The Air War (80 page)

The Fly-kinden was off in a moment, wings taking him straight up and through the gaping skylight that would serve as the aperture of Banjacs’s great weapon.

‘Let us only be in time,’ Stenwold added, so quietly that perhaps only the two students overheard him.

There was a shout from the doors, and a moment later they were kicked in. The body of a Company soldier fell through them and, the next second, a band of men came forcing their way in, snapbows
and swords in hand, with a burn-scarred Beetle leading the charge.

There was fighting further down the line. Straessa could see that the troops to her far left were engaged in melee already, and that did not bode well at all. Her own maniple
and its neighbours seemed to have fallen into an uneasy stand-off, the Imperial troops still reforming but refusing either to commit to the fray or just to go away. Straessa’s people were
still shooting bolts at them, letting the Wasps know that they were still within range, but Gerethwy was reporting little harm done.

‘Well now,’ he said at Straessa’s shoulder, studying them again through his glass. ‘I think we’re about to get the hammer, frankly.’

‘Tell me.’

‘You can see how they’ve a mass of Airborne there – and their infantry has formed into smaller detachments, a bit like ours really only rather more of them.’ He sounded
overly at ease, as if at pains to seem casual. Given his usual effortless calm, she read volumes of emotion into that. ‘They have a whole load of Spider-kinden skirmishers too, some sort of
Ants and some Scorpions, but they’re getting them all in better order this time. I think . . .’ he coughed away a little dust, or that was the impression he tried hard to give, ‘I
think they’re ready for us now.’

‘I don’t reckon we could do all that shifting and changing,’ Straessa remarked philosophically. It was dawning on everyone that everything up until now – the Wasp dead,
the repulsed charges – had barely bloodied the Second Army: no more than a testing of the waters. Now the Imperial general had determined a suitable response to what was no doubt a slightly
novel variation on some textbook tactical problem.

‘In fact,’ even Gerethwy’s careful voice had a quaver in it now, ‘I’d say that in three . . . two . . . ah, yes.’ And abruptly the milling crowd of Light
Airborne redoubled in size, soldiers kicking themselves into the sky with their Art in a great unordered mass, whilst below them the ground forces began their advance, the loose screen of
skirmishers rushing ahead of the slower blocks of Imperial infantry and shielding them from the snapbow shot that was sleeting down on them.

‘Pick your marks. Fire at will,’ Straessa ordered, because the oncoming Spiders and their allies were so spread that volley fire would be like punching at mist. The Empire had given
up a fair extent of ground when its soldiers fell back, but the skirmish line was coming on fast, rushing to close with the Collegiates and silence their snapbows as swiftly as possible. Around
Straessa, the pikemen stirred and braced themselves, watching that oncoming tide.

‘Rear ranks, shoot at the Airborne.’
And any moment there’ll be an order, and everything will change. Advance, probably, given the record so far.
The Spider-kinden were
nearer now and, to the right, a closer-knit band of copper-skinned Ants were loosing their own short-barrelled weapons as they approached, more to spoil their enemies’ aim than a serious
attempt at killing.
Any moment now.

She heard the whistles one after each other.
Retreat! Stand and fire!

‘Oh, bollocks,’ she said softly, looking about her to see how the other maniples had taken it. As she might have expected, some were already pulling back, either into clear space or
pressing against the troops behind them, Others were standing firm, often with both neighbours abruptly stripped from them, and Straessa saw her own leftmost neighbour stand, the wide eyes of its
sub-officer show white as the man looked wildly around him. To her right the block was already pulling back.

‘Sub, getting real close,’ Gerethwy said. Around her, her soldiers were shooting and reloading, shooting and reloading, smooth as a drill because they trusted her ability to make
decisions.

And if she stood and fought, she would be supporting her fellows. The pride of Collegium did not enter into it. There were other maniples now depending on her, as they had been relying on their
fellows who were already falling back.

And if she retreated, then some of her people might live.

Piss on you, Marteus. Why aren’t you here to make the call?

She put her whistle to her lips and blew the signal:
Retreat! Retreat!
She could only hope her neighbours took the hint.

Moving backwards in square formation was not something that could be done at speed, but they were setting new records right then, their order fraying slightly with every step. She saw, to her
lasting horror, that the maniple that had been on her left was
not
pulling back along with them, but standing firm, shooting and reloading.

Her people were saving their shot for the Airborne already coursing overhead, and the leading edge of the skirmishers would reach them soon anyway. All around her the Collegiate army was losing
its cohesion. She saw the first few soldiers simply start to run, drawing the Airborne after them.

‘Hold firm and keep together!’ she yelled, but she was still watching that other maniple, its commander either too stupid or too much of a hero to pull back. She saw the skirmishers
break over it for a moment like foam on the sea, and then it was overwhelmed, surrounded, the soldiers fighting with shortsword and pike and the weapons of their Art, and fewer and fewer, the
opposing numbers and skill at arms eating into their formation and gutting it.

‘Steady!’ Gerethwy almost snapped. He had the Foundry snapbow levelled again at the onrushing skirmishers, awkwardly feeding the tape himself whilst another soldier steadied the
barrel, even as they fell back with increasingly swift and ragged steps. And: ‘Now.’

The mechanized weapon hammered out its ugly tune, and this time he just let the mouth swing wildly, ripping across the swiftly approaching skirmishers, cutting down a dozen nimble Spider-kinden,
before raking into the band of Ants beyond them. Straessa looked about her, noticing that they were amongst more Collegiates now – the rear maniples that had been held in reserve, unsure of
what was happening but now hastily readying themselves for battle.

‘Hold now!’ she ordered her soldiers. ‘Hold and—’ and then the skirmishers were just a dozen feet from them and something slapped across her scalp hard enough to
send her reeling, and her left ear was ringing with shock. Staggering, she looked about to see that Gerethwy was down, his breastplate and coat dabbled with blood.
Shot?
The truth came to
her in the next instant, even as she was hauling her sword from its scabbard. Jagged pieces of the Foundry snapbow lay all about him, the barrel twisted where it had met the mechanism.
Jammed,
and then some.

‘Stretcher!’ she yelled, her voice shrill above the sounds of battle. The Woodlouse-kinden was curled about his hand, or what the exploding weapon had left of it.
We’re
going to stand and fight and die now, because we can’t pull back fast enough to get clear. But maybe you can get out, Gerethwy. Maybe I can accomplish that much.

Then the first of the Spider-kinden were upon them, leading with rapiers and short spears, and by old habit she found her swiftly drawn sword falling into a perfect duellist’s line,
fending aside an oncoming blade and then, even as the attacker tried to pull back, playing her old Prowess Forum trick of flexing her game shoulder forwards for those few critical inches of extra
reach, only this time it put the point of her weapon through her surprised opponent’s eye.

This experience seemed real in a way that the snapbows had not, but she had no chance to reflect on it just then. Her instincts clamoured at her,
Survive! Just survive!
And the only
chance for that was her sword, the slender barrier between her and death.

The
Esca Magni
skipped through the air, zigzagging desperately as Taki felt the little impacts that were the outliers of a stream of piercer bolts trying to close in on
her. There were at least two Farsphex behind her now, each taking a turn in following her twists and gyres while the other tried to come at her from below or above. The aerial battlefield wheeled
before her, sometimes populated, sometimes not. When it was busy, she saw mostly the enemy, and the friends she did see were engaged in the same fierce flight as she was.

What the blazes is Maker playing at?
But it was looking as though she would never find out. Chance and skill and mechanical superiority were eroding around her, moment to moment. The
Wasps only needed to get lucky the once.

Abruptly another Stormreader shot across her nose, engaged in furious evasive flight – one of the Mynans from the colours. Something snapped in Taki then, the Exalsee warrior-pilot in her
suddenly shouldering aside the cautious air-tactician she had become.

Curse the lot of them
, she swore, and wrenched the
Esca
sideways after the Farsphex that was on the Mynan’s tail.

She knew she had no time and that she was laying herself open, that the orthopter in her sights would have been warned – was already taking evasive action and drawing her into a line that
would see her cut up by her pursuers’ shot.
Stupid. Hopeless
. And she dragged all the power she could out of the
Esca
’s springs and leapt forwards, her twinned rotaries
blazing bolts, and the cockpit of the Farsphex exploded in broken glass and wood fragments, and the vessel dived purposefully for the earth with the pilot’s dead weight against the
controls.

There’s one for Corog.
Then she was flinging herself madly through the air, higher and higher, because the pursuing Wasps were on her, and fighting mad now, their comrade dying in
their very minds.
Oh, I went and poked your nest, did I? Well, see how you like it!

She darted higher, the city spread out like a model beneath her, smouldering where the bombs had struck. She had a brief impression of the battle about her: dozens of circling Farsphex, but so
few of Collegium’s own. Had the Empire devastated the Collegiate numbers so thoroughly while she was not paying attention?

She tried to dive back down, and for a handful of seconds was engaged in a mad spiralling battle for control with one of the chasing Farsphex. Levelling out for a moment, she saw a couple of
Stormreaders, not fighting but dropping – plunging recklessly down into the streets, heedless of the enemy or the bombs or . . .

What’s that noise?

It had been sounding for some time, she realized. It was familiar, though she had not heard it from quite this perspective, competing with the rush and clatter of an aerial fight while she was
over the city itself. It was the Great Ear.

For a moment she could not think why anyone would be sounding the Ear now, when the enemy had so very plainly already arrived. Then she remembered.

Oh, no, no, no!
Because that was the signal, the get-out-of-the-pissing-air signal, which meant Maker or whoever was ready to make something terrible happen.

Still cursing to herself, she rammed her
Esca
towards the ground, because if she was to die, let it be in the air, yes – but let it also be a pilot’s death. Whatever Maker had
in mind, whatever the artificers of the College had cooked up, she did not want to know. Most particularly she did not want to find out in person.

A staccato rattle of impacts into her undercarriage made her pull the stick back by instinct, heading up again – the second Farsphex had second-guessed her and was trying to drive her into
the aim of the first, but most crucially he was driving her away from the ground. How long had the Ear been sounding? How long did she have left? She tried to slip sideways, to lose them just long
enough to cut down below the rooftops, but she had gone too high and they were wise to her piloting now, and they would not let her go, would not let her down.

A panicking glance showed her no hope of reprieve. The bulk of the Collegiate machines were down – or downed – and those still in the air were sharing her plight: unable to get out
of the fighting without leaving it the hard way.

Frightened as she had not felt for a long time, she threw the
Esca
across the sky, never quite getting free of her pursuers, never quite able to push through the scythe of their shot to
land – even to crash. And all around her there were more of the enemy, and they all knew exactly where she was.

Straessa lunged again, spearing a lean Spider – old enough to be her father – in the shoulder, her point piercing between the plates of his chitin mail. Around her,
the bulk of her soldiers had resorted to their swords, with a few opportunists behind her still taking potshots with their bows, almost directly into the face of the enemy. The other maniples
around them were also locked into the fighting, or else had fled, running back towards the camp and what scant salvation could be found there. Every so often – so incongruous she would have
laughed – she heard someone sound the whistle for retreat, but the input of tacticians into this battle had come and gone. It was not even a matter of selling their lives dearly. The flesh
wanted to live, and could not be made to understand that this was no longer an option. So they fought, and shed the blood of their enemies just to buy mere minutes more for themselves.

Overhead, the Light Airborne were a constant curse, shooting or diving about the battlefield, but they seemed most concerned about chasing after the runners: whole fistfuls of the black and gold
stooping on the backs of fleeing Collegiate soldiers with sword and sting.

Then the Imperial infantry came. They struck over to Straessa’s right first, shouldering through the skirmishers and smashing into the already battered maniples with their close order and
their years of experience; the Collegiate line simply cracked and fell apart, individual maniples disintegrating within moments of their charge, dying or fleeing. The Wasp soldiers, already
bloodied in the initial exchange, were now recapturing their honour, solid, disciplined men in good armour going about their trade.