‘How are we going to stop them?’ Stenwold asked, for Collegium had no navy. The few ships in harbour were only those which had not seized the chance to flee before the harbour was blockaded, and they were definitely not fighting ships.
‘The harbour has its artillery defences, as well as the chain, Master,’ reminded Cabre, a Fly who was an artificer from the College. ‘They were designed with wooden ships in mind, though, and they’ve not been updated in thirty years. You know how it is. When Vek came last it was overland, and nobody thought…’
‘And we’ll now pay for that lack of imagination,’ Stenwold grumbled.
‘We don’t know if they could even dent the armourclads out there,’ Cabre admitted, scratching the back of her head.
‘What else have we got?’ Stenwold asked.
‘Master Maker?’ It was a Beetle-kinden man who must be at least ten years Stenwold’s junior. For a Beetle he looked lean and combative.
‘Yes, Master…?’
‘Greatly, Master Maker. Joyless Greatly. I have a cadre of men, Master Maker. Some twenty in all. I have recently been working on an invention for the Sarnesh, but I cannot think that they would object to our using it in our own defence.’
And he does not add, ‘until they get here’, Stenwold noted. Joyless seemed to him a name of ill omen. It tended to denote children named by their fathers after their mothers had not survived the infant’s birth. ‘Go on, Master Greatly.’
Joyless Greatly stared challengingly about the room, at a dozen or so artificers who had been sent to Stenwold’s care. ‘I have developed a one-man orthopter, Master Maker. I have one score and ten of these ready to fly, though only my twenty men are trained to fly them.’
It seemed impossible. ‘Thirty orthopters? But where…?’ Stenwold asked him.
‘They are not what you think, Master Maker. These are worn on the back, as you will see. When the fleet approaches, or when the army comes to our walls, I will take my men out. We will drop grenades and incendiaries on them. Their ships may be hulled with iron, but they will not have armoured decks. We can drop explosives into their funnels, or on their weapons.’
‘They will shoot you down,’ Cabre warned him, but there was a fire in Greatly’s expression, of either patriotism or madness.
‘Let them try, for I will outrace their bolts and quarrels. Master Maker, we may be your second line of defence, but we shall attack.’
‘There are other flying machines as well,’ ventured an elderly Beetle woman Stenwold could not recall, save that she had something to do with the airfield. ‘Some two dozen of various designs that have been brought within the city. With the assistance of Master Greatly’s force we might at least harry them during their advance.’
‘And meanwhile I can train new pilots for the other machines,’ added Joyless Greatly.
‘Do so,’ Stenwold agreed. ‘More, please. Anyone?’
‘Excuse me, Master Maker.’ The speaker was an Ant-kinden with bluish skin, and Stenwold had no idea even where he came from, never mind who he was. He was no warrior, though, despite his race. Inactivity had left him thin from the chest up and broad below.
‘Yes, Master…?’
‘Tseitus, Master Maker.’ The Ant’s gaunt face smiled. ‘I have an aquatic automotive which, Master Maker, I have been working on for many years.’
‘One boat, Master Tseitus-’
‘Not a boat, Master Maker.’ Tseitus glanced around suspiciously at the others as though they would, at this late juncture, seek to steal his idea. ‘It goes beneath the waters.’
Stenwold stared at him. ‘A submersible automotive?’
‘She is beautiful, Master Maker.’ Tseitus’s eyes gleamed. ‘I have taken her into Lake Sideriti. You would not believe what wonders there are beneath the waters there-’
‘But for now you’ll put her into the city’s service?’
‘This city is my life, Master Maker. And if there might be any funding, in the future, for my project-?‘
‘Yes, yes,’ Stenwold said hurriedly. ‘Let us just save the city first, and then I cannot imagine that the Assembly will not reward its saviours. Your submersible boat, what can it do?’
‘Go beneath the waters,’ repeated Tseitus, and then after a brief, awkward pause, ‘Drill into the hulls of their ships. Attach devices that others here may devise. Is there some explosive that may work underwater?’
‘I haven’t-’ Stenwold started but, as though summoned magically by the concept, one of the other artificers was already raising a hand.
At dusk, Akalia called for the Vekken artillery to be stilled. There was no sense wasting their ammunition in speculative and inaccurate night-time shooting. By the last light, her spotters had confirmed some light damage to the west wall where she had been heaping most of her missiles: some ragged holes punched in the crenellations, and a few patches that might repay a barrage over the next few days and even open up the whole wall. And once the wall was down in even one place her real assault could begin.
There had not been a single answering shot. It had been somewhat vexing the way most of the artillery positions atop the wall had been protected from her own, but it made little enough difference if they were content to hide behind their walls until she battered them down.
There would be casualties to the Collegium artillery when the assault went in, but no war was without casualties and her men understood that.
They cannot have the range to match us, one of her commanders had suggested. She could only shrug at him. For whatever reason, though, the Collegium artillery had remained silent.
Her commanders had secured the camps, in the highly unlikely event that the Beetle-kinden were planning some kind of night raid, and so finally she retired to her tent. The Wasp-kinden Daklan wished to speak with her, she knew. She had considered letting the foreigner stew but decided that, as matters were progressing so well, it would do her good to remind him of the superiority of those he was allying his Empire to.
‘Commander Daklan,’ she addressed him, and then looked to the other man. ‘And it is Commander Thalric, is it not?’
‘It is, Tactician,’ Thalric said. It pleased Akalia that he did not try to deny the Ant rank. In her mind she was doing him more honour than he deserved.
‘And you are pleased with what you have seen, so far?’ she asked the two Wasps. ‘Your vengeance against Collegium will soon be accomplished, will it not?’
‘Indeed, Tactician,’ said the other one, Daklan.
‘One might wonder what the foolish Beetles have done, to inflame such a far-off enemy,’ she said, her eyes narrowing.
‘You know the Beetle-kinden, how they can never leave well enough alone,’ Daklan said quickly. ‘The Empire has its actions focused east of here, as you know, and it seemed likely to us that Collegium would interfere in some way.’
‘They are a pack of meddling old men,’ Akalia agreed derisively. ‘Look at what they have done to Sarn, and in so short a time. They’ve gelded an entire city with their absurd ideas!’
‘True, and well put,’ Daklan concurred. She sneered at his ingratiating manner, but it was fitting, she supposed. It was certain that they feared her and wished her to think well of them.
‘Tell me, Tactician,’ said the other one, Thalric. ‘How do you consider that first bombardment? It seemed to be a little… unorthodox to me.’ Daklan glanced at him sharply, perhaps because this was something they had agreed to leave unsaid, but Akalia shrugged. ‘You are imprecise with your words, Commander Thalric. With us Ant-kinden you must say what you mean. What do you mean?’
Thalric was ignoring Daklan’s frown. ‘Their wall artillery, Tactician.’
‘That was curious,’ she agreed. ‘I have asked my artificers for possible causes. It may be that they have let their artillery become useless with age, although that seems unlikely even for Collegium. However, they are not a valorous race. Perhaps their engineers did not dare take to the walls to man them under our shot.’