The Air War (49 page)

‘We’ve authority to increase the Chneuma dosing,’ Aarmon added. ‘Double for pilots, and a single for the bombardiers now.’ Seeing the looks on some of the
Fly-kinden faces, he added, ‘It’s something the Engineering Corps alchemists cooked up. We use it to stay awake for the days of the flight. You’ll all need it too, now. Sergeant
Kiin, see me after, and I’ll sort out a supply.’

None of the Flies dared ask what other effects this Chneuma might produce, but it was evident in most expressions there, and no doubt some of the Wasps were posing that silent question, but
Aarmon was not being drawn.

‘There’s one other thing,’ he added, ‘a change to the operation. We’ll be bringing some more of your training into the war.’ This time he was looking straight
at the Flies and, as he told them what he meant, the idea was both terrifying and strangely attractive.

Yes
, Pingge found herself thinking, with a curiously detached feeling of professionalism,
The Collegiates won’t know what hit them.

Laszlo darted between wagons and automotives, flicked up twenty feet for a brief look at the evolving layout of the camp around him, then dropped down again. There were plenty
of flying troops in the Grand Army – as even the Imperials were calling it now – but this was still a good way to attract undue attention. The Wasps made it plain that they took full
responsibility for the skies above the army, and they were inclined to ask questions.

Progress had slowed over the last few days, though not because of any active resistance. Instead, an order had come from General Tynan that each night everyone would dig in, forming the vehicles
into a circle and deploying a remarkable number of ready-made barricades which the Wasps had brought with them. Laszlo understood that Tynan had employed far more complete fortifications the first
time he led the Second this way, but the combined force was now simply too large and disunited to protect thoroughly. The Wasps did what they could with what they had, though, and, in addition,
every night saw the raising of three skeletal towers within the camp, each with what looked to Laszlo like some enormous sort of lamp.

They had now definitely entered Mantis territory, he understood. The precautions started even as they moved off from the cliffs above Kes, but it was a bitter part of recent Imperial history
that the Fourth Army had been destroyed even further out than that, the Mantis-kinden able to travel swiftly by land and water, night and day. Of course, everyone knew that the Second had driven
the Mantids out last time, and whether there were any left in the forest was unknown to the Grand Army’s leadership, but it was plain that Tynan wasn’t taking chances.

Laszlo tried to remember what he knew about the local Mantis-kinden. In fact, he had few fond thoughts of them, because of the actions of one particular individual, but in general he recalled
them idling all over Collegium, refugees from their forest domain after Tynan’s depredations. Surely those few who might have returned home to rebuild could not pose a threat to the army that
was advancing.

He hopped up once again to locate his target, then dropped back quickly. Just now he was in the loose following of Morkaris, the Aldanrael’s mercenary adjutant. The lean Spider-kinden was
a busy man, constantly meeting with the leaders of various sell-sword companies, settling disputes, disbursing coin and occasionally punching faces. For all his stringy build he seemed to possess a
prodigious strength. The demands on his time meant that he could find a use for someone like Laszlo, and just now that meant fetching food from the latest shipment. The Grand Army could never have
lived off the land, so there were airships – both Imperial black and gold and smaller many-coloured craft from the Spiderlands – constantly ferrying back and forth with the supplies
they needed for the march. When a shipment arrived, the camp cooks descended on it to cook up or preserve everything in danger of going off, and so Laszlo descended on Morkaris with a covered bowl
of spiced horsemeat and a jug of soup, which the man grabbed from him the moment he was within arm’s reach.

‘Good work.’ The Spider upended the jug, heedless of the steaming heat of it, and then wiped his mouth on the back of a gauntlet. He was plainly not the kind of mannered Aristos that
his counterpart Jadis was, but then the mercenaries obviously appreciated a plain-speaking man as their liaison. The next group with a grievance was approaching him even now: a quartet of hulking
Scorpions.

‘Watch and learn,’ Morkaris remarked, because Laszlo knew how to make himself likeable, and the adjutant had taken a shine to him. The next ten minutes provided a masterclass in
Spider– Scorpion relations, and ended with the adjutant sinking an axe into the company leader’s skull.

The other three Scorpions had regarded this action with little emotion.

‘Fine,’ Morkaris had told them. ‘You’re mine for now, until I say otherwise. Or does someone else want to try their luck?’ Nobody had felt that lucky.

Now Laszlo skimmed back over the camp, aiming for home – meaning the wagon that he and Lissart slept in. Running errands for Morkaris had meant a long and busy day, and he would still be
hard put to report to Stenwold that he had found any fatal vulnerability in the way the Spider-kinden soldiers operated. The only logical advice would be,
Kill their leaders
, and that would
hardly be something Stenwold had not thought of.

He ducked in, and, had he not ducked out again immediately, Lissart would have stabbed him. Hanging in the air outside, his mind was full of the flash of steel, her abrupt, savage movement.

Some part of him found that he was not surprised in the least.

‘Laszlo . . . ?’ came her quiet voice from under the cloth awning. She sounded shaken, although he felt that he deserved that particular privilege.

A moment later she peered out, and the knife was nowhere to be seen. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t realize it was you.’

He descended warily, keeping out of arm’s reach, but remembering that she had more weapons than the blade, anyway. She could simply blast him with that fire Art of hers, if she so wished.
He reckoned she was certainly strong enough to use it by now.

‘Who were you intending to stab?’ he asked her, trying to adopt a light tone.

‘Laszlo, she’s here,’ Lissart told him flatly. ‘Get under cover, quickly.’

She was frightened, he realized, or at least feigning it, but he made a snap decision, hoping his instincts were being trustworthy, and ducked under the wagon’s cover to nestle in beside
her. She pressed herself against him and he found she was trembling slightly. The rush of gratitude he felt to the world, that she did not appear to want to kill him just yet, was stronger than he
had expected.

Still under her spell
, he thought wryly, putting his arms around her. ‘Who’s here?’

‘Garvan,’ she said, and he allowed a pause for explanation, but none came.

‘Should I know what that means?’

‘Garvan, or whatever her real name is,’ she persisted, ‘the Wasp woman who
stabbed
me. The Rekef one.’

He went quite still, thinking hard. The urge to say,
Are you sure?
was very strong, but she would not have thanked him for doubting her. ‘When, where?’

‘She must have come in with the supplies. I saw her just walking through the camp, mid-afternoon.’

‘Looking for you?’

‘I don’t
know
,’ she snapped, but she was trembling even more now. ‘She’ll know me, though, and she’ll kill me.’

‘We can’t stay here, then. Can you fly?’

‘I don’t know.’

There was something in her response that did not quite ring true. ‘Are you trying to tell me,’ Laszlo pressed gently, ‘that you’ve not experimented while I’ve been
out and about?’

‘A short hop, maybe, nothing more,’ she whispered. ‘We’ll leave tonight.’ He made a doubting sound, and she twisted her neck to glare at him.
‘What?’

‘Ever since we got within spit of the Felyal, camp security’s right up, especially at night. They have a lot of sharp eyes doing sentry duty now. If you could fly, then I’d say
risk it, but . . .’

‘But
what?
’ she demanded.

‘But let me think about it. Stay under cover meanwhile. This Garvan of yours is a Wasp, so no reason for her to poke about the Spider-kinden camp. She won’t know me, so I can keep an
eye out. Maybe we can stir trouble up against her, especially if she’s Rekef. Just . . . wait. Don’t do anything we’ll regret. Just let me think of something.’

She lay in his arms, facing away from him. In her mind, no doubt, she was reliving the blade going in.
She’s crazy
, he told himself.
She’s a killer, an enemy agent, the
most dangerous woman you’ve ever got hold of. Just go. Leave her and just go.
But he knew he would not depart without her, even so.

‘Think of something quickly,’ she said softly. ‘I can’t hold out forever.’

‘Our lack of progress is causing a lot of friction,’ Mycella observed. Tynan watched her with grudging admiration, because she was examining her appearance in a
mirror while her elaborate tent was raised around her, the one still point in a whirl of carefully orchestrated chaos. Her servants, Spiders and Fly-kinden both, were practically dancing to a
common rhythm that allowed them to coordinate with one another to set up poles and guys and embroidered canvas without so much as obstructing their mistress’s light, until she stood in a
reddening beam of sunset in the midst of an eight-chambered portable palace, with furniture being moved into position as nimbly as though her staff were scene-shifters at the theatre.

‘Join me?’ she asked him, meeting his eyes in the mirror. A Fly-kinden was already at her elbow with a bottle of dark glass.

‘I see your kind’s reputation for vanity isn’t misplaced,’ he observed, although without vitriol.

She raised an eyebrow at him. ‘You never feel the need to see your own face, General?’

‘Not since I stopped needing a comb,’ he told her. It was true, too. Even without his own slaves, he could have shaved himself by touch these days.

‘I envy you. Mine holds a grim fascination for me, but it isn’t vanity.’ She turned towards him at last and collapsed back onto a couch that had not been there a moment before,
even as the mirror was spirited away. ‘Time, General Tynan . . . I watch it advance on my position, and each day all my armies lose a little ground. I’m older than you, you
realize?’

He shrugged, although inwardly he was surprised and then annoyed at letting anything these Spiders did surprise him. ‘I’ve seen less friction than I’d expected.’ He found
a camp stool placed neatly beside him, standard army issue, and lowered himself into it, accepting a glass of what turned out to be Imperial brandy.

‘It’s in my camp, mostly, the discontent,’ she admitted. ‘The mercenaries get paid more for fighting, so they want to start besieging Collegium yesterday, and even our
regular soldiers are . . . impatient. Jadis and Morkaris are keeping discipline, but perhaps your scouts have some news that might settle matters a little.’

He gave her an amused look. ‘And yours?’

She matched his expression. ‘Very well, then. As we skirt the Felyal, it looks increasingly as though there’s a fair-sized body of people moving ahead of us – soldiers, not
refugees. Much sign of Mantis-kinden, by my trackers’ expert opinion, but others as well in fair numbers, certainly hundreds. If they were simply going to join up with the Collegiates,
they’d have outpaced us easily, but they’re hanging about ahead of our advance, and some of my scouts haven’t come back. Some of yours, too, I’d wager? And one of your
little airships is late as well, unless you sent it somewhere especially far.’

He nodded grudgingly. ‘You’re right, of course. Always the bloody Felyal. You weren’t here to see the bloodshed last time. You’d think they’d take a hint. But
you’re correct: it’s not just Mantids either. Cherten reckons it’s an advance force from the city come to take a poke at us, while they’ve got the trees to operate
from.’

‘My intelligence suggests it’s unlikely to be directly from Collegium. But what’s your plan?’

‘Depends how much history repeats itself. So far we’ve been moving past the Felyal that I burned the last time, but shortly we’ll be at the green. If there’s going to be
trouble, it’ll be then, and at night most likely. Or it could be tonight, for that matter, or it might just as easily have been yesterday. Hence our walls and towers and caution – and
your friction. My bet is that your mercenaries get to earn their blood money before a tenday’s out, though. And if we can break the back of the locals, then we can pick up speed
again.’

‘You’ve thought this out, obviously.’

He suspected that she was flattering him rather than being overly sincere, but he could not quite suppress a smile. ‘They call my Second Army the Gears, Mycella. We don’t stop
grinding until there’s nothing left but pieces. In order to maintain that reputation, in order to make sure nothing
does
stop us, you have no idea of the amount of forward planning I
have to do.’

‘Just you? No council of tacticians?’

‘Some day I’ll get it wrong, and they’ll bury me and find another name for my army,’ he replied flatly.

‘You’re grim all of a sudden.’

He felt a jab of annoyance that this smooth, elegant woman should presume to know him – but reminded himself that he had spent quite a few nights sharing a bottle of one thing or another
with his co-commander. It was not that he disdained the company of his officers, but they all had their own jobs to do, and she was right – he had nobody to share responsibility with. An army
needed a single mind to direct it, and growing too familiar with his subordinates, even Mittoc and Cherten, would take the edge of his orders. Mycella represented a rare opportunity to talk matters
over with someone outside his chain of command.

She’s up to something. She’s using her Art on me, manipulating me somehow.
Yet he did not feel manipulated, and he found himself fascinated not by her appearance or her
charms, but by the odd glimpse of weakness that she let him see, quite calculatedly: her fear of time, or the past failures that had put her where she was – a battlefield general’s role
viewed as a spider punishment rather than a Wasp reward.