War Master's Gate

Twenty-Five

That morning, Major Oski turned up before his general. He was out of uniform, wearing dark, baggy clothes and with his face blacked like a comic artificer in a play.

‘General.’ The little man saluted. ‘Apologies, I’ve not had time to change.’

A horn sounded — in the last few days it had become a familiar and miserable call. It meant the Collegiate orthopters had been sighted on their way for another bombing run, under skies still grey with dawn. The Farsphex pilots and ground artillerists would be scrabbling to ready themselves, but those repeating ballistae with which the Empire had been threatening the slower enemy bombers had themselves become the prime targets, and each time the Collegiate machines flew over once again — several times a day now — the resistance offered was that much less.

Tynan kept an eye on the sky. ‘Explain.’

‘I’ve been over to look at the walls, sir,’ Oski told him. ‘Trick I learned from the Colonel-Auxillian — he always went for a look in the dark in person. Anyway, I thought I’d take a look at the closest gate, shooting arcs and the like. I’ve got a plan of attack now, if you’ll have it.’

Tynan gestured for him to continue. The first bomb fell, released too soon and impacting out in the earthworks. There was always someone too keen or too nervous, amongst the enemy. The growl of the Farsphex engines was all around them, too: Bergild’s pilots lifting into the air to do what they could. The numbers were stacked against them, though, and if they tried too hard they would find themselves shot down. Their game of feint and threat was growing more and more difficult, and most of the time Collegium could spare a score of Stormreaders to ward them off, whilst the rest got to work on the army.

And the Second Army was still spreading itself thin, but when the order came to press the actual attack, the Wasps would have to gather their soldiers, and then the bombing would begin in earnest. At this rate it seemed touch and go whether they could get close to the walls at all, given all the Collegiate artillery out there. And when they did, how long would they have to sit under bombardment before the ramparts could be taken or the wall breached?

Too long, was the thought nobody dared voice, for Captain Vrakir and his Red Watch constantly stalked through the army with their Imperial writ, just waiting for someone to express doubts about the Empress’s plans.

‘This airship,’ Tynan spat out, over the sound of the bombs.

‘Bergild and I, we calculate it’ll be in sight by late dawn tomorrow — and believe me, the Collegiates won’t miss it. That’s the other thing: Vrakir’s ordered all our fliers made ready for it — our artificers have been busy brewing up that muck that their Captain Nistic gave them the recipe for — and it’s nothing I recognize, I can tell you. Stinks, though, sir. Nobody wants a bed near where they’re boiling it.’

‘And you’re confident this will work, this scheme of theirs?’

‘No, sir.’ Oski looked profoundly unhappy, enough so that the bomb that now impacted close enough to shake the ground beneath them barely made him flinch. ‘Sir, this is outside my profession, and I have no idea at all. But we all know we’ve got nothing else.’

‘Too true,’ Tynan agreed moodily. ‘So, tell me about the walls. What have we got left that will put a dent in them?’

‘The walls themselves? Nothing reliable unless we can undermine then and pack the tunnel with explosive. And I reckon those walls go down a way, too. The gate, I think we have a chance against if we’re left free to work. I can adapt some leadshotters as ramming engines, and they should get through it if we can bring them to bear. Other than that. . well, the Sentinel handlers reckon that their machines might be up to it, but I’m not convinced. It’s not what they’re built for, and I just don’t know their specifications well enough.’

‘Get the ramming engines ready,’ Tynan told him. ‘Do what you can.’ Another explosion nearby left a fine mist of dirt sifting down on them.

‘I reckon we’ll receive at least one attack from their fliers overnight, if they’ve any sense,’ Oski ventured. ‘I’ll have the ground crew ready to refuel and patch up the Farsphex, once they’re down from that. Then it’s down to the chemical artificers and that stink of theirs.’

Tynan was not looking at him, nor at the wheeling orthopters, but instead somewhere off and away, towards the walls of Collegium, so that eventually Oski had to prompt him, ‘Sir?’

‘Do what you can,’ the general repeated. He looked as if he was trying on the face of his own corpse: a general faced with the choice of sending thousands of his soldiers into a catastrophic attack, or else disobeying an order. Then he gestured for one of his officers. ‘Send out messengers. The advance commences at dawn, battle order unchanged.’ Then, more thoughts spoken aloud. ‘If their fliers are likely to be occupied with this airship, even for a moment, we’ll make use of that time.’

Awkwardly, Oski backed away, and turned at a respectful distance to fly off and get his hands dirty, because some hard and absorbing engineering was just what he needed to chase the image of General Tynan’s face from his mind.

The Vekken were all within Collegiate walls now, and nobody had complained about it. That seven hundred of the city’s oldest enemy were suddenly being welcomed with open arms, and nobody — not anybody — had stood up and remarked on the fact, was perhaps the most telling sign of how the world had changed.

There had been word from Sarn, too, but nothing good. The Eighth Army was not as far advanced as the Second, but there was only so much the Sarnesh could do to slow it, and they would inevitably clash soon. With the Mantis question still unanswered, who would prevail remained anybody’s guess.

And then there’s the other aspect of the Sarnesh. Both Laszlo and Balkus had tried to corner him on the subject of Tactician Milus and the liberties he took, but Stenwold had waved them both away. After all, there was nothing he could do.

Laszlo was kicking about the city, sulking, but he would get over it. He was probably commiserating with the rest of the Tidenfree crew even now. The ship itself remained in harbour, given that the Empire had precious little way to strike at it, but the former pirates would be taking their leave soon, Stenwold knew. As for Balkus and Sperra, for all he knew, they were forming a Princep government in exile or something similarly impolitic.

Or they don’t have anywhere else to turn but to call on me. An unhappy thought, given that he had nothing for them. After the war, we can sort it all out. Although Stenwold had an uncomfortable feeling that, if Sarn decided to take control of Princep now, the Ants would not be so easily dislodged later.

The Second Army had held off, still spread out and hard to damage with bombs; also still just outside artillery range — a distance established after a few incautious Imperials came too close and Madagnus showed them the new teeth the city had. Waiting for something. . Or perhaps Tynan was just frozen with indecision, knowing how bad his position was. But Stenwold did not believe that.

‘Maker.’

It was after dark now, but he had plenty of paperwork to keep him up, enough to fill the time until this diminutive figure slouched into his current office, still wearing grease-dirty pilot’s leathers, with a chitin helm and goggles hanging from her belt.

‘Taki,’ he nodded.

The Solarnese woman looked worn out, but then she was well known for pushing herself far further than any of the pilots who served under her. She found a footstool and sat down on it, and Stenwold poured her a bowl of wine.

She took it in both hands and sipped, wrinkling up her face. ‘Maker, back home the only way you’d find wine this bad is by pissing it out after a heavy night.’

‘It’s all I’ve got left. There’s a city-wide shortage. We’ve asked the Tseni if they could ship some in, but apparently they don’t drink it off the Atoll Coast.’ He shrugged apologetically. ‘We’ve had some interrupted harvests, what with. . everything, you know. A few years that won’t have a vintage. What did you find?’

‘Nothing,’ she told him tiredly. ‘I went up the coast, halfway to Tark, I swear. No reinforcements, nothing coming in by sea, no automotives. . not even a supply airship. The only thing is if maybe they’ve got another twenty Farsphex coming from somewhere — and they could get here overnight. We’ve got the Great Ear listening out for their engines, if they do. But nothing yet, Stenwold.’

She tried the wine again, and forced down a throat-full. ‘Not got anything to eat, have you? I came straight here.’

‘I appreciate it.’ Stenwold had some bread and goat’s cheese left, and shoved it across his desk towards her. ‘What about their army?’

‘They’ll come for you tomorrow, I reckon,’ Taki confirmed. ‘They’re still all over the place, but by evening we could see how each detachment of them was pulling itself together, forming up. Maybe they’ll try a night attack, but I know that the Companies and the artillery are ready for that. We’ve got lights all along the wall and people watching the air, I think — and an extra guard on the gatehouse just in case. And it’s not as if they could really sneak up on us.’

‘You should get some sleep,’ Stenwold advised.

‘I should have got some sleep last night,’ she corrected. ‘Tonight we’re going to stop the Wasps getting any sleep instead.’

‘Let someone else lead the flight.’

‘I see better in the dark.’ She sagged, looking very small, almost flimsy enough to blow away. ‘Pits, maybe you’re right, at that. When I came here, you remember what the deal was? You made me a new flier, I taught at your College — Associate Mastership or whatever. Didn’t say anything about commanding your air defences and fighting wars for you.’

‘I know, we owe you a great deal and we take you for granted,’ Stenwold confirmed. ‘At the moment I can’t afford not to take for granted those people I know can be relied on.’

‘Pisspoor compliment that is,’ she muttered. ‘Anyway, not as if I can exactly go home any time soon.’ Solarno, her home city, was held between the Wasps and their Spider allies: one of the first conquests of the war. ‘Might as well be here. At least I get to fly.’

‘Seriously, though, get some sleep. Those are War Master’s orders,’ he told her gently. ‘If they’re going to march tomorrow, we’ll need you fresh.’

She was cramming bread into her mouth and just nodded vaguely, dipping it into the wine to soften it, seeming almost too tired to chew. When she found him staring at her, she met his gaze with raised eyebrows, and that irreverence, at least, was something of her usual manner.

Then there was another Fly-kinden appearing at his door, with a brisk knock. Jodry’s secretary come to fetch him to deal with some new disaster of bureaucracy. Stenwold shrugged at Taki. ‘Finish the wine, if you can stomach it,’ he suggested, and then bustled out, only hoping that Taki would actually take his advice and get some sleep.

‘What’s this?’ Bergild demanded. She had been kicked out of fitful sleep by the complaints of her pilots that the engineers were tampering with their Farsphex. Most of her team slept beside or even inside their craft these days, what with the alarm ready to be sounded night or day. Also, many were so strung out on Chneuma that they barely slept at all. Any long period of inactivity just resulted in a sort of slack-jawed trance plagued by horrible, nightmarish daydreams, breaking into instant wake-fulness the moment the call to arms went up.

Now the engineers appeared to be set on making even their waking hours as unreal and unpleasant as possible.

‘What are you doing?’ she shouted. She had been in Oski’s tent, having been left there after nodding off in the small hours. The anticipated Collegium night attack had come and gone, but casualties had been lighter than expected. Although the Second was mustering for their attack, the enemy pilots had been put off their aim by the thick dark of cloud cover, and had wasted most of their cargo.

‘Orders,’ one of the engineers yelled over his shoulder. He was only a lieutenant and so there should have been a “sir”, but she was used to not receiving it. What she was not used to was the smell.

The engineers wore masks to exclude the worst of it, but a wide berth was already being given to her craft — and all the others, her mindlink confirmed — as a reeking mixture was slopped over every surface of the flier. It was. . she found it hard to say just what it was like: acrid and sharp, bringing tears to the eyes, and biting at the inside of her nose.

‘Whose orders?’ she wanted to know.

‘Captain Vrakir’s,’ and then, because the lieutenant registered how close she was, and that she had her hands open and slightly directed towards him, he added, ‘Sir.’

‘It’s the new plan, sir. Captain Nistic, that came a couple days ago, he gave us the recipe for this,’ another engineer explained. ‘We’re to paint it onto every flier we’ve got. And no, we don’t know why, sir, or what it’s for. But you’ve seen how the Red Watch faces up to the general. Empress’s own words, that’s what they say.’

And what makes you think the Empress knows the first thing about air combat? Bergild reflected. What makes you think she knows the first thing about what Captain Vrakir’s doing in her name, either? But this last observation sounded hollow even in her own mind. Whenever Vrakir spoke, there was some authority leaking out in his words that she could not account for. Certainly it was true that Tynan himself listened to him, even if he was plainly unhappy about it.

‘No problems, I’m sure, Captain?’

She jumped. The man was right behind her and she was unused to being surprised.

‘Captain Vrakir,’ she addressed him coldly, ‘what’s the meaning of this? Is this. . reek supposed to keep the Collegiates away?’

‘It’s a necessary precaution, that’s all. More than that, you-’

‘Don’t need to know,’ she finished for him, and had the pleasure of seeing his lips tighten in annoyance. ‘This plan of yours. .?’

He held a finger up. ‘Is not to be spoken of. You, Major Oski and his slave have been circumspect so far, and tomorrow — almost today, now — all will become clear to everyone, most especially to the Empress’s enemies. But don’t abandon your discretion. There could be Collegiate spies listening even now.’

The engineers, who had most surely been eavesdropping, resumed their foul task with exaggerated dedication.

Vrakir moved very close, but Bergild would not give ground before him. She found she regretted that when he spoke virtually into her ear, ‘You have seen, though. You know what we will do to them.’

‘I don’t think anyone knows what will happen once that surprise gets here,’ she replied, fighting down her instinct to squirm away from him. ‘Not you, and not Captain Nistic either. And you’ve seen him. He’s mad.’

‘A little savage, perhaps,’ Vrakir allowed, and she could almost mime his next words, they were so predictable: ‘but these are savage times. Believe me, Captain Nistic is devoted to the Empire. He and his fellows have waited a long time to bring their particular talents to bear.’

At last she stepped back, because that red badge of his, pressing almost against her shoulder, felt as though it might burn or bite her at any moment.

Then the alarm came instantly into her mind: Captain — enemy orthopters. She kicked off immediately and was halfway into her craft’s side-hatch, about to wriggle down the crawlspace for the cockpit, when she heard; Three — no, four only. Not stopping and keeping well north of us, and she decided, Scouts.

Not overflying the army, Captain. Pursue?

She had a mental image of their direction now, as though revealed on a map. ‘They’ve found your new toy, Vrakir,’ she told the man, who had caught up with her. ‘The Collegiates know it’s there, somehow. Four orthopters are off to look at it right now.’

For a moment his face froze, as if left unattended at the front of his head, while thoughts meshed behind it. ‘The escort can fend off four,’ he decided.

She nodded, ‘But your secret’s out.’

‘How much longer was it ever going to stay a secret?’ he pointed out. Whatever his source of inspiration, which seemed to recite the Empress’s plans seemingly without his knowing them before he spoke, it had obviously found him a new groove to run in. ‘Let them see. Let them run back to their city with the news. And you — every one of our pilots, whether Farsphex, Spearflight or even the Spider rabble — you’re to get into the air once you hear those orthopters heading back home. You’re to go and meet our airship and defend it from all comers.’

‘The army. .’ she said uncertainly, because the Second was so much more vulnerable now, as it gathered itself to take the ground between here and Collegium’s walls.

‘Not your concern,’ Vrakir told her flatly. ‘And you!’ He rounded on the engineers. ‘Double pace! I want all the machines fully slopped over with this filth before then! Or I’ll have every tenth man on crossed pikes, by the Empress’s own word!’

They woke her close on dawn, and every other sleeping pilot too, banging on the door of the airfield barracks as if they were trying to beat it down.

Taki leapt awake, kicking into the air with wings a-blur, and with no clear sense of who she was or what was going on. Must be an emergency — Exalsee pilots never get up at this hour. But of course she was a long way from the Exalsee — from what in retrospect had been a comfortable and pampered life. Now Collegium was her surrogate city, and it was at war.

And, with that thought, the urgency of the banging and kicking and shouting jolted her alert. One of the Beetle pilots had opened the door by then, and another couple of her aviators almost fell into the room.

‘All right, all right!’ Taki shouted at them. ‘We’re all awake, so tell me what the picture is.’

‘Chief,’ one of them acknowledged her. She had not really earned the Company title, but everyone seemed to take her for the Chief Officer of pilots these days. ‘The Ear went off a couple of hours ago now. It’s picked up more Farsphex on their way.’

‘A couple of hours?’ Taki demanded instantly. ‘Why wasn’t I-’

‘Chief, they said we should let you sleep,’ the other put in.

Bloody Maker sticking his nose in. ‘What’s the situation?’

‘They reckoned four or six, from the Ear — not enough to tip the balance — so four of us went out to take a look. The Wasps’ve got something mad coming our way — an airship, more than sixty yards long, bow to stern — and. .’ His language apparently failed him, but the other pilot took it up.

‘The whole hull’s covered with bomb-hatches or something — hundreds of them,’ she put in. ‘And the Farsphex were flying escort. It’s coming close, Chief. By now maybe they could spot it from the walls with a telescope, it’s that big.’

Taki frowned. This makes no sense. But then it would take a heavy airship some time to reach Collegium from the Empire, and maybe this plan had made sense when the thing set off. Or maybe. .

‘Let me see it,’ she decided. ‘Get me a glass and. . wait.’ She had slept in her tunic, and it was the work of a moment to struggle into her stained, rank-smelling flying leathers. Ah for the Exalsee, where we had servants for everything. ‘Everyone else, get dressed and to your machines!’ she directed. ‘I reckon we’ve just had some work handed to us.’

She was on the wall within minutes and, from the stir amongst the lookouts there, she guessed that the aerial behemoth had already been spotted. The chill, grey half-light from the east served to silhouette it: still too far to make out any details even through a glass, but its size was undeniable, and. .

‘Will you look at that,’ Taki murmured, because there was definite movement from the Second. She was not so much interested to see that the might of the Imperial army and its Spider allies had actually drawn itself up into a conveniently bombable battle order. What had caught her eye were the enemy fliers. Even as she watched, she could see them lifting off in ones and twos, both the Farsphex that she had come to respect, and what remained of the rest, the outdated and the makeshift. They were all of them reaching for the air, and heading not towards Collegium but away. Heading for the same approaching airship.

That’s how you’re playing it, is it? But still she did not understand. Even with a handful of extra Farsphex, the Empire did not have enough fighting craft to keep that airship intact and aloft. But it looked as though they were going to try.

Maybe if they care enough about the cursed thing, we’ll be able to pin them down at last — clear the entire sky of them. She had a great deal of respect for the Farsphex pilots, at least, who had made the very best of a bad job in complicating the bombing of the Second, but it would serve Taki well if the Empire’s tenuous grasp on the sky was finally prised off. If the Wasps were committing themselves to defending this monstrosity, then this might be the opportunity they were waiting for.

‘Every Stormreader that’s ready to fly, get a pilot to it quickly, and let’s get into the air,’ she decided. Too big a target, too good an opportunity to pass up. And still the whole business nagged at her. So what do they hope to achieve? Are they really so desperate, or such fools?

At the very prow of his airship’s gondola, Captain Nistic stood waiting. His moment was near at hand. His fellows, those who shared his mystery, were scattered about the deck, each concentrating on his own private preparation, letting their minds fall into that requisite void.

Below their feet, in the dark hold: their massed soldiers.

The sky about the airship was criss-crossed with orthopters, their scant escort reinforced with the air power of the Second — or what it could muster. Nistic did not care. Oh, surely it was part of the plan, to focus the minds of the Collegiates, but it meant nothing to him.

He took a deep breath. Awake, now.

Some of the troops below were awake already, because his anticipation had been bleeding out into their minds since before dawn. Ahead, the sky was only just shaking off its shroud of darkness, the fateful day cresting over Collegium. If he leant forwards, he could see the Second Army just beginning to move: not as individual soldiers but a composite mass.

His warriors were stirring themselves below, rousing drowsily from their slumber, then springing to alertness. And with their wakefulness he felt their rage.

Such rage: he thrilled to it. He shared it. He heard gasps and sharp grunts as his fellows were caught up in it, like loops in the same chain when the anchor is dropped.

My soldiers! he projected his thoughts down. Your time is come! Rejoice, for all that you wish for shall be yours!

There was a call from one of the aircrew — he was pointing, and Nistic knew this meant the Collegiate fliers were on their way.

Tell me what you wish for! he exhorted his followers, and their words came back to him like swelling, angry tide.

Killkillkillkillkillkillkillkill. .

He held fast to the rail, because his troops would enter the battle soon and, unless he kept a tight grip, he would be tempted to join them, swept up in their murder-lust. They knew nothing but anger and battle, and he stirred them further, he roused them, he reached into their minds and stoked the fires until the whole airship was heaving with their savagery.

See, the enemy comes! And he lent them his eyes, aware that the furthest out of the Imperial machines were already clawing for height, desperate to defend the airship just as they had been ordered.

But we need no defending. My soldiers! My faithful! The time has come to kill!

And from below, from all around, doubling and redoubling, it echoed back from the minds of his fellows: Killkillkillkillkill kill. .

They were Apt, Nistic and his fellows, but the mystery of their calling had not changed since the old days. They were among the last remaining, but they had no doubt that this day was what everything had been leading up to. Today they would vindicate their ancestors. Today the ancient traditions of the Hornet-kinden — which the more civilized Wasp folk had long abandoned — would change the world.

He tilted back his head and screamed out his joy and rage, but the sound was almost lost amidst the roar from below.

Taki slid her Esca Magni into a smooth curve that took her up against the flank of a passing Farsphex. As expected, the Imperial craft pulled aside, coursing across the great canvas of the airship’s balloon and leading her away. But she lazily broke away and crested the rounded summit of the dirigible, as if to loose a bomb, and sure enough the enemy came back, unable to lead her off on a chase, forced to put itself in harm’s way to protect this lumbering offence to aeronautics. She hauled sharply on the stick, stopping her wings dead for a second despite her gear trains’ complaints, switching from flying machine to hurtling dead weight for an eye blink, until she set one wing beating to sling her about. Flying backwards, both wings fighting with gravity and her own thwarted momentum, she let loose at the returning Farsphex with a full burst from her rotaries, catching it about the cockpit and wings. It jinked sideways with impressive agility, but she moved along with it, making minute, unconscious adjustments to the stick. A moment later, one of the Farsphex’s wings was simply gone, and it was fast parting company with the sky. Taki pulled away, no need to see the end result.

A Spearflight tried to get in her way, with desperate courage, and she chewed its tail off, effortlessly twitching aside from its own shot. Then somehow a pair of Farsphex had joined together to hunt her, and she led them off down the length of the balloon, putting a few bolts in for good measure. If she’d come loaded with bombs she would have dropped one right then, to see if it would take hold on the envelope, but Collegium used its bigger, slower orthopters for bombing work these days, and a good half of the Stormreader pilots had followed her lead in refusing the extra weight.

She dropped out into the vast and busy sky ahead of the airship, and immediately a quartet of Stormreaders were onto her pursuers. With deft practice she reversed her direction again — something this current rebuild of the Esca was very suited for, for some reason — and took a more careful look at the airship itself. It was still wallowing through the air at its sedate pace, as though heedless of the air-duelling that went on all around it. She could see the gondola’s upper deck passing almost close enough for the crew to loose a sting at her — a handful of airmen crouched low for cover, and some weirdly dressed Wasps standing near the front.

What’s that noise?

Over the wind, over the clatter of her wings, reaching her as a tremor in her bones more than through her ears: a deep, pulsating thunder.

From the airship?

No engine, though. Nothing she had ever heard before, except. . fear. It struck fear into her, at a base and childish level. She had to fight herself to keep the Esca level for a second. What? There’s nothing. There’s nothing. Only. .

A heliopter looking like something put together by a clumsy child tried to challenge her with a repeating ballista, barely fitter for the air than the airship itself, and she sliced off its rotors almost contemptuously. Please, we were building better than that machine on the Exalsee thirty years back.

She let the Esca circle the stern of the airship, and a Stormreader rose up and crossed her path, signalling furiously with its lamp. She tried to decipher the message, but the pilot was hammering the shutters so fast that whatever signals were intended just ran together and got lost. That insistent vibration was still assaulting her insides, an unreasoning unease encroaching on her despite all rational thought, and she dropped down to see where the Stormreader had come from, to see what it had seen.

She swung a wide course about the belly of the airship.

The hatches had opened, all of them.

But they’re two miles short of the city. Are they going to bomb their own army now? A mad thought: what if they had all somehow misunderstood? What if this was a friendly airship under attack from the Empire, and she was supposed to be protecting it? She had gone short on sleep recently, but it hardly seemed possible that she could get it that wrong. .

The sound was so much louder now.

Another Farsphex flashed by, under pursuit, but she let it go, drawing further away from the airship’s port-riddled underside. And they couldn’t have got more hatches there if they’d tried. Looks like the whole hull’s been attacked by giant woodworm. .

Oh.

Oh, mother help me.

There was a head pushing out of one of the holes. It was triangular, dominated by two oval eyes and a set of saw-edged mandibles. Segmented antennae sprang forward as soon as they were free, and then it had forced its hunching thorax clear of the hole and began flexing its wings.

She was bringing the Esca back in the tightest turn she could manage, so she could draw a line on the thing and kill it before it could drag that curved black and yellow abdomen from its resting place. But by then there were heads pushing out from every hole across the breadth of the airship’s underside: tens of them, hundreds of them, emerging in a second hatching and tasting the air. Tasting the enemy.

Each was not so much smaller than the Esca — from its serrated jaws to the barbed sting on its tail. When they stirred their wings into life together, the thunderous buzz rattled every part of Taki and her orthopter, and spoke terror to her in a language she had obviously been born with, all unknowing.

She had her line, and her piercers raked across the airship’s hull, and a handful of the host just exploded into wet shards of chitin and wing fragments at the touch of her bolts. But then they were airborne. They were coming for her.

Nistic’s body jerked with exaltation as his soldiers took wing and filled the air, mad with rage, desperate to drive their stings into the enemy that was all around them. The scent that the Imperial vessels had been daubed with reeked with sheer incitement, the concentrated musk of alarm and retribution that the hornets themselves would respond to in the wild. Perhaps it would keep the Empire’s orthopters safe, perhaps not. It only helped lash the swarm into a berserk frenzy.

Killkillkillkillkillkillkill. .

‘Kill!’ Nistic screamed, and all of his fellows screamed in unison: no mindlink here, but their Art made them part of the swarm and that was as good — indeed was better.

He took a hand from the rail — the other was white-knuckled in its efforts to keep him still on deck — and drew his blade. The old ways knew: a price must be paid to buy the service of the swarm, a price and a reward. In Nistic’s mind the host’s hundreds raged, waiting only for him to become a true part of them.

At last he let go of the rail, hanging suspended between the deck beneath his feet and the murder-storm of the swarm’s collective mind. One hand found where his corselet of chitin scales left off, and he wrenched it up to expose the hollow beneath his ribs.

The swarm was strong and mad, but he would give it direction. For as long as it raged, it would share some fragment of his human mind, and fall upon the enemies of the Empire in blood and fury.

He poised his knife, letting its point hover over his flesh like a stinger.

With a great shout he drove it home, and let his mind fly free.

Taki spun frantically out of the way, but the sky was already full of them — everywhere she turned there were frantic, insanely angry insects battering and stooping and attacking everything in sight, and her mind was running over and over with the mantra: You can’t do this. Everyone knows this isn’t how it’s done. Insect against orthopter never worked — the insects were too nimble to be shot, the orthopters proof against the arrows and spears of their riders. But that was wisdom from flying against the dragonfly cavalry of Princep Exilla, over the Exalsee, and these hornets didn’t even have riders to control them.

In these moments — in these last moments, she reckoned — the Empire had taught her something new about fighting in the air.

A Stormreader wheeled past, spinning out of control with its wings still powering, a hornet clinging to its underside, mindlessly jamming its sting into the machine’s guts. A second Collegiate machine, cutting ahead of her, simply crashed into another insect, the orthopter’s blurred wings cutting the creature in two but faltering a moment later, one vane half smashed by the collision.

Taki tried for height, catching a brief glimpse of an Imperial Spearflight weaving desperately through the host — not being attacked but still barely able to navigate the thronging sky.

Got to get clear. She knew she could outrun these creatures with ease, but she was boxed in, insects diving on her from every side, almost brushing wingtips with her as the Esca slipped by them. She had given up trying for targets. Her world had condensed into trying to survive the next half-minute intact.

Bergild kept trying to get above, into clear air, but there were just too many insects clogging the heavens, more appearing everywhere she tried to fly. The sky about her became a chaos of horrific sights: everywhere she tried to fly she saw Collegiate machines locked in combat with the hornets — sometimes two or three of the creatures clinging to a single flier, chewing, grappling, stabbing, heedless that their simple weight was dragging the machines out of the sky.

We can’t fight in this — get on the ground. But her crystal-clear link with the other pilots was cluttered by that surrounding buzz, the deep fear it provoked coming back to her from every one of her pilots. They were losing their coordinated picture of the battle, and losing control.

Then one of her own pilots was screaming, because a hornet had slammed into his Farsphex and had thrust its jagged mandibles through the glass of the cockpit, and perhaps the engineers had stinted on the foul-smelling paint or perhaps the hornets were just mad now, and jealous of anything else in the sky.

Down! she cried out mind to mind, and just hoped the Spearflight pilots and the others would register her intentions. Down, all! Then she followed her own advice, dropping as fast as she could and hoping nothing would get in her way.

She had already lost perhaps one in three of her pilots to the superior numbers of the Stormreaders, and who knew how many she would now lose to the Empire’s own secret weapon. Was this the plan? Whose stupid plan was this?

Then she had broken through into a clear sky, and was dropping, for once in her aviator’s career wanting nothing more than the safety of the ground.

In the moment before impact, Taki had simply lost track of everything, her concentration funnelling down to encompass only the sky directly ahead, trying to turn back for Collegium and hoping that her comrades would reach the same conclusion. This is not a fight we can win. This is barely even a fight.

Then something slammed into her, skewing the Esca sideways in the air, its weight suddenly monstrously loaded to the right, and she realized that one of them had her.

Two hooked claws scratched across the cockpit, and she was limping sideways across the sky, still somehow keeping height and her aircraft’s wings working freely. But then the hornet must have rammed its sting home, because something slapped the Esca hard enough to make Taki’s teeth rattle, and in the wake of that she had no steering at all and the Esca was making a grand slow circle that was going to bring it round into. .

Into the side of the airship. She had come all the way back.

She wrestled with the stick, but it was loose, all control severed. Then there was a splintering, grinding sound from behind her, and she knew that the beast had started chewing away with its jaws, blindly tearing through wood and metal to get at whatever was inside.

She was inside.

Despite all of this, and her very rational realization that she was dead in any number of ways if she stayed put, it still took supreme willpower to reach for the cockpit release. Even then she had to fight: the single barbed foot the insect had grappled to it was keeping it closed, and she had to put both hands up and push with all her strength to prise it open far enough to let her out.

Out into that busy, hungry sky, and whilst the swarm should not have been able to take on orthopters the way it was doing, it was most certainly well suited for taking living things on the wing.

The side of the airship’s gondola was coming up fast.

With a cry of despair over the loss of her flier, the loss of the battle and her fellows, but most of all out of sheer terror, she squeezed out of the cockpit and abandoned her machine, tumbling over and over into that terrible sky.