creatures of the air. We still aren’t. The airships were bad enough, but at least they’re slow. The orthopters and the like, I knew they would bring this on us — it could have been Ants or Wasps or Bees or even our own people, but once the tools were in the world… Death from the skies, Maker, it was always going to happen. Since the day I saw Morless fly, I’ve been trying to find a way…’
‘A way to what?’ Stenwold rounded on him. Impossible, was the thought in his mind. Just a madman. But these were mad times.
‘To defend ourselves. Defend our city. My machine…’
‘You’ve shown us what your machine can do, and it was nothing to do with defending the city,’ Stenwold pointed out.
‘ Listen! That was just a discharge from the lightning batteries, a side effect. But it needs to be finished. It’s not ready. All those years, and I wasn’t ready…’
Those last words finally struck home, for Stenwold had thought just the same when the Wasps had brought war against them the first time.
‘Look at my machine,’ Banjacs went on. ‘See it for what it is. Let me complete it, Maker. I am so close.’
Impossible, came the familiar old refrain, but Stenwold found it hard to discern what might be impossible these days.
Thirty
There was some attempt at cheering, but Collegium had no grand tradition of military send-offs, nor did Beetle-kinden have any great belief that dying in battle was in some way better than dying in bed. The proud martial heritage of Ants and Mantids was lost on them. They marched to war with the same pragmatism with which they did everything.
Maker’s Own Company was already assembled into divisions of two hundred each, Collegium’s finest of all kinden moving off along the Pathian Way to reassemble outside the city. Ahead of them, the bulk of the automotives were on the move, deploying left and right of the roadway beyond the walls. Some had been armoured and mounted with weapons for the mechanized attack that was planned, whilst others were little better than livestock carriers to take Collegium’s soldiers to the fray.
The Coldstone Company was still assembling, ordering itself by best guess and rough democracy into the smaller fifty-man maniples that Marteus favoured. As sub-officer, the Antspider had one of these to look after, and she marched up and down in front of her soldiers, barking orders at people and pointing with her sword as though she was a lordly Arista and not just a halfbreed given temporary rank. The dignity was feigned, but she felt that running about and shouting was not fitting for her current station.
Her soldiers were all nervous, their mood on a knife-edge between anticipation and fear. All around them, watching every stumble and jogged elbow, were the crowds, a great mass of Collegium’s citizens, yet quiet, eerily quiet. Straessa watched the men and women of Coldstone Company bid farewell to their families and friends before each finding their place: here was gathered a host of wives and husbands, parents and children, all of whom had lived through the last war. This should have been nothing new to them. Many would remember sending these same soldiers off to fight at Malkan’s Folly with the Sarnesh, whilst others had stayed at home to hold off this same Imperial army two years before. Now, though, they watched in near-silence, as though draining every last moment from the sight, sucking it dry of memory.
It is because they thought they’d won last time, but here the Empire is, indefatiguable and insatiable. Where will it end?
A new train of automotives ground past, their engines shockingly loud in contrast, the subdued crowd eddying back to give them space. The Antspider caught a glimpse of that absurdly big Khanaphir who suddenly seemed to be in charge of the mechanized assault, standing up to survey the city he was leaving, whilst a woman she knew as Mistress Rakespear of the artifice faculty did the driving. In the next vehicle was a youngish woman with the blue- grey skin of Myna, whom Straessa knew must be their leader-in-exile, Kymene. There was a sizeable contingent of Mynan soldiers who would be fighting alongside the Merchant Companies, eager to get their teeth into their hated enemy.
‘All present and correct, Sub,’ the report came to her, dragging her back to the matter in hand. Gerethwy was standing forward from the others. ‘We can march out as soon as the Maker’s Own are through the gates.’
‘Stand ready,’ the Antspider confirmed, officer to subordinate. Then she met his eyes directly. Written there for her eyes to translate was the thought, We are utter fools, aren’t we? and she nodded slowly. ‘What’s that you’ve got there?’ she enquired, for, carried sloping over his shoulder, was something larger and more complex than a snapbow.
‘Foundry-pattern mechanized snapbow,’ Gerethwy reported proudly. ‘Every squad gets one of these, or else a nailbow, or something like it.’
‘How come you get to carry it?’ she asked, mock-jealous. Their banter cut at some part of her — so like and yet not like the old days that seemed years ago now, but she clung to it.
‘I showed them my accredits as an artificer, didn’t I?’ the Woodlouse-kinden told her proudly.
‘You brought your accredits to a war?’
He shrugged with one shoulder, keeping the fearsome-looking weapon steady. ‘That’s why I have this lovely toy, Sub.’
‘Straessa,’ someone interrupted.
She had been expecting the voice, but something lurched inside her when she heard it. She turned to find them: Eujen and Averic, come at last to see her off.
For all the destruction that had happened and the combat that was due, fighting for calm just then proved the hardest part of all. She wanted to run to them, to embarrass herself in front of her squad by venting the feelings that were boiling up inside her. She wanted to quit the army and simply stay here with Eujen, as if that would be any safer for either of them.
Instead she regarded them with affected coolness and a slight smile, her weight cocked on one hip, her arms folded. ‘Made it, then?’ she observed, and her voice remained steady. ‘Purple’s a good colour for you,’ she added, for they both now wore the sashes of Eujen’s Student Company.
‘It was the only colour we could get in bulk,’ he replied, doing his best to match her reserve, and not quite managing it. ‘Straessa..’
‘How’d you like my soldiers, eh?’ Her smile was fragile and brave.
Eujen just stared at her, and in his eyes was the time, ticking down. It looked as though the whole of the Coldstone Company had milled itself into place now, she reckoned. And still I can’t find the words. Averic was no help, not even meeting her eyes.
There sounded the tramp of marching feet, altogether too regular for anything under her command, and the Mynan exiles began to pass through: grim, determined men and women, professional in their red and black helms and breastplates. Seeing them, Straessa almost despaired. And we’ve got shopkeepers and tailors and artificers’ apprentices. Dress them in buff coats, it doesn’t make them soldiers.
Us. It doesn’t make us soldiers.
She turned back to Eujen, abruptly fearing that he would be gone, and caught his arm that was held half-out towards her. The casual pose was beginning to hurt, deep inside, but at the same time she could not make herself abandon it.
‘Straessa…’ he began again.
‘Gerethwy brought his accredits, can you believe that?’ she remarked brightly, inwardly appalled at the trite nonsense she was uttering.
Eujen swallowed, and she felt the moment fray and snap, the weight of an army about to march pulling her away from him. Then someone blundered into them both, making Averic start back, hands momentarily raised, and Raullo Mummers, disenfranchised artist, was hugging them both, tears streaming down his face. ‘You hear me? You look after yourself. No more funerals,’ he mumbled. ‘Come back, come back, that’s all.’ He was reeling drunk, as he had been for much of the time since his studio burned, hugging Eujen fiercely enough to force the breath out of him.
