Empire in Black and Gold (73 page)

The next day’s close put them within sight of Wasp soldiers. Half a dozen of them had staked out a bridge and were obviously ready to challenge anyone wanting to cross. They took turns to glide up into the air, circling lazily.

Skrill sucked her breath through her teeth. ‘You, Beetle-boy,’ she said. It was what she had taken to calling Totho. ‘You’re not the flying kind, I’ll wager, but can you swim?’ ‘A little. Not a whole river’s width.’ ‘Can you swim it if you hold on to something?’

He nodded dumbly.

‘These here, they’re to stop reinforcements, goods, supplies getting through, not people. His Lordship here’s got wings. He can pick a slice of the river and fly, and water’s nothing to stop me. This is the most fordable point of the river, though, and I know that ’cos this is where they put the bridge. So if we’re crossing, or if
you’re
crossing, it’s here. Got me?’

Totho and she put together a makeshift raft, big enough to float their packs across, with his legs providing the motive power.

‘Now, I’ll shadow you across the river,’ she said. ‘Your Lordship, you can meet us on the far side.’

Salma nodded, and swung into the air with his sword drawn, disappearing overhead.

Totho had no night vision whatsoever. The Wasps had a fire lit in the bowl of a metal shield laid on the bridge, though, and torches burning at either end. The night was chill and the guards had pulled into the bridge’s centre and the burning shield to take up the warmth.

He crept to the edge, balancing the raft across his shoulders. He had stripped to his waist, and his boots hung across his neck by their laces. Skrill flitted past him, a shapeless, cloaked ghost, still fully clad, but although he could hear the water ahead of him, he heard no splash.

He lowered himself into the river gently. The raft bobbed but rose again, and he began to push it out, feeling the sluggish current begin to manhandle him towards and under the bridge. He could not see Skrill, and it was too dark to try. Only the fires of the Wasps gave out any light at all.

The river bed fell away from under his feet and he began to kick awkwardly, splashing a little but trying to keep his feet below the surface. The bridge was now passing smoothly overhead and he could hear the murmuring voices of the Wasp guards. He was doing his best to keep a straight course but the insistent current was pulling him out from under the bridge’s shadow now. By the time he was halfway across the stream he was in the open. The red light of the fire crackled above him, but little of it got as far as the water.

The opposite shore was getting close. He could not yet see it but the sound of the water rippling alongside it told him enough. He risked a glance over his shoulder.

There was a Wasp at the bridge railing, staring down into the water. To Totho it seemed the man’s eyes were full on him, and it could only be a moment before he noticed the bulky shape moving in the water.

Then the soldier clapped a hand to his neck irritably, as if stung by some small insect. He turned to make some comment to his fellows, then abruptly his legs gave way under him and he collapsed.

Totho turned his gaze away and concentrated on gaining the far shore. Skrill loomed before him, removing a long pipe from her lips and stowing it away in her cloak. By some trick of her Art she was actually standing on the water, rolling with the swell like a sailor on the deck of a ship.

As he reached the far shore and she quickly helped him lift the raft and packs clear of the water, Totho looked back. The Wasps had noticed their fallen comrade but their attention, as airborne soldiers themselves, was now fixed on the skies, Three of them were lifting off, swords drawn, hunting in high circles over the bridge.

From then on the road before them was clear all the way to Tark, and Totho could only hope that the others were having as smooth a journey.

When Che had finished telling their story there was a stunned quiet for a moment.

‘Totho?’ Stenwold said at last, feeling hollow.

‘We have to assume he’s now with Salma, like his letter says. So when you hear from Tark, you’ll hear from him. We have to assume that.’

‘What alternative do we have?’ Stenwold agreed.

‘The lad’ll be fine,’ Scuto said. ‘Look at you all. Why the long faces?’ He leapt to his feet with a whoop. ‘Don’t you see it?’ he shouted. ‘We’re clear of the spy! Now you can tell us what’s going on, and we can sort it out. They’ve had us in a lock today. Now we’ll have them right back, right, chief ?’

‘But I failed,’ Achaeos said. ‘The Skryres will only wait.’

Stenwold looked up at him, an odd light in his eyes. ‘And I have just what they’re waiting for,’ he said. Achaeos cocked an eyebrow at him. ‘It’s time to open everyone’s eyes,’ said the Beetle. He looked across the ragged band that was all that was left of his operation in Helleron. ‘Achaeos,’ he began.

‘I’m here.’

‘When I’m done talking, you’ll want to get back to Tharn by the quickest way possible and tell them what I plan. I hope it will be enough to tip the balance.’

He stood before them now just like a lecturer at the Great College. The sight brought a fond but painful echo of familiarity to Che and Tynisa both.

‘The Wasps are not here to attack Helleron – not yet,’ Stenwold continued. ‘They are attacking a much greater target. They are attacking the Lowlands as a whole. We’re all guilty of thinking like Lowlanders, not like Imperials. We were seeing the war city by city, because we know the Lowlands is divided. They see the war as a whole, because they fear the Lowlands becoming united. Scuto, tell me now about the Iron Road.’

‘What do you want to know, chief ?’

‘When will the first train run?’

‘In a tenday, give or take.’

‘But when will it be ready to run? When will the track be laid, the engine ready?’

‘The engine’s ready now,’ Scuto said, mystified. ‘
Pride
, she’s called, and a beautiful piece of engineering. She’ll run as soon as the last track’s in place.’

‘She will indeed,’ Stenwold confirmed. ‘But not at Helleron’s behest. Tell me more about the
Pride
. What’s her capacity, if you crammed her with passengers? How does she run?’

‘She’s got the latest engine from the College technologists, chief. A
lightning engine
, it’s called. The absolute knees, I can tell you. Really advanced stuff. As for capacity, they reckon five hundred, with all the luxury you can eat, but . . . you mean people stashed in the cargo trucks as well? And ripping out the seats, all of that?’

Stenwold nodded.

‘Then . . . Pack her to the gills, shoulder to shoulder, every carriage, and she’d haul around . . .’ Scuto’s fingers moved in quick calculation, and then slowed, a nervous look coming into his eyes. ‘Around two, maybe two and a half thousand men, maybe even more. She’s got a lot of carriages.’

‘All the Wasps camped at our doorstep, on a rail automotive that will take them to Collegium faster than anything else.
Collegium
, not Helleron. Two thousand men, say, carried swiftly to the very heart of Collegium, swarming out with sword and sting, attacking the Assembly, attacking the College. The Lowlands needs to join together to stave off the Empire, and that union can only start with Collegium. Only in Collegium are all races and citizenries welcome. Only in Collegium are such ideas as a fair and free unity of the Lowlands mooted and practised. If the Wasps take the
Pride
, they can sack Collegium before the city’s allies even know about it. They can take control of the Assembly, instigate martial law. Even if we sent a Fly-kinden messenger at this very moment, he’d not race the train there if it left within two days. Even if we sent a fixed-wing the Assembly would still be debating the story when the Wasps arrived.’

‘Bloody spinning wheels,’ spat Scuto. ‘So what’s the plan, chief ?’

Stenwold sighed heavily. ‘We attack the site. We destroy the
Pride
.’

There was a close, dead silence. They were his agents, but many of them were men and women of Helleron. What he was proposing would mean a death sentence here in this city if their involvement were ever known.

Scuto glanced from face to face, holding their eyes until he had exacted reluctant nods from all of his own people. ‘I reckon you’ve made your case, chief,’ he said at last. ‘I don’t think any of us is happy with the plan, but we all know Collegium. Enough of us studied our scrolls at the College, even. Now it’s time to pay for that privilege.’

‘And I now see why you want me to go back home,’ Achaeos put in.

‘Tell the Skryres of Tharn that Stenwold Maker of Collegium wants the Iron Road smashed, the engine destroyed. Tell them I ask their help, their raiders, for that very cause. No tricks, no traps. Whoever you can fetch, come with them to the south of the engine sheds at dusk. Fly now.’

Achaeos rose, gave him a little bow and then squeezed Che’s hand. ‘I’ll bring them or else I’ll come on my own,’ he announced. His wings unfurled, glittering in the light, and then he was gone, the hatch of the fallback in the ceiling slamming behind him.

Dusk came too soon, with a finality nobody was happy with. They made a ragged band, the wounds of the Wasp attack still unhealed. They had resupplied, taken everything that Scuto had laid down that might be any use to them. Stenwold had donned his hardwearing artificer’s leathers, a crossbow across his back and half a dozen hatched iron grenades carried in a bag at his belt. Beside him Scuto was in his warped armour with another sack of the dangerous toys, and a brand new repeater as well. There were spare magazines of bolts dangling from his spikes and from the straps of his armour.

Tisamon wore no more armour than his arming jacket, that had seen so many deaths and yet bore so few scars or scratches. He had found a similar garment for Tynisa, buckling it for her up the side with care, awl-punching new holes in the straps where they were needed so as to fit her slender frame. Stenwold looked at his adopted daughter, at Tisamon’s daughter, and knew that she had passed out of his hands. Not into her father’s but into her own. She was steering her own course in the world from now on.

And then there was Cheerwell, his niece, his flesh and blood, and in the time that the Wasps had taken her from him, she had grown up too. She stood by Scuto, wearing artificer’s armour like her uncle, and with a toolstrip on one hip balancing the sword on the other. She buckled a leather helmet on, protective goggles riding high on her forehead, and he barely recognized her.

Behind them the mobile remnant of Scuto’s agents was ready. Stenwold knew Balkus well enough: the Ant was a mercenary rather than a loyal agent but he owed Scuto and he took his debt of honour seriously. Then there was Rakka, whose right hand had been forfeit to imperial justice and who had not forgotten or forgiven. Sperra the Fly carried her crossbow and a kit of bandages and salves, in case the chance came to use them. Beyond her there were a grab-bag of Beetles, Flies, Ant-kinden and one halfbreed, Scuto’s last surviving agents from the city, now drawn together here for safe keeping. They bore crossbows, swords, grenades and a piecemeal approach to armour. One of the Beetle-kinden had a blunderbow, its flared mouth already loaded with shrapnel. Another wore most of a suit of sentinel plate, massively bulked with metal, and carried a great poleaxe late of the city guard armouries. These were not soldiers, but they had as much skirmishing experience as any Wasp regular.

‘I think we’re ready, chief,’ Scuto said quietly.

Collegium stands or falls on what we do today.

‘Let’s move out,’ Stenwold said.

They were close enough to the rail works to hear the hammering of the industrious engines that were still producing the track, and the shunting and grinding of the automotives that shipped it down the line, ever narrowing the gap between the works begun in Collegium and those started here. How many yards were yet to cover? Each hour whittled that intervening distance away. The launching of the
Pride
’s pirated maiden voyage could be tomorrow or the day after.

The
Pride
itself was kept apart from such gross scurryings. It was aloof from mere industry. When it moved, it would make its first run from Helleron to Collegium and revolutionize the world. Progress would be advanced, with all the virtues and vices that entailed.

And we are here to stop it
. The idea still seemed mad to Stenwold, but he had come to this insanity through ineluctable logic.

The
Pride
sat on its sidelined rails under a great awning that shielded it from what mild ill weather the season might throw at it. A lesser engine might be consigned to a shed but the
Pride
was too great and grand, and its engineers required its flanks bared to bring their machines close enough to service her. She was a new breed, hulking and hammer-headed at the front, but capped with silver worked into beautiful and ornate designs, as though she were some great bludgeoning weapon made for ceremonial purposes. Behind that solid nose was the engine itself, the ‘lightning engine’. Stenwold had never seen one, and knew nothing about them. He had an uncomfortable feeling that Scuto was little better informed but it would be the Thorn Bug’s work to destroy it, either by explosives or by simply overcharging and detonating the engine itself. It was a truly vast piece of engineering, twenty feet in length, its slab-like sides wormed through with ducts and pipes, coils and twisting funnels. A five-foot rod stood proud of the roof, glittering slightly in the darkness beneath the vast awning. Behind that monumental engine was the engineer’s cab itself. Where more primitive devices would have, say, a wood-burning furnace for steam power, Stenwold could not even guess what controls and fail-safes a lightning engine would require.

There was no sign of a watch, no sign of a guard. They had come south of the engine yard to get the best look, but even then it was a difficult prospect. The yard was a pit dug ten feet down and more than ten times that across. There were spoil heaps, tool sheds and lesser engines scattered around it. A dozen sentries could be concealed there.