With supreme effort she wrestled herself out of Gerethwy’s grip, then had to lean on him when the ground proved unexpectedly uncooperative beneath her feet.
‘Wounded this way!’ called a shrill voice — te Mosca’s surely. ‘Wounded to me!’
‘Wounded here!’ Gerethwy shouted, and tugged at Straessa’s arm.
‘I’m not wounded!’ she snapped. ‘Just bit my tongue and a bit dizzy,’ but he was dragging her onwards anyway, and he was stronger than she was.
She tried to form a picture of the retreat — there was a scatter of Collegiates all over, on the ground and some in the air, making for the airships with all the speed they could muster, and some pausing to help those who really had been cut up. The numbers looked surprisingly hopeful. Did we actually get away with it?
‘Here with the wounded!’ Sartaea te Mosca called again, and then Gerethwy was hustling Straessa towards the curving hull of the self-same Windlass that she had arrived on — apparently someone had decided its hold would make a good infirmary.
She refused to end up in the hoist they had rigged up, instead climbing with fierce determination up the rope ladder, which made her head swim. Never stand near explosives again. Good rule to live by.
‘Is this all of you?’ Jons Allanbridge demanded, and she caught a brief glimpse of surprise on his solid, serious features. ‘Where’s the rest?’
The Mantids, she realized. The Felyen, they’re not coming back. They never were. A brief image, from the muster, of all those lean, grim men and women — the old, the young, children and babes in arms, all of them. All of them. The Felyal ends here. What have we done?
She staggered over to the rail, where one of Allanbridge’s people was hastily reloading the breach of his smallshotter. There were still a few trying to flee the camp, but she could see Wasps approaching, now, and she had the feeling that anyone who had left it this long had left it too late.
Stormreaders streaked over the Second’s camp, lashing down trails of piercer bolts and releasing the occasional bomb
‘Going up!’ Allanbridge shouted.
‘Wait!’ Three running figures below were just closing with the rope ladder.
The airship began to rise, but Gerethwy kept paying out the ladder to keep it within reach of them until all three had hold of it and were climbing.
She stretched out a hand and hauled up the first to reach the rail. Smoke-blackened beneath the ruined visor of a battered helm, it took her a moment to recognize Kymene. The two behind her were a pair of her Mynan saboteurs.
The two women just stared at one another, then the Mynan leader clasped Straessa’s shoulder in wordless solidarity.
‘The sky!’ someone was shouting. ‘The sky!’
The Antspider looked up, but saw nothing but the underside of the Windlass’s balloon. Then understanding came to her: the Sky.
The Sky Without was too late in departing, or perhaps it was just such a grand target that the Wasps had sought it out first. The immense airship still hung low to the ground, and Straessa could see Wasp airborne swarming over it, fighting on its decks, mad for revenge.
‘Hammer and tongs,’ whispered Allanbridge, next to her.
A moment later they saw a flash, something exploding below decks, towards the stern. Abruptly there was smoke pouring from the Sky’s hatches, and then Straessa could see fire glaring from the rearmost windows, working its way forward a cabin at a time. Soon there would be cinders alighting on the envelope, shrivelling the silk.
She sagged to the deck. Let it all be worth it. What are we, if none of this was worth it?
‘How bad?’ Tynan asked.
Mycella’s face remained calm, even as one of her healers attended to the arrow in her shoulder. They both knew that the wound was not what the general was referring to.
‘Almost half of my people, mercenaries and my own troops equally,’ she said softly. Tynan had heard how the fight had gone — how the Spider-kinden had simply not stopped throwing themselves into the fray, into that whirl of blades that the Mantis-kinden had put up — and how the Mantids had been happy to welcome them, given an opportunity to spill the blood of their oldest enemy. That sacrifice had saved countless Wasp lives and perhaps held the whole camp together.
‘The Empire will remember,’ he assured her.
‘Don’t make promises that you can’t keep,’ she replied wryly. ‘It’s enough that you yourself remember.’
Tynan turned to the Fly engineer. ‘Major Oski.’ All around them he could hear the sound of the Second Army counting over the cost, removing bodies and tending wounds, putting out fires. This was the crucial report, though.
Oski would not meet his gaze, which was a bad sign right now. ‘General, supplies are mostly intact. Splitting them up as much as possible, well, there was nothing there that made a decent target for them. Artillery. . sir, they took out most of our larger engines, and blew a couple of the firepowder stores, too. We have two greatshotters still in working order, one other that could be repaired if I’ve got two days. Of the rest, we lost seventeen of the ballistae we’ve been using against the enemy fliers, and Captain Bergild reports two Farsphex down as well.’
‘In summary?’ Tynan kept his voice level.
‘We’re going to take far more of a pounding from their air — our ability to keep them at bay has taken a serious beating. And, General — when we get there, we don’t have the engines to take down their walls. We’d have to assault with just the Light Airborne, and they’d have their orthopters harrying us all the time. . Sir, when you pulled back from Collegium the last time, well. . it’s not much different to that. I don’t see how we can take the city.’
Tynan felt a sick clenching within him. Not again! But they had been marching towards this moment ever since the order came. Where is that air support I was promised? His eyes met Mycella’s, and he saw her reading these conclusions from his face. She might not know the artifice involved, but she knew him.
‘The attack will proceed.’
Tynan started, suddenly aware of Vrakir standing beside him. There was a strange look to the Red Watch officer, a sheen of sweat on his brow.
‘Captain Vrakir. .’ Tynan started, but the man looked at him with such an expression that the general found himself unexpectedly silenced.
‘I speak with the Empress’s voice,’ Vrakir declared. ‘New weapons, new troops are coming. You will continue the march. Collegium will fall.’
In the resulting silence, Tynan merely stared at the man. It was as though a flash-fever had descended on Vrakir; as though. .
As though someone was speaking through him, something long-hidden rising to the surface at this time of need. He had the inexplicable feeling that, had he only asked an hour before, Vrakir would have known nothing about these new orders.
‘Sir.’ Colonel Cherten was now at his other side, one arm in a sling still spotted with blood. ‘You saw his papers. He carries the Empress’s authority.’
‘I will not waste the lives of my soldiers,’ Tynan said quietly.
Vrakir’s stare seemed to be fixed on something beyond him. ‘General, the Empress has full confidence in your loyalty and obedience.’
Something cold traced its way down Tynan’s spine — caused by the words and the weirdly distant voice combined. He was suddenly aware of Cherten being a Rekef man, almost certainly. . and how many others here? Who amongst his officers would oppose him, if he tried to steer them against this supposed word of the Empress.
And worse, he did believe it was the word of the Empress. He found within himself no doubt at all, and that scared him more than anything else.