The Air War (62 page)

‘Master Gripshod, let’s make this quick.’

He followed the man back into his room, noting that although Banjacs was being kept under house arrest, there was no comfort involved. The room was bare of ornament, the furniture unkempt and
old: only a bed, a desk, a chair, a few shelves of books. Pale outlines on the walls suggested that it had once been a more congenial place. Apparently, Banjacs had been steadily selling off the
family chattels for decades.

‘You,’ the old man was muttering. ‘Of all of them – you look ahead.
I
look ahead, you see. I saw it all, just like you did – but before you were born even!
How’d you like that, then, Maker? Before you were ever born I saw where we’d come to!’ Without warning he was jabbing an accusing finger at Stenwold. ‘Oh, you’re the
War Master, but I was there first and I warned them.’

‘Before I was . . . ?’ Stenwold was already regretting not leaving immediately. ‘You saw what, Master Gripshod? What did you warn them about?’

‘Why, this.’ Banjacs’s hands embraced some all-encompassing whole. ‘What I see from my window every night: the city on fire, death from the air.
This.
’

Ah well, just lunacy after all.
‘You foresaw the Wasp Empire’s attack before I was born? Of course you did.’

‘Don’t patronize me, Maker! The Wasps? Who cares about the Wasps? It could have been anyone, you hear me? But I knew from the start that it would come to this. I stood there at
Clifftops, barely more than a boy and already with my College accredits. I saw Morless’s
Mayfly
over the city, do you understand? And what I could never understand was why nobody else
grasped it. Once you have
that
then it will lead to
this.
’

‘Hold on, slow down.’ Stenwold looked the wild old man in the eyes and was about to take advantage of the ensuing pause to dismiss him utterly, when something lodged in his head.
‘Clifftops?
Morless?
’ Names from the history books, but Banjacs was
old
, and a trip back in time of sixty years would leave him about the age that he claimed, and . .
.

Every student knew that Lial Morless had piloted the first heavier-than-air flying machine in the world, right here in Collegium. Stenwold crossed wordlessly to the window and stared out. Down
the street was a house with buckled walls, the upper storey having half-tumbled into the street, courtesy of the Empire’s Farsphex.

‘Master Gripshod,’ he began, and then, ‘Banjacs, if I may, tell me what you mean.’

‘We were never meant to fly,’ Banjacs told him softly, unexpectedly close by his shoulder. ‘We were never creatures of the air. We still aren’t. The airships were bad
enough, but at least they’re slow. The orthopters and the like, I
knew
they would bring this on us – it could have been Ants or Wasps or Bees or even our own people, but once the
tools were in the world . . . Death from the skies, Maker, it was always going to happen. Since the day I saw Morless fly, I’ve been trying to find a way . . .’

‘A way to what?’ Stenwold rounded on him.
Impossible
, was the thought in his mind.
Just a madman
. But these were mad times.

‘To defend ourselves. Defend our city. My machine . . .’

‘You’ve shown us what your machine can do, and it was nothing to do with defending the city,’ Stenwold pointed out.

‘
Listen!
That was just a discharge from the lightning batteries, a side effect. But it needs to be finished. It’s not ready. All those years, and I wasn’t ready . .
.’

Those last words finally struck home, for Stenwold had thought just the same when the Wasps had brought war against them the first time.

‘Look at my machine,’ Banjacs went on. ‘See it for what it is. Let me complete it, Maker. I am so close.’

Impossible
, came the familiar old refrain, but Stenwold found it hard to discern what might be impossible these days.

There was some attempt at cheering, but Collegium had no grand tradition of military send-offs, nor did Beetle-kinden have any great belief that dying in battle was in some way
better than dying in bed. The proud martial heritage of Ants and Mantids was lost on them. They marched to war with the same pragmatism with which they did everything.

Maker’s Own Company was already assembled into divisions of two hundred each, Collegium’s finest of all kinden moving off along the Pathian Way to reassemble outside the city. Ahead
of them, the bulk of the automotives were on the move, deploying left and right of the roadway beyond the walls. Some had been armoured and mounted with weapons for the mechanized attack that was
planned, whilst others were little better than livestock carriers to take Collegium’s soldiers to the fray.

The Coldstone Company was still assembling, ordering itself by best guess and rough democracy into the smaller fifty-man maniples that Marteus favoured. As sub-officer, the Antspider had one of
these to look after, and she marched up and down in front of her soldiers, barking orders at people and pointing with her sword as though she was a lordly Arista and not just a halfbreed given
temporary rank. The dignity was feigned, but she felt that running about and shouting was not fitting for her current station.

Her soldiers were all nervous, their mood on a knife-edge between anticipation and fear. All around them, watching every stumble and jogged elbow, were the crowds, a great mass of
Collegium’s citizens, yet quiet, eerily quiet. Straessa watched the men and women of Coldstone Company bid farewell to their families and friends before each finding their place: here was
gathered a host of wives and husbands, parents and children, all of whom had lived through the last war. This should have been nothing new to them. Many would remember sending these same soldiers
off to fight at Malkan’s Folly with the Sarnesh, whilst others had stayed at home to hold off this same Imperial army two years before. Now, though, they watched in near-silence, as though
draining every last moment from the sight, sucking it dry of memory.

It is because they thought they’d won last time, but here the Empire is, indefatiguable and insatiable. Where will it end?

A new train of automotives ground past, their engines shockingly loud in contrast, the subdued crowd eddying back to give them space. The Antspider caught a glimpse of that absurdly big
Khanaphir who suddenly seemed to be in charge of the mechanized assault, standing up to survey the city he was leaving, whilst a woman she knew as Mistress Rakespear of the artifice faculty did the
driving. In the next vehicle was a youngish woman with the blue-grey skin of Myna, whom Straessa knew must be their leader-in-exile, Kymene. There was a sizeable contingent of Mynan soldiers who
would be fighting alongside the Merchant Companies, eager to get their teeth into their hated enemy.

‘All present and correct, Sub,’ the report came to her, dragging her back to the matter in hand. Gerethwy was standing forward from the others. ‘We can march out as soon as the
Maker’s Own are through the gates.’

‘Stand ready,’ the Antspider confirmed, officer to subordinate. Then she met his eyes directly. Written there for her eyes to translate was the thought,
We are utter fools,
aren’t we?
and she nodded slowly. ‘What’s that you’ve got there?’ she enquired, for, carried sloping over his shoulder, was something larger and more complex than
a snapbow.

‘Foundry-pattern mechanized snapbow,’ Gerethwy reported proudly. ‘Every squad gets one of these, or else a nailbow, or something like it.’

‘How come you get to carry it?’ she asked, mock-jealous. Their banter cut at some part of her – so like and yet not like the old days that seemed years ago now, but she clung
to it.

‘I showed them my accredits as an artificer, didn’t I?’ the Woodlouse-kinden told her proudly.

‘You brought your accredits to a war?’

He shrugged with one shoulder, keeping the fearsome-looking weapon steady. ‘That’s why I have this lovely toy, Sub.’

‘Straessa,’ someone interrupted.

She had been expecting the voice, but something lurched inside her when she heard it. She turned to find them: Eujen and Averic, come at last to see her off.

For all the destruction that had happened and the combat that was due, fighting for calm just then proved the hardest part of all. She wanted to run to them, to embarrass herself in front of her
squad by venting the feelings that were boiling up inside her. She wanted to quit the army and simply stay here with Eujen, as if that would be any safer for either of them.

Instead she regarded them with affected coolness and a slight smile, her weight cocked on one hip, her arms folded. ‘Made it, then?’ she observed, and her voice remained steady.
‘Purple’s a good colour for you,’ she added, for they both now wore the sashes of Eujen’s Student Company.

‘It was the only colour we could get in bulk,’ he replied, doing his best to match her reserve, and not quite managing it. ‘Straessa . . .’

‘How’d you like my soldiers, eh?’ Her smile was fragile and brave.

Eujen just stared at her, and in his eyes was the time, ticking down. It looked as though the whole of the Coldstone Company had milled itself into place now, she reckoned.
And still I
can’t find the words.
Averic was no help, not even meeting her eyes.

There sounded the tramp of marching feet, altogether too regular for anything under her command, and the Mynan exiles began to pass through: grim, determined men and women, professional in their
red and black helms and breastplates. Seeing them, Straessa almost despaired.
And we’ve got shopkeepers and tailors and artificers’ apprentices. Dress them in buff coats, it
doesn’t make them soldiers.

Us. It doesn’t make
us
soldiers.

She turned back to Eujen, abruptly fearing that he would be gone, and caught his arm that was held half-out towards her. The casual pose was beginning to hurt, deep inside, but at the same time
she could not make herself abandon it.

‘Straessa . . .’ he began again.

‘Gerethwy brought his accredits, can you believe that?’ she remarked brightly, inwardly appalled at the trite nonsense she was uttering.

Eujen swallowed, and she felt the moment fray and snap, the weight of an army about to march pulling her away from him. Then someone blundered into them both, making Averic start back, hands
momentarily raised, and Raullo Mummers, disenfranchised artist, was hugging them both, tears streaming down his face. ‘You hear me? You look after yourself. No more funerals,’ he
mumbled. ‘Come back, come back, that’s all.’ He was reeling drunk, as he had been for much of the time since his studio burned, hugging Eujen fiercely enough to force the breath
out of him.

‘
I’m
not going,’ Eujen snapped at him.

‘No?’ Raullo blinked, bewildered, then he goggled at the Antspider. ‘You, my favourite model, off to the wars?’

Straessa’s gesture managed to indicate all the military motley she wore.

The artist was abruptly transformed into overripe gravitas. ‘Then come back, and I shall sketch you. For you alone, I will sketch. And if you don’t . . . never, never again.’
He lurched, hands out to forestall any help, then slouched into Averic.

A shout went up, from the head of the column, Marteus calling the lead squads to order.

‘Come back,’ Eujen echoed.

‘Do my best,’ she promised.

Averic muttered something and took a step back, still encumbered by Raullo’s weight.

‘Keep the place in one piece until we see it again,’ Gerethwy called over to them, one hand raised in salute. ‘Come on, Sub, they’re starting to move.’

Her calm snapped at that moment, and she lunged forward and threw her arms about Eujen before he could stop her, a brief, fierce embrace. ‘See you right here, I swear it,’ she
hissed, and then she was running back for her own people. ‘Come on, ranks, you slipshod bastards! Oi, Gorenn! You, Commonweal Retaliation Army or whatever you call yourself! Just because
you’ve got a bow’s no excuse for being out of position!’ She put some real fire into it, to burn away the tears that were threatening the corners of her eyes. By the time she had
rejoined her maniple, they were in as neat a square as she could have wished, snapbows and pikes shouldered.

‘Mind if I march with you, dear?’

The Antspider glanced down to see Sartaea te Mosca, Fly-kinden associate Master of the Inapt studies department, unarmed but hefting a pack about her shoulders that seemed far too large for
her.

‘They reckon we might come across some dangerous inscriptions, or something?’ Straessa asked her.

‘Seconded to the faculty of medicine, dear one,’ te Mosca revealed. ‘All hands to the pumps, I think, is the Apt phrase for it.’

‘You’d better be able to keep up,’ Straessa told her mock-sternly, and then there was nothing for it – the squads in front were stuttering into motion, a brief confusion
of soldiers trying to find the right foot.

‘And off we go!’ the Antspider snapped out, and a hundred soldiers heard her words, and set out to war.

Averic watched them go, feeling paralysed, the words of the intelligence officer, Gesa, rattling about in his skull like dice. He was even glad for the wine-reeking burden of
Raullo on his arm, because his new knowledge was surely written on his face in letters of shame and guilt, so that even Eujen, idealistic to a fault, would read them there.

Traitor
, went the cry, and it seemed to him that the blade was cutting both ways: traitor to Collegium for not telling them what he knew; traitor to his own people for harbouring even
these eroding doubts. He had tried to stand with a foot in two worlds, and ended up in neither, merely a halfbreed of the mind.

Then he saw her, marching past in the uniform of a Coldstone soldier: the same woman, Gesa the Wasp in halfbreed’s clothing, undetected and unremarked, seemingly just one more soldier. She
was marching to war in Straessa’s own Company, one of the rush of recruits that had flocked to the army after the Felyal was burned. Averic felt himself shaking.