War Master's Gate (Shadows of the Apt)

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  A thorn pricked in her mind, even as she thought it, and her eyes flicked wide.

  Her!

  ‘Faster!’ she snapped. ‘Move faster!’ For her twin was approaching, that hateful Beetle girl. For a moment, even as the Pioneers ahead picked up their pace, Seda was torn: Turn back and catch them, ambush them between the trees? One shot, one sting, to rid me of my rival? But the girl had grown in power since Seda had cast her down in Khanaphes, and this time she had strong allies with her – a Weaponsmaster, magicians, not to mention whatever mundane warriors she had mustered, Sarnesh or Etheryen or both. And there was always the chance that, during the fighting the Beetle girl herself might just . . . slip away.

  She hears the call as I do, and if she gets there first, she might . . .

  ‘Major Ostrec, rearguard with the Nethyen!’ Seda yelled. ‘Hurry, they are almost upon us!’

  The Red Watch officer snapped out orders, falling back. The handful of Nethyen Mantids who had been ever more unwillingly accompanying her went with him gladly. Something their small minds understand at last. At a thought, Tisamon dropped behind as well to shield her.

  The Beetle-kinden Pioneer dashed past her, snapbow halfway to his shoulder and face weirdly peaceful as he sought a target. At Seda’s side, Gjegevey was laboriously poling himself along with his staff.

  ‘Come on, old man,’ she urged, but she could see that he was doing his best. She grasped the haggard slave’s arm to encourage him. A curse on propriety. I am the Empress and I shall do as I like. ‘You’ve come with me this far,’ she told him. ‘You’ll see it through.’

  He nodded raggedly, leaning on her as he let her drag him along.

  Behind she heard the unmistakable sound of a snapbow, followed by the war cries of the Mantids.

  One of the Sarnesh went down immediately, a bolt tearing through his mail. Tynisa doubled her speed, spotting shapes ahead. This time Che’s got it right. Rushing into a fight like this, with no clear picture of whom she fought or even where they were, reminded her of the Commonweal, when she still had been in thrall to her father’s ghost.

  Oh, but those were fights, though. Before she had broken away from him, the pair of them had been something superhuman and undefeatable. And uncontrollable, too, possessed of a terrible, callous bloodlust, which was why she had declined that gift in the end. I will have to be enough on my own.

  There were Mantis-kinden coming against her, she saw, and already the Sarnesh crossbows were loosing, their bolts springing between the trees. There was another crack – Amnon or someone shooting. She began hearing the sizzle of stingshot from both sides.

  A fierce-faced woman of about her own age was suddenly lunging for her with a metal claw, spinning away from Tynisa’s instant parry to come back at her from the other side, twisting from her riposte at the same time. Tynisa conceded three steps, the very forest keeping her footing for her, even as it urged the Mantis on. Old bastard only wants its blood, doesn’t care whose. She snapped her arm out, drew a red line across the Mantis’s hip, then swayed back as the clawed gauntlet sliced past her eyes. The woman’s other arm came driving in, trying to jab her with those vicious forearm spines, but Tynisa batted it away with her off hand, then stepped past her assailant and tried to cut her throat on the way. She caught only air, and then they had parted, turning back against one another, the Mantis already trying to close the gap.

  Another Mantis was coming in, spear in hand, but Amnon cannoned into him, both of them going down and then scrabbling to regain their feet. Beyond her opponent, Tynisa could see others retreating – a flash of pale hair – the Empress?

  The distraction nearly killed her, as the Mantis’s blade darted towards her stomach, but her own sword knew its work and slipped in the way just in time, letting her dance backwards – losing ground again. And she knew that right now she was losing their best chance to win the war, to defeat the Empire in one stroke.

  So go. And she went, whipping her opponent’s steel aside, cutting just enough of an opening to get past her, kicking into a full run even as she did so, and be damned to the price that her hip would exact later.

  A snapbow bolt spat past behind her, its author not adjusting for just how fast Tynisa was suddenly moving. Then there was a Wasp in the way, raising his hand to sting, but her blade was already in motion.

  He was a dead man – just some Wasp soldier with red insignia – but somehow he put his raised hand in the way of her stroke. From the shock of impact, it seemed as though she had struck metal, yet when he fell out of her path, there was no blood, no sense that she had wounded him. And no time to wonder about it.

  She had already realized that she was following the Mantis path to its logical conclusion. It was hard to see how she would survive this, success or failure, but she had to try.

  She saw the Empress in front of her, with an old man who looked like a malformed corpse in tow. Just twenty yards – fifteen – then the Wasp woman was shouting out a word – a name – and someone else stood in the way.

  Tynisa saw a man armoured head to foot in a style she knew only from old books and museums, armour as fine and elegant as ever a Commonweal noble wore, but crafted to an entirely darker, sharper aesthetic. She had never seen a full suit of Mantis-kinden carapace armour before.

  It gave her pause, despite her entire attack plan being built on going forwards, and then the man was coming for her, his clawed gauntlet stooping like a hunting dragonfly – barely turned by her own sword – then back to guard, without leaving room for a counter-attack.

  She froze. She could not help it. Her mind had choked on the utter certainty that had come to her, even as her sword parried three more strokes and her feet carried her backwards.

  Around her, the Empress’s followers were falling back after their mistress. The Wasp with the red badge and a Beetle snap-bowman passed her, retreating with professional care.

  She took three more blows numbly, the last scratching her shoulder before she was able to turn it.

  The name the Empress had shouted had been Tisamon. And even had the name been unspoken, she would still have known. She had fought her father before, and she had lived with his barbed ghost in her mind, and she knew him, and here he was.

  Then Amnon was there, lashing a blade out at the armoured form, and the claw that had been stooping towards her veered aside to block his stroke. With a shriek of nameless emotion Tynisa lunged for him, for his very throat, but he had fallen back a step, her lunge failing to reach him, even as he nicked Amnon’s arm and deflected the big Beetle’s next blow.

  Then there was some summons – Tynisa did not hear it, but it was plain from the armoured man’s – Tisamon’s – stance, and he was turning and sprinting away, in full mail but fast enough that neither she nor Amnon had the chance to strike at him. She was after him a moment later, barely enough of a delay to slide a knife blade into, but the forest around seemed suddenly very dark, shadows hung on every bough, and she was blundering into the gloom. And where was the Empress?

  And . . .?

  She stopped, hearing the others catching up with her, Amnon almost at her elbow, staring about in confusion.

  Where is she?

  Of the Empress and her entire retinue there was neither track nor trace.

  Nineteen

  ‘This is such a stupid idea,’ was Gerethwy’s informed opinion.

  The night was unseasonably chill, or perhaps it was just due to the altitude. There were no clouds above, the stars clear as cut glass, and only the faintest sliver of moon to detract from them.

  ‘Wasn’t my first choice either,’ the airship’s master grunted. ‘Beats training on those deathtrap Stormreaders, though.’ His name was Jons Allanbridge and he seemed to be some kind of associate of Stenwold Maker, although he didn’t exactly speak of the War Master fondly. His vessel, the Windlass, was carrying the two Company volunteer officers and a fair number of their soldiers. Nobody had explained to Straessa that she would be one half of the Colle
giate command team on this mission, and she had the unhappy feeling that possibly nobody had really thought about it either. Apparently the non-Mantis side of the operation would be spearheaded by the Mynans, and she and her people would just have to try and keep up. Although the overall plan might not be as foolish as Gerethwy claimed, the details really did seem to be lacking.

  They put this one together in a hurry, and surely the Wasps’ll see us coming, and then . . . But if the Imperial Air Force caught them aloft in these big, slow airships, that would be a death sentence for anyone who couldn’t take wing and fly. Gerethwy was right in that – all the artificers were in agreement that airships as a tool of war had had their day.

  Until now, apparently, because heavier-than-air fliers just could not have carried this many people to the enemy.

  There were a dozen other dirigibles blotting out the night sky around them, which were doing their best to be stealthy. They kept no lights, and were coasting on a westerly wind so that the nocturnal quiet was not defiled by the sound of engines. Even the enormous Sky Without, its elegant staterooms now the squatting ground of the Mantis warriors, was coursing through the upper air like a great, bloated ghost.

  ‘You’re sure you can even find the enemy? I never really appreciated just how much land there is until I saw it from up here,’ Straessa put in.

  ‘They’re coming along the coast, so it won’t be hard,’ Allanbridge told her. ‘More important for us not to overshoot.’ He checked his instruments. ‘Not much further, if reports can be believed.’

  ‘We’re going to get shot down. This is ridiculous,’ Gerethwy complained, from his post at the bow, but then a Fly-kinden messenger spiralled out of the sky to land at Allanbridge’s left side, making the man curse furiously.

  ‘Time,’ the small woman announced. ‘Down, now.’ Then she was off for the next ship: an old fashioned way of passing the word, but lamp signals had been judged too risky.

  The other Company officer, a Fly-kinden named Serena from the Fealty Street Company, had come up on deck. ‘We’re going down?’

  ‘The easy way,’ Allanbridge confirmed. All around them, the airship fleet was descending, and there was still no sense that the Empire had noticed their coming.

  ‘Let’s go and get the troops,’ Serena suggested. ‘I’ll go over to the Sky and make some order there.’ At the end of those words, she was already standing on the Windlass’s rail, and kicked off with her wings flashing from her shoulders, catching the air and arrowing off towards the larger vessel.

  ‘They can’t not have seen us,’ Gerethwy muttered, as though bitter about Imperial failings.

  ‘Plan is to give them other things to worry about, lad, never you mind,’ Allanbridge replied, then added awkwardly, ‘And you try to get your hide and your mob back to us intact, right? Now get ready to jump off and secure us, why don’t you?’

  Straessa went below decks to find the soldiers there mostly ready, strung out on that combination of tension, excitement and fear that she knew so well herself. Before they felt the Windlass’s keel scraping and bumping at the ground, they were out on deck and casting rope ladders over the side, even as Gerethwy fought with the anchor. The airship was emptied of troops with more efficiency than the Antspider would have bet on and, looking about, she could see other craft bobbing low, with swarms of Mantis-kinden flying or climbing from them, forming up into one turbulent, angry mob that was plainly itching to get at the enemy.

  ‘Over there, quickly,’ she ordered her people, and set a fast pace, well aware how the entire Felyen force might just vanish off into the night, leaving their allies too far behind to support them.

  By the time she arrived, so had everyone else. She picked out the Mynans because their leader was already stalling the Mantis-kinden.

  ‘Kymene?’

  The Mynan leader glanced towards her. ‘Your people are ready?’

  Serena had made herself known by then, and Straessa nodded, shouldering her snapbow. ‘I hadn’t thought you’d be here yourself, Commander.’

  ‘Neither did Sten Maker,’ Kymene acknowledged. ‘Too late for him to do anything about it now, though, isn’t it? We’re waiting a signal . . .’ And then, with a fierce look at the woman who led the Felyen, ‘Yes, we are.’

  ‘Your signal is late,’ the Mantis spat.

  ‘No, it’s not. Just listen,’ Kymene shot back. ‘Everyone, quiet and listen!’

  Straessa shook her head, hearing nothing at all but not wanting to state the obvious, but Gerethwy squeezed her shoulder, cocking his head.

  He was smiling – a little thinly perhaps but she was glad of any smile from him just the same.

  And then she heard it, though scarcely a moment before the Stormreaders started passing overhead. The clatter of their clockwork engines was so much quieter than the noisy oil-driven motors favoured by the Empire.

  They circled almost invisibly save where they occasionally blotted out the stars, and Straessa heard one coming in to land, the thunder of wind thrown up by its wings hitting them with shocking suddenness as the nimble machine cornered and hovered for a moment, before choosing its spot.

  Kymene went running over and, without much thought, Straessa ran after her, Serena and the Mantis leader following on her heels.

  The cockpit was hinged open by the time they got there, and the Antspider recognized the Fly-kinden pilot seated inside as the Solarnese, Taki, who seemed to be in charge of Collegium’s air defences.

  ‘You’ve about a mile of ground to cover still to reach their pickets,’ the pilot told them as they approached, and Straessa could hear the clockwork still ticking over, ready to take off again the moment the wings were engaged. ‘We’ll allow you a decent countdown and then move in to give them something to think about. But you’re going to have to make good time.’

  ‘We’ll be there,’ Kymene told her. ‘Just make sure you’re not late.’

  The Fly grinned at her, then waved them away, and even though they were running back to the massed strike force, the downbeat of the Stormreader’s wings almost knocked them off their feet.

  ‘We run!’ the Mantis leader was shouting at her followers, and Straessa expected a great roar of approval that would probably be heard over in Capitas. Instead, the Mantis-kinden just moved off silently, the entire pack breaking into a ground-eating lope, leaving the others to catch up.

  General Tynan made do with very little sleep, so he was still awake and poring over quartermasters’ reports when the camp around him suddenly exploded into life. He heard the Farsphex engines start up, and knew that the engineers would be dragging the cloaking tarpaulins off them even as the pilots crawled into their seats. A night attack. With the continued valiant resistance put up by the Imperial pilots and artillery, he had expected such a move. It was exactly the pattern that the Second’s own fliers had fallen into when dropping their bombs, denied free rein over Collegium during daytime.

  Of course, the Beetles won’t have the same night vision as our Fly bombardiers had. And, of course, he had kept his camp without lights, despite the chill, to deny them any clear targets, but even a random bombardment would do its inevitable damage.

  From the back of his tent, he heard Mycella stir, and she joined him moments later, swathed in a silk robe, even as the first watch officers rushed in to report. The first man had just time to salute before Tynan himself could hear the clatter of the enemy orthopters.

  ‘Our pilots?’ he snapped out.

  ‘Taking to the air, sir. Artillery as well, but we—’

  The first dull boom signified that one of the Collegiates had been a little too enthusiastic, unloading surely somewhere far short of the confines of the camp. The soldiers of the Second and their allies would be rushing from their tents, scattering and spreading.

  ‘No dedicated bombers seen amongst them,’ the watch officer continued. ‘Just their Stormreaders, like before.’

  The Air Corps will have to do its best, Tynan decided.

&nbs
p; ‘Sir, there was a report of airships, too, but—’

  Just then the real bombardment started, a half-dozen explosions, and one close enough to punch in the wall of the tent, leaving the poles leaning at drunken angles, pulling the ropes from the ground. There were cries of pain on the air, and a secondary retort as something caught fire and went up. Tynan looked skywards, gritting his teeth. Luck’s the emperor of this battlefield. He knew the Airborne would be taking wing, but much of the army did not have that luxury.

  ‘What do airships signify?’ Mycella pressed him. Another explosion sounded further off, and he knew that the Stormreaders would be turning to make another approach, despite the best efforts of the Farsphex pilots.

  ‘If they start to position airships over the camp, we’ll give the order to scatter. They can carry more bombs than any number of orthopters. Slow, though, so we’ll have warning. And perhaps the Farsphex will manage to bring some down.’

  ‘Yes, sir, but I don’t think . . .’ The watch officer flinched as another bomb landed somewhere off towards the coast. ‘They’ve not been seen again . . . I’d thought’ – flinch – ‘our scouts must be mistaken.’

  ‘Then go and get me better intelligence!’ Tynan snapped, and the man backed out hurriedly. The Wasp general sighed and buckled on his swordbelt, more for the comfort it would give him than anything else.

  ‘Tynan, these ships . . .’ Mycella began said pensively.

  ‘If there were any.’ But he found himself believing that there were. It would have to have been a very curious trick of the moonlight, otherwise . . .

  ‘They can carry more than bombs,’ she pointed out.

  Their eyes locked, communication passing between them as efficiently as through an Ant’s Art. In the next moment they were both shouting for their underlings.

  ‘Duty officer! Reinforce the perimeter. I want the reserve watch mustered now!’ And what a gamble – because if there’s a force coming for us, we must huddle close so as to repel it – and make ourselves easy meat for their bombs. And if we don’t . . . But he found that he accepted Mycella’s intuition without question.