The Air War (74 page)

But none of them had. Her tradecraft had been her pass in the end. She was gone.

He wasted a great deal of time then, by dashing about the outside of the tent, making sudden rushes in this direction, then in that, as if he would find her just a few paces away, pausing for
breath and clutching her wound,
waiting for him.
First, though, before all that furious, undirected, futile action, he just stood and
hurt
. Laszlo the pirate, grinning factor for the
Tidenfree
crew, a girl in every port so long as he had the coin, and he was hurting for her, for his lost te Liss. He had never felt such a tearing before. In its wake, he felt that he would
never quite see the world in the same way.

After all that, all the futile battering at the windowpanes of fate, he returned to where she had slept and there found her message.

It was tucked into her discarded bedroll, and anyone could have found it, but nobody else would have understood.

Laszlo felt his heart leap at that last line.
We’ll meet again. I’ll find her or she’ll find me.
And then the first two lines took on meaning and his eyes widened.

She
could mean only one thing: the Wasp agent who had dealt Lissart such a wound in the first place, she was here in the camp.

He glanced about him. There were Beetle women everywhere, of course there were. But he had already
seen
the Wasp spy – seen her come after Lissart to finish her off. He calmed
himself, unhinged his memories, sorting through them for that night that was surely engraved on his mind.

A moment later and he was outside the infirmary tent and peering about him, from face to face. There was a spy in the camp, up to unknowable mischief, and only he could find her.

In her fragmentary and barely remembered dream she was in the air, in a storm, the high winds battering at the framework of the
Esca Volenti
until every part of the
loyal machine seemed on the point of coming away from every other. In the midst of wrestling with controls that were suddenly unresponsive in her grip, she was yanked from sleep, shaken into abrupt
and uncomprehending wakefulness, unsure of where she was or why.

‘Taki! Mistress Taki!’ someone was shouting.
Mistress?
But of course, that was how the Collegiates talked, not knowing any better, and what was that dreadful noise?

She sat bolt upright, slapping away the Beetle girl who had woken her.
The Ear!
‘How long did you let me sleep?’

In a moment she was out of her bunk, standing barefoot on the cold floor, in just her shift. She felt leadenly tired, disoriented, as though she had gone to bed only a moment before.

‘Mistress Taki, they’re coming!’ The girl – Taki could not recall her real name but identified her as ‘Still-too-fat-to-be-a-pilot’, one of the newer recruits
– was a study in wide-eyed panic.

Taki cursed, dragging on her canvas overalls and snagging her chitin and leather helm from the floor. ‘You should have woken me an hour ago at least,’ she snapped, storming up out of
the underground barracks into the common room . . . and stopping.

Broad, glorious daylight sang through the high windows.

‘Right,’ she said, to nobody in particular. A score of pilots were looking at her expectantly, most of their field’s complement.

‘Where’s Corog? Master Breaker, I mean. Where’s everyone else?’ she demanded, striving to clear her head.

‘Out on the field with their machines,’ someone told her, and another put in, ‘The Mynans want to take off, but we’ve no orders . . .’

‘
Orders?
’ Taki demanded. ‘Just go, morons! Get into the air!’ And she herself led the charge, wings skimming her up and out to the airfield, darting for the open
cockpit of the
Esca Magni.
She saw the rest of the pilots all around, some arguing with ground crew, others already in their machines, wings warming up slowly. Edmon gave her a nod, before
bringing his hatch down.

‘Hold! Nobody take to the air!’ Corog Breaker was rushing across the field, waving his arms like a man trying to catch a departing airship. ‘I’ll have the hide off anyone
that dares fly!’

Edmon rammed his hatch up again, staring at the old man with disgust. ‘No,’ he shouted back, ‘this time we fly. This time we fight the Wasps, even if your people won’t.
Who’s with me, eh?’

There was a lot of shouting then from Mynans and Collegiates both, and Edmon had clearly carried the vote.

‘You just listen to me!’ Corog Breaker still had a fine old voice, when he needed to use it. ‘Yes, we fight! But you listen here, special orders from Stenwold Maker. Nobody
gets aloft until they’ve heard them.’

Edmon scowled belligerently, but waited.

‘Just listen, because you have to get this right,’ Corog urged them all. ‘We’re not bearding them beyond the walls this time. We let them come to us.’ As the murmur
of discontent started up again he raised his arms to quieten them. ‘Oh, we fight. When they come over the city, we hold them, but it’s more than that. We need to concentrate them, as
much as we can. Engage, take the bastards down if you can, but bring all of them over the city’s heart.’ He glanced back at the scroll he was clutching, breath catching from the run,
trying himself to assimilate the instructions. ‘Now listen,’ he continued. ‘The Ear is going to sound again, you understand. You have to listen for it. During the fight, the Ear
will sound, and that’s your signal.’

‘Signal for what, Corog?’ Taki asked him.

The old Master Armsman’s expression was openly baffled. ‘Get out of the sky. Land as soon as you can, on roofs, in the street, crash if you have to. Just get out of the sky. You have
to hold them, keep them off the city, until the artificers and Stenwold Maker reckon we’ve got our best shot. Then you down your machines as soon as the Ear sounds, and . . .’

‘And what?’ Taki pressed.

‘If you’re still in the sky right then, you’ll find out the hard way,’ was all that he would say. ‘Now get in your fliers. If your regular machine’s with the
artificers for the ground-attack refit, get yourself in a spare one. If there’s none left, cheer us on.’ A proportion of the Stormreaders were being modified following some new
requirement from Stenwold Maker or the Speaker or someone: some were still in the workshop being fitted out.

Corog crumpled the scroll and glanced at his own machine. ‘We have a little time now, because we’re letting them come to us. Make sure your machines are fully wound and ready. Nobody
heads off half-sprung. Know this: best guess says that they’ll come all together, everything they can put in the air. Ready yourselves for that, as best you can.’

The Ear continued its melancholy drone, and they took to their machines more soberly now – the entire remaining might that Collegium could put in the air. Taki looked around her, thinking
about just how many Farsphex the Empire might have to throw at them, and how difficult engaging them for even a short time was going to be without suffering heavy losses. Around her, although she
might forget names, she knew every face, as familiar as her old flying comrades from Solarno, most of whom had died in the last war while retaking her city from the Empire. But Solarno now sat
under Imperial and Spider colours again, and so what had been the
point
?

She was acutely conscious that this would probably be the last sight she had of many of these people: Mynan airmen, Collegiate student aviators, volunteer academics, merchant pilots turned to
war, artificers and tradesmen retrained in the city’s time of desperate need. It might equally be their last sight of her.

She was scared, and the sudden fear mingled with the old excitement that an aerial duel had always inspired in her.
I may die, but at least I live first, and show me a better death.

And, out over the rugged land that separated Collegium from the Second Army, the Farsphex were closing.

General Tynan had listened to every word that Aarmon and Cherten had to say, sitting there with Mycella of the Aldanrael at his right hand, his trusted adviser. With his eyes half-closed, he had
heard them both out, taken in every scrap of evidence or supposition, leaping to no conclusions but setting out the facts in his head with the same patient care that had guided his career as an
officer.

‘You think it’s a trap,’ he had remarked to Aarmon.

‘I think they have husbanded all their strength for tonight, to destroy as many of us as they can, sir. I think they know they must cripple our airpower, for their own to have a chance
against your army tomorrow,’ the pilot had confirmed.

‘And you, Colonel?’

‘I think we have our orders, sir,’ had come Cherten’s response, ‘and both my spies and those of the Spiders are reporting that they are simply running out of working
machines to put in the air – conserving their strength for the siege.’

‘The nature of the trap, Major?’

‘New technology or reinforcements for the air,’ Aarmon had guessed. ‘Better orthopters, perhaps, or Sarnesh machines or pilots to counter our . . . advantage.’ For the
mindlink was still not a matter to be openly spoken of. ‘Their pilots are as good as ours, sir. Their machines are, too. If they could ambush us with twice the number, say, or three times,
they could crush our largest raiding party, perhaps stop even one Farsphex escaping.’

Tynan had blinked. ‘And if it was more than just a raiding party? You know the Colonel wants a massed bombing raid.’

‘Depends on their strength, sir, but, even if they outnumber us, we have the advantage. We fight together in the air.’

For a long time, Tynan had stared at the straight-backed pilot standing to attention before him, and then Mycella had leant in and whispered something to him. Aarmon had felt Colonel
Cherten’s instant disapproval and frustration – that there were counsels he was being excluded from – but Tynan had simply listened, his eyes flicking up briefly to Aarmon.

Mycella’s last words had been loud enough for them all to hear: ‘After all, we know about traps, my people.’

And Tynan had looked Aarmon in the eye and said, ‘How soon can you be airborne, all of you?’

In the echo of Aarmon’s answer, he had then turned to Cherten. ‘Double our speed towards Collegium. Their army’s out there and they think they have a day at least until we
clash. That’s a lie. We clash
today.
Abandon the baggage and support here, and move out our soldiers, automotives and the siege train right now. We’re going to war.’

Under great protest, Nishaana had been left behind with just four orthopters, a token force to defend the army. If the Collegiates did choose to attack Tynan on the march, even
as the Imperial fliers struck their city, then the Second would have to scatter, protect its machines as well as they could, and have one of Nishaana’s people make best speed for Collegium to
call the fliers back. Aarmon reckoned that the Collegiates were desperate enough to try it, but Cherten had been dismissive.

Pingge knew Aarmon’s thoughts, relayed through Scain’s murmuring them even as they came to him. Whether or not the Collegiates had reinforcements or some new device, the Wasp
aviators knew that Collegiate air power would be the greatest threat to any besieging force, and Collegiate control of the sky would make taking the city near-impossible. War had changed in so few
years, but they, the Air Corps and their Collegiate rivals, were at the cutting edge, the masters of the storm.

Their orders were to destroy the enemy air power. Bombing the city was secondary and, for greater speed in the air, they carried a reduced load of explosives, enough for a few hard passes should
the chance arise.

‘Nearing,’ Scain said, loud enough for her to know it was meant for her ears.

Carefully she set to loading and spanning the little ballista they had bolted onto her hatch. A sudden buffet of air sent her lurching her forwards, an explosive-tipped bolt tumbling out into
the night. The chain was taut about her ankle, catching her before she needed her wings. Many of the pilots had wanted to forgo the chains, but back in Capitas the engineers had ensured that the
stigmatizing protocol was adhered to, and Colonel Cherten proved to be their brother in diligence in the Second Army’s camp. For herself, Pingge had felt the benefit of it more than once,
when being jolted and rattled about in the heat of an aerial battle. For all her Art, if she had been flung from the Farsphex, she could never have regained her place.

She looked into the reticule, seeing Collegium ahead, landmarks that were as familiar to her now as to a native, it almost seemed, but less so in daylight. ‘They didn’t
launch,’ she called, against the rush of air. There had been no Collegiate blockade to meet them halfway to the city, but then halfway to the city was not very far at all this time. The
Second Army – the Gears – had made its signature steady progress west, and now its goal was in sight. Pingge was looking at it, even then.

If the Collegiates had attempted such a blockade, they would have been outmanoeuvred. Aarmon had divided his force into three, approaching the city from east, north and south, the latter two to
double back west if they met no resistance over the city itself, and thus catch their enemy in the rear. Now it seemed as though all three wings would meet over Collegium, their mind-link allowing
them to intermesh effortlessly.

‘Light bombing to draw them out,’ Scain murmured Aarmon’s words, and then his own response, ‘Will do, sir,’ before pitching his voice up, ‘Pick a target,
Pings. Wake them up—’ and almost immediately, ‘No need! They come!’

The Fly-kinden scout attracted some notice by diving out of a clear sky, shrugging off the challenges of sentries, her arms held up to ward of reprisals as she skidded to her
feet in the centre of the Collegium camp. By that time enough had seen her Maker’s Own sash, and a few more had recognized her face, so she was allowed to pick herself up and take a quick
glance to get her bearings. A moment later her wings were skimming her towards the command tent.