In his eyes for just a moment, but there for all to see, was a spark of surprise at how old Tynan now looked.
‘Do I take it the Third isn’t about to relieve us?’ Tynan tried to make it sound light, but in truth he wished there was some chance it was true.
‘The Third is stuck in Capitas,’ General Marent replied disgustedly. ‘I’ve decided that I’ve received nothing personally nailing me to the spot, but you’ll appreciate why I’ve not turned up here with a standard and a proclamation.’
‘Why are you here, Marent?’ Tynan asked and, seeing the taken-aback look in the younger man’s eyes, held up a finger. ‘Not that I wouldn’t welcome the chance to talk but, in the Emperor’s name, man, you’re a general now!’
‘In the Empress’s name,’ Marent corrected sourly. ‘And in her name my entire force is eating its way through the stores at Capitas whilst there’s fighting all down the Silk Road and Sarn readies to march.’
‘Sarn already marches,’ Tynan corrected him. At Marent’s raised eyebrows he nodded tiredly. ‘Not a full army, but a few thousands heading for us even now. You’d better not outstay your welcome here, or I’ll have to make you part of my staff.’
‘Just a few thousands, though?’ Marent asked him, shaking his head.
‘So it seems: maybe three, four at the most. But there’s more. There’s maybe twice as many marching east from Vek, down the coast, and I reckon we’re lucky they lost so many trying to take this place before the last war or there’d be more.’
Marent frowned, calculating. ‘Still not enough.’
‘We’re waiting to see where the rest are coming from, but it’ll be time to keep hold of this place the hard way, soon enough.’
‘Then it’s even worse madness to have me sitting idle!’ Marent spat. ‘Let me come against Sarn with a full siege train, and the garrison force that’s currently tying them up can relieve you, and you can kick in the Vekken’s teeth. Why can’t they see it?’
‘The Empress and her Red Watch,’ Tynan suggested.
‘Correct. For the longest time, no orders at all and now . . . now there’s orders all right, a pissing explosion of them, just not the right ones. Quartermaster orders, Consortium orders, but Slave Corps orders most of all.’
Tynan frowned. ‘Slave Corps?’
‘She’s sending them out all over the Empire and beyond. They’ve got airships now – the Slave Corps has an air wing, can you believe?’
‘What for?’
‘Cargo airships down the Silk Road to Seldis.’
‘The Empress has a yearning for Spider slaves?’ Tynan felt an odd, cold twist inside him.
Marent looked as though he felt the same way. ‘I saw the orders. Not just a few Spiders. The Slave Corps is to take a dozen big cargo airships south and load them up with . . . everyone.’
‘What do you mean, “everyone”?’
‘As much of Seldis’s population as they can cram into the bays, quality immaterial.’
‘That’s insane,’ Tynan murmured.
‘Yes!’ Marent agreed heatedly. ‘Yes, it is pissing insane, and it’s happening, and anyone who looks sideways at the orders gets that “Voice of the Empress” business from the Red Watch, or gets arrested by the Rekef. Yes, it is insane, Tynan. Just like everything in Capitas these days. The whole city’s working on nothing but habit, and every day another piece grinds to a halt. There’s been a mass confiscation of slaves – and which slaves? Grasshoppers, Dragonflies, creatures of no use to anyone! Menials and cleaners and pissing musicians rounded up for her private use. They’re sending to the Principalities, even, offering to buy anyone they want rid of. I was planning to make this trip anyway, back when things were just peaceably mad, but just as I was about to set off, all of this started. Nobody knows what’s going on back home, Tynan.’
‘Why tell me this?’
Marent stared at him for a long time. ‘Because I trust you. Because you’re a man of honour, with the Empire’s best interests at heart.’
‘And I’m a man stuck here in Collegium, where there’s nothing I can do, even if it was in my power to help. And even suggesting something should be done is a form of treason. We can’t have another civil war, Marent.’
‘You tell me that? They’d never have won the last one if it wasn’t for me!’ Marent insisted. ‘But what was that for, the traitor governors and all that fighting? And now . . . it’s as if we went off to put them down, and we got lost on the way home and found ourselves in some other Empire.’
‘And I ask again, why tell me?’ Tynan insisted. ‘Because if you are suggesting that I, a man of honour with the Empire in his heart, would take some stand against the rightful Empress . . .’
‘Would you?’
In the silence that followed, Tynan could feel the thump of his own heart. I don’t believe he actually said it.
‘I’m not talking treason—’ Marent started.
Tynan cut him off furiously. ‘How can you not be talking treason?’
‘If there were enough of us – army generals, senior men in Capitas – if we stood before her and said, This is wrong, this isn’t the way, she’d have to listen to us.’
‘And if she didn’t?’
‘We’d have to hope she did.’
‘And you’re a better tactician than to plan a fight that’s all based on bluff,’ Tynan pointed out.
Marent scowled stubbornly but had no answer.
Taki landed the Stormreader neatly, letting the machine hover for longer than was strictly necessary, just because it was so good at it. The Sarnesh had only just produced the first of their new air force, but Willem Reader had made a few small but significant changes to the design while they were readying their factories.
At last Taki let the orthopter touch down and threw up the canopy as the first mechanics arrived. The expeditionary force had a score of flying machines with it, but only three of the new Stormreaders, the rest being either Collegiate fliers rescued from the conquest or older Sarnesh craft that she would frankly not be found dead in.
‘Get him rewound and ready to go right out again.’ For a moment she almost told them she would be right back, but she had to report in, and she had already flown double duty after specifically being told not to. Rebellion had its limits. ‘Next pilots up – let’s have an all-Sarnesh scout team this time – and someone show me where the big noises are.’
The force that was marching south had the sort of loose command structure that Beetles seemed to gravitate to inexorably, but that sent Ants into fits. Arguably it had three leaders, and Taki normally reported to the most junior of them, dropping out of the sky with a flick of her wings to land on the woman’s blind side, virtually on her feet.
Straessa – known as the Antspider – swore at her tiredly. They were waiting for a team of artificers to repair the rails, as the grand idea for a swift move on Collegium was to have the soldiers march unencumbered while supplies were brought down the rail line. On various occasions, though, both sides had been fairly determined that the line would not benefit the enemy, so their progress had been somewhat haphazard. Fortunately the Sarnesh had devised an automotive that repaired and replaced the rails as it travelled on them, but even that ingenious machine ran into impassable sections on a depressingly frequent basis.