The Air War (56 page)

‘The refugees are still coming in, and Janos’s people are still recording accounts,’ Stenwold added. ‘There was an attack on the Wasp camp, apparently, by just about
everyone from the Felyal who would take up a sword, plus a hundred or so itinerant Mynans who somehow ended up there.’ He paused, teeth bared unhappily. ‘They were expecting help from
us.’

‘Then they should have asked for it. How were we supposed to know?’ Jodry demanded.

‘Well, arguably we should have had people there at the Felyal, because we knew the Second would be marching through there,’ Stenwold said wearily. ‘However, they
did
ask. Moreover, they were told we were coming. They believed, when they attacked the Wasps, that Collegium would pitch in.’

Jodry stared. ‘What?’

‘The messengers they sent to Collegium plainly never arrived. The messages of support they received were false. They’ve been played for fools, and so have we. Our best chance to
delay the Second has been lost, and it sounds as though only Spider-kinden grudges have bought us any time at all. For now, we have hundreds of people seeking shelter within our walls – not
just Mantids but all those who were making their living around the Felyal, and we’re starting to get the first runners from other villages along the way, too.’ He gestured to Akkestrae.
‘As you see, the Mantis-kinden still want to fight, and we’re convincing them to sign up and work with us, rather than just taking off on their own the moment a Spider standard clears
the horizon. But, well . . . I’ve failed the city, Jodry, starting from ten years ago. I’ve just not been ready for this.’

‘What are you talking about?’ Jodry asked, although something in his tone suggested he already knew.

‘Wasp spies, Jodry. I’ve been hunting Wasp spies in this city for at least ten years, and I’ve been good at it,’ Stenwold reported tiredly. ‘With that mob we
cleared out when the Spider fleet was on its way, we probably did just about strip the Rekef of its presence in our city, so I thought I had achieved something. But I was never looking for
Spider-kinden, agents of the Aristoi. Even when I knew that the Aldanrael had turned against us, that their agents were watching our merchantmen put out so that they could signal their pirates to
attack, I never quite understood what that meant, for a war. The Spiders are subtle, and have had a long time to hide. I am doing what I can, but I don’t know if I can unearth their agents in
time to do any good.’

‘More,’ Akkestrae snapped, ‘of those refugees you allow within your walls, some will be spies – of the Spiders perhaps, of your Empire, even. If they have no agents in
your city, then hiding some Beetles or Flies within those hundreds will be easy. You are compromised by your own kindness.’

Jodry met her glare levelly. ‘What do you expect us to do? Take these frightened, dispossessed people and put them in camps outside our walls? Only let in those with family inside the
city?’

‘Yes,’ the Mantis said simply. ‘Better that than let your enemy in and welcome her with open arms. Trust none but
my
kinden. Only we can be relied on for our loyalties.
Only we will not be in the pay of the enemy.’

‘We can’t do that.’ Jodry gave a shuddering sigh. ‘Stenwold, you’ll just have to do what you can. Put your own people in amongst the refugees. I think they’re
all being sent off to the same district, to hostels there. Collegium cannot turn away from those in need, especiaslly not from our own people – but perhaps the genuine refugees can pick out
the fakes; I don’t know. Just do something, Sten. Make up your lost ground.’

‘And do I have your authority, then?’ Stenwold asked him flatly. ‘Can I have the militia make arrests, wherever there is suspicion, even if it means detaining
innocents?’

Jodry regarded him warily. ‘What will you do with those innocents?’

‘I will question them. I will have logicians from the College take their stories apart. If we find that they are hiding something, if their evidence does not pass muster, then perhaps you
would at least let me have them exiled from the city, whether spies or a criminals or perhaps just very unreliable witnesses.’

Jodry opened his mouth a couple of times, his thoughts plain on his face: how far did he trust Stenwold on this? What might Stenwold’s interrogation include, what threats, what
intimidation? How high would Stenwold set the bar, to catch his spies, and how many others would be cast out unjustly? He met Stenwold’s eyes, and a mute entreaty for mutual trust passed
between them.

‘Do what you must,’ the Speaker said at last. ‘But, Sten . . . if need be, you’ll stand before the Assembly to justify whatever you do.’

‘Gladly,’ Stenwold confirmed, and sat back. ‘Well, then—’

‘There’s one more thing,’ Jodry said, sounding even more wretched. ‘We . . . have a prisoner.’

Stenwold stared at him. ‘Since when?’

‘Since their last air attack. It’s one of their aviators.’

‘Hand him over,’ was Stenwold’s prompt response and, at the same time, Akkestrae hissed, ‘Give him to us.’ Her intentions were absolutely plain in the tone of her
voice.

That at last gave Stenwold pause. The Mantids, of course, would not be interested in intelligence or strategic advantage. They wanted nothing but blood and revenge, and yet his voice had echoed
hers so perfectly.

‘He’s been in the infirmary since they dragged him from his vessel, but I’m told he’s well enough to face . . . whatever now,’ Jodry told them. ‘Sten . .
.’

‘A Wasp-kinden, an enemy combatant. Surely you can’t object to my questioning him,’ Stenwold protested.

‘A
Fly-
kinden,’ Jodry corrected. ‘But an enemy combatant certainly. And if I’d objected, I’d not have told you just now. But, Sten . . . in Collegium, we are
not simply judged by loyalty to our city. That is one of the reasons we fancy ourselves superior to the Wasps, after all. We have a whole faculty of humanists and philosophers who will apply an
objective lens to the choices we make in this war. As I said before, do not do anything that you are not happy to account for, afterwards.’

The
Esca Magni
sped over the distant terrain, glimpsed only because the moon was bright tonight: not the cityscape of Collegium but the fields and scrub lying east of
it. This was the new battleground that the aviators themselves had chosen.

The Imperials were only coming by night now, squeezing the utmost advantage from the mindlink that Taki had guessed at, but they had been coming more and more often. The Collegium pilots had
been used to a couple of days’ rest at least, but after the first night attack that had narrowed to a day, and now they came almost every night. Their numbers varied each time, and if the
Collegiates did particularly well one night, the next attack would be weaker, the enemy fewer and more cautious, but there always seemed to be more available, just as the Collegiates themselves
were putting students into the air the moment that Corog Breaker judged them halfway ready. The one saving grace was that they were not short of volunteers, despite the toll the defence had already
taken. To defend Collegium from the skies offered an almost supernatural allure to young ground-bound Beetle-kinden, compared to the dreary work of the Merchant Companies.

At last, the academics Stormall and Reader had cracked all the enemy secrets: as well as having the mindlink, the Wasps had created an engineering marvel in the Farsphex: barely less nimble in
the air than the smaller Stormreaders, and carrying a Fly-kinden bombardier as well as the pilot. Beyond that was Willem Reader’s report on the fuel the Imperials were using, which had met
with the derision and disbelief of his peers until he had shown them his tests. At last the Collegiates had been forced to admit that there was no hidden base nearby, allowing the Farsphex to
strike at them. Instead they were casually exceeding the feat of long-distance flight that Taki had been so proud of. They had been flying in from airfields within the Empire itself, fighting over
Collegium and then making their way home, all without needing to refuel. Where the miracle fuel oil came from, nobody seemed to know, but its effects were undeniable. Of course, as soon as the
Beetles understood this, the Imperials changed their game again. The attacks came more frequently, and at last it was clear that these were not simply successive, overlapping waves. The Second
Army, mopping up the last of the Felyal, was close enough for the Wasp aviators to use it as a safe base to refuel from. Taki guessed that they were now overnighting with the Second for two or
three raids before taking the long leg back home.

The war had not all gone the Empire’s way, however. A few nights ago, Taki and Edmon and a couple of others had taken a flight past the Second Army’s camp and brought down two supply
airships, which they hoped would set back the ground forces for a few days, putting them on short rations and depriving them of fuel and ammunition. The Farsphex had chased them off soon after, and
no doubt there would be a standing force of orthopters running escort from now on, but Taki didn’t mind. That meant fewer to attack the city.

After that, one of the College artificers installed the Great Ear atop the loftiest dome of the College roofscape, and the game got really interesting.

The Great Ear – as well as little Ears that all the Stormreaders had been fitting out with – was just one of those branches of artifice that nobody had ever really had much use for
previously. This was Collegium’s advantage, for academics of sufficient standing had always been allowed to pursue their pet projects, and at times such as these they came out of the woodwork
with inventions that their peers had laughed to scorn only tendays before. The Great Ear had been tuned to the drone of the Farsphex engines, and pointed roughly eastward, and when the first far
mumble of those machines came to it – long before any human ear could detect them – the Ear began to moan, emitting a distorted, amplified wail that sent people scattering from the
streets into cellars and bunkers and the strongest-walled buildings. At the same time, Taki and her fellows went rushing for their machines, casting them off into the night, listening over the
clatter of their clockwork for their fliers’ own little Ear, which caught the sound of the enemy and allowed the Collegiates to home in and tackle them away from the city, to deny the enemy
the chance to drop their bombs.

Sometimes it worked, and they held the enemy off. More often, at least some of the Imperials got through, and Collegium would suffer another night of fire.

Flying off into the vast trackless night to find and engage the enemy had seemed like a fool’s errand to Taki, but in practice it had proved more effective than it should have, the
Imperial pilots’ pinpoint discipline losing its edge during their nocturnal battles, even if some flights of Farsphex were able to break to perform for their bombing run. After the third
clash, Taki had realized an extra advantage that the Collegiate tactic had stripped from the enemy.
They have maps, of course, to guide their bombardiers. They use the plan of our own city to
coordinate with each other. Out over the open ground, they have only their relative positions in the air to rely on.

She was not sure when Collegium had become ‘our city’, but Solarno these days seemed only a distant dream.

The
Esca Magni
’s Ear buzzed louder as Taki searched the skies, looking for moonlight on metal or shapes passing before the stars. There was a stuttering flash from her left –
Edmon signalling
Enemy sighted
– and she trusted his judgement and followed as he changed course, passing on the signal to her right as she did so. With luck, most of the Stormreaders
would keep up, especially her tyros. For all the excitement, for all the fact that her blood only sang in her veins this way when she was airborne and fighting, these battles
killed.
The
Empire had lost its share of Farsphex, but the Collegiate pilots were still bearing more of the brunt, and both sides were surely having to bring up recruits who were not truly ready for the war.
Some would be honed by such experience, others would falter, and some of those would die. The Wasps had their own support network, the touch of mind to mind to guide their newcomers. For the
Collegiates, each experienced pilot was tailed by a pair of tyros who would do their best to stay with them, following their lead. It was an uncertain business, but it was all the nursemaiding that
they could afford.

There.
And she caught what Edmon had seen, even as her Ear’s buzz changed tone and grew in urgency, a language she had learned within a single night and precise enough to help her
aim her weapons. Edmon was climbing, relaying no signals now in an attempt to remain unseen, but she could tell from their shifting formation that the Farsphex had already spotted at least some of
the oncoming Collegiate orthopters. They scattered, spaced out in threes and fours, attempting to widen their formation into a trap for their enemies to fly into. Taki reached for height too,
hoping to come down from above them. Each side tried to adjust to the adjustments the other was making, and neither had the advantage as their formations were abruptly passing through one
another.

Taki let fly with her rotaries, spitting silver bolts into the darkness, trailing one target, then abruptly switching to lead the next, feeling in her gut that she had scored at least a few
solid strikes, but with no evidence to back her up. Her tyros clung to her, shooting intermittently, and she only hoped that they wouldn’t get too keen and shoot
her
while they were at
it. She had lost Edmon and his entourage, but to her right she had a glimpse of a wheeling shape turning too tightly to be the enemy, and she followed that turn, coming in to support whoever it
was.

Somewhere up ahead there erupted a flash that hurt her eyes, the accompanying retort of it following a moment later. Then one of the Collegiate craft was on fire, instantly transformed into a
blazing wreck and dropping into a steep dive, wings still battering even as they burned.
Some new weapon.
A numb thought: that the Imperial artificers still had more to give. Then something
bright lashed past her, a miss by thirty yards but still feeling too close, and she turned towards its origin, opening up with a steady stream of bolts and seeing the Farsphex there trying to pull
up above her aim, but too slowly, letting her latch on like a tick and bore away at it. Another bright flare, and she jerked aside instinctively, reflexes saving her as something blazed past her
wingtips.
Incendiary ballista set amidships, operated by the bombardier
, registered briefly in her mind, filed for later consideration.
No time now.