The new chief officer of the Coldstone Company was indeed up on the walls. Straessa uncharitably decided that he was playing with artillery rather than doing the job he had
been elected to but, truth be told, Madagnus had come to Collegium ten years ago as a very skilled artillerist, and had only been honing his skills since. Now the College was installing its new
toys on the walls, and wrestling him away was likely to be a full-time job.
Like his assassinated predecessor, Madagnus was an Ant, although from some Spiderlands city nobody had ever heard of. He was a gaunt man on the wrong side of middle years, his skin the colour of
rusting iron, and he disdained armour save for the Company-issue buff coat, which he left open down the front. In a crowd of Beetle-kinden artillerists he was easy to spot.
She hung back to watch for a moment, seeing only a disappointingly small machine, something looking like a ballista with no arms mounted on a big wooden box. The elderly Beetle demonstrating it
was saying something about building up a magnetic differential between the two ends of the device, therefore she gathered that the box contained something in the way of a dwarf lightning engine.
Which means I’m standing about three streets too close to it for comfort.
She was no artificer, though, and the details passed her by. By then the demonstrator had slipped an
all-metal bolt into the thing, and declared it ready for a test.
The box beneath the machine began not making a noise. The Antspider could tell it was not making a noise because it was making the stones beneath her feet vibrate with all the silence it was
putting out.
‘Excuse me,’ she put in, feeling a sudden stab of fear. ‘Those are my soldiers out there beyond the walls.’
They all looked at her as though she was simple-minded, and the old man aiming the machine chuckled indulgently.
‘This is intended to counter the Wasp
artillery
, girl. At this elevation nobody within a mile of the city’s going to be in any danger.’
Straessa blinked at him, and at last the contraption began making an audible sound, a high whining just at the edge of hearing, which the old man clearly took as a good sign.
‘And . . . loose!’ He got it wrong, said it again, and then, a second later, the bolt was simply gone. Straessa had the faint sense of very swift motion, and no more. Of the
missile’s eventual impact there was no sign.
‘Of course we’ll tip the bolts with explosives when Wasps arrive,’ the old artillerist said cheerily, ‘but it’s all about magnets and the new steel and good old
College know-how.’ And then the others were crowding in to study the device.
Straessa plucked at the sleeve of her chief officer’s coat as he tried to elbow his way in. ‘You’re wanted, Chief.’
The Ant looked annoyed at that, but he glanced off over the walls –
east, towards the Wasps
, she thought – then nodded, and they descended together.
She accompanied him as far as the Prowess Forum, for fear that he would end up back on the walls again if she left his side. The College’s old sparring ground had been decked out with
banners, she saw, which meant that this gathering was not just another in the interminable series of committees that seemed to be Collegium’s answer to everything. This was
it. T
he
great minds of the city had come together, and were about to impart their wisdom to their martial servants.
She saw Stenwold Maker within, sitting on the tiered seats as though waiting to watch a practice match. The sagging bulk of Jodry Drillen lurked in one doorway, speaking to another couple of
Assemblers, and at least a score of others were already sitting in small cliques and factions, some there to speak and some to listen. She recognized the small form of Willem Reader, the
aeronautics artificer, and a few others she could put a name to. One was Helmess Broiler, Collegium’s least favourite son in many quarters, and a man often claimed to be on the Imperial
payroll. The Prowess Forum was public, though, and many people had come to see the leaders of their city’s armed might.
A morale exercise, then, more than anything. No state secrets
here.
She ticked off the banners, seeing the various chief officers and other military leaders arrive and assemble beneath them: five Companies and four others, nine men and women to direct the
battle.
The Companies first. Red scarab was the badge of Maker’s Own, and their chief officer, Elder Padstock, was the senior military figure there.
Through the Gate
was their motto, and
Padstock was known to be a fervent, even fanatical supporter of Stenwold Maker.
Madagnus himself was standing beneath the banner depicting a white helm in profile – not the original Vekken design but an Imperial infantry helmet now, for reasons of politics. Their
motto, and Straessa’s own, was
In Our Enemy’s Robes
, after the original inhabitants of Coldstone Street had taken arms and armour from Vekken dead to throw back the
invaders.
Outwright’s Pike and Shot had a wheel of pikes and snap-bows as its device, whose intricacy must have left the embroiderers cursing.
Outright Victory or Death
went their words,
and the original Outwright had indeed died defending Stenwold Maker from Imperial assassins. His nephew, someone-or-other Outwright, looked far too young for the job, but his soldiers had elected
him out of fondness for his martyred uncle. Beside him stood sweating Remas Boltwright of the new Fealty Street Company, his banner simple crossed crossbow bolts, his words
To End the
Quarrel
. He was doing his best but, like Outwright Junior, he did not look the soldier.
Eujen Leadswell stood at his shoulder, beneath the purple banner displaying the open book. He and Averic had been devoting every waking moment to turning their rabble of malcontents into
something approximating a fighting company, but some wit amongst the students had seen to it that the words
Learn to Live
had been added to their flag. In Straessa’s experience it
was entirely possible that Eujen, beneath them, had not even noticed.
So very focused, always.
And curse me, but he looks the part.
Eujen Leadswell, student of social history and outspoken detractor of no less a man than Stenwold Maker, stood straight-backed and proud in his
breastplate, and if any had been ready to mock the idea of the Student Company, or to slight him for his political beliefs, they held their tongues now.
I am not going to cry.
But, looking at him, Straessa felt so very aware of how fragile he was, just as any man or woman was fragile. One bolt, one sword, and all that young promise
would be gone.
The others came as no surprise, those defenders of the city who were not formally part of the Companies. She saw, standing beneath a sky-coloured banner without device or motto, the little
Fly-kinden pilot who was everyone’s darling after the Wasp Air Corps had been brought down last time.
Kymene the Mynan leader had her city’s red arrows on black, one pointing up, one down, expounded by the words below them:
We Have Fallen. We Will Rise Again.
Straessa had a lot of
time for Kymene save that she had always felt that the woman was so fiercely opposed to the Wasps that she might get a great many people killed for it one day.
Some close-faced, midnight-skinned Vekken stood, with no banner at all, representing that company of his kinsfolk who had come reluctantly to the aid of their new – and only – ally.
Lastly, beneath a plain green flag, there was a Mantis-kinden woman Straessa did not know, standing for the Felyen exiles within Collegium, those last tatters of the Felyal hold destroyed by the
Second Army on its last advance.
And that’s it
, thought the Antspider.
That’s all of us, Beetle and non-Beetle, citizens and guests. These nine are the hope of the city in miniature.
By that time the crowd was quite large, packing themselves in at every door, concerned men and women of Collegium who were ostensibly here to see history performed, but in reality just wanted to
be told that everything would be all right.
Sergeant Gorrec of the Pioneers was crouching low, his huge frame almost tucked into the tangled roots of one of the vast old trees, while all around him the Mantis-kinden were
fighting.
It had come on very suddenly. The three Pioneers chosen to spearhead the Empress’s expedition had been carefully breaking new ground, pressing deeper into the forest, and there had been
some Nethyen Mantids with them, keeping pace. Gorrec hadn’t liked that, but they weren’t part of his chain of command, and he was cursed if he was going to go crying to the Empress
about them. They had faded in and out: now gone from his sight, then a moment later there would be a full half-dozen just ghosting between the trees.
No friends of mine
. But friends
weren’t something that Gorrec was overly supplied with. A man didn’t go into the Pioneers because he liked the company.
Then the other Mantids had turned up and everything had gone rapidly out of his control, if control was something he had ever actually had. There were Mantids everywhere, leaping out and trying
to kill one another, and then instantly gone, sometimes leaving a body behind, sometimes not, as though their own irresistible momentum would not allow them to keep still long enough to finish the
job. Gorrec saw the fight around him in frenzied slices, the dim air beneath the canopy briefly flaring into a vicious skirmish of blades and then falling still again, the combatants gone. He had
his axes ready, those two huge Scorpion-made pieces with their curved hafts, which could be thrown some distance if the wielder was a man as big as Gorrec. So far he had not struck a blow: in the
blur of those brief, deadly pairings he found he had no way to tell friend from foe. To him, the Etheryen and the Nethyen Mantids looked just about the same.
He would have followed Icnumon if he could. The halfbreed was Mantis as much as Wasp, and he seemed to have no difficulty knowing whom to kill – either that or he simply did not care.
Keeping up with Icnumon was like chasing smoke, though, and Gorrec saw less of him than of the Mantids themselves.
Crouching in his hiding place, eyes almost useless in the gloom, with opponents that were here one moment and gone the next, he had been honing his other senses. When the sudden rush came at him
out of nowhere, he was ready for it, kicking away from the tree with one axe arcing back to cleave the air between him and his attacker.
Thank you for letting me know which side you’re
on
. For all he knew, this could be a Nethyen Mantis who had turned coat, or maybe all the Mantids were his foes now, but for the moment being attacked was all the identification he needed.
His heels dug furrows into the forest floor as he changed direction, twisting suddenly to meet the oncoming Mantis. He had a fleeting image of a rangy man in greens and browns, trying to bring a
spear down on him, but his own sudden reversal – and the sheer speed with which a man of his size had moved – gained him time enough to bat the needle point aside and bring his other
axe about in an attempt at cutting the man in two. The Mantis leapt over the scything blade, dragging his spear up to skewer Gorrec like a fish, but the Wasp was still moving, letting his impetus
carry him out of the spear’s path and bringing both axes about so that they nearly crossed. There was a moment when the Mantis should have backed off, but the man’s face was twisted
with rage and loathing, finding this intruder in his people’s hidden halls, and he just drove on forwards. The spearhead gouged a shallow line across the Wasp’s shoulder, despite all
Gorrec’s weavings, but then came the moment when the two axe-heads were just too large, too fast, to be avoided, taking up all available space about the Mantis warrior. Even then the man
almost won free, diving through a gap that seemed too small to let a Fly through, but Gorrec and the twin axes went back a long way, and they knew each other well. Just as the Mantis was almost
clear, there they were again, and this time their victim had nowhere to go.
Gorrec shook the blood from the blades, and the next Mantis was on him without warning, following the steel course of her rapier blade directed at his throat. He fell backwards – the only
move that would keep him out of the weapon’s path – and the woman had vaulted him, turned even as she landed, lunging back at his chest as he scrambled on his elbows to try and get out
of the way.
Then she had pitched backwards, her deadly blade spinning from her hands, while Gorrec jumped to his feet, axes still in hand. Ten yards away, almost lost amidst the trees, the Beetle Jons
Escarrabin was reloading his snapbow, hands working automatically as his eyes raked their surroundings.
Gorrec tensed, awaiting the next challenger, but there came nothing. Either the fight had moved on, or it had simply broken up. He and Escarrabin had the forest to themselves, save for the
corpses.
Apparently satisfied, the Beetle Pioneer dropped to one knee by the closest body, essaying a quick search for anything of value. A moment later Icnumon sloped out of the shadows, sheathing his
blades.
Just another day in the service
, Gorrec considered, reaching into his pouch for his medicine kit, because he reckoned this was the sort of place wounds would turn bad fast, if you let
them.
He put one axe down and issued his orders by way of hand gestures:
You two keep watch, advance slowly, I’m falling back to report. I’ll catch up.
Pioneers weren’t the
talkative type.
I just hope Her Majesty has a free hand with the rewards, when we get back
, was all he thought about it. Just because he had trained for this sort of work didn’t mean he had to
like
heading into the darkest depths of a Mantis hold. Even amongst the Pioneers that approached as close to suicide as any of them cared to tread.
She waved away the big Pioneer’s report as soon as he started to make it, simply saying, ‘I
know
,’ to his brutish, uncomprehending face. ‘I
know it all,’ and she sent him back to his comrades, to continue breaking ground, to keep up with the rush of the Nethyen.