War Master's Gate

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  ‘Well, never mind about them. We’ll wrap them up today,’ he told her, thinking it more to himself than to torment her. ‘As for you, though, I’ll give you a choice. How much do you want to keep on living?’ Recognizing that traitor – hope – in her eye, he shook his head. ‘Oh no, don’t start down that road. There are two fates for you, girl. One is that we gift you a pair of pikes of your own, and you’ll die today, eventually. The other’s if you think you know something that we might be interested in. That way you live much longer, though, given the circumstances, you may come to regret it. That’s your choice, and that’s all of your choices.’ His voice had become rough and ugly, saying it. ‘I’ve just had two hundred good soldiers executed, assassin. Their deaths were quick and underserved. At least when I see your corpse, I’ll know yours was neither.’

  Stenwold was managing to walk more easily now, although occasional waves of dizziness still swept over him, so he kept his stick handy. He had even been out to climb the courtyard wall at dawn, to look at the size of the problem.

  It was a suitably large problem, too. There were plenty of Wasps out there, and some Sentinels, and it seemed likely that they would stir themselves soon, and then matters would get awkward.

  If the Wasps were of a mind to break the building open, then a little artillery – perhaps even the leadshotters of the Sentinels – would suffice to do it, and then the students’ defence would last only minutes under the descending host of the Light Airborne.

  On the other hand, the Wasps had declined to do any such thing so far, although similar tactics had been used against entrenched insurgents elsewhere in the city, and so there seemed some chance that the Empire might have to do things the old-fashioned way, and take the building by storm. In that case, it was possible that the students might still be in possession of it by dusk, for the main door was the only real approach, and there were plenty of small windows overlooking it that student snap-bowmen might use. But the next day would probably see the end, Stenwold realized. They were short of ammunition. The Empire was not short of men.

  The Dragonfly Castre Gorenn was in charge up on the wall – any command structure had come down to strength of personality, and the Commonwealer had become a near-mythic figure amongst the students owing to her feats of aim.

  ‘I want only people who can fly stationed on this wall,’ Stenwold told her. ‘So yourself, Flies, any Beetles who’ve got their wings. When their advance comes you need to pull back to the main building in good time – get inside so we can shut them out. Or else, if you can’t get in, just take off, get clear of the fighting.’

  Gorenn nodded coolly.

  ‘And no fool heroics. I mean in good time, Dragonfly.’ Stenwold had heard a great deal about the Commonweal Retaliatory Army.

  She met his eye warily, as if ascribing some legendary characteristics to him herself. ‘Understood, War Master.’

  Stenwold took another look over the wall, noticing movement about the Wasp lines, but a lazy sort of movement suggesting they had a little time in hand before any assault.

  Then Laszlo landed close to him. ‘Mar’Maker, you need to come now.’

  Trouble, was his first thought, but Stenwold could read Laszlo well, and the Fly was excited rather than worried. Something had happened.

  There was a gathering in one of the rooms off the infirmary – a band of about twenty, but they were the leaders. Stenwold marked Berjek Gripshod, now in a buff coat and carrying a snapbow, and a couple of other College Masters. The rest were students wearing their purple sashes, save for Gerethwy the Woodlouse, who still wore the colours of the Coldstone Company.

  And in the middle of all this, a newcomer. A Fly-kinden with a riot of black beard, whom Stenwold had assumed was long shipped out of the city.

  ‘Tomasso?’

  ‘And here’s himself!’ the ex-pirate declared. ‘Right then, let me speak my piece, for we’ve not much time.’

  ‘How did you get in here?’ Stenwold demanded.

  Tomasso looked pained but said, ‘Your little windows here will fit one of mine, just about, Master Maker. And fear not, your lads and lasses had a bow trained on me as I came in. They’re sharp enough. Now, time for you to be going, though, don’t you think? I can’t imagine what you’re waiting for, but it hasn’t appeared.’

  ‘That’s not much of a joke, Tomasso,’ Stenwold told him.

  ‘Nonsense. I’ve a distraction lined up. Your people here look light on their feet. They can nip out and lose themselves in the streets. Meanwhile, you can come with me.’

  ‘You obviously haven’t seen how things are looking on the ground out there,’ Stenwold replied flatly. ‘The Wasps have a cordon set about the entrance to the College, and you’d need a remarkable diversion to stop them simply shooting us all down.’

  Tomasso was nodding, a grin flashing from amidst his beard. ‘Oh, that you can bet on. You’ll all just need to be nimble in getting out.’

  ‘And the wounded?’ The voice came from the doorway: Sartaea te Mosca was standing there in a bloodied apron. ‘We have eleven who can’t walk, some who shouldn’t even be moved.’

  ‘Better to move them than let the Jaspers have them,’ Tomasso pointed out.

  ‘Nobody’s nimble when they’re carrying a stretcher,’ she told him.

  Tomasso looked exasperated, as though his audience didn’t quite understand what he was offering. Nobody actually voiced the idea of abandoning the wounded, although it must have done the round of most heads there.

  ‘Excuse me,’ one of the students piped up eventually, a broad Beetle girl in chemical-stained overalls. ‘We can get out another way, I think.’

  Everyone stared at her and she shuffled back a little, obviously not happy with being the centre of attention.

  ‘Cornella Fassen, isn’t it?’ Berjek Gripshod said kindly. ‘Tell us what you mean, please.’

  ‘Well, Master Gripshod, do you know the Cold Cellars?’

  There was a murmur of bafflement and even laughter at that, as though she had told a joke just to defuse the tension. Those cold, slick, allegedly haunted chambers had been a part of student folklore for many years.

  Even Berjek raised half a smile. ‘What of them?’ He remained painfully polite and correct, for all that there was an army gearing up outside even as he spoke.

  ‘Last year, some friends of mine worked out that it’s just . . . they’re adjacent to the Natural History vaults underneath the Living Sciences faculty. That’s where they keep the samples, and where all the preservatives tanks . . . and the cooling machinery.’

  Stenwold and Berjek exchanged glances.

  ‘What are you saying?’ the War Master asked.

  ‘For the last day we’ve been working on the wall there. We reckon there can’t be that much that separates the two cellars. We had acids on it, and we were chipping away. If we could just get into Living Sciences, we could come out through the Old Workshops, and that means outside the Wasp cordon. We thought it would be useful, but we didn’t seem to be getting anywhere. But this morning there’s a crack . . . In the wall, Masters. I think we must be almost through.’

  A shudder went through them on hearing that. It meant the insertion of hope, like a needle. A way out?

  Almost immediately there was shouting upstairs, and moments later a Fly skidded down, calling out to them, ‘They’ve started! They’re moving for the wall!’

  ‘Get through to Living Sciences any way you can!’ Stenwold almost shouted at Fassen, who was out of the door the next instant. ‘Everyone else . . .’ Wheels spun in his mind. ‘I need a detail to man the windows – cover for the wall guards. And then . . . and then . . .’ And then hold your ground until they kill you, he thought, as he realized what he was asking.

  ‘I’ll take volunteers for that,’ Berjek said calmly.

  ‘No—’

  ‘Oh, shut up, Maker. Give someone else a chance.’ The old man smiled wanly. ‘Less to lose here, and less of a loss. Who needs one more hist
orian, eh?’

  Stenwold took a deep breath. ‘I need a detachment ready to go through the breach in the wall as soon as it’s made. We don’t know who might be on the far side – the place could already be packed with Wasps.’

  ‘I’ll sort that,’ someone volunteered, and Stenwold nodded in gratitude. ‘Te Mosca, ready the wounded for movement. Yes, I know you don’t want to move them, but you must. Tomasso’s right. And, as for your distraction . . .’

  ‘You make the call,’ Tomasso told him, ‘and I can signal them, no problems.’

  ‘What are we talking about?’

  ‘Suicidal counter-attack on the Wasps. Spider-kinden lorn detachment.’

  Stenwold shook his head, impressed despite himself. ‘We will have to talk about how you managed that.’

  ‘Well, on the same subject, I have a whole bunch of former Spiderlands mercenaries hiding out with some trading friends of mine, at great expense, who will be getting themselves out of the city as soon as the Wasps open the gates to trade. I recommend you get your wounded, and anyone on the Empire’s lists, to hook up with them. Best chance they’ll get, believe me.’

  ‘And me?’

  ‘Master Maker, you’re with me and Laszlo. We’ve got a boat to catch.’

  ‘General!’

  Tynan found that he had been expecting it, even as he sat taking reports and checking over the seemingly endless details of the Second’s assimilation of Collegium. He looked at the sergeant who had burst in on him, here on the second floor of some ousted magnate’s townhouse.

  ‘An attack?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ The sergeant took a deep breath. ‘Best guess, about four hundred, sir. They must have been sneaking as close as they could, but as soon as we spotted them, they formed up. Sir . . . my lieutenant said you’d want to see.’

  Did he, now? But Tynan put down his pen and shoved his chair back. Four hundred, formed up, and I have a thousand snap-bowmen right here, right now, and so many more ranged across the city. Is this all you could manage?

  ‘Send out orders – to keep all eyes out for lone archers and assassins,’ he instructed, though if none was found it would not surprise him. An attack of any kind was madness. Surely she could have escaped over the walls? We can’t watch everything all of the time. Did I not leave even that much of a gap for you? In his heart he felt he knew. What would she be returning home for, if she escaped? Already in disgrace in the Spiderlands, her family humiliated and brought low, this campaign had been her last chance to redeem herself in the eyes of her peers. Tynan had crushed that hope – Tynan and his orders.

  ‘Let me see her,’ he said.

  The Spider-kinden had not attacked, and the Wasps of the Second had held their positions, waiting for their general’s command, and so it was a motionless tableau that awaited him, as perfect as if they were holding still for some artist of epic talent, come to capture this moment in history.

  They had their banners up, too. That was something the Spiderlands troops had eschewed while fighting alongside the Wasps, for perhaps Mycella had believed it would appear old-fashioned. Now, with nothing left to lose, flags billowed over the Spiderlands ranks, the bright silks of a dozen houses, with the Aldanrael at their heart.

  She has come to say goodbye, Tynan thought. He could not see her, and it would have been perfect Spider planning for the woman herself to be elsewhere, perhaps sneaking over the walls even now, but he believed fiercely that she was somewhere in front of him, that she had chosen this way to finish their relationship with true Arista style.

  ‘I want her alive,’ he said, at first too quietly for anyone to notice, and then louder so his officers could hear.

  ‘Sir . . . with a snapbow volley . . .’ one of them ventured.

  ‘Do what you can,’ Tynan instructed. ‘Two volleys, and then send the Airborne in and, if she lives, bring her before me.’

  ‘Think your skipper can pull this off?’ Stenwold asked, just because he needed to say something.

  ‘Tomasso? There’s nothing he sets his mind to that he can’t do,’ Laszlo declared loyally.

  The stench of chemicals was overpowering as Fassen and her friends worked on the wall. Even far down the corridor, Stenwold kept a rag to his mouth and nose to block it out. He had stopped asking how much longer. Nothing he could do would achieve anything but to distract the artificers. Around him, the vanguard force shuffled and rechecked their snapbows or fingered swords ready in scabbards. Laszlo shuffled from foot to foot.

  Word had come, soon after the start of the attack, that the courtyard wall had fallen, Gorenn pulling back as instructed, for once. The main gates had been punched in by a Sentinel’s lead-shot, and the machine had muscled up to the wall and sent a shot through the gateway to stave in the College building’s inner doors as well. Since then, Berjek Gripshod’s lorn detachment had been keeping the Wasps off, making the final approach a nettle that the Empire was still steeling itself to grasp.

  Beyond the wall, Tomasso’s distraction had now arrived, a ragged band of Spider-kinden hurling themselves at the rear of the Wasp position, massively outnumbered but pushing as far as they could with the benefit of surprise, so that Laszlo had reported fighting deep within the Wasp camp. The Empire had drawn its forces back to eliminate these new challengers, whereupon the students had dragged out all manner of broken furniture to block up the doorway and the courtyard gate.

  Then the Wasps had come back, the Spiders clearly dealt with. The sands were running fierce and fast in the glass now.

  ‘Maker!’ It was Sperra barrelling down into the cellars, her eyes wide. ‘They’re in! They’re through the doors, Maker!’

  A cold weight settled itself in Stenwold’s gut.

  ‘How are the wounded?’

  ‘We’re still getting them ready to move,’ Sperra reported. ‘Tell me we have somewhere to move to.’

  He opened his mouth to confess that he stood between her and nothing but a dead end, that the end had found them.

  There was a whoop, a veritable howl of triumph, from Fassen back in the Cold Cellars. ‘Through! We’re through!’ followed by ‘Hammer and tongs, what’s that?’

  ‘Vanguard forward!’ Stenwold snapped. ‘Sperra, get the infirmary cleared. Get everyone down here as quick as you can. Get . . .’ but she was already gone.

  And whatever Fassen’s found, don’t let it be another wall, he begged, as he pushed forwards with Laszlo at his heels.

  He skidded down into the gripping chill of the cellar, and saw the wall ahead of him almost completely fallen, enough space for two people to squeeze through side by side. The work of the acids was plain, but there was a great deal of physical cracking that made him wonder if there had somehow been some movement of the earth that had touched only here. Or had Fassen other methods at her disposal than the chemical?

  Whatever the reason, there was certainly a gap there, and it led somewhere.

  The vanguard had waited for him, and he unslung his snapbow as he glanced around at them, at Fassen and her artificers, at Laszlo.

  ‘Master Maker,’ Fassen started.

  ‘Let me see.’ And he pushed his way to the edge of the hole.

  He could see the cellars of Living Science, pungent with the reek of preservative because a lot of the jars and canisters there were broken open. That explained the chill and the smell that had tainted the Cold Cellars, and, for it to have done so, those cellars must have abutted here precisely, only this single thickness of wall separating two distinct College buildings.

  He stepped across, and it took a long stride, because there was a gap below him, an impossible gap, and that was what Fassen had exclaimed about.

  It was not large, just six inches in width, but for a long moment Stenwold stared down into it, and tried to understand what he was seeing. Darkness, yes, and the barrel of a snapbow poked into it encountered no resistance. Just a flaw in the earth, then? And yet . . . if he strained his eyes were there lights, at some unfathomable distance down bel
ow? As though this little crack gave onto a vast, echoing cavern extending impossibly beneath Collegium itself.

  He drew back, feeling sudden vertigo. He had no idea what this was, whether it had always been there or had only manifested during this last night, in time to help Fassen in her work. He had more prosaic matters to hand.

  ‘Living Science cellars look clear,’ he announced, trying for his old booming Assembly voice, but low enough in the end for his words to have to be relayed back. ‘Come on, we need to secure the floors above.’

  Behind him, as they crossed, there wasn’t a member of the vanguard who didn’t pause and shiver a little, while crossing that inexplicable gap.

  The narrow corridors leading down to the lower levels had never been intended for stretcher-bearers. Te Mosca and Sperra had got the wounded out of the infirmary easily enough, but navigating them to the Cold Cellars was an agonizingly slow business of knocks and bottlenecks, whilst everyone else in the building was desperately trying to hurry to the same place.

  The sounds of fighting – and dying – were closing in on them. The Wasps were inside the building, and Berjek’s gallant few were fighting them from room to room, spending blood and buying time at whatever rate of exchange they could get.

  Another flight of stairs, but the stolid stretcher-bearers knew their business now – mostly Beetles, and many of them former wounded now strong enough to help their comrades. One stretcher at a time they descended as swiftly as was safe, their faces tight with concentration, blotting out the shouting and the fighting from just a few rooms away.

  Sperra had gone on ahead, a faithful escort to Balkus’s stretcher, but at the rear was Sartaea te Mosca, who perhaps had planned to provide an infinitesimal barrier between her charges and the Empire.

  She brimmed over with exhortations to hurry that were utterly pointless. Nobody knew better than the men and women with the stretchers just how little time they had, and it was to their lasting credit that none of them cast aside their burdens to safeguard their own lives.