‘Well then,’ she said.
‘I am come here from Collegium, my home.’
He raised an eyebrow.
‘Far abroad indeed, and shame on me, I should have marked the accent. I now see
how you must have overcome the age-old hatred of my kin to allow this man into
your confidence. Collegium? My lady Tynisa, perhaps you may be of use to me, if
you would?’
He
is very carefully stopping himself from calling Tisamon my servant or slave, or
my possession in any way.
It had been a long time since she had sat and
sparred like this, weighing every word spoken, but the skills came back to her,
as much part of her as the lunge of a sword.
While she considered,
Tisamon interrupted shortly, ‘What do you want of us?’ His tone made it
painfully clear that his trust was far from won.
‘I cannot believe that
you’re travelling in these parts and have not heard of the Wasp Empire’s recent
actions,’ Teornis explained. Noting their reactions he nodded. ‘More than
merely heard, I see. Well then, if you were, in a moment of childish
enthusiasm, to climb to the top of the tallest tree in this grove, you would
see from there some thirty thousand Wasp-kinden soldiers and their followers,
who have been camped for some time, and whose destination is Merro and Egel
first, Kes second, and one imagines the world, from then on, in any order they
please.’
‘What keeps them there?’
Tisamon growled.
‘You are a Mantis, and
therefore a fighting man,’ Teornis observed. ‘Yet I claim a glorious piece of military
history for my own kinden, since I have stood their thirty thousand off in open
country with just two hundred men – and I still do.’
That breached Tisamon’s
reserve, and for a moment he forgot that he was talking to an enemy, a hated
deceiver. ‘It can’t be done.’
‘All the same, I have
done it. If my kind were remotely impressed by such entertainments I would be
taught in the academies. My problem now is simply that I cannot go on doing it
for ever. They are currently waiting, I am informed, for word from their
leaders. My people are meanwhile doing their best to make sure that word is
slow in coming, but come it will, and then they will move.’
‘And you and yours will
be swept away like chaff,’ Tisamon finished, sounding unnecessarily satisfied
at the prospect.
‘All things are
possible,’ Teornis allowed. ‘Have you means of returning to Collegium, my lady
Tynisa? Because if you would sail today and inform them of the events
transpiring here, I would count myself in your debt.’
‘You’re serious, aren’t
you?’ Tynisa could not have said just what had convinced her, and this could be
another elaborate charade, but something had struck true. ‘You’re sitting here
feasting on candied nuts and pickled scorpions, even though one day soon
they’ll come over that hill. And you need help.’
‘The mysterious
Spiderlands, the subtle Spiders,’ he said. ‘Not so mysterious nor subtle that
when a vast army of mechanically inclined savages pitches up almost at our
borders we do not sweat a little. There is a sizeable force gathering even now
at Seldis, soldiers and sailors both. If the Wasps head west, though, I cannot
say that they will do anything but still gather there. But if you were to get
word to Collegium . . .’
‘You are apparently
short on news, Lord-Martial,’ Tynisa interrupted. ‘By now Collegium is
certainly under siege.’
She had him. For the
slightest moment his mask dropped and he looked genuinely and utterly
surprised. ‘The Wasps?’
‘The Vekken, but the
Wasps have put them up to it. Collegium is therefore in no position to answer
your call, Lord-Martial.’
‘Ah well.’ His composure
was intact again. ‘I will have to think of something else, that’s all. Life is
a bouquet of surprises.’
‘I have thought of
something,’ Tynisa said. The idea had unfurled full-grown in her mind without
her ever guessing that it was cocooned there. ‘But I must consult with Tisamon
first. Then I may just have a thought for you to mull over, Lord-Martial.’
The field lying east of
Sarn was a mass of well-ordered soldiers and machines, as the might of the
Ant-kinden prepared for battle. Walking out through the gates, with Achaeos and
Sperra close behind, the sight stopped Che in her tracks. She had never seen
such a vast assembly of fighting men and women, and every one of them preparing
calmly, no orders, no confusion. They queued for their rations and to have
their blades sharpened. They handed quivers full of crossbow bolts down the
line, and assembled themselves into square formations of hundreds of soldiers
apiece. These were soldiers with dark helms and chainmail hauberks and long
rectangular shields, with short stabbing swords and light crossbows. Amongst
these greater blocks moved smaller squads of specialists: nailbowmen, heavily
armoured sentinels, fast-moving scouts with big sniping crossbows, grenadiers
and artificers with powder-charged piercer and waster bows. Spanning all ages
from sixteen to fifty, both men and women, in the clear morning light they all
looked alike, all of them ready to march without question against an enemy they
had never seen.
Like fortified towns in
this carpet of soldiers were the automotives. The Sarnesh battle-automotives
were huge slab-sided things, frames of iron and heavy wood riveted over with
armour plates and with only the bare minimum of windows for the crew to see
from. The poor view mattered little because the soldiers outside would be able
to mentally give them a picture of the battlefield. Even now artificers were
crawling over them, making last-minute repairs and adjustments, tightening the
clawed belts of their tracks, directing swaying crane rigs in order to lower
parts into place. Each automotive had a swivelling tower positioned on its
back, though these were currently being swapped with others fresh from the
Sarnesh workshops.
Che went over to the nearest
machine, even as the new tower found its resting place. ‘What are you doing?’
she asked.
The artificer
supervising did not look back at her. ‘Your Wasps – they fly, we understand,’
he said, watching carefully as his apprentices bolted the new tower into place.
‘Well we have a surprise for them. All our automotives have been fitted with
forward repeaters, and the new towers house twin nailbows in place of the
ballista. They’ll soon learn they can’t just steal the skies from us when we
begin to rake them with these.’
‘That’s . . . good
thinking,’ said Che, a little numbly. The newly fitted tower turned first one
way and then the other at the cranking of the men within, its nailbows gleaming
with oil.
‘Look.’ Achaeos was
pointing to another unit of soldiers marching past. Che couldn’t see what he
meant until he added, ‘The two ranks.’ The Ant infantry had been formed of
alternating ranks: shieldmen and crossbowmen. There would be a lot of eyes on
the sky when the battle came, and what one Ant saw, they all saw.
There were other
automotives approaching now, huge many-legged vehicles with open backs that
soldiers were already climbing up into. Che understood that between these
transporters and the train carriages, the entire army would be able to travel
to the point where the rail line had been broken, and there they would wait for
the Wasps to arrive.
‘Orthopters,’ Sperra
said, and Che saw flat, wheeled carriages being pushed out down the rail line,
with the flying machines lashed down to them, their wings detached and laid
alongside them. They were decked out with nail-bows fixed above and below them
and to both sides.
So
much technology
, she thought, and it gave her some small pride to know
that it was Sarn’s alliance with Collegium that had made it the best-equipped
Ant city-state in the Lowlands.
‘Cheerwell Maker!’ she
heard a voice. She expected this to be Plius, perhaps, but instead it was an
anonymous Sarnesh Ant officer, waving her over. He looked agitated and, even as
she saw it she realized that the demeanour of everyone around her had changed,
all the surrounding Ants pausing for a fraction in what they were doing.
And many of them now
seemed to be looking at her.
What
has happened?
‘I’m here! What’s the matter?’
‘The Queen needs you
urgently!’ the officer called out to her. ‘And your Moth consort too.’
Che gaped a little at
this choice of phrase. Achaeos, beside her, merely looked perturbed. Surrounded
by thousands of Ants, though, there was precious little they could do if things
went wrong.
With Sperra tagging
anxiously along behind, the pair of them were led through the impeccably
disciplined chaos of an army pulling itself together, and then towards another
of the armoured automotives. There were no markings to indicate it as anything
special but, when its side hatch was pushed open, Che saw the Queen standing
within dressed in full plate armour.
‘What is the meaning of
this?’ the woman demanded shortly, not from Che but from Achaeos himself.
‘I do not understand,
Your Majesty,’ Achaeos said, genuinely puzzled, and two soldiers grabbed and
manhandled him around the bulk of the automotive so that he could look towards
the land rising north of the city.
There hundreds of
soldiers could be seen, approaching the Sarnesh force in a straggling mob.
Achaeos strained his eyes, but the sunlight was very bright and his kind
preferred darkness. He did, however, see that the first rank of Ant soldiers
nearest the advance had already locked shields, while those in the second rank
had their crossbows levelled.
‘I don’t understand,’ he
repeated, and then Che cried out, ‘Mantis-kinden!’
‘Not just Mantids.’ The
Queen was stepping down from the automotive. ‘My scouts say there are Moths
there as well. What do they intend? Is this your doing?’
Achaeos opened his mouth
to deny this, but Che cried out, ‘Yes!’
They all turned to her,
astonished, Achaeos and Sperra included.
‘Your Majesty, when we
first came to your city it was with two purposes. Whilst Scuto and Sperra were
to seek out audience with yourself, Achaeos and I were to contact . . . those
allied to the Moths of Dorax. When last we met them they had heard of the fall
of Helleron, at which they were much concerned. They were going to speak with
their masters and I think . . .’ The feeling of hope swelling within her made
it hard to breathe. ‘I think they may be friends.’
The newcomers could now
clearly be seen as Mantis-kinden. Compared with the rigidly organized Ant army
they seemed a ragged host, and far fewer in number. Che studied them
individually, though, and saw them differently: lean, hard men and women with
spears, bows, swords and claws just like Tisamon’s. No two were alike in their
weapons, nor in their armour: she saw leather coats, cuirasses, crested helms,
breastplates, scale-mail, even a few suits of fluted plate that looked as if
made for another era entirely. They all had about them the same air, though.
These were warriors, and they were ready for war.
One of them stepped
forward, approaching the rigid Ant line without fear. At some unheard signal from
the Queen, it parted to let the envoy through. Che’s heart leapt when she
recognized Scelae. The slender Mantis-woman wore a long coat of scales, backed
with felt to silence the clink of metal, a tall unstrung bow was slung across
her back and she walked confidently through the staring Ants and made a
respectful bow to their Queen.
‘Your Majesty,’ she
said. ‘I bring you greetings from the Ancient League.’
‘And what might this
League be, that you speak of?’ asked the Queen, still not entirely trusting this
new force. ‘I have never heard of it.’
Scelae smiled slightly.
‘The name has an irony to it, as the League has existed just these last five
days. The traditions it pledges to are ancient, though, for in the face of our
changing world we have renewed some old ties. Just as your city is now ranged
with the Beetles of Collegium, so the holds of Etheryon and Nethyon have come
again to seek the wisdom and guidance of Dorax and the Moth-kinden.’
‘A new power on my
doorstep,’ observed the Queen. ‘Should I rejoice in this?’
‘I am no seer and I
cannot tell the future,’ Scelae said, ‘save in one thing: this force you see
was gathered in one day, made up of all those ready to hear our call. We march
with you now against the Empire.’
‘How many?’ the Queen
asked and, before Scelae could answer, some word came to her from scouts who
had been counting all this while. ‘Eight hundred. Eight hundred Mantids – and
perhaps a hundred Moths as well. And you will fight alongside us?’
‘We will fight,’ Scelae
assured her. ‘There is nothing in the world you may be more sure of.’
That day, Stenwold had
cause to remember how he had told Doctor Nicrephos that it could wait until
evening because of the urgent duties he had to fulfil.
He remembered
particularly in the first few hours after dawn, when the remaining Vekken
armourclads made another pass at the harbour, grinding their engines to
breaking point to try and nose their own half-sunk siblings out of the way,
whilst simultaneously their artillery lashed the harbourfront again and again.
As Stenwold’s role was to defend the harbour, he had waited there with a few
hundred soldiers, crouching behind every piece of cover that was available and
watching while the great ships shoved repeatedly, and the sound of their engines
groaned across the water.
Over sixty of his men
had been killed during the bombardment because, at that range, if he had pulled
them far back enough to be out of the way, the Ants would have been able to
establish a presence on the waterfront itself before he could have formed up
enough men to stop them.
And then, mid-morning,
the armourclads had given up and reversed their engines, pulling back into open
water. To Stenwold, however, it did not seem like a victory.