Empire in Black and Gold

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  As he reached the far shore and she quickly helped him lift the raft and packs clear of the water, Totho looked back. The Wasps had noticed their fallen comrade but their attention, as airborne soldiers themselves, was now fixed on the skies, Three of them were lifting off, swords drawn, hunting in high circles over the bridge.

  From then on the road before them was clear all the way to Tark, and Totho could only hope that the others were having as smooth a journey.

  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.

  ‘I think we’re ready, chief,�
� Scuto said quietly.

  Collegium stands or falls on what we do today.

  ‘Let’s move out,’ Stenwold said.

  They were close enough to the rail works to hear the hammering of the industrious engines that were still producing the track, and the shunting and grinding of the automotives that shipped it down the line, ever narrowing the gap between the works begun in Collegium and those started here. How many yards were yet to cover? Each hour whittled that intervening distance away. The launching of the Pride’s pirated maiden voyage could be tomorrow or the day after.

  The Pride itself was kept apart from such gross scurryings. It was aloof from mere industry. When it moved, it would make its first run from Helleron to Collegium and revolutionize the world. Progress would be advanced, with all the virtues and vices that entailed.

  And we are here to stop it. The idea still seemed mad to Stenwold, but he had come to this insanity through ineluctable logic.

  The Pride sat on its sidelined rails under a great awning that shielded it from what mild ill weather the season might throw at it. A lesser engine might be consigned to a shed but the Pride was too great and grand, and its engineers required its flanks bared to bring their machines close enough to service her. She was a new breed, hulking and hammer-headed at the front, but capped with silver worked into beautiful and ornate designs, as though she were some great bludgeoning weapon made for ceremonial purposes. Behind that solid nose was the engine itself, the ‘lightning engine’. Stenwold had never seen one, and knew nothing about them. He had an uncomfortable feeling that Scuto was little better informed but it would be the Thorn Bug’s work to destroy it, either by explosives or by simply overcharging and detonating the engine itself. It was a truly vast piece of engineering, twenty feet in length, its slab-like sides wormed through with ducts and pipes, coils and twisting funnels. A five-foot rod stood proud of the roof, glittering slightly in the darkness beneath the vast awning. Behind that monumental engine was the engineer’s cab itself. Where more primitive devices would have, say, a wood-burning furnace for steam power, Stenwold could not even guess what controls and fail-safes a lightning engine would require.

  There was no sign of a watch, no sign of a guard. They had come south of the engine yard to get the best look, but even then it was a difficult prospect. The yard was a pit dug ten feet down and more than ten times that across. There were spoil heaps, tool sheds and lesser engines scattered around it. A dozen sentries could be concealed there.

  Stenwold knew that nobody would move and nothing would happen until he gave the word and, once he gave it, the entire business would unfold without any chance for him to stop it or change its direction. It would leave his hands like some apprentice artificer’s flying machine, and whether it flew or fell would not be his to determine.

  He found that, at this stage, he could not bring himself to give the word.

  And then Sperra hissed ‘’Ware above! I hear fliers!’

  The whole band of them scattered, crossbows dragged up towards the dark sky, but a moment later it was Che’s voice saying, ‘Calm! Quiet! It’s Achaeos.’

  They clustered again, and saw the first shape come down a little way away. There was a waxing moon that gave a wan light and there were lights enough across the engine yard behind them, but even then it took Stenwold a moment to pick Achaeos out of the shadows.

  He was about to go to greet the Moth when the other figures came down, and he stood, paralysed for a moment with the fear of betrayal, and then with sudden hope.

  There were at least half a dozen other Moths, all with bows in hand, and a brace of Fly-kinden wearing cut-down versions of the Moths’ hooded garb. There were two Mantis-kinden as well, male and female in studded armour, as tall and arch as Tisamon ever was. There was a Dragonfly maiden with a longbow, and a Grasshopper-kinden with a pair of long daggers glittering in his hands. All of them were in shades of grey, mottled and patched so that, between the moonlight and the shadows, they might stand in the open before wide eyes and yet be near invisible.

  ‘Hammer and tongs,’ Stenwold said, some small piece of the weight on him lifting at the sight. ‘Your Skryres saw the light then? Or the darkness, however you want.’

  Che pushed past him to fling her arms round Achaeos, and then suddenly looked back at Stenwold guiltily, but at that moment he could not care.

  ‘When I arrived back at Tharn, these men and women were already waiting for me,’ Achaeos said, one arm about Che. Even he sounded a little awed by it. ‘I now find myself their captain. The Skryres . . . deliberate, still . . . Tharn has as yet taken no stance on the Empire.’

  ‘Then who are these?’ Stenwold asked, and then the word welled unbidden in his mind. ‘Arcanum . . . ?’

  Achaeos glanced back at his cohort. ‘They have said nothing but that they will fight the Wasps, Master Maker. Some Skryre has clearly made a personal decision on this, and called upon his or her own agents. Yes, they are Arcanum, Master Maker, and they are with you. For this one task only, Stenwold Maker, they are with you.’

  ‘So how’re we going to do this?’ Scuto asked, still sizing up the newcomers.

  ‘We have scouted this place before,’ Achaeos said. ‘It has been guarded, always. Now the Helleren guards are gone.’

  ‘Easier for us, surely,’ said Balkus from over Scuto’s shoulder.

  ‘No, for it means our coming is known,’ Achaeos said.

  Stenwold had to agree. ‘All killed or bought off, or perhaps they were withdrawn on some magnate’s orders, some merchant-lord bought by the Empire. So where are the Wasps, Achaeos?’

  ‘There are some inside the machine itself,’ the Moth explained. ‘And we have also seen four sentries hidden about this place. We think there are more and that this is a trap.’

  ‘And we know it is a trap, and therefore we can do something about it, so the trap snaps both ways,’ Stenwold said.

  ‘If you wish to do this thing we will follow,’ Achaeos said. ‘Everyone here with me is sworn to it.’ He grimaced, squeezing Che just the once and then letting her go. ‘It will be a fight, Master Maker. We have seen two score Wasp soldiers lurking close to here, surely waiting for a signal from the sentries. Their main camp is close as well, no doubt by design, so they will be able to reinforce almost immediately. How long will it take to destroy the engine?’

  Stenwold glanced at Scuto, who shrugged expressively. ‘Ain’t easy to tell. Never had a crack at a beast like this before.’

  ‘Then it will be a fight,’ the Moth said sombrely. He looked pale and very young, and then Stenwold looked over the other faces there. Apart from himself and Scuto, and Tisamon, and the Grasshopper-kinden brought by Achaeos, they all looked so young to him.

  ‘If anyone, I mean anyone, wishes to go now, then go,’ he said, and of course none of them moved. They were all scared, except a few like Tisamon who had death running like blood in their veins. It was pride and fear of shame that kept them here, and he wanted to shout at them that dented pride might heal where mortal wounds would not.

  But he said nothing, for they were now his people. They were here for his plan, to live or to die as chance and their skills dictated.

  ‘How can we best use you?’ he asked Achaeos.

  ‘We will be able to strike without their seeing us. We will have the first cut of the knife,’ the Moth said. He glanced at the female Mantis, whom Stenwold guessed to be his tactician of sorts. ‘What we will do,’ he explained, ‘is attack the Wasps in the engine – and the sentries, those we have found. You will see it happening, and at that moment you should run for the engine. The alarm will sound, I am sure, but there will be confusion. My people, and those of your people who are not destroying the engine, will have to hold off whatever the Wasps produce, until the task is done. That is our plan.’

  Stenwold nodded. ‘I have no better one,’ he conceded.

  Achaeos and his war party melted into the darkness that for him at least was no darkness. Stenwold gestured to the ot
hers to keep low, and advanced to the lip of the works pit. There was a spoil heap below, so getting down there and over to the Pride itself would present no problems. Getting out again with a whole skin would be another challenge altogether.

  He had started counting, and realized that he was counting towards no number he could guess, and so he stopped. The night was cool, with the faintest breeze blowing from the east, and silent beyond all measure. He could hardly believe there were two score Wasps lurking within spitting distance.

  They must be holding their breath.

  ‘There!’ Tynisa hissed. Stenwold had seen nothing, but he was so keyed up he responded on her recognizance.

  ‘Go!’ he hissed.

  ‘Sir!’ one of his men called, and Thalric snapped out of his reverie. The night was quiet, and no signal had been called.

  ‘What is it?’ he demanded.

  ‘I saw something by the engine, sir.’

  Thalric mounted the bank and stared. His people were not night creatures, but the gas lamps burning around the Pride were bold enough.

  ‘I don’t see anything . . .’ he said, but then he did, and a sentry got off his whistle at the same moment.

  A shadow. It had only been a shadow between the light and him, but then a man had fallen out of the Pride’s cab. One of his ambush party. The attack had started.

  ‘Move out, the lot of you!’ he shouted. ‘Light airborne, secure the engine. Infantry—’ Even as he spoke he saw men surging down the side of the pit and across the engine field. ‘Take them down.’ He pointed. There were a dozen of his men in the air already, wings springing to life to propel them towards the engine with all the speed they could muster. Another dozen were surging past him, more heavily armoured with spear and shield. Thalric took one more brief look at the intruders and thought he spotted Stenwold at the fore. In these small actions a good commander should lead his troops, and Thalric respected him for that.

  ‘You.’ He turned on the Fly-kinden messenger at his heels. The youth was staff, not local, wearing imperial livery over a leather breastplate. ‘Go to Major Godran,’ Thalric told him. ‘Tell him to bring up three . . . make it four squads at all speed, and tell him to send in the automotive and the spotter.’