Empire in Black and Gold

Eight

Captain Halrad had a professed fondness for Beetle-grown wine, Tynisa had soon discovered. He made a great show of sipping it, savouring the bouquet as he had undoubtedly seen the sophisticates do. He would tell her what a good blend this particular vintage was, when her own palette informed her it was what they called ‘orchard wine’, inferior stuff from the westerly vineyards.

She politely agreed with him. He was meanwhile telling her about life in the Wasp military. Or life in the Empire. It seemed to equate to the same thing.

‘But you can’t all be in the army,’ she protested. ‘How would that work?’

‘A Wasp is a warrior. A male Wasp, I mean. There’s no other livelihood,’ he told her.

‘What about artificers? Scholars?’

‘Warriors,’ he confirmed. ‘Warriors first. If you’re not a warrior you’re less than a man, like our subject peoples.’

‘But what about people with skills you need. They can’t all be in the army too.’

‘But they have to be,’ he said. ‘Let’s say there was someone from outside whose particular assets,’ he smiled at her, ‘could be useful to the Empire. We’d make them army, army auxillian anyway, give them a rank. Without that, they would be nobody. No more than a slave, even.’

‘You’re looking at me as though I might be useful to the Empire,’ she said, disarmingly coy.

‘We’ll make a general of you yet,’ he promised, and then hissed wine through his teeth as someone suddenly hammered on the door of his stateroom.

‘What is it?’ he demanded, flinging the door open. One of his soldiers stood there at attention, and Tynisa saw something new, something urgent in his expression.

‘You’re to come right away, Captain,’ the soldier announced, and when Halrad made to dispute this, he added, ‘Captain Thalric says it.’

The change in Halrad was marked. Instantly he turned from being a man in control to a man being watched. Tynisa was fascinated. She stepped up behind him, asking, ‘What is it?’ In the doorway the soldier stared back at her with patent loathing.

‘You just stay here,’ Halrad told her shortly. ‘I have to go. For your own safety you had better not leave this room.’

A moment later he was out of the room, and to her amazement she heard the key turn in the lock.

Che had tried her best to make herself useful on the voyage, but instead she had found herself without place, without purpose. Tynisa was off being either devious or indiscreet with the Wasp officer, Halrad, Totho had disappeared into the ship’s bowels, and Salma seemed to be playing some dangerous game with the Wasp soldiers. He could always be found somewhere in their line of sight but usually somewhere public. He kept smiling at them in that strange way of his. She feared he was going to get himself killed, but somehow he was still alive each morning.

She therefore spent the voyage browsing the few books on the common room’s shelves, or meditating in her own cabin. She had found that the constant soft revolution of the airship’s engine was in some ways an aid to concentration. Well, at least she was able to enter something approximating a trance, although the Ancestor Art remained conspicuous in its absence.

Totho practically kicked the door open in his haste to find her, startling her into diving for her sword, which was all the way across the room.

‘Trouble!’ he told her.

‘Wha-?’ She gaped at him.

‘More Wasps,’ he explained. ‘Turned up on a flier. New orders, I reckon.’

‘That means the game’s changed.’ She stood, brushing her robes down. ‘What do you think?’

‘We can’t take chances, because that makes eleven of them on board now.’ His eyes went wide. ‘With that many they could overpower the crew.’

‘Where’s Tynisa?’ she asked him.

‘I can go and find her.’

‘Then I’d better look for Salma. We have to plan.’

Tynisa had discovered that, short of breaking a porthole and somehow squeezing herself through it onto the sheer hull beyond, the cabin door was the only way out, and the door was locked.

Now if she had been a Beetle, that would have been different. She was quite sure that if she had been a Beetle-maid then a few quick jabs with a piece of wire would see her out of the door and away as fast as her stubby legs would carry her. She even began to try that, kneeling before the lock and peering into the narrow keyhole, trying to imagine the pieces of metal inside that, in some way beyond her imagining, controlled whether the door would open or not.

She simply could not do it: there was no place in her mind to conceive of the lock, the link between the turn of the key, the immobility of the door. Of all the old Inapt races, the Spider-kinden still prospered as before, but that was only because they found other people to make and operate machines for them. Spider doorways were hung with curtains, and they had guards, not locks, to keep out strangers.

And so, due to the limitations of her mind, she was trapped, left to curse Halrad’s name and pick over his belongings until he should choose to return for her. She found nothing of use, no sealed orders, no secret maps. He was, as she had already guessed, a dull creature of habit, and little more.

It seemed a very long time indeed before he returned, but up here the passing of time was difficult to gauge. Tynisa was instantly ready, though, a hand close to her rapier hilt as the lock clicked and the door opened. She had expected a bundle of soldiers to come pushing in to grab her, but it was just Halrad himself, conspicuously alone, his eyes wide.

‘Come with me,’ he ordered.

‘Why? What’s going on?’

‘Don’t question me, woman. Just come with me.’

He reached out and took her wrist. By the moment he touched her she had decided to play along, or he would have found her with steel drawn already. Instead she let herself be led, almost dragged along the corridor, down the spiralling wooden steps at the far end. Every time she asked him what he thought he was doing with her he just shook his head. She began to wonder if he had gone mad. He was acting like a man trying to escape a monster that only he could see. His feet skidded on the steps in his haste, and when they reached the common room deck he dragged her even further down, into the Sky Without’s guts, pushing past startled crew and engineers.

‘Captain Halrad,’ she protested, ‘tell me what is going on!’

He turned on her with sweat shiny on his brow. ‘You’ve been very clever with me,’ he said. ‘Yes, you have — and perhaps it’s worked. You knew all along I was looking for Stenwold Maker. Don’t try and deny it.’

She was sure that no hint of guilt touched her face, but still she turned cold within. Exactly what did he know? ‘Master Maker?’ she said awkwardly.

‘You know him. I know that now. You were seen with him, in Collegium. Captain Thalric knows all about you. Still, does that really make you a spy? Not necessarily, you don’t have to be.’

She saw it in his face, that he could not believe she was anything other than some innocent girl, caught up in something beyond her. If he chose otherwise then he would have been fooled by her, and he could not accept that. She had a moment for wry thought: Spider-kinden, my race, we already have such a reputation for lies. Yet, individually, who can we not convince?

She had an uncomfortable feeling that he was becoming less and less convinced as the minutes ticked by. Whatever was in his mind, he was making it up as he went along, and coming to fresh conclusions as he did so.

‘What about my friends?’

Halrad shook his head angrily. ‘Forget them: they’re as good as caught. Thalric will have them and let him be satisfied with that. You, though, you’re mine. He can keep his hands off you.’

‘Who is this Thalric?’ she asked, but he just tugged at her arm harder, hustling her onwards through the innards of the Sky Without. So she tried, ‘But if he’s just a captain and you’re a captain-’

He stopped, just for a moment, to stare back at her. ‘You don’t understand. Thalric is from the Rekef. Everyone knows that.’

‘The what?’

‘None of your concern,’ and he was hauling her off again. He barrelled his way past another engineer and abruptly they were in a larger space, not any longer the cramped warrens of the engine rooms. There was some kind of machine, of the winged variety, sitting innocuously in the middle of the floor.

‘What are you trying to do?’ she demanded.

‘Oh well now, I’m just staking my claim,’ he hissed. ‘You see, Captain Thalric thinks he can take possession of just anything he pleases, but you’re mine. We’re almost at Helleron and he can’t hope to search every corner of this ship before then, even if the crew would permit it.’ He was now pulling her across the great hangar, towards an open doorway in the far wall. ‘The cargo hold is through there,’ he explained. ‘And as of now, you’re my cargo. I’ll find somewhere safe for you, to keep you out of Thalric’s way, but I’m going to have to lock you up there. We can’t have you running around the ship any more, and besides. .’ His eyes were wild. ‘If you do turn out to be something more than you seem, well. .’ His face was suddenly cold and she found it hard to believe he had ever smiled at her. ‘Well then why should Thalric get all the credit for handing you in, when I can do that myself? And if you are just a Spider girl who’s walked into more than she can handle, then you’re mine, so you should get used to staying where you’re put and doing what I say.’

They had come to the open doors leading into the next chamber, which was packed with crates all neatly tied down. Halrad’s gaze raked it, and she realized he must mean to put her in one of the boxes to avoid this mysterious Thalric’s search. ‘Get in the hold, woman!’ He tried to push her in, but she squirmed out of the way and then retreated from him along the partition wall.

‘Don’t make me force you,’ he warned. He held one hand up now, and she started as bright worms of light writhed and danced about it. Ancestor Art, she realized, but like none she had ever seen before.

She took stock of the situation, of the room itself. At no point did the thought of actually cooperating with him tempt her.

‘Two things, Captain,’ she said. ‘Firstly, I won’t abandon my friends. Secondly. .’ She swallowed, put him from her mind. ‘Now would be a good time.’

‘What?’ Halrad’s puzzlement turned into a shriek of agony as Totho stabbed him in the back. He arched towards her, and she threw herself aside, twisting out of his grip. For a second he remained standing, propped against the wall, just staring. Then he fell backwards and sideways, through the doorway and into the hold.

She turned to Totho, who was still staring at the corpse with wide eyes. Whatever he felt on this occasion, the first time he had taken a human life, it was not the exultation that had gripped Tynisa herself in the hall of Stenwold’s townhouse.

‘You’ve a gift for timing,’ she told him calmly. ‘How did you get here so fast?’

‘What?’ He looked at her, and visibly coloured. ‘Oh, I. . told some of the engineers I was. . I, ah. . liked you. . so they kept an eye on you for me.’ He avoided her gaze.

‘That’s sweet,’ she told him, which only made his embarrassment worse. ‘Look, did you hear what he said, about this Thalric person hunting for us?’

‘Che’s already gone to fetch Salma,’ he explained. ‘What should we do now?’

‘Bring them here,’ she told him. ‘If nothing else, below decks is probably the last place they’ll look. I’ll hide the body in the meantime.’

Che found Salma lounging in the common room, but the news she had was not news to him. He indicated the trio of Wasp soldiers who were lurking along one wall. ‘The ugly one in the middle came in just now, and since then they’ve obviously been on watch-and-wait. Something’s changed, all right.’

‘This new officer,’ confirmed Che, who had put on something more action-worthy, tunic and breeches, with her possessions slung over her shoulder and her sword at her hip.

‘They’re onto us.’ He shrugged. ‘Whether they know for sure we’re in service or they just think we can lead them to Stenwold, it doesn’t really matter.’

‘But what can we do now?’ Che asked. ‘We can’t just sit here forever, and besides, if they get impatient, Totho says they could take over the whole ship and just fly us to the Empire, or something.’

‘By the customs of my own people, there are two things we can do,’ he told her, his customary sardonic expression creasing further. ‘Firstly, I can get my steel out and hunt them down all across the ship, shadow to shadow. Kill them in ones and twos until they’re all dead, or I am. That would be one option.’

She stared at him, wide-eyed. He sounded as serious as he ever could be. ‘You’ve done that, before?’

‘No,’ he admitted. ‘But it’s a done thing, where I come from. Happened a lot during the war, I’m told.’ He stretched. ‘That, then, is the right hand. However there is always the plan of the left hand.’

‘Which is what?’

‘Watch and learn, O scholar.’ He stood up abruptly and she saw a sudden shifting of stance amongst the Wasp soldiers, but he ignored them contemptuously. Instead, his meandering path took him over to a table occupied by a group of Beetle merchants, and before her eyes he proposed to them a game of chance.

It was a short while, minutes only, before the table was scattered with coins. Gambling was one of those frowned-upon pastimes that the poor were dissuaded from indulging in by a middle class that could not itself resist the lure, turning many a member of the latter class into one of the former in the course of a single profligate night. In short order Salma was matching cards happily with three cloth merchants and a brace of Fly-kinden, including the formerly aloof dulcimer player. Betting was fast and fierce, and Che kept having to remind herself that their lives were on the line here, because she had never seen Salma play cards before. He played as though he could not lose, and when he lost he was careless of it, but mostly he won.

The Wasps were watching even more closely now, suspecting some device, but Salma paid them no heed whatsoever, seeming utterly absorbed in his game. They barely glanced at Che, meanwhile, and she realized that they must be working on very limited information, secondhand descriptions. Salma was the only Dragonfly-kinden within a hundred miles, but she, a Beetle amongst Beetles, was safe in her anonymity.

Even as she thought this, there was a shout from the table and all chaos broke loose.

In the first few seconds of furious argument Che tried to piece together what was going on. Someone had been caught cheating, or suspected of it, and she soon realized that it was Salma. He, for his part, was outraged at the very suggestion, knocking his chair back and standing up, and then simply flipping the entire table over. Cards, money and angry gamblers were suddenly all scattered about the common room.

She saw Salma moving fast, but one of the merchants still managed to bounce a fist off him before himself sprawling over a chair. The Wasps were trying to move in but everything was now in an uproar. A pair of stewards were trying to restore the peace, for there were at least three private fistfights going on, and one large one to which everyone was invited. In the midst of all of this, Salma grabbed her wrist, and a moment later he had extricated them both from the room, and they were running for the stairs.

‘Where to?’ she asked.

‘No idea,’ he admitted. The shouting from behind them was picking up in volume. She glanced back and saw a flash of black and yellow.

Without any warning, a whole panel of wall beside them was open, and they saw Totho framed in it, wreathed in cloud with the chill air plucking at him.

‘I’ve been looking for you,’ was his understatement. ‘Out this way, quick,’ he said, and then disappeared from sight. Che peered through the hatchway and saw Totho descending the Sky Without’s very hull, hand over hand on iron rungs. Below was an open walkway that must surely connect to the lower deck.

Che did not want, under any circumstances, to be out there with nothing but the strength of her grip to save her from a dive into infinity. The Wasp soldiers were coming, though, so her preferences seemed irrelevant.

‘You first,’ she said, and Salma simply dived straight through the hatch. As soon as he was clear of it, his Art-wings blurred into life about his shoulders, catching him in the air, where he hovered and spun while waiting for her.

She bundled herself through the hatch and hauled it closed behind her, balancing precariously. A moment’s extra thought showed her how to secure it, and by the time the Wasps had reached it, there was no obvious way for them to follow.

The wind tugged at her, seemed to get between her fingers and the slick chill of the metal rungs. She concentrated only on her hands, trying to make her descent as mechanical and unerring as an automaton’s. Salma kept pace with her, and she knew he would try to catch her if she slipped, but she was not altogether sure whether he could.

And then there came another hatch, at last. Totho was holding it open for them, practically hopping from foot to foot. She shouldered past him into the cramped walkway.

‘Where now?’

‘Tynisa’s waiting in the hangar.’ He bared his teeth nervously. ‘They’re after us and I’m not sure there’s anywhere we can safely hide. Maybe amongst the freight.’

Che closed the hatch after Salma, who said, ‘Run,’ remarkably quietly. The walkway stretched the length of the airship’s gondola, but at the far end they could see movement: black and yellow yet again. Wasp soldiers were now forcing their way along the narrow space with their hands outstretched before them.

Totho took off at once down the walkway, with an engineer’s practised hunch, and then almost immediately dropped through another hatchway. By the time Che had caught up, he was in the cavernous space of the hangar, where Tynisa was already coming out of hiding to greet them. As soon as Salma was clear of the hatch Che slammed it shut and threw the bar.

‘No time!’ she warned. ‘They’re coming!’

Salma looked about them. ‘Where do these other doors go?’ he asked.

‘Engine room, a dead end,’ Totho explained. ‘And the other leads to the freight holds.’

‘But we don’t need to run anywhere on board!’ Tynisa interrupted them. ‘If we stay here they’re bound to find us. So let’s use this thing and just go.’ She was pointing at the fixed-wing. ‘Totho, start it up, make it go.’

Totho goggled at her. ‘I can’t pilot a flier.’

‘But you’re Apt, you’re an artificer. You like machines.’

‘I could repair it, yes, if it was broken.’ He kept shaking his head at her, and Che saw a whole bucketful of hope drain from Tynisa’s expression.

‘But. . that was my plan,’ she said weakly.

‘I can fly it, maybe’ Che announced, to disbelieving stares. ‘I can try, at least,’ she amended. ‘I did a course on aviation at the College.’

‘Then let’s do it!’ Salma said. Totho was already running for the loading ramp wheel, unlocking it and spinning it so that the ramp descended into its full slope with a shriek of abused metal. The fixed-wing flier shifted a foot downwards against its rope restraints, pointing backwards down the ramp, about to re-enact its arrival in reverse.

The first impact by the Wasps on the door they had entered by almost splintered it out of its frame. There was a fraught second of looks anxiously exchanged and then Che made the decision. Half-sliding down the ramp, she clambered awkwardly across the fixed-wing’s hull to squeeze herself into the pilot’s seat. The controls were simple: levers to steer the vanes, a crank to start the propeller. She began cranking straight away, just as the hangar door flew off its hinges, tumbling the first Wasp soldier into the room.

‘In!’ Tynisa decided, and she sprang into the seat behind Che, with Salma following close behind. Totho rushed to join then, thudding down onto the ramp and skidding dangerously on its metal slope. He reached for the lever that would release the ropes to free the flier, but before he could even touch it there was a crackle of fire and something bright struck sparks from near his hand. Totho fell backwards and had a gut-wrenching understanding that he was about to fall between the ramp and the hatch and then slip out into space. Salma and Tynisa both snagged him at the same time, and hauled him into the flier.

‘I can’t get the engine going!’ Che said in a panic, and Totho was explaining that he had to release the snagging ropes or the flier would be going absolutely nowhere.

‘Simple,’ Tynisa said, and flicked out her rapier. Totho howled for her to stop, but a moment later she had severed the ropes just on one side. The fixed-wing pitched left and hung for a second as another bolt of energy burned into the deck above them. Then Tynisa had severed another two strands and the flier slid helplessly down the ramp and away into space.

But they were not flying. They were barely gliding, mostly falling, with Che repeating, ‘The engine won’t start! Someone look at the engine!’

That someone, Totho realized, would have to be him. He squirmed towards the aft end of the flier, where the dark bulk of the engine was set well back. He dived through the space between the upper and lower wings, dodged about the mounted ballista, and off the back of the craft.

His Art kept him there, clinging to the smooth side of the flier with feet and knees, whilst the air dashed past him and the world towards him. Totho had very little time in which to make a diagnosis. Perhaps less than he thought. There were figures above him, diving from the Sky Without with their Art-wings extended.

I can fly it. The words were rattling around in Che’s skull, faster and faster. She had the flaps all the way back, so that if the engine had been functioning then the fixed-wing would be looping the loop. Instead it was dropping straight out of the sky, its nose gently tilting lower. ‘Any time, Toth!’ she called out. By now she had the levers pulled so far back that they were creaking in her hands.

Energy crackled across one of the wings from a ranging shot of the Wasps. Hanging almost upside down by his Art and his knees, Totho’s hands searched frantically. He heard Che shout his name despairingly, but he could not be rushed now.

There. And just in time. There were clamps on the fuel lines intended to stop just this kind of theft. None of the Wasps had been an artificer or else something more sophisticated, harder to find, would have been used. Swiftly he plucked them off and shouted for Che to fire up the engine one more time.

There must have been quite a head of fuel waiting in the lines, because the engine seemed to explode, a flash of heat that scorched Totho’s face, and great clouds of smoke were falling away behind and above them. A moment later the engine was running, propeller turning at first slowly, then fast enough to blur. The fixed-wing struggled in the air, Che wrestling with the sticks. Clinging to the engine casing, which in a very short time was getting uncomfortably warm, Totho feared the little craft was going to slide sideways, slipping through the air and then simply plummeting into a mad spinning dive. Che put all her weight on the controls, though, and the flier swung level, pitched the other way and then righted, dashing through the air with the engine still coughing and smoking.

She glanced behind her, and was rewarded with the sight of Tynisa and Salma actually clinging together from pure fear, and she gave out a great whoop of glee, for in that moment she was suddenly enjoying herself.

Then out of the smoke the Wasp soldiers came arrowing down on them with swords and fire.