War Master's Gate (Shadows of the Apt)

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  ‘When do you intend to—?’

  ‘Soon, very soon. Perhaps today we will march.’

  ‘Will you wait just a day?’ His mind was working very fast now. ‘I need to speak to Jodry. If you’re set on this course, then . . . Will you wait?’

  ‘One day,’ she confirmed.

  He came out of his office with her, to the perplexity of his suitors, and found a messenger to take word to Jodry, top priority. In the intervening time he began filleting through the mob, trying to separate wheat from chaff before the return message arrived.

  These days a War Council was whenever Stenwold, Jodry or both of them could round up a few other people from a changing list to validate their decisions. Or that was what it felt like, much of the time.

  On this occasion, once Stenwold had prised the Speaker away from his own responsibilities, he was able to get hold of the Mynan leader, Kymene, and Chief Officer Elder Padstock of the Maker’s Own Company. Padstock looked attentive, as she always did when Stenwold was present, an idolizing that he was always uncomfortable with. And yet it was so convenient to have someone he knew would vote with him whenever he and Jodry quarrelled, and so where did that leave him, when he did nothing to discourage her? Kymene looked as though she had better things to do than sit through yet another committee – the Mynans not being great respecters of the Collegiate way of doing things. Like the Mantids, they wanted to kill Wasps.

  Twenty words later, after Stenwold had explained the situation, she was all ears.

  ‘No, no, no,’ Jodry was saying immediately. ‘We can’t just let our defenders sally off on their own recognizance! We need them here for when the Wasps come. It’s not . . . it’s not as though they’ll have long to wait.’

  ‘Jodry—’ Stenwold started, and the Speaker stared him down.

  ‘You’re considering it,’ he accused.

  ‘Jodry, listen to me. Akkestrae is right: the Felyen aren’t exactly at their best fighting against a mechanized enemy from behind walls. Or even a running battle in the streets, if things get to that.’ Unlike Jodry, he did not stumble when he said the words, for all that he felt a lurch in his stomach on uttering them. ‘After all,’ he added drily, ‘they wouldn’t run, and then they’d die. Mantis-kinden, Jodry: one on one the best killers the Lowlands has, and they would be wasted, diluted by fighting a war our way. I’ve been looking into the siege at the end of the last war – and we had a fair number of Felyen with us then. By all accounts they accomplished little – shot some arrows, killed Wasps on the battlements – but the real war was being fought all around them with orthopters and airships and snapbows and artillery.’

  ‘We’re talking about hundreds of swords just taken out of the city – a pointless waste of life!’ Jodry exclaimed.

  ‘Who are we to—?’

  ‘You will not say, “Who are we to judge”!’ Jodry snapped. ‘We are Collegium. We value life even if the Mantids don’t. Even if nobody else in this pox-ridden world seems to!’ He looked about the table, feeling himself one man alone. Padstock, of course, was taking Stenwold’s line, and Kymene . . .

  ‘We support them,’ she said, quite simply.

  That was more than Stenwold had expected, and for a moment he sat silent while Jodry goggled. Of the four of them, Kymene had the best mind for strategy, by his reckoning, and that included the sort of hard-edged strategy that came with casualties already worked into the maths.

  ‘You fight a good defensive war, you Collegiates. You fight a thinking man’s war. But I’ve seen what happens when they get to your walls and start work on a city.’

  ‘Different city, different walls,’ Jodry said. ‘Even you’ll allow our engines are better than—’

  ‘Than ours? Yes. Than the Wasps’? You can’t know that, and you’re a fool if you’ll stake all on testing it in the field.’ She spoke with fire but without anger, the same woman Stenwold remembered rousing up the resistance in Myna years before. ‘The air attacks are all very well, but I talk to my pilots and their gains are limited – too few machines, too many Wasps, and the Gears don’t slow. They keep on coming. But you know this.’

  Jodry glowered at her, but said nothing.

  ‘And now the Mantids are set on marching out and striking at the enemy,’ Kymene declared. ‘Do you really think you’ll stop them going? Do you think they’d thank you, if you tried? I know their mind on this, for my own people come to me every day complaining that they want to fight now.’

  ‘You’d go with them?’ Stenwold broke in.

  ‘Gladly.’ Her answering gaze was calm and sane.

  ‘The Mantids will want to launch a night attack. Your people can’t see in the dark like they can.’

  ‘The Mantids can’t set explosives like we can,’ she countered.

  The other three digested this silently.

  There is precedent, Stenwold reflected. Salma’s Landsarmy against the Seventh, in the last war. But the cost . . .

  Elder Padstock cleared her throat, watching Stenwold carefully for his reaction. ‘There are those among the Companies who can see in the dark, War Master. Spiders, Flies, halfbreeds . . .’

  ‘Now wait,’ interrupted Jodry, ‘even if they can, and even if your Mynans could keep up, I might just about believe that a few hundred Mantis warriors could bring the fight all the way to the Wasp perimeter after dark. But the rest of you . . . Come on, think, will you?’

  ‘I’m not even convinced the Mantids could manage it,’ Kymene allowed. ‘The Wasps will keep a good watch, and their Spider-kinden allies see well in the dark.’

  ‘Well, what then . . .?’ Jodry put in uncertainly.

  ‘So we bring them in supported by our troops, and we provide a distraction so that they’re on the Wasps before the Second even knows it. And we let them run wild, as they will – for there’ll be no controlling them – while our people strike at those same targets that the Stormreaders have been trying to get their bombs to. And then perhaps we get out again. Anything’s possible.’

  Jodry opened his mouth again, but the cast of his expression had changed. He had been a man vociferous in opposition, now he was on the edge of a chasm, staring fearfully into it but becoming resigned to the drop.

  Before he could voice the question, Kymene answered it. ‘By air. We do it by air. The Mantids won’t like that but, if it gets them to the Wasps faster, and means they can shed more blood, then they’ll live with it.’

  ‘We need more than the four of us, to make this decision.’ Jodry’s voice was hollow. ‘The Assembly—’

  ‘Hasn’t met since this action started, not in any real sense,’ Stenwold told him. ‘And if we’re to make this happen, we need to start now. You’re the Speaker, I’m the War Master, and we have the authority. Or if we don’t, who’s going to tell us so?’

  Jodry was still shaking his head, holding on by his fingertips to the trailing edge of his lost argument, but his words had run dry.

  ‘I’ll speak with Akkestrae,’ Kymene announced. ‘Chief Officer Padstock, would you ask for volunteers from the Company soldiers for a night attack? No more information than that, at this point. Master Maker, Master Drillen, perhaps you would see what airships you can commandeer.’

  ‘Brace yourself,’ Averic advised, hand extended.

  The Beetle girl behind the shield looked scared to death, cringing away, so that, when the Wasp student’s hand flashed fire, the impact nearly took her off her feet. The watching members of the Student Company recoiled collectively – not at the light or the crackling sound, but at the very concept. This, this was the symbol of the Wasp Empire, if anything was: their killing Art.

  Straessa and Gerethwy, off duty this morning, had come out early to watch the students train. The Antspider tried to see how Averic took it: the way they looked at him as though he ate children. That old familiar closed expression held sway on the Wasp’s face, though, the same that had got him through a year’s study at the College before the war broke out.

  ‘E
very one of my people can do this,’ the Wasp explained. ‘Some are stronger at it, but every single Wasp becomes armed from the moment this Art begins to show. But I have to concentrate – even a soldier with a score of battles under his belt must concentrate – and so it’s not ideal for close-in fighting much of the time. Unless, of course, your enemy falls back from you, like you’re falling back from me right now. Give me room, and you give me the advantage.’

  Quick and easy lessons on how to kill your own kin, Straessa thought. But, if he thought about it that way, Averic was letting nothing out.

  ‘And the range is nowhere near that of a crossbow or a snapbow,’ Averic went on, stalking about in front of them. ‘And you see – it’s scorched the wood and you must have felt how it’s not just flame but a real physical force there. Nevertheless, the shield has held, and good armour such as we’re issued with will hold as well, most of the time. That’s the sting of my people, and don’t forget it. But don’t forget that Aptitude has given you better weapons.’

  ‘He’s good at this,’ the Antspider admitted.

  ‘He hates it.’ Eujen was standing beside her in his purple sash, as chief officer of the Student Company. She had barely seen him these last few days, what with her shifts and his meetings, and now, having sought him out, she found instead someone she did not quite know.

  Averic was going on to explain about the composition of an Imperial army, the likely tactics of the Light Airborne and infantry. Straessa shook her head.

  ‘It doesn’t feel right somehow,’ she said.

  ‘He told me that he’s made his stand now,’ Eujen murmured. ‘I think he wants to prove himself to . . . to them. To show them he’s on their side.’

  ‘I think that’s a losing battle.’

  ‘Oi, Antspider!’

  A loud, slightly slurred voice had cut across Averic’s patient lecturing, drawing all eyes. A gaunt Ant-kinden was striding over to them, seemingly on the point of lurching off balance at every step, and yet making swift progress despite it. Chief Officer Madagnus of the Coldstone Company was paying a visit.

  Straessa shot an apologetic look at Eujen.

  ‘Whose eyes did you inherit, halfbreed?’ Madagnus demanded.

  Straessa found herself stiffening in outrage, biting back hasty, angry words. Oh, surely she had come in for that sort of abuse before, and worse, and told herself none of it mattered, but she had been in Collegium for over a year now, and if people looked down their noses at miscegenation, still they practised what they preached enough not to give rein to their inner bigots. Madagnus was drunk, though, and more so than usual.

  With an exercise of will she restricted her response to, ‘Chief?’

  He stopped in front of her. ‘See in the dark much, Antspider?’

  ‘Some, Chief.’

  ‘Madagnus, what do you want?’ Eujen demanded and Straessa flinched inwardly, waiting for an explosion. But she was thinking of her friend as being no more than he had been when a vociferous student. Of course, now, Eujen ranked alongside the man, one chief officer to another, and a shifty, shamefaced look came over the Ant’s face.

  ‘Looking for my officer here, Leadswell,’ he explained, a little steadier. ‘Got some work for her.’

  ‘I’m off duty, Chief,’ Straessa put in, but he spoke over her.

  ‘Nobody’s off duty, right now – not even me. Ma Padstock herself slapped me awake and hauled me out of bed to tell me that. You see in the dark? Good for you. They’re wanting volunteers like you from all Companies. Going to make a go of it by night, Padstock says. She’ll come for you, too, Leadswell, you just mark me.’ He found a crate of armour that Eujen had wheedled out of the armouries and sat down on it in a mess of angular shoulders, knees and elbows. ‘Go find the Company, Antspider. Go fish for volunteers who can see in the dark. Have them ready by the third hour after noon, urgent as urgent. You see in the dark, Leadswell?’

  Eujen shook his head wordlessly.

  ‘Me neither.’ Madagnus levered himself upright and turned about, before striding off with as much dignity as he could muster.

  ‘How did your lot ever come to choose him?’ Eujen wondered aloud, even as Averic came over to join them.

  ‘He’s a good artificer even when drunk. A really good one if you can get him sober. And brave, too. Besides he was one of the few who would stand.’ Straessa felt abruptly angry with herself for defending the man. ‘Anyway, I didn’t cast my lot for him, but he’s the one we’ve got.’

  ‘A night attack?’ Averic pondered, and then, ‘Will you . . .?’

  ‘I can’t . . .’ She felt Eujen’s hand on her shoulder, and leant herself against him despite all the Student Company gawking. ‘I can’t ask people to volunteer if I won’t go myself. I just can’t.’ She managed a weak smile. ‘How about you, Gereth? You see in the dark.’

  ‘Better than a Moth,’ the Woodlouse replied.

  ‘And you can spare time from your whatever that you’re working on?’

  ‘The rational bow?’ He shrugged his hunched shoulders. ‘You think I’d let you go off and get yourself lost in the dark?’

  She reached out and squeezed his arm. ‘Thought not. So, let’s go and find the troops and see who’s up for it.’ She kept her voice deliberately light, but it was a long moment before she would shrug off Eujen’s hand.

  The darkening sky was crowded with slow-moving, rounded shadows, as though all the Masters of the College had come together to construct the world’s grandest orrery. Watching those vast shapes circle and glide lazily was a curiously awe-inspiring sight, even for Collegium. Straessa had never before seen so many airships together.

  ‘Of course, they’ve rather overdone it,’ she pointed out. ‘Unless we get one each or something.’

  She exaggerated but, even so, the Company volunteers would have fitted easily aboard one of the larger dirigibles. The great passenger liner the Sky Without, for example, could have held every one of them in high style until it was time to fight.

  ‘Forty-three Mynans, all explosives-trained I think,’ Gerethwy confirmed. ‘And I make it two hundred and forty-seven Company soldiers.’

  ‘The Empire must be shaking in its sandals,’ the Antspider remarked, desperately trying to be droll. They had gathered in the broad square that had once fronted the Amphiophos, Collegium’s seat of government, before the Imperial bombs had turned the place into a sea of rubble, toppled columns and walls rising like broken teeth.

  A strange cross-section of the city’s defenders, this. It was the requirement to be able to fight at night that had winnowed them down to this few, rather than any lack of courage. Here was a good number of Fly-kinden, who made small targets but could pull a trigger as well as anyone. Here were Spider-kinden renegades and the odd urbanized Mantis. Here were Moths who had evidently turned their backs on their heritage; two Roaches, three Scorpion-kinden, the Dragonfly Castre Gorenn. The rest were Beetles, the lucky or unlucky few, who had manifested the rare Art of shrugging off darkness entirely to see the midnight world in shades of grey.

  They were all armed and armoured as best their city could equip them: buff coats stuffed with rags to slow a spinning snapbow bolt, overlain with breastplates and lobster-tail helms now being enthusiastically blacked up to stop the wan moonlight glinting on them. The Apt amongst them carried snapbows, the more skilled amongst the Inapt bore bows, and the rest made do with spear and sword.

  ‘Here you are.’ Suddenly, from nowhere, a small figure tugged at Straessa’s belt, making her twitch: Sartaea te Mosca, Fly-kinden lecturer in Inapt studies, possible magician, and healer. ‘How did I know I’d find you here?’

  ‘Eujen told you?’ Straessa suggested. She had a momentary surfacing of unbidden memories: nights spent in Sartaea’s rooms, their diminutive hostess filling each glass as it was emptied; evenings at Raullo Mummers’s studio – burned out now – back when the war was just a thing that people talked about; te Mosca, after the battle, frantically trying to save as much
as possible of Gerethwy’s maimed hand.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Gerethwy asked. ‘Or is this it? Are we so desperate that we’re going to send a handful of soldiers off against the Second, travelling in technology that the last war showed us was useless?’

  ‘Oh, more than that,’ te Mosca stated. ‘They’ve roused every Inapt healer they can get their hands on, so it’d better be more than that . . . See there.’ She pointed to where the reinforcements were arriving.

  Mantis-kinden of the Felyal, they saw: the refugees that had started to take up residence after the Second Army ousted them in the first war, and had only grown more numerous as the Empire trampled over their forest home, tore up their trees and burned their holds. Here they came, tall and lean and sour-faced, with bow and spear, rapier and metal claw. Some had beautifully crafted carapace mail, and others wore chitin or leather, or just an arming jacket. Many had no armour at all. And they were many, a column snaking right back into the city, marching soft-footed to stand before the corpse of the Amphiophos, as though they were about to storm it.

  ‘Oh,’ said Straessa quietly, as they kept coming – and ‘Oh,’ again, realizing slightly before the rest just what was going on. ‘No . . .’

  And the Felyen continued to arrive, every single one of them.

  Stenwold had already taken his stand where the steps ascended to the churned debris that had been the Amphiophos’s main entrance, with Akkestrae beside him. Seeing the Mantids arrive in such numbers, and with so little sound, he could not suppress a shiver. They were so grave, so solemn, a sight out of another time. And like nothing Collegium has known since the Bad Old Days, and perhaps not even then.

  So many warriors, he thought. Every Felyen who can bear a sword must be gathering for their piece of the Empire.

  And then he saw it, too, and his breath stilled as the Felyen continued to march in and assemble. He looked from face to face, those stern and unforgiving masks – but such faces. He had not known, before this. He had not understood.