risk.’

  ‘So why did you not have some lads with snapbows and nailbows to do the bastard over once we got aloft?’

  ‘Because that might precipitate the very war that I’m trying to prevent. By my assessment he’s not a tyrant, nor even a conqueror like the Wasps are – or as the Vekken were! – and, if I can shake hands with the Vekken, then I owe it to Rosander, if nothing else, to offer him my hand now.’

  The great form at the rail turned to him and said, ‘And what exactly do you offer?’

  ‘Help us take Hermatyre,’ Stenwold said instantly. ‘Depose Claeon with your own hands. Can you really say that wouldn’t give you pleasure?’

  Rosander stared at him levelly. ‘Invade the sea on behalf of the land-kinden? I think not.’

  ‘Not a land-kinden will be present, save perhaps for myself,’ Stenwold assured him. ‘Retake Hermatyre for its true heir.’

  The Nauarch snorted incredulously, then he frowned. ‘You mean it, don’t you? You’ve found him? I always thought Claeon’d had him killed years back.’ For a moment he seemed to be weighing up the very thought of it, but: ‘No, not for Aradocles, and not for you.’ He held up a hand, forestalling Stenwold’s objections. ‘If I’d wanted Hermatyre, I’d have taken it by now, and Claeon couldn’t have stopped me. There are those amongst the Thousand Spines that have been pressing me to do just that – to sack the greatest city of the sea. My people resent being made to wait on Claeon’s pleasure every bit as much as I do. Claeon promised—’

  ‘You have seen the truth of what he promised,’ Stenwold interrupted.

  ‘I have.’ Rosander looked down at Chenni, or maybe at his own feet. ‘I have stayed my hand from Hermatyre, simply because what my warriors would leave of it would not be Hermatyre any more. I have a fondness for the place, despite its poor taste in rulers.’

  ‘So what will you do?’ Stenwold asked him.

  ‘I will take my warriors back to the depths, where we belong. We will tread the deep paths again, and fight the Echinoi, and terrorize the small colonies, and be as we were meant to be. But maybe we will return to Hermatyre soon, to buy and sell, and I would not be heartbroken if we found some other Edmir on the throne.’

  Forty-Three

  Daven tugged his hood a little higher, for all he and his fellows were in a private room in the Fair Licence, a respectable merchant’s taverna within sight of the College. It was not that it was so very difficult, to be a Wasp in Collegium. He had been given only a couple of months to establish his cover here, masquerading as a mercenary factoring for a Helleron trade cartel, and he had expected to live every hour under the hostile glares of the locals, but the Collegiate merchants were paragons of venal acceptance just now. One would never think that an Imperial army had been at their gates recently enough to have left scars on the stonework.

  His life here had been quiet enough at first, waiting on orders from home, liaising covertly with the diplomat Bellowern. In the midst of profit and loss, the flow of trade, socializing with his false peers, the myriad of entertainments that Collegium had to offer, he had found it difficult to remember that he was a spy.

  Then the orders had finally come, following hard on the heels of reports about the new war with the Spiderlands. Then had arrived his reinforcements.

  There were eight of them seated about this table in the Fair Licence, all dressed in canvas workshop leathers and over-robes, like any Collegium artisan just in from the road. If they seemed a little uniform, perhaps it was simply Daven’s military eye picking up on it. They were all Beetle-kinden men, and none of them looked like more than journeymen artificers or travelling merchant’s clerks. They were Rekef Outlander, every one of them, however, and here to play their parts in bringing down Collegium.

  ‘Stenwold Maker,’ suggested one of them – Daven had not quite got their names straight yet. He sat back, sipping at the wine he had grown rather too fond of over the last few months, and let them get on with it. They had been briefed exhaustively, and they were brimming over with enthusiasm for the task and, although he was supposed to be their commanding officer, he felt surplus to requirements.

  ‘There seems to be some doubt over whether he’s still with us,’ another noted.

  ‘No, he’s definitely been seen recently. He’s still on the list. In the midst of the fighting, one of us will have to arrange something for him.’

  ‘The file on him doesn’t suggest he’s a man too careful of his own wellbeing,’ another added, almost approvingly, as though commending the absent Master Maker for such consideration.

  ‘The Speaker, Drillen?’ another noted.

  ‘Put him on the list,’ said the man who was so keen on lists. ‘And some random Assemblers, whoever we get a crack at?’

  ‘No, nothing that might make them throw the fight. If their leaders start fearing for their own lives, they’ll sue for peace in an instant,’ broke in one who had not spoken before. ‘Special targets only, amongst the Assembly. Other than that, our targets must be those whose deaths will cause outrage, and those buildings whose destruction will fan the flames of Collegiate passion.’

  Daven found that rather too flowery for spy talk, but said nothing. Really, watching these men was like seeing some horrible machine set in motion, one that nothing could stop.

  ‘The College workshops,’ one of them said, while another named a handful of public monuments. A third put in for a rather good theatre that Daven had visited a couple of times. Still he contributed nothing.

  ‘Come now,’ said one of the eldest. ‘What are you thinking of ? The College library must burn, surely, or what will we be doing with ourselves?’

  ‘That’s going beyond our brief, surely?’ Daven was surprised at the words, more so because they were his own. Eight dark Beetle faces stared at him.

  ‘How it will inflame them, though,’ said the poet drily. ‘No, you’re right, the library must go. That will commit the Collegiates to the fight like nothing else.’

  ‘Do we have enough incendiaries to accomplish it?’ asked a more practical voice.

  ‘If we cannot secure the makings for incendiaries here in Collegium then we’re altogether in the wrong business,’ said the list-maker expansively, refilling his wine bowl. ‘Burn the library, yes. That’ll teach those bloody pompous academics to look down on the rest of us, eh? Now, where’s this cursed traitor of ours, Captain?’

  Daven took the slightest second to connect the title to his own rank, in that other life he had lived in the Empire, not so very long ago. He opened his mouth to reply and the door was kicked in violently.

  The Rekef men leapt to their feet, daggers and swords clearing scabbards, and at least two small crossbows being dragged from packs or from under the table, already cocked. Daven himself had his hand out immediately, palm open towards the doorway. By that time there were four armoured Beetles crowding into the room with snap-bows trained, and more of them behind. They wore the bar-visored helms and engraved breastplates of the new merchant companies.

  One of the crossbows let loose, its bolt just slanting off the lead intruder’s breastplate. A snapbow bolt then took the Rekef man responsible through the eye, sending him backwards over his chair. A second Collegium shot killed another of the Rekef men down the table, by a reflexive, accidental release. By that time there were at least eight of the weapons directed at them from the open doorway.

  ‘I am C
hief Officer Padstock of the Maker’s Own Company, and you are all under arrest,’ came the clipped tones of the woman that led them. ‘Drop your weapons and surrender to the authority of Collegium.’

  Her eyes sought out Daven’s, facing down his open palm without fear. He could kill her, he knew, but that would get him and all his men slaughtered in instant retaliation. For a moment the temptation to do so was almost overwhelming, which he realized was due to the prospect of getting this pack of venomous infiltrators butchered along with him.

  Taking a deep breath he lowered his hand and stepped back, feeling at most ambivalent about the whole situation.

  It had taken a moment for Stenwold to gather his courage, before he could step back down into the coiled interior of Wys’s submersible. For a moment he had wavered on the brink, sensing the great lightless abyss beneath him, limitless and monster-haunted, as alien and unconquerable to him as the land had seemed to Rosander.

  ‘You don’t have to go,’ Paladrya had told him, resting her hand on his arm. ‘I know your people have their own fight.’

  ‘I will see this out,’ he announced, more for his own sake than for hers, and in he had gone.

  When Wys had come back from passing word to Rosander, she had brought some new passengers. Word of the new-found heir had been passed to the Pelagist network while she was hunting down the Nauarch of the Thousand Spines. From there it had reached Hermatyre’s exiles.

  By the time Stenwold struggled through the hatch, the battle lines had clearly been drawn. Aradocles stood firm, a slight young challenger, while across the main chamber from him waited the tall figure of Heiracles. The elder Kerebroi had brought two servants or guards with him, and they had knives, as all sea-kinden seemed to have knives. At the same time, the stance of Paladrya, Phylles and the big engineer Lej made it clear that they would be weighing in on the heir’s side should the newcomers try anything disagreeable.

  Despite everything that separated Stenwold from these sea people, he found he could read Heiracles quite clearly by now. It was plain the man had never expected Aradocles to be still living. It was also plain that he had coveted the throne for himself, and had planned to appropriate the heir’s name and cause to that end. Seeing Aradocles there brought a sudden end to all that, unless some swift treachery could be accomplished. Stenwold observed all that behind the man’s eyes, the last flowering of ambition that had clung on even after the hunt of the heir had set off, and watched Heiracles make a coldly rational decision and let it all go. Chancellor of Hermatyre was better than king of nothing, his expression said, although Stenwold resolved to warn the young prince to surround himself with trusted and capable bodyguards, should he at last reclaim his kingdom.