‘You’re the best the Spiderlands could send, are you?’ he asked. ‘Did. . did she send you?’ And what would I prefer to hear, precisely? He almost found he wanted her to say yes, to confirm that Mycella was still thinking of him, if only to dispatch this half-trained killer.
The prisoner mumbled something through bruised and bloody lips.
‘Louder!’ he snapped, not going closer to the bars, just in case.
‘Not Spiderlands,’ he made out. ‘Collegium.’
Tynan gave a surprised grunt. ‘Didn’t realize the locals did that sort of thing. Or maybe it’s just you, is it? Well you’re piss-poor at it, you know? Even as a murderer, you fail.’
That got a reaction and she bared her teeth impotently at him, her one good eye staring wildly.
‘What did you hope to accomplish?’ Tynan asked her. ‘Killing me wouldn’t free your city, anyway. Unless you were going to work your way down the chain of command, from the top.’
‘You killed Eujen.’
He frowned. The words made no sense to him.
‘He was my friend. He was the best man I knew. And when he came to talk to you, you took him and tortured him. . and then you shot him.’ As she spoke, her voice was low and dull, but her eye flashed fire when she looked up. ‘You killed my friend. You killed lots of my friends, but Eujen. . Coming to kill you was easier than staying to watch him die.’
When he came to talk. .? ‘This isn’t that student nonsense, is it?’
He could have put another knife in her, and it would have hurt less. The dismissal of everything there ever was about her cause and her friends, this man who would write the history books deeming them a trivial irrelevance.
‘Well, never mind about them. We’ll wrap them up today,’ he told her, thinking it more to himself than to torment her. ‘As for you, though, I’ll give you a choice. How much do you want to keep on living?’ Recognizing that traitor — hope — in her eye, he shook his head. ‘Oh no, don’t start down that road. There are two fates for you, girl. One is that we gift you a pair of pikes of your own, and you’ll die today, eventually. The other’s if you think you know something that we might be interested in. That way you live much longer, though, given the circumstances, you may come to regret it. That’s your choice, and that’s all of your choices.’ His voice had become rough and ugly, saying it. ‘I’ve just had two hundred good soldiers executed, assassin. Their deaths were quick and underserved. At least when I see your corpse, I’ll know yours was neither.’
Stenwold was managing to walk more easily now, although occasional waves of dizziness still swept over him, so he kept his stick handy. He had even been out to climb the courtyard wall at dawn, to look at the size of the problem.
It was a suitably large problem, too. There were plenty of Wasps out there, and some Sentinels, and it seemed likely that they would stir themselves soon, and then matters would get awkward.
If the Wasps were of a mind to break the building open, then a little artillery — perhaps even the leadshotters of the Sentinels — would suffice to do it, and then the students’ defence would last only minutes under the descending host of the Light Airborne.
On the other hand, the Wasps had declined to do any such thing so far, although similar tactics had been used against entrenched insurgents elsewhere in the city, and so there seemed some chance that the Empire might have to do things the old-fashioned way, and take the building by storm. In that case, it was possible that the students might still be in possession of it by dusk, for the main door was the only real approach, and there were plenty of small windows overlooking it that student snap-bowmen might use. But the next day would probably see the end, Stenwold realized. They were short of ammunition. The Empire was not short of men.
The Dragonfly Castre Gorenn was in charge up on the wall — any command structure had come down to strength of personality, and the Commonwealer had become a near-mythic figure amongst the students owing to her feats of aim.
‘I want only people who can fly stationed on this wall,’ Stenwold told her. ‘So yourself, Flies, any Beetles who’ve got their wings. When their advance comes you need to pull back to the main building in good time — get inside so we can shut them out. Or else, if you can’t get in, just take off, get clear of the fighting.’
Gorenn nodded coolly.
‘And no fool heroics. I mean in good time, Dragonfly.’ Stenwold had heard a great deal about the Commonweal Retaliatory Army.
She met his eye warily, as if ascribing some legendary characteristics to him herself. ‘Understood, War Master.’
Stenwold took another look over the wall, noticing movement about the Wasp lines, but a lazy sort of movement suggesting they had a little time in hand before any assault.
Then Laszlo landed close to him. ‘Mar’Maker, you need to come now.’
Trouble, was his first thought, but Stenwold could read Laszlo well, and the Fly was excited rather than worried. Something had happened.
There was a gathering in one of the rooms off the infirmary — a band of about twenty, but they were the leaders. Stenwold marked Berjek Gripshod, now in a buff coat and carrying a snapbow, and a couple of other College Masters. The rest were students wearing their purple sashes, save for Gerethwy the Woodlouse, who still wore the colours of the Coldstone Company.
And in the middle of all this, a newcomer. A Fly-kinden with a riot of black beard, whom Stenwold had assumed was long shipped out of the city.
‘Tomasso?’
‘And here’s himself!’ the ex-pirate declared. ‘Right then, let me speak my piece, for we’ve not much time.’
‘How did you get in here?’ Stenwold demanded.
Tomasso looked pained but said, ‘Your little windows here will fit one of mine, just about, Master Maker. And fear not, your lads and lasses had a bow trained on me as I came in. They’re sharp enough. Now, time for you to be going, though, don’t you think? I can’t imagine what you’re waiting for, but it hasn’t appeared.’
‘That’s not much of a joke, Tomasso,’ Stenwold told him.
‘Nonsense. I’ve a distraction lined up. Your people here look light on their feet. They can nip out and lose themselves in the streets. Meanwhile, you can come with me.’
‘You obviously haven’t seen how things are looking on the ground out there,’ Stenwold replied flatly. ‘The Wasps have a cordon set about the entrance to the College, and you’d need a remarkable diversion to stop them simply shooting us all down.’
Tomasso was nodding, a grin flashing from amidst his beard. ‘Oh, that you can bet on. You’ll all just need to be nimble in getting out.’
‘And the wounded?’ The voice came from the doorway: Sartaea te Mosca was standing there in a bloodied apron. ‘We have eleven who can’t walk, some who shouldn’t even be moved.’
‘Better to move them than let the Jaspers have them,’ Tomasso pointed out.
‘Nobody’s nimble when they’re carrying a stretcher,’ she told him.
Tomasso looked exasperated, as though his audience didn’t quite understand what he was offering. Nobody actually voiced the idea of abandoning the wounded, although it must have done the round of most heads there.
‘Excuse me,’ one of the students piped up eventually, a broad Beetle girl in chemical-stained overalls. ‘We can get out another way, I think.’
Everyone stared at her and she shuffled back a little, obviously not happy with being the centre of attention.
‘Cornella Fassen, isn’t it?’ Berjek Gripshod said kindly. ‘Tell us what you mean, please.’
‘Well, Master Gripshod, do you know the Cold Cellars?’
There was a murmur of bafflement and even laughter at that, as though she had told a joke just to defuse the tension. Those cold, slick, allegedly haunted chambers had been a part of student folklore for many years.
Even Berjek raised half a smile. ‘What of them?’ He remained painfully polite and correct, for all that there was an army gearing up outside even as he spoke.