Adrian Tchaikovsky - Empire in Black and Gold

When Che had finished telling their story there was a stunned quiet for a moment.

‘Totho?’ Stenwold said at last, feeling hollow.

‘We have to assume he’s now with Salma, like his letter says. So when you hear from Tark, you’ll hear from him. We have to assume that.’

‘What alternative do we have?’ Stenwold agreed.

‘The lad’ll be fine,’ Scuto said. ‘Look at you all. Why the long faces?’ He leapt to his feet with a whoop. ‘Don’t you see it?’ he shouted. ‘We’re clear of the spy! Now you can tell us what’s going on, and we can sort it out. They’ve had us in a lock today. Now we’ll have them right back, right, chief?’

‘But I failed,’ Achaeos said. ‘The Skryres will only wait.’

Stenwold looked up at him, an odd light in his eyes. ‘And I have just what they’re waiting for,’ he said. Achaeos cocked an eyebrow at him. ‘It’s time to open everyone’s eyes,’ said the Beetle. He looked across the ragged band that was all that was left of his operation in Helleron. ‘Achaeos,’ he began.

‘I’m here.’

‘When I’m done talking, you’ll want to get back to Tharn by the quickest way possible and tell them what I plan. I hope it will be enough to tip the balance.’

He stood before them now just like a lecturer at the Great College. The sight brought a fond but painful echo of familiarity to Che and Tynisa both.

‘The Wasps are not here to attack Helleron — not yet,’ Stenwold continued. ‘They are attacking a much greater target. They are attacking the Lowlands as a whole. We’re all guilty of thinking like Lowlanders, not like Imperials. We were seeing the war city by city, because we know the Lowlands is divided. They see the war as a whole, because they fear the Lowlands becoming united. Scuto, tell me now about the Iron Road.’

‘What do you want to know, chief?’

‘When will the first train run?’

‘In a tenday, give or take.’

‘But when will it be ready to run? When will the track be laid, the engine ready?’

‘The engine’s ready now,’ Scuto said, mystified. ‘ Pride , she’s called, and a beautiful piece of engineering. She’ll run as soon as the last track’s in place.’

‘She will indeed,’ Stenwold confirmed. ‘But not at Helleron’s behest. Tell me more about the Pride . What’s her capacity, if you crammed her with passengers? How does she run?’

‘She’s got the latest engine from the College technologists, chief. A lightning engine , it’s called. The absolute knees, I can tell you. Really advanced stuff. As for capacity, they reckon five hundred, with all the luxury you can eat, but. . you mean people stashed in the cargo trucks as well? And ripping out the seats, all of that?’

Stenwold nodded.

‘Then. . Pack her to the gills, shoulder to shoulder, every carriage, and she’d haul around. .’ Scuto’s fingers moved in quick calculation, and then slowed, a nervous look coming into his eyes. ‘Around two, maybe two and a half thousand men, maybe even more. She’s got a lot of carriages.’

‘All the Wasps camped at our doorstep, on a rail automotive that will take them to Collegium faster than anything else. Collegium , not Helleron. Two thousand men, say, carried swiftly to the very heart of Collegium, swarming out with sword and sting, attacking the Assembly, attacking the College. The Lowlands needs to join together to stave off the Empire, and that union can only start with Collegium. Only in Collegium are all races and citizenries welcome. Only in Collegium are such ideas as a fair and free unity of the Lowlands mooted and practised. If the Wasps take the Pride , they can sack Collegium before the city’s allies even know about it. They can take control of the Assembly, instigate martial law. Even if we sent a Fly-kinden messenger at this very moment, he’d not race the train there if it left within two days. Even if we sent a fixed-wing the Assembly would still be debating the story when the Wasps arrived.’

‘Bloody spinning wheels,’ spat Scuto. ‘So what’s the plan, chief?’

Stenwold sighed heavily. ‘We attack the site. We destroy the Pride .’

There was a close, dead silence. They were his agents, but many of them were men and women of Helleron. What he was proposing would mean a death sentence here in this city if their involvement were ever known.

Scuto glanced from face to face, holding their eyes until he had exacted reluctant nods from all of his own people. ‘I reckon you’ve made your case, chief,’ he said at last. ‘I don’t think any of us is happy with the plan, but we all know Collegium. Enough of us studied our scrolls at the College, even. Now it’s time to pay for that privilege.’

‘And I now see why you want me to go back home,’ Achaeos put in.

‘Tell the Skryres of Tharn that Stenwold Maker of Collegium wants the Iron Road smashed, the engine destroyed. Tell them I ask their help, their raiders, for that very cause. No tricks, no traps. Whoever you can fetch, come with them to the south of the engine sheds at dusk. Fly now.’

Achaeos rose, gave him a little bow and then squeezed Che’s hand. ‘I’ll bring them or else I’ll come on my own,’ he announced. His wings unfurled, glittering in the light, and then he was gone, the hatch of the fallback in the ceiling slamming behind him.

Dusk came too soon, with a finality nobody was happy with. They made a ragged band, the wounds of the Wasp attack still unhealed. They had resupplied, taken everything that Scuto had laid down that might be any use to them. Stenwold had donned his hardwearing artificer’s leathers, a crossbow across his back and half a dozen hatched iron grenades carried in a bag at his belt. Beside him Scuto was in his warped armour with another sack of the dangerous toys, and a brand new repeater as well. There were spare magazines of bolts dangling from his spikes and from the straps of his armour.

Tisamon wore no more armour than his arming jacket, that had seen so many deaths and yet bore so few scars or scratches. He had found a similar garment for Tynisa, buckling it for her up the side with care, awl-punching new holes in the straps where they were needed so as to fit her slender frame. Stenwold looked at his adopted daughter, at Tisamon’s daughter, and knew that she had passed out of his hands. Not into her father’s but into her own. She was steering her own course in the world from now on.

And then there was Cheerwell, his niece, his flesh and blood, and in the time that the Wasps had taken her from him, she had grown up too. She stood by Scuto, wearing artificer’s armour like her uncle, and with a toolstrip on one hip balancing the sword on the other. She buckled a leather helmet on, protective goggles riding high on her forehead, and he barely recognized her.

Behind them the mobile remnant of Scuto’s agents was ready. Stenwold knew Balkus well enough: the Ant was a mercenary rather than a loyal agent but he owed Scuto and he took his debt of honour seriously. Then there was Rakka, whose right hand had been forfeit to imperial justice and who had not forgotten or forgiven. Sperra the Fly carried her crossbow and a kit of bandages and salves, in case the chance came to use them. Beyond her there were a grab-bag of Beetles, Flies, Ant-kinden and one halfbreed, Scuto’s last surviving agents from the city, now drawn together here for safe keeping. They bore crossbows, swords, grenades and a piecemeal approach to armour. One of the Beetle-kinden had a blunderbow, its flared mouth already loaded with shrapnel. Another wore most of a suit of sentinel plate, massively bulked with metal, and carried a great poleaxe late of the city guard armouries. These were not soldiers, but they had as much skirmishing experience as any Wasp regular.