Taki chased off another Farsphex, noted that three more Stormreaders had followed her lead, and so she broke off to take stock of the situation. Her internal clock was telling her that the bombers would have done what they could, shed their loads, and the shorter-ranged craft would be running out of fuel or stored spring. The actual clock set into the Esca’s controls had been smashed by some stray bolt along with a window. Shot through the clock? There’s a new one.
She saw several of the bombers already turned around, one still offloading a few late explosives randomly over the field, as though the pilot would be fined if he carried any home. Even as she watched, one fell prey to a Farsphex’s sudden fly-by, and she realized that some of her pilots had lost focus, chasing the enemy too far, leaving the civilian craft vulnerable. She twitched the stick, letting the Esca Magni drop to a level where she could intercept, while still trying to work out what they had accomplished.
Do I count six — seven? — of their big transporters down? That probably means maybe ten total — there’s bound to be a few I overlooked. Then a pause in calculations while she rose to loose a handful of bolts at a Spearflight, which jinked away from her, suitably chastened. No idea how many of their actual people, but I reckon that was a grim business down there. She still felt that they had not done all they could. Air defence and ground defence have adapted too cursed well. They’ve not got that much, but they spread it around. At least five of the bombers had been brought down, and far more had been put off their targets by the determined resistance of the Air Corps. At the same time the Imperial air casualties, especially amongst the non-Farsphex machines, had been far heavier than in their previous sorties. We hurt them either way, but we’ll never get as good a chance as now to make them smart. We need to make it count, more than we have.
She was signalling Home, home! to anyone who could see her. The bulk of her pilots already knew it, and the rest would follow, in a fighting retreat against an enemy only too happy to see them gone.
And by now maybe the strike force will have done what it came for, for the Collegiate plan had other parts that she was not involved in, and there was no way to know how that had gone until she was back in the city and hearing the news in person. Oh, to have that mental link the Farsphex pilots’ve got. If only I could get my people to drink a pint of Ant blood before each fight to acquire it — I’d wield the knife myself!
In the end, it could have been worse, but it was bad, nevertheless. They had lost almost no artillery, according to the reports Oski had received, but their supplies and ammunition were seriously dented. He did not ask about lives, that not being engineer’s prerogative, and he honestly did not want to know.
General Tynan had spoken to him — to him and Bergild and a selection of the other officers, delivering a brief, bleak little speech, its hollow commendations echoing with the knowledge that this was just the first, and that the Collegiates would keep at it. After that, the intelligence man, Colonel Cherten, had taken the stand and, once Tynan’s back was turned, he had informed them briskly that what the general meant was that they should most definitely do better next time, that in fact they had failed the Empress, that they were all personally responsible for every loss, and that their names would reach Capitas the hard way if they did not start taking their jobs seriously. Oski could not remember seeing Cherten anywhere in evidence during the fight, but no doubt there had been vital intelligence work needing doing. Who am I kidding? Call it Rekef work. Ordinary intelligence men did not raise the spectre of Capitas. Plainly Cherten felt they needed motivating — and the Rekef only had one way of doing that.
At least Ernain survived. Oski had a great deal invested in Ernain. And one day you’ll get yours, Cherten, believe you me. But that was a dangerous thing to even think just then. Plans and plans, yes, but the wheels turned slowly. Conspirators, like engineers, needed patience.
A day later, when the supply airship still had not come, everyone began to realize that it really had been worse all along. A scouting Spearflight found the airships’ wreckage — not just shot down but bombed into a charred mess. General Tynan ordered half rations, but Oski had a good head for maths, and began estimating their surviving stores and how many mouths.
The Collegiates may just have won the war. Another thought not safe to have, but he knew that he wasn’t the only one harbouring it.
Fourteen
The attack came at night, heralded by the most appalling sounds Thalric had ever heard. Only in retrospect could he bring himself to believe they had issued from human throats.
Night in the forest was more than just darkness and the sounds of the wood creaking, or of the multitude of unseen things that made the place their home. Huddled down, fireless, with Che and the others and a handful of Zerro’s scouts, the utter sightless blackness was like a solid thing, a weight pressing on his blindly open eyes. He could hear Che sleeping beside him, the rhythms of her breathing erratic enough that he knew she must be dreaming — and what dreams might come creeping in this place, he did not want to think. He was not sure how many others were even able to lay their heads down. The Sarnesh rose each morning looking as hollow-eyed as he himself felt, and Zerro let them rest out the first hour of dawn before having them move on. When they did sleep — when he slept — it was a troubled and intermittent business. He dreamt too, he knew, but he remembered none of it. And for that I’m grateful.
Worse was the fact that he had been in a place like this before, though only the unpleasant familiarity of the sensation had marked it for him: Like being watched, but by something huge. Like being surrounded by enemies I can’t see. Bloody Khanaphes all over again.
Someone moved nearby and his heart leapt. Within the camp. One of us. Surely it’s one of us. I’m so pissing blind here! He had a hand directed out into the void, fingers crooked. ‘Who?’ he hissed.
‘Amnon,’ came the rumbling reply, and no mistaking that voice. Why is it I end up travelling with so many people I don’t like, came another thought, although in truth Amnon had been a firm friend to him, historically, compared to Tynisa. I suppose I shouldn’t switch sides quite so often. But on the tail of that thought came: Better here than with Seda. He had been consort and regent for Seda, at the start of her reign, a convenient man with no power of his own, set up to mollify those Wasps outraged by the idea of a woman ruling over them. And if there are any such left, I’ll bet they’re shut up in Rekef cells.
‘Can’t sleep either, hm?’
‘This is a strange place,’ Amnon’s voice confirmed.
Reminds me of your home, and, even as he thought that, Thalric knew he could not voice it. When Amnon echoed, ‘Reminds me of my home,’ almost word for word, the mere coincidence seemed like evidence for some tightening supernatural noose.
‘Your “Masters”.’ Thalric fought hard to make the word derisory, but the darkness sucked the contempt from it, and his low voice imparted a kind of unwilling reverence.
‘There were no Masters. Or, if so, they were dead centuries before,’ Amnon declared. ‘It was all a trick, even if the Ministers came to believe their own lies at the last. It was simply a trick.’