The Air War (35 page)

Stenwold gazed up at the bewildering tubes and chambers of the device. ‘You’re so sure she wasn’t?’

Jodry sighed, wanting very much to just sit down on the floor, and to the pits with the dignity of his office. ‘Oh, she was a spy all right. She was
my
spy, who was telling me that
our most notorious failed artificer was plotting some sort of terrible revenge on the city. If the Empire’s hand is anywhere, Sten, it’s probably behind this . . . thing.’

‘Then have someone look at it.’

‘First, don’t you think I have? Second, the last person who touched it was Pullard and she’s charcoal. And Banjacs Gripshod is mad enough that we’d never work out if this
is an Imperial plot or not until . . .’ He looked plaintively at Stenwold. ‘How bad, Sten? Is there an “until”?’

Stenwold did not answer him, but kept staring up at the gleaming lines of Banjacs’s killing engine.

It was a short enough speech. Men had taken up more of the Assembly’s time with complaints about the duties levied on beech nuts.

‘Masters, Gownsmen and Townsmen magnates of the Collegiate Assembly,’ Stenwold had addressed them. Almost the full house had been there, despite the short notice. Assemblers
developed a certain instinct, and Stenwold had seldom tabled a motion himself since the war. It was almost as though every man and woman who had been voted in at the last Lots, and every College
Master who sat in the Amphiophos by right of academic credentials, had been waiting for today, forever keeping a note in their diaries:
Stenwold Maker to declare war.

But, of course, Stenwold Maker could not declare war. That was not how Collegium was run. Stenwold Maker could only ask to speak to the Assembly, to propose a motion that they, in their wisdom,
would accept or decline.

‘I am returned from Myna,’ he had told them. ‘You will have heard some news, conflicting accounts, rumours that are true and rumours that are misinformed, or lies planted by
the Empire. I have seen what happened in Myna with my own eyes. The armies of the Empire have taken it swiftly and brutally, and despite all that its defenders could do to keep their freedom. The
Treaty of Gold has been breached. I am sure that the Imperial ambassador will say that Myna commenced the hostilities, and has been complaining stridently about the aggressive attitude of the
Empire’s newly freed neighbours since the war. Myna is but one city, and backed by two more, all three still rebuilding and recovering from the effects of almost two decades of occupation.
The Empire has tens of cities, armies of tens of thousands. You all know the chances of Myna initiating a war that it could not possibly win.

‘The Collegiate Assembly signed the Treaty of Gold, and in that treaty we agreed to raise a sword against any who breaks it by attacking another signatory state. The Empire signed. Myna
and its allies signed.

‘We have the option to turn away now, to believe the claims that the Empire’s reconquest of its former slaves is just an isolated incident, just as they claimed when they took Tark
in the last war. We will be less than we were, if we do that. The word of Collegium will never again carry quite the weight it did, our reputation will lose its shine, and our allies will look on
us with a doubt that would otherwise have been unthinkable.

‘I am aware that Myna is far away, that trade with Myna is not as lucrative as trade with the Empire, that we have been sapped by war ere now, have lost family and friends to it, more than
we can afford. I, of all people, know this.

‘But what we have never lost is what makes us ourselves: that nobility of purpose, that breadth of vision, that knowledge and understanding of the world that makes us Collegium. If we are
over-proud sometimes of what we have built, then at least we have built something to take pride in. Has Helleron done so, with its weathervane loyalties? Have the Spiderlands, with their hollow
promises?

‘My motion is this: that the Empire has breached the Treaty of Gold and, though that treaty be nothing more than paper, we are of Collegium and paper carries a weight here that it does not
amongst the armies of the Wasps. In declaring war on the Three-city Alliance, the Empire has declared its intent to bring war to us all. I ask the Assembly to vote, for we cannot let this stand
unopposed. We must set ourselves against the tide. War on every tyrant who would enslave the world. War on the Empress and her armies. I call for a declaration of war against the Wasp
Empire.’

There was some debate. The usual voices struck up against Stenwold’s, Helmess Broiler taking the lead as he had ever done, but the ranks of the Empire’s champions had thinned, and
sounded hollow amidst the echoes of Stenwold’s words. Honory Bellowern, speaking on behalf of the absent Aagen, rose to speak, but Stenwold had already robbed him of his arguments, and what
he was left with sounded much like a threat.

At Jodry’s insistence, the vote was held at the end of the morning’s session, although, in truth, few enough felt moved to prolong the debate. The usual murmur and gossip that was a
ubiquitous backdrop to most Assembly discussions was absent. The great majority of those present had no words to offer. Fear stalked invisibly about the chamber, stilling voices, leaving a trail of
drawn, tense expressions. To speak into that silence would be to take a side publicly, to be noted down in the books of the Rekef or the Collegiate Merchant Companies for later investigation.

Almost four in ten of the Assembly did not vote, even though the ballot was a secret one. The weight of the decision was such that they did not wish themselves to be responsible for the result,
whichever way it went.

Of votes against, there were barely two score. After the tally, Stenwold took the floor once more, and his few closing words would be rattling from every printing press in the city within the
hour.

Before noon the criers were already out in the streets of Collegium, calling out the news. The three extant Merchant Companies put their recruiting officers at street corners, with a plan
already being drawn up for more companies to be formed. Word came from the Sarnesh, by rail, that they would stand by their ally, that their own forces were already mustering.

Collegium was going to war once again.

‘“Let no man say that the eyes of Collegium are turned away from the world. Let history record we take upon ourselves this responsibility. Wherever the metal meets,
there we will be.” Stenwold Maker has finally got what he wants.’

Eujen Leadwell’s voice, familiar from so many debates, remained steady throughout the reading: the printers had copies of Stenwold Maker’s speech and the Assembly’s decision
for public purchase by mid-afternoon the same day. Now, with evening closing in outside Raullo Mummers’s studio, the little band of students listened as Eujen relayed their future to
them.

Sartaea te Mosca circulated, bringing them bowls of hot Spider-kinden chocolate, an expensive luxury, but, then, she asked them, what was she saving it for?

At the last, Eujen set down the cheaply printed scroll, his shoulders slumped.

‘Founder’s bloody mark.’ Raollo Mummers lit his pipe with slightly shaking hands, letting the sweet smell of tallum pollen seep into the room.

‘Eujen,’ te Mosca said softly, ‘I’m sorry.’

‘What was I thinking?’ Eujen asked them all.

‘You’re going to have to be more specific,’ the Antspider suggested. ‘You have all sorts of mad ideas.’

‘Peace with the Empire. Peace with the world. A tenyear going by without another ruinous war.’ He held up a hand to forestall argument. ‘And I’m
not
a traitor.
I’m not even an Imperial sympathizer, and there are plenty of those in the Assembly! I just . . . must it come to this? And when we beat them back –
if
we do – what then?
Do we come round to the same point a few years later? Do we carry the war past their borders? Do we end up enslaving or eradicating Averic’s people so we can be safe from them? Is that all
there is?’

All eyes turned to the Wasp-kinden youth, marking the distance that seemed to have grown between him and them. Averic’s face was expressionless, save for a tightness at the jaw, a token of
his self-control. ‘Next time, or the next,’ he murmured and, if there was an edge of desperation buried somewhere in his voice, it seemed more that he was desperate to console his
friend Eujen rather than over any fears for his own fate or that of his kin. ‘There are those in the Empire who see the world as more than just something to be conquered, or why was I sent
here at all? There will come a time when those people will make their voices heard.’

‘If the Empire can be driven from Myna, perhaps,’ the Antspider suggested. ‘A quick defeat might bring the Empress to her senses. If the Assembly can grasp the idea of being
gracious in victory.’ She was wearing her Company sash still, and Eujen’s initial horror at it had been dulled, first by familiarity and then by recent events.

‘The Coldstone Company’s set to go, are they?’ he asked her.

‘So they tell me. First into the breach – that sort of stuff. Maker’s Own are ready, as well. Outright’s lads are staying home to help raise fresh companies.’

‘Where do I go to sign up?’ Eujen asked her.

For a moment she just stared at him in silence while, across the room, Raullo Mummers dropped his pipe, grinding hurriedly at the embers as they spilled out.

‘Don’t,’ said Straessa the Antspider.

Eujen’s expression was hurt. ‘You have. Even Gerethwy has.’ He indicated the lanky Woodlouse-kinden bent silently over some sort of schematic, glancing up only as his name was
mentioned. He, too, wore the Coldstone Company sash.

‘I don’t want you to, Eujen,’ she insisted.

For a long while, he stared at her. ‘You think I’m a coward, too?’

‘Idiot.’ She was across to him quickly, laying a hand on his arm, but he flinched away angrily, then rounded on her again, his mouth open for some angry retort. In a movement like a
fencer’s lunge she had kissed him, once but firmly, letting his words drop into the abyss of it. ‘You’re brave enough to say what you believe in every day, Eujen, but if
you’re there when we go to Myna, I won’t be able to fight, because I’ll always be worrying about you. Collegium’s going to need you, but later, when we really do have a
chance at peace, not now when all we’ve got is war. Join one of the new companies, if you like. Form a student company, even. Please, not the warfront.’

He stared at her for a long, stretched moment, conflicting emotions fighting beneath his skin. ‘And Gerethwy?’ he said at last.

‘As if she cares what happens to me,’ the Woodlouse intoned, and the painfully tense mood was broken.

‘Besides, Averic needs you here,’ Straessa added. ‘He’s not exactly going to sign up to slaughter his own people.’

‘Unless you’re leaving?’ te Mosca put in, as she passed the Wasp a fresh bowl. ‘Nobody’d blame you.’

Averic regarded them all coolly and, for a long while, it seemed as if he had metamorphosed, since Eujen’s reading, into something else, something foreign and hostile. The
enemy.

Then something twitched, a muscle tugging in his throat. ‘I don’t know what to do,’ he said softly. ‘If I go . . . I’m army age. It’ll be straight into the
Light Airborne, and up against the snapbows of Collegium, most likely. I’ve had all the training before I came here. All I need’s the uniform. If I stay . . . then am I a traitor? Or
will your people just decide that I’m a spy?’ He said the words without much emotion, but his casual arms-folded pose had tightened, hands clutching at his own flesh.

‘You’re a student of the Great College,’ Eujen said. ‘That gives you all the rights of a Collegiate citizen except the vote. You’re one of us for as long as you
care to be.’

Only the set of Averic’s eyes showed how much he desperately wished that to be true but, despite Eujen’s reassurances, everyone there was thinking how, in the final analysis, his
future was unlikely to be his to choose.

The next day the first news, contradictory and unclear, began to filter into the city from Solarno.

‘This is it,’ Gizmer told them, flitting into the Fly-kinden common room at head height.

There were a dozen or so sitting about the floor, Pingge and Kiin amongst them. They had not flown in three days, the routine of their training abruptly broken without explanation. Everyone had
felt change on the wind.

‘How do you know?’ someone asked, but Pingge’s question overrode it. ‘Where?’

‘Myna,’ one of the Flies said immediately, but Gizmer shook his head irritably.

‘Myna’s gone,’ he told them. ‘Who’ve you been listening to, that you don’t know Myna’s gone? Szar as well, by now, I’d lay money on it. Maybe we
fly against Maynes. Ant-kinden are stubborn.’

‘The Eighth Army has the Spearflights,’ Kiin said quietly. ‘That’s not what we’re trained for.’

‘Then what are we for?’ Pingge demanded. ‘Sitting about and getting fat, right now? Who’d have thought life in the army would be as grand as this?’ It was true,
they ate well, had more time to themselves, slept better and drew more pay than they ever had in the factories. There was respect, too: they were with the army, and that meant something –
even for Flies.

‘When they’re not chaining us inside the fliers,’ Gizmer muttered darkly, dropping down close to her.

‘Who’s even seen a pilot these last three days?’ Kiin asked.

There was a mutter of discussion: nobody had.

‘Final testing,’ someone put in. ‘I heard talk – some other hoop they wanted to jump the machines through.’

‘The machines aren’t at the airfield, either. They’ve taken them elsewhere, or they’ve flown them off without us,’ Gizmer put in. Of all of them, the yoke of the
army chafed him the most. He was forever sneaking off and poking his nose into things, getting where he shouldn’t be and gleaning scraps of information.

‘Three days is a long time to be testing anything,’ Pingge observed. ‘Unless they failed the test and all crashed or something.’

This spurred a general ripple of laughter, but Kiin said, ‘Don’t.’

‘What? Sentiment, for the master race?’ Pingge jibed her. ‘Big bald Aarmon got to you, has he?’