War Master's Gate

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  Argastos’s smile should have pleasant, but it sent a shudder down Che’s spine.

  ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘When wooing two sisters, it is not gallant to show a preference, after all.’

  ‘When what?’ she demanded, but he was already walking away, and she had no way of following him into the void.

  ‘We will speak again, in the flesh. You have seen what you must, in order to know the justice of my cause. Now I shall show you what they left me with!’

  Then he was gone: a sudden flurry of robes and he had become part of the darkness. And, with a sudden start, Che awoke.

  Thirty-One

  She woke with a start just as someone virtually kicked in the door of the infirmary. All around her people were jolting awake, and those that could do so were already reaching for weapons that weren’t there.

  ‘Taki!’ Her name. There were other names, too – at least half a dozen Company soldiers had burst in, each seeking someone else, and she recognized most of those names because they were pilots – the ones who had escaped the swarm, either with their Stormreaders or without.

  ‘Here.’ She had been almost dead from exhaustion by the time she regained the city – her Art had not proved strong enough to carry her the whole distance and she had dropped to the ground virtually within arm’s reach of the walls. They had carried her in, and the time from then until now was a haze of half-waking, of doctors, of nightmares of tearing mandibles and thrusting stings.

  The soldier before her looked about sixteen and bore the sash of the Students. ‘Can you fly?’ he demanded, without introduction.

  The impact of her ordeal showed in her initial assumption that he was referring to her Art, but who would be asking after that? ‘I can pilot a Stormreader, if that’s what you mean.’ She got her legs over the side of the bed, feeling each muscle and joint resist her, and hoped her words were true.

  ‘Then you’re needed,’ the boy continued, and she was struck by the discontinuity of him speaking to her as if he was a blunt veteran.

  ‘The Farsphex are back? They’re bombing the city? What’s the situation there?’

  Something in his face caved then, under the weight of everything she did not know. He had not expected to be the one to tell her.

  He told her it all, and she just sat there, aghast. All around her, the news was spreading through the infirmary – and through the city, no doubt. How many would refuse to believe it? How many would be secretly relieved?

  ‘So what the piss do you want from me?’ she spat bitterly. ‘You want me flying loop-the-loops over the Second Army’s triumphant entry into the city?’

  ‘We want you out of the city, because your name is included on their list as an enemy of the Empire,’ the student told her flatly. ‘And we want you flying escort for if they come after.’

  ‘After? Look, did nobody tell you how to put your thoughts in order over at the College?’ But she was already scrabbling for her clothes and not finding them, standing wearing nothing but a shift before this adolescent, and she did not care, and he did not even blink at it. ‘Piss on it, get me some artificer’s overalls, at least. And some sort of goggles. What time is it?’

  ‘Three past midnight, and a half. There are Farsphex over the city, but we’ve a flight of Stormreaders ready to go up, enough to shield an airship. Everyone who we reckon’s on the Empire’s list, we’re trying to get them to Sarn.’

  ‘One airship?’

  ‘We have eleven Stormreaders able to fly, all with the new clockwork so they can last to Sarn,’ he told her. She did the calculations herself and nodded. Touch and go, if the Farsphex were up for it. Two airships would be indefensible, just handing the Empire an easy kill.

  ‘I’ll fly,’ she told him. ‘Get me something to wear and get me to an orthopter.’

  Space aboard the Windlass had already run out. Jons Allanbridge had emptied his hold of everything but the water barrels in order to stuff people in, calculating weights and flight tolerances with each new passenger. His vessel was larger than its predecessor, but even so it had never been intended for bulk. He traded in small-volume valuable goods.

  He had some of the Assemblers on board – a fraction of the number who had actually wanted to come, and only those who had played a significant part in the city’s defence. He had a similar slice of the College’s staff, mostly those who possessed artificing knowledge that nobody wanted the Empire getting hold of. The number turned away by the Company soldiers was large, so there was still an angry, frustrated crowd of the great and the good and the learned milling around the airfield, getting in everyone’s way.

  The next figure was ascending, just as Jons guessed he had got as many down below as he could. The woman clambering up the rope ladder now – rather than waiting for the airfield’s hoist crane to swing up its platform – was well known to him.

  ‘Commander Kymene,’ he noted.

  The Mynan leader did not refuse his hand, once she got to the rail, although he had thought she might. Now he saw her close up, she appeared as though she had already been under the Wasp interrogators for a week, bruised and tired and drawn.

  ‘My people.’ Her voice came in a rasp.

  ‘All on board, those who’ve come to me.’ There had been an outcry amongst those denied passage when they found that every surviving Mynan was getting out of Collegium on the Windlass, a substantial proportion of Allanbridge’s living cargo, standing virtually shoulder to shoulder below and a good dozen above decks still. It had been the whispered words of Stenwold Maker, Jons had heard, that had settled the matter. He had observed that, to the Wasps, Mynans were rebellious slaves, and that meant the crossed pikes for every single one – and probably worse for Kymene herself. Had anyone else advanced this argument, Jons guessed the Mynans would have been told to take their chances, but Maker’s will still bore just enough weight to carry the vote.

  And where the pits is the man himself? For the War Master’s name most certainly headed up the list of passengers, but still he stayed away. False heroics, or . . .? Not something Jons wanted to think about, but he’d heard how Maker was playing cards with death just about now, winning some hands and losing others.

  Kymene stomped past him, then halted. ‘How long?’ she demanded.

  ‘Ask the Empire,’ Jons replied shortly. ‘Once they start paying notice, then we get the Stormreaders in the air and get moving. Or a single incendiary could end all our plans, right off.’

  Her curt nod told him that she understood him perfectly.

  And here was another row erupting on the approaching hoist platform – someone trying to bully their way on to the ship, no doubt, with their money or their College accredits or . . .

  The crane swung the hoist round, with them still arguing loudly, and Jons saw it was a small Beetle man in artificer’s canvas that looked as though he had been toiling in it for two days straight, and a woman with him holding a girl of no more than ten in her arms.

  Willem Reader, Jons identified the man as the aviation artificer. How tired must I be that it even took me that long?

  Reader had been arguing, but not on his own behalf, for he was very plainly marked as a man to be kept out of the Empire’s hands. Instead, he had been trying to get away from the Windlass, and indeed the two Company soldiers on the hoist alongside him seemed more a guard than an escort.

  It was the woman’s voice that Jons heard most clearly, as the hoist reached the deck.

  ‘You’ll go,’ she told him. ‘Will, it’s not me the Engineering Corps will be hunting, to get at what’s in your head. It’s not me that the Sarnesh will need to modernize their air power. We’ll stay here, and we won’t even look the Wasps in the eye, and I’ll tell her every night that you’re coming back, and bringing an army with you. Look at me, Will!’

  The Windlass was already groaning at the seams with its cargo, and all the Collegiates below decks had loved ones that they had been forced to part from. No exceptions, Jons knew, and he shook his hea
d shortly when Reader looked to him.

  ‘Jen . . .’ Reader managed.

  ‘Go,’ she told him, clasping him tightly, and then giving him a shove that propelled him onto the deck of the Windlass.

  ‘Get below, Reader,’ Jons snapped at the artificer, wondering if even one more man would fit. But then Kymene was shouting a warning, just as the hoist platform began to swing away.

  Jons’s head snapped up. Engines – orthopter engines, but the Stormreaders’ clockwork didn’t make anything like so much noise.

  ‘Empire!’ Kymene was now yelling.

  Oh, hammer and tongs. Jons found he could not move, hearing only the diving descent of the Farsphex, hearing the sudden panic in the crowd, waiting for the bombs.

  The roaring sound peaked, and he saw sparks fly, heard screams from the crowd, the angry stammer that was a rotary piercer spun up to full speed. Then splinters flew from the deck, and one of the Mynans jerked and pitched over the rail.

  ‘Jen!’ Reader was shouting, and Jons bellowed at him to get below, He was calling to cast off before feeling the lurch of the deck beneath his feet – comforting even as it sent him staggering – knowing that someone on the ground had had the sense to cut the mooring ties. He had a brief glimpse of the hoist platform as it slipped past, Jen Reader standing there with the two Company soldiers flanking her, her daughter in her arms, watching the airship swiftly ascend.

  The first Stormreader skittered past, looping about the Windlass’s envelope to engage the Farsphex – And how many holes did they punch in the canvas, eh? He thrust the thought away and bent to his task, gauging the wind and bringing his ship around on a course that would take them to Sarn. More of the orthopter escort were lifting past him now, and he could see flashes out in the night as they threw themselves at the handful of Farsphex that had located them. Kymene and a few of her Mynans had even taken to the Windlass’s rails with snapbows, providing a desperate last line of defence if it was needed.

  Jons looked back, and down, seeing his city diminishing and becoming something less, until the night had swallowed it entirely.

  Three streets away stood the wall, where the black and gold flag was already raised, indicating that segment of Collegium’s shell that was already claimed by the Empire. The nearest buildings had rapidly been abandoned by their owners: the merchants, artisans and their families fleeing the reach of the Wasps. Now only soldiers of the Fealty Street Company kept watch, awaiting dawn and the formal surrender.

  And there remained one other man, on the roof of this one townhouse: a poor and ill-kept building, the shame of the neighbourhood, the dilapidated exterior of which bomb scars had barely managed to disfigure.

  The battered little automotive pulling up outside it had a clockwork engine badly in need of maintenance, the gear trains clattering and ratcheting against one another, sounding on the point of working loose. The driver in his open cab was a Sarnesh in a Student Company sash. Behind him was a tailgated flatbed, hooded with canvas stretched over a looped metal frame.

  As the engine was hacking to a halt, Laszlo put his head out and glanced around. There had been a rumour of Wasp death-squads stalking the streets, winged soldiers creeping into the city to kill anyone they found. Or else Spiders with their stealthy blades, come to exact a final price before the surrender. The city was alive with fear tonight.

  He hopped over towards the peeling door and hammered on it, keeping one eye still on the sky. On the second repetition another Fly appeared in the doorway, brandishing an uncocked crossbow and looking furious. ‘What is this riot? Are we come to this already? Be off with you!’ His clothes were plain but impeccably neat, his face blotchy and red-eyed.

  ‘Where’s Drillen?’ demanded Laszlo. ‘We’ve got an airship to catch, and he’s supposed to be on it.’

  The Fly at the door stared at him for a moment. ‘You’re Maker’s man? Laszlo?’ His eyes flicked towards the automotive. ‘Oh, no . . .’ In a moment he was out into the street, wings taking him to the covered rear of the automotive, peering into the gloom until he locked eyes with the half-supine form of Stenwold Maker.

  ‘War Master? You must get yourself to the Windlass!’ he exclaimed.

  Stenwold hissed in frustration and rasped out. ‘And so must your master, Arvi. Where the pits is he?’

  Jodry Drillen’s secretary shook his head. ‘You can’t be here! I sent the message myself! Please, just go!’

  ‘I’ve had no message. I’ve been to every place Jodry owns in the city, save this,’ Stenwold rasped. ‘He’s here, isn’t he? Then go and get him. We can still get aloft.’

  ‘War Master,’ Arvi told him solemnly, ‘he’s not going.’

  There was a ghastly, strained silence, and then a sudden clang as, with one convulsive movement, Stenwold kicked the tailgate open.

  ‘Mar’Maker, no. He’s right, we’ve got to go,’ Laszlo insisted, but Stenwold heaved and dragged himself to the edge. His Ant-kinden driver had dashed round the side by then to support his weight, so that he ended up on his feet at the back of the automotive, gasping, clutching at a stout stick to steady himself but plainly only held up by the Art of his helper.

  ‘If he won’t come . . . to me,’ he wheezed out, ‘then I will . . . go . . . to him.’

  Arvi watched him, aghast, as he lurched through the door and inside, leaning on stick and driver at every heavy step.

  ‘Where?’ came the War Master’s whisper, with a frustrated sigh when Arvi indicated the stairs. Before Stenwold could brace himself for the climb, though, the ponderous figure of Jodry Drillen began descending, regarding his old friend and ally with inordinate sadness.

  ‘Stenwold, get to the airship.’

  Stenwold’s reply was lost, but Laszlo translated: ‘Soon as you get in the automotive, he says.’

  Halfway down the stairs, Drillen sat. ‘I’ve given it some thought, Sten. It’s not going to happen. I’m Speaker, after all. I brought us all to this, as much as anyone did . . . yes, don’t flatter yourself, just as much as you. When the word of our surrender goes out to the Wasps at dawn, I’ll take it myself.’

  Stenwold’s spitting remonstrance was all but inaudible, but it needed no translation.

  ‘Oh, maybe, maybe,’ the Speaker for the Assembly confirmed tiredly. ‘But maybe not, after all. And if I go myself, and give myself into their hands, then perhaps it will soften the blow for the rest of the city. Perhaps I’ll be able to achieve something that way.’ He shook his head, his jowls quivering. ‘There’s always a first time.’

  Stenwold looked up at him, fighting for breath. ‘You utter fool,’ he got out.

  ‘That’s just the standard of debate I should expect from a firebrand like you.’ Jodry forced a smile. ‘Now get gone. We don’t know what they’ll do with me, but you’ve been on the Rekef’s list since before the first war. Get out of my house, Sten. Get out of my city, for that matter. Piss off to Sarn, why don’t you?’

  ‘Come on, Mar’Maker,’ Laszlo insisted. ‘You know he’s right.’

  Stenwold’s face twisted for a moment, but it was not clear whether it was sentiment or the continuing effects of the physicians’ alchemy that was responsible. ‘See you again, Jodry,’ he managed, as the Ant-kinden began to manhandle him back towards the door.

  ‘Of course you will,’ Jodry agreed hollowly. ‘Go carefully, Sten.’

  They were halfway to the airfield when they heard the Farsphex engines, but none of them drew the right conclusion until the driver ground the automotive to a skidding halt. There, lifting from the city ahead, was the grey shadow of the Windlass, the fleeter shapes of the Stormreaders wheeling all around it. Gone, and already drawing the notice of the Empire with its departure.

  Stenwold drew a ragged breath when the driver told him. Other than that, the news seemed unable to injure him more than he was damaged already.

  Laszlo, ever resourceful, was leaning over beside their driver, giving urgent directions.

  ‘We’re getting cle
ar, Mar’Maker!’ he shouted. ‘Never you worry.’

  They rattled through the dark streets of Collegium, away from the Empire-held gate, for the harbour, with Laszlo all the while flitting from Stenwold back to the driver, babbling reassuring optimism whilst trying to calculate just what decisions might have been made in his absence, especially once the Farsphex started flying.

  And when they reached the docks, and when the driver had brought them to a stop, Laszlo dropped out from the automotive and simply stood there, looking out to sea. Not a ship was in, not a single one. Most certainly not the Tidenfree.

  For once in his life, Laszlo had no words, and he felt tears welling up – not adult tears but those of a child abandoned. He folded slowly to his knees, fighting to keep a hold on himself. The orthopters . . . He had known that attack from the air was what Tomasso had feared most, and that the Tidenfree would be easy prey for incendiaries from above. He had known all that and, when he had gone to help Stenwold, he had been warned of just that. And he had ignored it because, of course, they would not go without him.

  If he squinted, he could make out a sail far out on the waves. Maybe he could fly the distance, if they were making poor headway. Maybe he could chase after them and call them back. Maybe he could make everything right again. Even as he had the thought, the Tidenfree slipped further and further away.

  He knew the other gates to the city were already blockaded by Imperial and Spider troops, and anyone trying to escape the city would get a snapbow bolt for his pains – as some had already found out.

  Laszlo slumped into the automotive as the driver called, ‘Where next?’

  Where indeed? He met Stenwold’s eyes, hearing his short, painful words.

  ‘Get us back to the College,’ Laszlo translated. Where else was there?

  He had kept watch through the last hour of the night from the roof of this rundown little house. Not his own grand townhouse, close to the College, which everyone knew as the home of Jodry Drillen. This ramshackle place, kept in careful disorder, which he disappeared to when he was ducking official business or keeping clandestine assignments. Or he had done, when he was younger, and less a prisoner of his own sagging flesh.