It
came for all of us
, Salma thought.
We are all grown
now
.
Che, when the Wasps enslaved her and put her before
their torture machines. Tynisa when she discovered her birthright. To me on the
point of a sword . . . and to Totho here and now. We have put childish things
behind us, and look at the world we have grown into.
There were streaks of
moisture on Totho’s face but he was putting on an angry mask to hide the
despair.
I
have no right to play the martyr here, nor have I the strength.
‘I’m sorry, Totho,’ he
said softly. ‘I hope you find that you have done the right thing.’
Totho had assumed that
the Imperial Fourth Army would be splitting, some to be led west by General
Alder and others staying to secure the half-ruined city of Tark. Garrison duty
was beneath the Barbs, though, and a new force had come tramping out of the
desert following its Scorpion guides. A garrison force, Totho understood, was
different to a field army. It contained more auxillians, for one, usually
around one man in two, and many of the Wasp-kinden included were veterans who
had now earned an easier assignment than open battle. All this he learned from
Kaszaat. The garrison was commanded by a governor who was usually also a
colonel in the imperial army. Running a garrison was less prestigious than
commanding a field army, but having a whole city at one’s disposal, she
explained, was an unparalleled opportunity for acquiring both power and wealth.
More than one general had willingly taken the demotion.
General Alder was not
that kind of soldier, however. He was already busy organizing the Fourth to
move westwards. Expecting no answer, Totho had enquired of Drephos, and was
surprised when the artificer had told him that the plan was very simple.
‘The Fly-kinden
settlements of Egel and Merro will be invited to avail themselves of imperial
protection. There seems little doubt, given the timorous and pragmatic
character of the race, that they will accept. Then the army will proceed on to
the island city-state, Kes.’
Totho knew that the
garrison force had resupplied the Fourth with more than just rations and
ammunition. Two dozen battle heliopters had been assembled on the airfield by
the camp, with four hulking carrier heliopters – monstrously clumsy machines
that could each hold three hundred men in the open cage of its belly. ‘These
are just to draw out Kes’s airpower,’ he guessed.
‘Quite,’ Drephos
confirmed. ‘We have a few soldiers who could fly all the way from the mainland,
but most of them would tire halfway and drop into the sea. So we will ship them
over in droves, to die over Kes and to destroy its flying machines and its
riding insects and whatever else shall come against them. Then the airships
will drop incendiaries upon the Kessen navy, which I believe is formidable, and
drop rockbreaker explosives on its sea-wall and its artillery. After that, the
city itself will burn and we will begin landing our forces. I estimate that it
will take General Alder three times as long to take Kes as it did to take Tark,
partly because the city is naturally more defensible, and partly because I
shall not be there with him.’
Totho nodded. That seemed
only reasonable.
‘We shall shortly be
embarking on our own journey, however,’ Drephos continued, ‘so we shall see
none of it. I have faith that General Alder will prove his usual mixture of
military efficiency and imaginative bankruptcy.’ He went striding with his
uneven gait back towards his tent. ‘First, though, I have something I would
like your opinion on, Totho.’
Totho hurried after him.
He was forever surprised to find himself so free just to run around. It seemed
the black and yellow that he wore was a shield against persecution, for all
that he earned plenty of disparaging looks from the Wasps.
In his tent, Drephos had
assembled a little workshop of the most delicate tools Totho had ever seen.
There was a grinder for machining metal, a casting ladle and a set of wax
moulds, and everything he needed to replace parts and help maintain his devices
in the field. Turning, Drephos had something in his hands, long and wrapped in
dark cloth, and for once he seemed almost hesitant.
‘You are a gifted
artificer, Totho,’ he said. ‘That is, of course, why I plucked you from
captivity.’
‘At least you hope I am,
sir,’ Totho said.
‘I do not recognize
hope
. Instead I calculate. I gather information,’ said
Drephos. ‘You had on your person certain devices which I guessed were of your
own invention, and schematics to incorporate them into a larger plan. A plan
that you have never, I would guess, been able to undertake.’
Totho stared at the
bundle in his arms and found himself abruptly short of breath. ‘Never . . .’ he
began, then his mouth was sand-dry, all of a sudden. ‘What have you done?’
‘While you were with
your friend, yesterday, and while Kaszaat was making the arrangements for his
liberation, I had time to myself, the first spare hour I have had since this
siege began. Time weighs heavily on my hands and I hate to be idle, so I took
out your plans and did what I could. The results are . . . imperfect. The
facilities here are limited. However, I hope it meets with your approval.’
‘My . . . ? My
approval?’ Totho stared into the man’s blotched face. ‘But, Colonel-Auxillian .
. . ?’
‘No rank, please, not
amongst my cadre at least,’ said Drephos. A hard look came into his eyes as
they flicked towards the tent-flap. ‘Let those outside bandy such words about
between themselves. Though we wear their colours we are none of theirs. Indeed,
we are greater than them. We are artificers. Call me “Master” if you wish it,
as you would your teachers at Collegium, but we are the elite here, and we are
above their petty grades and distinctions. And I seek your approval, Totho,
because it is your invention – therefore your triumph.’
His bare hand whipped
the cloth away, and there lay Totho’s long-held dream. It was rough, as Drephos
said. His air battery possessed a coarse grip now, and a long tube extended
from it. Much of what he had planned was absent, because he had not included it
on his drawings, but it was still there in his head, and the prototype could be
improved.
‘Does it work?’ he
asked, and Drephos nodded.
‘You’ll have the chance
to test it, of course, and to improve on it. As I said, we have a journey to
make. We are going to Helleron, Totho.’ He held the device out, and Totho took
it, wonderingly.
‘Helleron, Master
Drephos?’
Drephos was already
striding past him. ‘Where else should an artificer go when he wishes to work?’
‘But Helleron is—’
‘Ours, Totho.’ Drephos
was now outside, and Totho hurried to join him.
‘How?’
‘General Alder is about
to move west along the coast, but I had word yesterday that General Malkan and
the Seventh Army were moving on Helleron. They should be there by now. By the
time we arrive the city shall fly the imperial flag. Imagine it, Totho! The
industrial might of Helleron, all the forges, the foundries, the factories!
What could we not do there?’ He stopped, abruptly rueful. ‘If I were pureblood
Wasp-kinden I would have them make me governor. Perhaps I shall anyway. Perhaps
Malkan can be prevailed upon. Still, we must do what we can with what we are
given.’
And they stepped out
again into sight of the airfield and found it had received a visitor, in that
short space of time. The most beautiful flying machine Totho had ever seen was
roosting in one corner, well away from the gross bulk of the heliopters. An
open lattice of light wooden struts, with twin propellers and immaculately
folded wings, it was such a work of light and shadow that it seemed hardly
there at all, even in broad daylight, He saw Kaszaat inside it already,
checking the clockwork engine that crouched aft. She was wearing heavy robes, he
saw, despite the warmth of the day.
‘We’re going to fly to
Helleron in that?’ he asked Drephos.
‘I want to waste as
little time travelling as possible. Whatever I have here, I will have sent on.
Helleron will have to provide in the meantime, and no doubt it shall do so
splendidly.’ He reached the flier and ran his metal hand along the imaginary
line that would define its flank. ‘My beautiful
Cloudfarer
,
back at last from running the errands of others. She has been ill-treated, but
that shall change, for none can fly her as I can.’ He was actually smiling,
genuine gladness making his face seem something quite alien. Totho realized
that all his other smiles had been just in mockery or pretence.
‘We shall be in Helleron
in two days, three at the most.
Do you believe that?’
‘It hardly seems
possible, Master Drephos.’
And the smiled
broadened, and lost its warmth. ‘But we are artificers, Totho. We shall make it
possible.’
In the chasm of silence
throughout the stateroom Sperra clasped her hands together to stop herself
fidgeting. They were all looking at her, and most of all the stern-faced woman
who was enthroned in their centre, so that Sperra felt very small and
frightened.
This was all Scuto’s
fault and she should never have agreed to it. They had been waiting days now
for an audience. Plius the milliner had been doing his best but the Queen and
much of her court had left the city of Sarn on the very day that Scuto had met
with him. Instead, he had secured a brief interview with some minor official at
the Royal Court, and that was when the problem had occurred.
‘We’ve waited long
enough,’ had been Scuto’s position. ‘I’ll go and see this fellow, whoever he
is, and we’ll squeeze a better audience out of him and pull ourselves up the
chain. By the time the Queen’s back, we’ll be camping out on her doorstep.’
‘Scuto,’ Plius had said,
‘you might want to rethink yourself.’ There had been an odd, slightly amused
expression on his face.
‘What’s wrong with the
plan?’ Scuto had challenged him.
‘The plan, nothing. The
planner, on the other hand . . .’
Scuto had folded his
hook-studded arms. ‘What?’
‘Listen to me,’ Plius
had said. ‘I’ve done my level best to get you this far, and you are not going
to ruin it by going in there and being . . . well how can I put this, Scuto? By
being all ugly and spiny.’
‘Now, you listen here. I
know I ain’t any picture, but—’
‘Scuto, you’ve been
working where? In the slums of Helleron? And why’s that? I know you’re a decent
grade of artificer,’ Plius said. ‘So why not get in with the magnates, the
propertied classes? No, you’re not that kind of fellow, Scuto. And this isn’t
some Helleron mining baron here, this is the Queen of Sarn. And she won’t want
to see
you
because, let’s face it, no sane person
would. And she won’t want to see me either, because as an Ant late of Tseni
stock I’m barely welcome even in the foreigners’ quarter, never mind how
things’re supposed to have changed round here. So what’s your move, Scuto?’
And then he and Scuto
had turned and looked at Sperra, but she had refused. She had flat-out refused,
protested, complained and objected and, at the end of the day, she had found
herself going to meet with a dismissive Ant officer who had sneered down at her
because she was a Fly and a foreigner. The next day there had been a better
officer who had been sympathetic, but unhelpful, and then there had been a
commander who seemed to have something to do with the Royal Court, but very
little time. Then there had been a smiling woman, who Sperra had later
discovered was a commander involved in counterintelligence, and who had
suspected her of being a spy, although spying for whom, Sperra never found out.
In any event their conversation had been manipulated so carefully that Sperra
realized that she had learned nothing new at all and told everything that she
knew, just about.
And then the next day
half a dozen soldiers had marched her to the Royal Court, which was where she
had been trying to get to all along, but at that moment decided she would
rather avoid. She had spent two hours waiting to talk to a serious-faced
Ant-kinden who was one of the Queen’s tacticians, therefore the highest of the
high amongst the city-states. She spoke to him for a full ten minutes, but he
seemed not in the least interested in what she had to say. Instead, he quizzed
her about the assassination attempt on the Queen.
That was the first she
had heard about it, and her surprise must have seemed genuine enough because he
did not question her for long. She understood that, whilst the Queen was out hunting
with her bodyguards and some of her court, there had been a surprise encounter
with a pair of Vekken crossbowmen. The would-be assassins had died resisting
capture and understandably everyone was concerned to know what this was all
about.
At around that same time
the news had come to Sarn that the Vekken were indeed on the march, but that
Collegium was their objective. Since then Sarn had been in an uproar, mustering
its armies and breaking out its automotives, ready to defend the alliance the
city-state had made with its Beetle neighbours.
And the day after,
Sperra had been sent for by the Queen. So here she was, a woman of three foot
nine inches, in plain and darned clothes, appearing before the Royal Court of
Sarn.
Ant-kinden did not need
hundreds of spectators to witness their deeds of state. Mind-to-mind, the whole
city could be allowed to hear what words were said when it was deemed
necessary. There were merely fifteen men and women in that room, gathered
around one long table. The height of the table itself demanded that a servant
fetch a stool for Sperra to stand on, just so she could be seen.
In the middle of the
table’s far end sat the Queen herself, and there could be no doubt of her
identity. Since their increased dealings with other kinden, the Sarnesh had
fully learned the use of symbols and insignia to distinguish themselves. The
Queen of Sarn was the one with the crown sitting in the gilded chair, Sperra
had divined. Other than that she looked just like any other Ant woman, her
unwelcoming features in no way dissimilar from any of her kin. The Sarnesh were
a dark-haired, brown-skinned people, but the severe set of their faces was that
of Ant-kinden everywhere.