Salute the Dark (44 page)

The air shuddered, a thunder felt in the sudden tremor of her controls before she actually heard it, and the weapons of the
Starnest
opened up on them. She saw gouts of powder-smoke from
the leadshotters and, to her left, one of the Creev’s mercenary pilots was smashed to splinters, going without transition from a darting heliopter to a . . . a nothing, within a mere second.
It was a lucky strike for the Wasps, since the leadshotters had never been meant as weapons against fliers. There were rapid-firing ballistas there, too, swivel-mounted to cover all angles, and,
although they were still clumsy hammers to bring to bear on a swift flyer, Taki knew there would be losses to them also before this was out.

She was now coursing up across the grey vastness of the
Starnest
’s flank, while above her were Wasp flying machines dropping from their carriers and falling towards the Solarnese
vessels.

Right.

Her first target had not even seen her, simply an unwary pilot who still thought he was the predator and not the prey. Just as the Wasp jockeyed his orthopter into position for a shot at one of
her colleagues, Taki let her rotary spin and simply ripped the underside of his vessel out from under him. He lurched in the air, dropping sideways with engines still running, so that she realized
that one of her shots must have reached the pilot himself. Beneath the whir of her own engines and the concussive bang of the rotating piercer his descent towards the city was silent.

All around, her attacking fleet of fliers had split off to tackle the Wasps in individual duel. In the moment’s grace before she found her next target, Taki saw the iron-clad bulk of the
Creev’s
Nameless Warrior
clip one of the Wasp fliers in passing, suffering barely a shudder but sending the smaller enemy ship spinning. Meanwhile Niamedh’s
Executrix
lanced through a scatter of circling ships with rotaries blazing.

There were men in the air as well, for the Wasps had sent up some of the light airborne to support their airships. That was a tactical mistake, Taki knew. Men and machines did not go well
against each other, pitching small and agile targets against swift hulls that were proof against their little weapons. She was glad of it: the more soldiers despatched impotently into the sky left
fewer that could do real damage on the ground.

She flung the
Esca
straight through a crowd of them, scattering Wasp soldiers left and right, but then a shadow swept over her and, craning back she spotted a gap, a hole in their
formation that the others were still reeling away from. Just then a second shape passed her, and she recognized the sleek lines of a hunting dragonfly, a creature that was born to take live prey in
the air. A red and gold banner fluttered alongside the arrow-straight length of its tail, and she caught a glimpse of its rider, one of Drevane Sae’s people, turning back to loose an arrow
even as the beast clutched a victim to itself.

Taki sent the
Esca Volenti
across the sky, leaving the plume of a failing Wasp flier to fall behind her. It was as if her mind was split in two. One part continued to grip the controls
and sent her darting through the cluttered skies, hunting targets, striking at Wasp pilots and evading their reprisals, and all the time trying to find a clear path towards the
Starnest
in
order to bring the giant dirigible down. But there was another part of her that had gone numb, for she had never seen aerial war conducted on this scale. It seemed unthinkable.

Te Frenna’s elegant
Gadaway
lay shredded across a forty-foot extent of the city, unrecognizable now, the fate of its pilot unknown. A downed Wasp craft had rammed the 500-year-old
Celenza gallery, which was now in flames, only one of a dozen fires across the city. The fighters on the ground were in constant danger from a sporadic rain of broken machines, dead men and
crippled insects. This was a horror surely never meant to be inflicted on her poor home.

The
Esca
turned on her wingtip, and she found another Wasp vessel cutting through the air before her. Its twinned repeating ballistas were already loosing, and she saw a Solarnese
fixed-wing abruptly shudder in the air as the bolts struck. It was Scobraan’s heavy
Mayfly Prolonged
and Taki realized that her friend was making his own run at the
Starnest
now, either tired of waiting or spotting some chance she had overlooked. She unleashed the fury of her rotary on the Wasp, seeing her enemy falter, then dive and dart away to try and escape her,
abandoning its prey. She swung into line behind it, matching swoop for swoop, unhurried and cool-headed, whilst her stomach sank in worry over the fate of Scobraan as he dived in towards the
gigantic airship.

One of her bolts struck the enemy engine, and she saw the smoke start to billow. The Wasp began to lose height as quickly as he could, and then she saw the pilot kick the cockpit open and throw
himself over one side, wings unfurling to catch him. She broke off immediately, and just then the
Esca
took three solid strikes from behind, two piercing the canvas of the craft’s
wings, and a third slamming into the fuselage two feet behind her. Taki dived low, almost clipping the tumbling ship she had just dispatched, but a quick glance back showed that her pursuer was
still with her, its ballistas ratcheting out bolts with mechanical precision. She hauled the
Esca
up into the sky, as steeply as she dared, knowing that she was thereby making a target of
herself. Another bolt nipped past her, causing her to flinch.

Taki released her first chute, cutting it free entirely and sending the
Esca
wide. The Wasp was too close behind her, and the silk of the chute was in his wings before he could avoid it,
snarling them, stopping them, and turning him from a flying machine into just another weight to plummet into Solarno.

She looked desperately around for Scobraan and spotted the
Mayfly
as just a small shape against the grey wall of the
Starnest
’s airbag. She sent the
Esca
scudding
across to help him. Airships were notoriously difficult to bring down and, unless the Wasps were notably bad at their craft, it would take a thousand little bolts to pierce that bag enough to make
the ship lose even a foot of height. The material would simply contract about each tiny puncture, every needle-wound nearly sealed almost in the moment of its making.

Scobraan’s
Mayfly
hurled itself straight at a Wasp orthopter, breaking the nerve of the pilot, who let his machine drop away rather than clash head-to-head with the big, armoured
fixed-wing. Scobraan brought his craft as close as he dared to the
Starnest
’s fabric, until it seemed to Taki that he was skimming across it, that he should be leaving ripples in his
wake.

Flame gouted from the
Mayfly
’s aft, indicating the firethrowers that Scobraan was so proud of, for what punctures could not do to damage an airbag fire would invariably accomplish,
shrivelling the material to nothing. Taki felt her heart leap for joy at the sight.

But the
Starnest
remained untouched, no more than a long soot-mark to tell of Scobraan’s passage.
Some new material
, she reflected numbly, some stuff that would not burn. It
seemed the Wasp artificers had outmanoeuvred them.

Then there was a Wasp pursuing Scobraan, darting around the
Starnest
’s bulk to fall in line behind him. Taki saw the
Mayfly
break off quickly, trusting to its armour to shrug
off the shot of the nimbler craft, but then the Wasp opened up with its paired rotaries – pillaged Solarnese weaponry – and the
Mayfly
jerked in the air, losing height.

Taki was already diving to intervene, sending the
Esca
in as fast as her wings could beat, but the Wasp kept his line perfect, sending bolt after bolt punching into the
Mayfly
’s frame as Scobraan tried to throw him off. Then abruptly Scobraan was not trying any more, and the
Mayfly Prolonged
was simply dipping, nose-heavy, towards the
ground.

Axrad
, Taki realized. The Wasp fliers were all painted alike but she recognized the way he moved in the air, his unique style and skill.

She slung the
Esca
towards him. It was time to conclude their business.

It was well before dawn but General Malkan had his slaves dress him in his full armour. This was a state occasion, he decided. He would be the representative of the Empire
speaking with a foreign power, even a captured and humbled one, so it would do to look the part. He had unpacked his suit of partial plate mail, enamelled black and edged with gold, to go over the
lightweight hauberk of fine chain made to his personal specifications by the Beetle smiths of Sonn. He had his best sword, with the gilded pommel, buckled to his belt, and held his helm beneath his
arm. After all, there was no shame in appearing gracious in victory.

‘Have the man brought in,’ he instructed, once the last buckle had been tightened. The armour was well made enough that its weight barely slowed him, distributed evenly across his
shoulders as though it was nothing more than a scout’s light brigandine. His slaves retreated from his tent without needing any order, and two soldiers then marched in with the captive.

Malkan studied him: a Commonwealer, which confirmed the rumours and gave cause for thought. He was a young man, with his kind’s slender build and a steady gaze despite the broad bruise
spreading across half of his face. His hands were bound behind him, but he stood straight and tall like a visiting officer come to inspect the troops. Malkan decided that in other circumstances he
might have liked this man. As it was, he did not have that luxury.

‘So you’re the one they call the . . . what is it? The “Wasted Prince”?’

‘I can’t vouch for what your people call me,’ Salma replied. He had found a curious calm within him, now his run of fortune was finally at an end. Had he not been here before,
in the custody of the Wasps? Of course he had, and worse, too. He had even died outside the walls of Tark, had he not? Then all this was just borrowed time. It was all credit he had accrued with
the world, and if the world now called on him to pay his debts, how could he complain? ‘You are General Malkan, I take it.’

The Wasp general made the smallest nod but Salma, looking him in the eyes, saw the faintest disquiet there, a tiny worm gnawing at the man’s contentment.

‘You have a name?’ Malkan asked him.

‘Prince Minor Salme Dien, enforcedly at your service,’ Salma informed him, managing a moderately accomplished bow.

‘You really are a prince, then.’ Malkan had witnessed the last convulsions of the Twelve-Year War, for as the youngest general of the Empire, most of that glorious, costly campaign
had preceded him. He recognized the Commonwealer title, though. ‘Renegade, are you, then? Exiled?’

The suspicion already in Salma’s mind began to solidify. ‘Not at all, General. Still a proud son of the Commonweal, I’m afraid.’

Malkan regarded him without expression. ‘A little out of your way, aren’t you?’

‘We go where the Monarch commands.’

‘I don’t believe your Monarch has ever heard of the city of Sarn. I don’t believe it’s even marked on the Commonwealer maps.’

Salma was staring straight into the man’s eyes, and he saw that small flicker again.
He’s here in person talking to me, and he’s got up as gaudy as a Spider whore, but
he’s not telling me how wonderful his Empire is and how defeated I am. Somehow I’ve thrown him off his course.
He took a deep breath and smiled casually, as though he and the Wasp
were merely standing in Collegium debating philosophy. ‘Mercers are always allowed a little initiative, General, in how we go about fulfilling our orders.’

The moment’s pause told Salma that the lie, the outright abject lie, had registered. Malkan obviously knew of the Mercers, and imagined them, no doubt, as some kind of Dragonfly Rekef.

‘Well, perhaps I should send your head back to your Monarch, to show him how he has failed,’ Malkan declared and, without that pause before, he would have sounded entirely
confident.

‘What failure would that be?’ Salma asked him.

‘Your “Landsarmy” is scattered and mostly slain,’ Malkan replied. Salma knew that he must have flinched at that news, for he saw his reaction mirrored in the other
man’s eyes. ‘I have you, to do with as I wish, to enslave or kill or send to the Emperor himself as a trophy. You have failed.’

‘But you were speaking of the Monarch, not of myself.’ Salma kept his voice steady, hoping that Malkan was painting the situation darker than it really was. ‘The protection of
the Lowlands from imperial aggression is not a task to be entrusted to only
one
man.’

Malkan stopped, again just for a moment, but Salma noticed it. The thought of a dozen, a score, a hundred Mercers, infiltrating the Lowlands, raising scrap-armies as Salma had done – the
tactical implications unfolded in Malkan’s mind.

If I can achieve nothing else now, let me crack his confidence.
Words were all Salma had left in the way of weapons. He would not spare them.

‘Well, we shall question you at leisure about whatever comrades you have,’ Malkan decided. ‘Being a Commonwealer, you will be unfamiliar with our methods of questioning, so I
shall have my artificers introduce you.’

Beneath Salma’s feet, the earth shifted slightly, very slightly. He had only soft shoes on, and most likely Malkan would have felt nothing through the soles of his armoured boots. Behind
his back, Salma flexed his fingers. ‘General?’

‘You have some other vague threat for me?’ Malkan asked him.

Salma’s thumb-claws flicked out, digging into the ropes about his wrists. The angle was awkward, but he drove them in as hard as he could. ‘You forget two things.’

‘Do I, now?’ Malkan asked, irritated, but paused for just a moment more. ‘And what would they be?’

‘You will have to discover that for yourself,’ Salma said, every bit the picture of the mysterious Commonwealer, and when Malkan signalled for the two guards to take him, he
concentrated all his strength into his arms, his hands and his thumbs, and flexed them.