‘You, away from the weapon, halt there!’ the Wasp shouted at her. And then she was up, wings flashing about her shoulders, screaming at him for giving the warning one death too late.
Face fixed, he sighted on her and took one step forwards, and Gerethwy’s snapbow twitched on its mount and shot the man two or three times, spilling him back against the wall.
She stared at it, then at Gerethwy. It was as if his ghost was animating the weapon, in some impossible bridging of the Apt and Inapt.
Then another half-dozen Wasps were there, also shouting at her, and she flew back from the weapon and watched as it attacked them, barrel jerking precisely left and right, spitting out handfuls of bolts at a time, the chattering gears feeding through the tape of ammunition with meticulous economy.
She left Gerethwy there and set off after the stretchers, knowing that her friend, even dead, was guarding their retreat.
Her bodyguard had been the last man standing.
With all the rest dead around him, Jadis of the Melisandyr had stood over his wounded mistress’s body in his gleaming mail, shield up and sword ready to defy the entire Second Army. A Spider Sentinel, something out of another time, he had shown no fear nor even acknowledged the possibility of defeat. The sheer temerity of his defiance, backed by all the Spider Art he could muster, had held back the snapbow shot for a long count of ten.
And then they had gone amongst the bodies, giving the Spider wounded a swift, merciful death rather than have them fall into the hands of Vrakir or the interrogators. Save for Mycella — she, they had left for Tynan.
She had taken a snapbow bolt through the leg, he understood, but even then her sheer force of personality — the Art of her kinden — had held them back beyond the reach of her rapier. She had made laying hands on her person unthinkable, a sacrilege.
The word had come to Tynan that they had her, though, and so rather than wait for her to be dragged before him, he had gone to her, as a true penitent should.
The Spiders had fought fiercely, but like a war band from the Bad Old Days, and he understood that this had been deliberate. Like the banners they carried, this engagement had not been about winning. Trapped in Collegium, her army destroyed and her family disgraced, what choices had lain before Mycella of the Aldanrael? Surely she could have found a way to escape if she had truly looked for one, but then what? A beggar in some strange city? A renegade without status or power? What fate, for one who had misstepped in the Spider dance?
And so she had turned her back on survival at such a cost. For her, there was more merit in this ending, entering battle like mummers from some ritual drama, all bright colours and heraldry whose meaning had been lost to the world for centuries.
Seeing her there, on one knee with her sword in one hand, bloodied and bruised but unbowed, his heart was broken. He wanted to weep in that moment. He wanted to throw himself on her mercy, to beg her forgiveness. He wanted to howl out his bitter anger to the sky.
An Imperial general was denied all these things.
He could not say her name, yet looked her in the eye even so, felt her Art wash over him and then ebb, the force of her will fading before him until she was just a woman after all. Just another victim of his campaigns. He knew then that she truly had not betrayed him, that whatever the Empress intended, the Spiders — and what historian would ever believe it? — had not earned their allies’ wrath. He knew that Mycella had been true to him, after all.
He felt as though the whole of Collegium was watching him as he lifted his arm, the palm of his hand directed towards her.
How can I live, after this?
The expression on her face was infinitely sad, and he knew it would remain there in his mind, sleeping and waking, for the rest of his days.
His hand flared as his sting discharged.
The refugee students broke away from the Living Sciences building in a rush. Stenwold stood by the door, leaning on his stick and hoping he looked like a stern warden guarding the retreat of the others, whilst trying his best to catch his breath.
The plan was simple, and encapsulated in the phrase: It’s a big city. All those students able-bodied enough to do so were now going to ground. The Wasps could not know who had been in the contingent that had started the insurrection, and either they would round up every student of the College or they would not. Some would leave the city as soon as they could. Others — and by far the majority — would stay and wait their chances. Collegium would need them, Stenwold had promised. Their time would come.
The words had almost choked him, because their young faces had been so full of trust and hope.
The badly wounded were another matter — unable to move from place to place and with too much chance of their injuries being linked to the insurrection. They, and an escort, were going to join Tomasso’s mercenaries. Word had been sent to the bearded Fly’s mercantile contacts to smuggle them out of the city, posing as guards or servants, hidden within goods wagons, stowed away on ships. Tomasso had been working hard since his return to the city.
For Stenwold himself there were other plans.
The stretchers were coming out now. Tomasso had a quick word with the first bearers, to ensure they knew where they were going. It was not far but they must hurry, he was saying. The Wasps would-
Even as he was saying it, the Wasps had discovered them — a dozen of them bundling hurriedly from a side-street and stumbling to a halt at this sudden exodus of students. Stenwold felt the snapbow kick in his hands and a man in the centre of the squad went down, and then a handful of students were shooting too. But it only takes one Wasp to raise the alarm! And the last of the wounded was only just being brought out of Living Sciences.
Then the reason for the Wasps’ initial hurry caught up with them: a handful of Spider-kinden, led by a lean man in black armour, ploughed into them and cut down two or three in those first moments. The Wasps scattered, some trying for the sky, but a couple of Spiders carried bows and, between them and the students, the entire squad was accounted for.
‘Morkaris!’ Tomasso called over. ‘Still alive?’
The armoured Spider eyed him bleakly. ‘There are more coming,’ he said. ‘We are the last. I hope you’ve spent our lives wisely.’ He glanced at the last stretcher rounding the corner, at the handful of students even now backing away, about to run for their hiding places.
‘Curse you all, Wasps and Flies and Beetles!’ Morkaris declared, but a wild exaltation seemed to have taken hold of his expression, and a moment later he brandished his axe high in the air and went charging back the way he had come, his meagre handful of followers right behind him.
‘Laszlo, pay attention, boy,’ Tomasso barked. ‘Get your wings up, and get off with you — the Tidenfree’s out past the sea wall, waiting for my word, so you go tell them we’re on our way.’
‘Right, Skipper.’ And Laszlo was airborne in an instant, darting away at roof level.
‘Come now, Master Maker.’ Tomasso turned to Stenwold. ‘The rest are trusting to their luck, so we must trust to ours.’ He regarded Stenwold doubtfully. ‘You’re up for a brisk run, Maker?’
No! ‘Going to have to be,’ Stenwold replied curtly, and then Tomasso was off, half running and half in the air, leaving the Beetle War Master to lurch after him.
He was not up for even a brisk walk, so Tomasso had to keep returning to him, and Stenwold began to see the first spark of worry in the man’s eye, fearing that he had miscalculated, ignorant of how badly Stenwold had been hurt. From the College to the docks proved a long haul, especially while avoiding all the city’s biggest thoroughfares.