His men began falling
back in good order. About half of them were regular infantry, properly armed
and armoured. The rest were drafted citizens, for every Ant was trained to use
a sword from the youngest age. These militia had no shields, but they had no
armour to slow them either, and armour proved no protection against this
incendiary deluge.
He had lost his tower,
almost the first structure to fall. During the evacuation, half of Parops’s
staff had succumbed to shot or flame, not just soldiers but his messengers, his
clerks, his quartermaster. As soon as Parops was clear he had new duties forced
on him: to take command of a hastily formed body of men, to oppose the Wasp
advance. Yet his progress had been retreat after retreat. He knew that several
of the other detachments were advancing slowly and that there must be some
grand plan that the Royal Court was working towards, but he himself was not
privy to it. He must only hope that it was a good one, so that if he was called
upon to give his life for his city, it would not be in vain.
He had always thought
himself a bit of a philosopher amongst his people, a man who questioned where
others never thought to. Now he discovered that he was, after all, just a
soldier. If the orders came to die for Tark, he would do it and gladly. He
surprised himself with the thought.
‘I’ve been looking all
over for you!’
A blur of motion above,
and Parops only just gave the order in time for them to stay their hands before
Nero would have been transfixed by a dozen crossbow bolts.
‘What are you doing
here?’ he demanded of the Fly.
The bald man shrugged
his shoulders, settling on a windowsill one floor up. ‘Looking for you, you
fool! What the blazes are you up to?’
‘Obeying orders,’ Parops
told him shortly. ‘You should move back – we’re the front line here.’
‘Oh, I know that.’ Nero
wore a padded cuirass, that was an arming jacket meant for a child of twelve,
and a short-bow was slung over his shoulder.
‘You’re no soldier!’
Parops insisted. ‘You’ll get killed if you stay here, probably by us. Go find
yourself somewhere safe!’
‘You tell me where that
might be, and I’ll go there,’ Nero said.
Parops wanted to argue,
but orders came through again at that instant:
Commander
Parops. Advance.
He spared one more
upward glance at Nero, then sent this command onwards, watching his men come
out from their shelters, from side streets and within buildings. Those armed
with shields formed up to the fore, and the rest quickly crowded in behind.
Parops took his place, as naturally as any of them. It seemed he had always
been trying to find his place in his own city, and it was terrible that only a
disaster such as this could show it to him.
But they were now
advancing, as ordered, and he knew that the detachments on either side, that
were within the reach of his mind, were doing likewise. Ahead he could see a
flitting of black and yellow as the Wasps spotted them and began to get into
order. They were lightly armoured advance troops, and many were already taking
to the air. The first bolts of energy spat towards the front rank of Parops’s
men, most falling short and fading, and one crackling impotently against a
shield.
At a thought relayed
from himself the third rank passed their shields up and forward, making a
second level of defence against shot from the air. The second rank then levelled
crossbows through the gap between the two lines of shields.
Fire
at will. Target the airborne
, he instructed them, and the crossbows
began sounding off with dull clacks. Their range was further than the Wasps’
Art-born weapons, and men began to tumble from the sky ahead of them.
‘Parops, the airships!’
he heard Nero shouting. He had one of his men near the back look up for him,
his own range of sky being covered with shields. Two of the lumbering machines
were indeed manoeuvring into position above the Ants even as they advanced.
Increase
pace. Engage.
The Wasps could do one thing or another, he decided. They
could drop fire on them or resist their advance on the ground. Anything else
and their own men would be forfeited, surely?
The first bomb, plummeting
in front of Parops’s troop, ignited while still in the air and incinerated two
dozen Wasp soldiers. The balance scattered left and right, darting to avoid the
spreading flame.
But there was a second
airship overhead, and Parops relayed this information to the Court even as his
advance continued. The enemy on the ground were falling back, fleeing even,
giving up the scorched and blackened streets without a fight.
The next incendiary
exploded towards the rear of Parops’s formation, amongst those least prepared
for it. Ordinary citizens of Tark with swords and crossbows were suddenly
ablaze and searing, the hair, skin, clothes of them instantly becoming a torch
in human shape – twisting briefly and dying in Parops’s mind. His advance
continued and in his mind he now heard the yawning silence of a lack of orders.
The tacticians of the Royal Court were reeling in shock.
He saw the remainder of
Juvian’s men under even heavier bombardment, the impact of it cracking their
formation, grenades and explosives from on high flinging men – and parts of men
– into the air.
He heard the voices of
the King’s tacticians and for an awful moment they were talking all together,
their orders contradictory:
go forward, go back, spread
out, stay tight.
Parops’s teeth were grinding helplessly together, his
men were looking to him, but he would not relay that babble of panic that was
being passed his way.
And then the King’s own
voice.
Retreat and split up. Retreat!
And he
instantly followed the order. His men spread out and began falling back. Wasp
soldiers darted in at once, their stings sizzling everywhere, but Parops kept
his troops in order, delegating men to turn with crossbows and loose their
bolts on the enemy before retiring in good order.
Nothing had been gained.
Hundreds had been lost. The battle continued.
The composition of
Parops’s detachment changed almost hourly. His continuing casualties were
balanced by survivors from less resilient squads who came to join him. He
picked up a greater number of armed civilians, many now wearing scavenged Ant
or even Wasp armour, and even the tail end of a detachment of elites who had
been mostly smashed in a fierce day-long engagement in and out of the blackened
hulks of houses in the mid-city. They included nailbowmen, men with repeating
crossbows, piercers or wasters – and Parops did not know what to do with them.
He had mounted another
abortive attack yesterday, only to find the soldiers he was sent to support all
dead even as he arrived. Then the airships had loomed and he had ordered a
fall-back almost before he heard it directed by the Royal Court. Another street
lost. Another battle conceded to the enemy. The numbers of his force might rise
and fall, but the ranks of the city’s defenders only fell, singly or in their
tens and hundreds.
When he allowed himself
to think it, Parops had to acknowledge that the situation here was poor, and
that he could not see a way out of it. He had to hope that the King and his
tacticians had some master plan, something more than a series of futile holding
actions.
It was the fifth day,
and the surviving population of Tark was packed into the western half of the
city, while the Wasps controlled the rest.
Nero was still alive,
however. Parops was forever surprised by this, as he had never thought of the
man as a fighter. He had turned out to be a true survivor, his Fly-kinden
reflexes not one whit dulled by age. Now the ugly little man was again perched
on a rooftop, watching the combat that was no longer distant.
The Royal Court itself
was under attack, Parops knew that, and his men could not fail to realize it.
He wanted to lead them to the Court’s aid, but direct orders from the King had
countermanded it. As the list of available officers had shortened, so those
remaining had become more familiar with their ruler than they would previously
ever have imagined. It seemed the ruler of Tark now even knew Parops by name.
I
have something I may need of you
, the King had told him directly.
‘Looks like your man on
the right there is losing ground,’ Nero called down, though Parops was not sure
quite why he bothered. Parops knew exactly the disposition of the officer and
his forces, and that Nero was indeed correct.
He sensed another
detachment, across the far side of the royal palace, being committed, and saw a
change in the movements of the airships as one lazily meandered further in. The
outside of the palace was already blackened and burned. The King himself was
down below, in the ant tunnels. People had tried the same trick elsewhere in
the city, attempting to shelter from the fire, but Wasps had merely approached
the tunnel mouths with hand-held firecasters, pouring their searing liquid
flame down until everything within, human and insect, was burned or suffocated.
Dying in the dark, but not dying alone, because they were dying a death whose
agonies were felt by a whole city.
Parops felt his hands
begin to shake even at the memory.
They
are within the palace.
The thought came to him with the voice of one of
the King’s tacticians, though Parops had the feeling it had not been intended
for broadcast. He tensed, getting ready to lead his men forwards. Another
firebomb exploded two streets away from the palace walls, no doubt attacking
Ant-kinden reinforcements.
Let
it be over with
, thought Parops, keeping the words to himself.
Let us go in. Let us die. Just let it be over with.
He
could not bear to live like this any more.
All
officers, report your strengths and position,
came the tactician’s call.
Here we go, Parops
decided, and relayed back that he had eight hundred and sixty-two men under his
command, and that he now was at Forty-fifth-Seventh.
And he waited for the
call. His tension was clear to his men even if his words had been kept silent
from them. They began cocking their crossbows, taking up their shields.
Commander
Parops
, came the call, and this time it was the King.
Your
Majesty
, Parops replied, almost breathless with anticipation.
I
must issue two commands today that are unthinkable
, came the voice of
the city’s ruler.
I tell you this so that you do not think
you have mistaken what you will hear. No monarch of our kind should ever be
forced to give such orders.
Your
Majesty?
Parops queried uncertainly.
We are all
ready to die for you.
With the exception of Nero it was no more than the
truth.
I know
you are, but I will not have it. Commander Parops, you are ordered to take
those men currently in your command to the west gate, and leave the city by
that route. Then break through the Wasp cordon and—
Your
Majesty?
Parops broke in, agonized.
You cannot mean
it.
These
are your orders!
snapped the voice in his head. He was seeing shock on
the faces of his soldiers now, and realized that the King was making sure that
some of them, at least, would hear what they must do.
Break
through the cordon. The Wasps are not expecting it. Leave our city. Find
somewhere else for yourself and your men. And when the time is right, Parops,
whether it be you and your men, or your children or their children, reclaim our
city from the invader. That is the task I give to you. That is your order.
There is no more than that.
A great silence had
fallen over the city of Tark. It was not any of the normal silences of an Ant
city going about its day-to-day business. It was a silence born of loss and
shock. In its resounding, thunderous absence one could hear the faint echoes of
ten thousand squandered lives.
Half the Royal Court
buildings were covered in char, the stone beneath cracked and riven by the
sheer heat of the incendiaries. The gates had been staved in during the last
reaches of the fighting, splintered by a ram borne by six great Mole
Cricket-kinden. The ram-bearers had all died in the attempt, or immediately
after it, and their colossal bodies had only just been removed. Not one of
their kind was left living in the Wasp army. Every one had given its sad life
for the taking of this city.
Before the gates stood
two dozen Ant-kinden, still wearing their armour. Their hands and their
scabbards were empty. They stood in precise ranks, watching. They were all of
the Tarkesh royal staff that remained. It seemed likely that they would be
executed, but it was less likely that they cared very much, at this point.
It was Colonel Carvoc
who now approached them, with a guard of a hundred light and medium infantry.
His face, seeing those defeated men and women, held no sympathy, nor even much
triumph. The day did not belong to the Fourth Army, the glorious Barbs. The day
belonged to science, and that left a sour taste in the mouth.
He signalled to his men,
who remained as wordless as the Ants themselves. One of the light airborne
stood forwards and saluted him, carrying a cloth-wrapped lance in his off-hand.
As Carvoc nodded to him
the man’s wings flared, and he launched into the air, tracing a graceful curve
up onto the roof of the Royal Court. There had been no insignia kept there, no
emblem or banner to be cast down, so the soldier was forced to hunt across the
rooftop, to the gathering silence of the men below, before he found a crack in
the stonework that would fit his ambitions. With a decisive gesture he jammed
the lance’s pointed ferrule in, forcing it down until it was firmly rammed in,
lodging deep in the substance of the Tarkesh heart. Then he loosed the cords,
and the wind caught the cloth, streaming it out in a billowing gust of black
and gold.