War Master's Gate (62 page)

And where the pits is the man himself?
For the War Master’s name most certainly headed up the list of passengers, but still he stayed away.
False heroics, or . . .?
Not
something Jons wanted to think about, but he’d heard how Maker was playing cards with death just about now, winning some hands and losing others.

Kymene stomped past him, then halted. ‘How long?’ she demanded.

‘Ask the Empire,’ Jons replied shortly. ‘Once they start paying notice, then we get the Stormreaders in the air and get moving. Or a single incendiary could end all our plans,
right off.’

Her curt nod told him that she understood him perfectly.

And here was another row erupting on the approaching hoist platform – someone trying to bully their way on to the ship, no doubt, with their money or their College accredits or . . .

The crane swung the hoist round, with them still arguing loudly, and Jons saw it was a small Beetle man in artificer’s canvas that looked as though he had been toiling in it for two days
straight, and a woman with him holding a girl of no more than ten in her arms.

Willem Reader
, Jons identified the man as the aviation artificer.
How tired must I be that it even took me that long?

Reader had been arguing, but not on his own behalf, for he was very plainly marked as a man to be kept out of the Empire’s hands. Instead, he had been trying to get away from the
Windlass
, and indeed the two Company soldiers on the hoist alongside him seemed more a guard than an escort.

It was the woman’s voice that Jons heard most clearly, as the hoist reached the deck.

‘You’ll go,’ she told him. ‘Will, it’s not me the Engineering Corps will be hunting, to get at what’s in your head. It’s not me that the Sarnesh will
need to modernize their air power. We’ll stay here, and we won’t even look the Wasps in the eye, and I’ll tell her every night that you’re coming back, and bringing an army
with you. Look at me, Will!’

The
Windlass
was already groaning at the seams with its cargo, and all the Collegiates below decks had loved ones that they had been forced to part from.
No exceptions
, Jons
knew, and he shook his head shortly when Reader looked to him.

‘Jen . . .’ Reader managed.

‘Go,’ she told him, clasping him tightly, and then giving him a shove that propelled him onto the deck of the
Windlass.

‘Get below, Reader,’ Jons snapped at the artificer, wondering if even one more man would fit. But then Kymene was shouting a warning, just as the hoist platform began to swing
away.

Jons’s head snapped up. Engines – orthopter engines, but the Stormreaders’ clockwork didn’t make anything like so much noise.

‘Empire!’ Kymene was now yelling.

Oh, hammer and tongs.
Jons found he could not move, hearing only the diving descent of the Farsphex, hearing the sudden panic in the crowd, waiting for the bombs.

The roaring sound peaked, and he saw sparks fly, heard screams from the crowd, the angry stammer that was a rotary piercer spun up to full speed. Then splinters flew from the deck, and one of
the Mynans jerked and pitched over the rail.

‘Jen!’ Reader was shouting, and Jons bellowed at him to get below, He was calling to cast off before feeling the lurch of the deck beneath his feet – comforting even as it sent
him staggering – knowing that someone on the ground had had the sense to cut the mooring ties. He had a brief glimpse of the hoist platform as it slipped past, Jen Reader standing there with
the two Company soldiers flanking her, her daughter in her arms, watching the airship swiftly ascend.

The first Stormreader skittered past, looping about the
Windlass’
s envelope to engage the Farsphex –
And how many holes did they punch in the canvas, eh?
He thrust
the thought away and bent to his task, gauging the wind and bringing his ship around on a course that would take them to Sarn. More of the orthopter escort were lifting past him now, and he could
see flashes out in the night as they threw themselves at the handful of Farsphex that had located them. Kymene and a few of her Mynans had even taken to the
Windlass
’s rails with
snapbows, providing a desperate last line of defence if it was needed.

Jons looked back, and down, seeing his city diminishing and becoming something less, until the night had swallowed it entirely.

Three streets away stood the wall, where the black and gold flag was already raised, indicating that segment of Collegium’s shell that was already claimed by the Empire.
The nearest buildings had rapidly been abandoned by their owners: the merchants, artisans and their families fleeing the reach of the Wasps. Now only soldiers of the Fealty Street Company kept
watch, awaiting dawn and the formal surrender.

And there remained one other man, on the roof of this one townhouse: a poor and ill-kept building, the shame of the neighbourhood, the dilapidated exterior of which bomb scars had barely managed
to disfigure.

The battered little automotive pulling up outside it had a clockwork engine badly in need of maintenance, the gear trains clattering and ratcheting against one another, sounding on the point of
working loose. The driver in his open cab was a Sarnesh in a Student Company sash. Behind him was a tailgated flatbed, hooded with canvas stretched over a looped metal frame.

As the engine was hacking to a halt, Laszlo put his head out and glanced around. There had been a rumour of Wasp death-squads stalking the streets, winged soldiers creeping into the city to kill
anyone they found. Or else Spiders with their stealthy blades, come to exact a final price before the surrender. The city was alive with fear tonight.

He hopped over towards the peeling door and hammered on it, keeping one eye still on the sky. On the second repetition another Fly appeared in the doorway, brandishing an uncocked crossbow and
looking furious. ‘What is this riot? Are we come to this already? Be off with you!’ His clothes were plain but impeccably neat, his face blotchy and red-eyed.

‘Where’s Drillen?’ demanded Laszlo. ‘We’ve got an airship to catch, and he’s supposed to be on it.’

The Fly at the door stared at him for a moment. ‘You’re Maker’s man? Laszlo?’ His eyes flicked towards the automotive. ‘Oh, no . . .’ In a moment he was out
into the street, wings taking him to the covered rear of the automotive, peering into the gloom until he locked eyes with the half-supine form of Stenwold Maker.

‘War Master? You must get yourself to the
Windlass!
’ he exclaimed.

Stenwold hissed in frustration and rasped out. ‘And so must your master, Arvi. Where the pits is he?’

Jodry Drillen’s secretary shook his head. ‘You can’t be here! I sent the message myself! Please, just go!’

‘I’ve had no message. I’ve been to every place Jodry owns in the city, save this,’ Stenwold rasped. ‘He’s here, isn’t he? Then go and get him. We can
still get aloft.’

‘War Master,’ Arvi told him solemnly, ‘he’s not going.’

There was a ghastly, strained silence, and then a sudden clang as, with one convulsive movement, Stenwold kicked the tailgate open.

‘Mar’Maker, no. He’s right, we’ve got to go,’ Laszlo insisted, but Stenwold heaved and dragged himself to the edge. His Ant-kinden driver had dashed round the side
by then to support his weight, so that he ended up on his feet at the back of the automotive, gasping, clutching at a stout stick to steady himself but plainly only held up by the Art of his
helper.

‘If he won’t come . . . to me,’ he wheezed out, ‘then I will . . . go . . . to him.’

Arvi watched him, aghast, as he lurched through the door and inside, leaning on stick and driver at every heavy step.

‘Where?’ came the War Master’s whisper, with a frustrated sigh when Arvi indicated the stairs. Before Stenwold could brace himself for the climb, though, the ponderous figure
of Jodry Drillen began descending, regarding his old friend and ally with inordinate sadness.

‘Stenwold, get to the airship.’

Stenwold’s reply was lost, but Laszlo translated: ‘Soon as you get in the automotive, he says.’

Halfway down the stairs, Drillen sat. ‘I’ve given it some thought, Sten. It’s not going to happen. I’m Speaker, after all. I brought us all to this, as much as anyone did
. . . yes, don’t flatter yourself, just as much as you. When the word of our surrender goes out to the Wasps at dawn, I’ll take it myself.’

Stenwold’s spitting remonstrance was all but inaudible, but it needed no translation.

‘Oh, maybe, maybe,’ the Speaker for the Assembly confirmed tiredly. ‘But maybe not, after all. And if I go myself, and give myself into their hands, then perhaps it will soften
the blow for the rest of the city. Perhaps I’ll be able to achieve something that way.’ He shook his head, his jowls quivering. ‘There’s always a first time.’

Stenwold looked up at him, fighting for breath. ‘You utter fool,’ he got out.

‘That’s just the standard of debate I should expect from a firebrand like you.’ Jodry forced a smile. ‘Now get gone. We don’t know what they’ll do with me,
but you’ve been on the Rekef’s list since before the first war. Get out of my house, Sten. Get out of my city, for that matter. Piss off to Sarn, why don’t you?’

‘Come on, Mar’Maker,’ Laszlo insisted. ‘You know he’s right.’

Stenwold’s face twisted for a moment, but it was not clear whether it was sentiment or the continuing effects of the physicians’ alchemy that was responsible. ‘See you again,
Jodry,’ he managed, as the Ant-kinden began to manhandle him back towards the door.

‘Of course you will,’ Jodry agreed hollowly. ‘Go carefully, Sten.’

They were halfway to the airfield when they heard the Farsphex engines, but none of them drew the right conclusion until the driver ground the automotive to a skidding halt. There, lifting from
the city ahead, was the grey shadow of the
Windlass
, the fleeter shapes of the Stormreaders wheeling all around it. Gone, and already drawing the notice of the Empire with its
departure.

Stenwold drew a ragged breath when the driver told him. Other than that, the news seemed unable to injure him more than he was damaged already.

Laszlo, ever resourceful, was leaning over beside their driver, giving urgent directions.

‘We’re getting clear, Mar’Maker!’ he shouted. ‘Never you worry.’

They rattled through the dark streets of Collegium, away from the Empire-held gate, for the harbour, with Laszlo all the while flitting from Stenwold back to the driver, babbling reassuring
optimism whilst trying to calculate just what decisions might have been made in his absence, especially once the Farsphex started flying.

And when they reached the docks, and when the driver had brought them to a stop, Laszlo dropped out from the automotive and simply stood there, looking out to sea. Not a ship was in, not a
single one. Most certainly not the
Tidenfree
.

For once in his life, Laszlo had no words, and he felt tears welling up – not adult tears but those of a child abandoned. He folded slowly to his knees, fighting to keep a hold on himself.
The orthopters . . .
He had known that attack from the air was what Tomasso had feared most, and that the
Tidenfree
would be easy prey for incendiaries from above. He had known
all that and, when he had gone to help Stenwold, he had been warned of just that. And he had ignored it because, of course, they would not go without
him
.

If he squinted, he could make out a sail far out on the waves. Maybe he could fly the distance, if they were making poor headway. Maybe he could chase after them and call them back. Maybe he
could make everything right again. Even as he had the thought, the
Tidenfree
slipped further and further away.

He knew the other gates to the city were already blockaded by Imperial and Spider troops, and anyone trying to escape the city would get a snapbow bolt for his pains – as some had already
found out.

Laszlo slumped into the automotive as the driver called, ‘Where next?’

Where indeed?
He met Stenwold’s eyes, hearing his short, painful words.

‘Get us back to the College,’ Laszlo translated. Where else was there?

He had kept watch through the last hour of the night from the roof of this rundown little house. Not his own grand townhouse, close to the College, which everyone knew as the
home of Jodry Drillen. This ramshackle place, kept in careful disorder, which he disappeared to when he was ducking official business or keeping clandestine assignments. Or he had done, when he was
younger, and less a prisoner of his own sagging flesh.

Now he stood up and went downstairs into the house itself, calling for his secretary.

Arvi appeared, looking as though he was already attending Jodry’s funeral, and the Speaker for the Assembly scowled at him. ‘Nobody has any faith,’ he muttered. ‘Get my
Assembly robes, will you? Might as well make a good impression.’ And that was not just provincial Lowlander thinking, either. The robes of an Imperial diplomat might be edged in black and
gold, but even they were modelled on the Collegiate Assembly’s particular style.
We have led the world in times of peace
, he reflected.
Could we have done more with that
influence?
He thought of Eujen Leadswell, unregarded demagogue and chief officer of the Student Company.
He would say yes to that, and perhaps he was right, after all. Our chosen path
doesn’t seem to have brought us anywhere useful.

By that time, Arvi had attired him as a man worthy of his position, every fold and drape immaculate, Jodry was embarrassed to hear the normally unflappable little man snivelling as he did
so.

‘Now get off to your family,’ he directed.

‘My mother died two years ago, Master,’ Arvi reminded him in a shaky voice.

‘Of course she did, I’m sorry. Get to . . .’ Jodry found that the world had become a place short of safe harbours. ‘I don’t know. You’ll be all right. Even
the Wasps value a good secretary.’