I think it is now clear that it will be longer than we have the capability to withstand them.
The Scorpions came into sight amid a hail of arrows. The first four ranks held stolen shields fore and above, shrugging off the worst of the storm until the painted wood bristled. There would be crossbowmen concealed inside that carapace to either side, and in the centre a core of furious armoured warriors with two-handed swords and great-axes, the hammer that would leap up to strike the Khanaphir guard.
It was as well learned as parade-ground drilling now, by both sides. The shields were raised, the crossbows jutted, the vanguard of the Scorpion host leapt up the buckled stones towards their foes, impaling themselves on spears, splitting shields, trying to break the Royal Guard by sheer strength. The archers loosed and loosed, riddling either side of the charge with arrows, trying for the pale gaps between the dark armour. Crossbows raked them, plunging into the wooden barricades, flying overhead, hurling the unlucky backwards with the impact of their short heavy bolts. Totho trusted to his mail and shot into the fray, knowing that no shield or armour would save his enemies from him.
Amnon was crying again for them to hold firm. Totho saw him in his place at the fore, lending the others his strength. Meyr fought, looming over him, a Nemian halberd held in one hand like a wood-axe. Abruptly there were a lot of Scorpions up on the stones, hammering at the Khanaphir. They were dying, the attackers. They were pierced through with spears, hacked with swords, but they had a courage, an insane and reckless courage, that Totho could not understand. They were dying, but were replaced as quickly, and now the ragged defenders were giving ground. Amnon's voice boomed high above the fray, exhorting them in the name of their city to stand, but it was not their will but their sheer strength that was giving way.
'Fliers!' came Tirado's own shout. 'Wasp airborne!'
The archers, save for those closest the breach, immediately turned towards the sky. There was a scattering of Wasp-kinden coming in fast over the heads of the Scorpions and the defenders' arrows began to reach out for them. They dodged and darted about in the air, two of them dropping as the shafts found them. Totho turned his attention to the breach again.
Meyr was fighting unarmed in the front line now, simply grabbing Scorpions and hurling them off the bridge, or slapping them back into their fellows with bone-crushing force. Their swords and axes rang off his armour, lacing it with scratches and dents. He barely seemed to notice them. Totho saw a halberd slam down on the giant's wrist and just leap back from the double-linked chainmail that covered it. Stone me, but we built well when we built that.
There was a wash of heat from a fire grenade, but it had landed amidst the Scorpion flank after its bearer was shot down. The other impromptu grenadiers were veering away, the arrows coming at them too thickly to dodge. Another spun head over heels down into the water.
'They're circling left!' Tirado shrieked, his voice increasingly hoarse. 'Coming in over the water-' A moment later he screamed, 'I'm shot!' Totho searched the sky for him frantically, but the Fly had already been thrown from it, transfixed by a crossbow bolt, a tiny figure writhing amongst the Khanaphir wounded.
'Hold fast!' Amnon cried out, in a voice fit to be heard by the spectators at either end of the bridge. Totho heard the boom of the leadshotters from the shore and knew that the Iteration was coming in to try and relieve them. A moment later began the rapid rattling of its smallshotters. The Khanaphir were still holding the breach but there were none of the Royal Guard left in reserve; every man and woman was now committed to the fray. Totho saw Ptasmon and Dariset fighting to Amnon's left. Dariset's face was awash with blood from a gash to her brow, her helm knocked clean from her head. Ptasmon's shield was shattered and he laid about himself with both spear and sword. Totho emptied his snapbow into the attackers and reached for the next magazine, slotting it fumblingly into place. With frantic speed he charged his piece, already knowing he would be too late.
A Scorpion lance rammed into Ptasmon, piercing his scaled hauberk. Totho saw his mouth gape wide, and then Ptasmon had thrown himself forward into the enemy, hacking blindly at them, bringing half a dozen down in a tangle of limbs. Dariset was screaming something Totho could not hear.
Totho drew his own sword. It was a shortsword, as he had trained with in Collegium. There was nothing special about it. He unslung his shield.
Che …
He leapt down from the archery platform and found Ptasmon's footprints, shouldering his way into the shield-wall. He was no great warrior, but a man adequate through dull practice with the blade. I trust to my artifice. I trust to the armour that the Iron Glove's intellect has brought into being. He put his sword into the face of a looming Scorpion, the reciprocal axe-blow bounding from his shield with a force that ran all the way up to his shoulder.
Shards of broken water scattered over the deck after the leadshotters' latest miss, too close for comfort. The Iteration was heading for the bridge arch again, keeping itself a moving target, but the Scorpions were gradually learning. The art of the artillerist was not something that should come naturally to a savage pack of barbarians, but field practice was the best practice. Corcoran had the uncomfortable feeling that he was standing in as some kind of training instructor for the entire Nemian nation.
The smallshotters cracked and boomed from the port rail, their crews reloading as swiftly as they could, also now considerably more practised than they had been. It was the sort of thing that Totho or the Old Man went on about, the way that war honed invention and its uses. Corcoran was a pragmatist, though: the philosophy of artifice interested him only in so far as he could make money by selling it.
The next booming impact on the river was right at their stern, rocking the whole metal-reinforced ship as though a giant had taken it up and shaken it. They were in long crossbow range, too and, although the bolts that rebounded from the hull or clattered on the deck were a nuisance, a lucky shot could still be fatal.
He could see nothing of the fighting on the bridge itself, but the Scorpions were crowding the shore again, each pushing for his turn in the meat-grinder. They're all mad, Corcoran decided. They must be. The wise man would step back and wait. No sense throwing yourself into the teeth of the mill. Plainly the Scorpions felt differently.
A crossbow bolt skipped across the rail and hit his backplate with the force of a light slap, making him stagger into the next swell. His armour was not the aviation-grade stuff that Totho wore, just blackened steel breast-and-back and an open-faced helm, but at this distance it was more than adequate.
'Get those archers off us, someone!' he snapped.
'Get them yourself,' one of his artillerists replied. 'Look at them.' It was true. Since the Iteration's last pass the Scorpions had brought a load of wood and stone rubble to the bank and the shallows. The Scorpion crossbowmen were using this to shoot from, and the scattershot the smallshotters were loaded with could do little about it. It would be wasting time and ammunition to try and winkle them out. Already many of the smallshotters were being loaded with fistfuls of glass, stone and nails. The Iron Glove's quartermasters had not anticipated the Khanaphir delegation getting into a war.
I never wanted to be in a war, Corcoran reminded himself. I just wanted to sell the means to other people. Is that so wrong? It had been a pleasant time, initially, living it up as a foreign dignitary in Khanaphes, but then it had all gone to the pits.
They were passing into the bridge's shadow now, Hakkon keeping a steady hand on the tiller. One of the leadshotters on the far side touched off too eagerly, and they saw a shower of glimmering water through the archway.
'Speed up! Engines full!' Corcoran decided.
'Not in this space-' Hakkon started.
'Do it! They'll be ready for us else!'
He heard the roar of the Iteration's engines mount until the air beneath the arch shook with it. There was a spray of sparks and a shriek of tortured metal as the starboard side ground into the stone before the helmsman could cor
rect the course. The weapons crews had all unhooked their smallshotters from the rail, for fear of losing them to the sides.
'Brace yourselves, this isn't going to be fun!' Corcoran shouted at them. He had no idea whether they had heard him, but they all looked sufficiently braced.
The Fourth Iteration leapt out from the archway on to the open river, above the bridge. The crews were already replacing their weapons when the Scorpion ordnance burst around them.
For a moment it seemed that the entire river had erupted. They could see nothing through the spray drenching them from all sides. Something struck them hard about the bows, heeling the Iteration well over to starboard, and pointing her away from the Scorpion shore. Another solid shot came down from its arc and smashed the starboard rail near the helm. Hakkon was wrestling with the wheel, trying to turn them back.
The ship rocked back, engines still churning at full speed. At least one man had been lost over the side, and more than one of the smallshotters had dropped straight past the rail. Corcoran half clawed, half rolled over to the port rail, holding hard to it, trying to take stock.
The first of the smallshotters cracked, sending its fistful of debris into the gathered Scorpions.
It could have been worse. There was either a dent or a hole in the bows, but above the waterline. It could have been worse.
'Watch out!'
He had no idea who called, in that spare second, no guess in what direction to be watching. He just clung to the rail and closed his eyes.
The impact, when it came, was shattering. The deck jumped beneath him, almost hard enough to throw him overboard. The ship lurched, a movement so unnatural it was as though the water had been changed, for one moment, into something solid and jagged.
Corcoran reeled, staring about. He saw the fresh plume of firepowder smoke, but not from where the main Scorpion artillery was positioned. This was on the flat roof of one of the riverfront houses. They got a leadshotter onto the roof? Whoever had been aiming it had been good enough to drop a shot straight on them …
He became aware that the clamour of battle was missing one important sound.
'The engines! What's wrong with the …' The words died even as he turned. The stern of the Iteration was a splintered mess. Whether by chance or skill, the rooftop artillerist had struck true. There was a hole broken clear through the deck. The wheel was gone, and if there was anything much left of Hakkon, then Corcoran did not want to go and look at it. A vast white cloud was vomiting up from the hole. And that would be steam, Corcoran decided. The bastards have cracked a boiler.
The Iteration, turned halfway from the enemy, was cruising to a slow halt, though the smallshotter men were still loosing shot with grim determination.
Corcoran's hands slipped to the buckles of his armour and released them, the mail clattering to the deck. He thumbed off his helmet even as the first of the enemy leadshotters took its next shot at them, clipping the bows by a gnat's wing.
'Time to go!' he called. 'Leave any way you can. Swim, fly, grab a plank and paddle! I mean it, lads!' All around him there were men already taking his advice. They shed what little armour they were wearing with frantic speed. Those who could get airborne, Bee-kinden and a few halfbreeds, flashed open their wings and took off for the far shore. Others were still carrying on the fight, reloading and emptying the smallshotters as fast as they could.
Another enemy shot raised a tower of water astern, and then one struck them full amidships. Corcoran was thrown off his feet, clean across the deck, stopping only when he tangled with the broken rail. He heard the snapping of timbers and the shriek of abused metal. 'Abandon ship!' he screamed to anyone that would listen. His people were jumping into the water in ones and twos. It was a long way to safety across the river, but they were not short of wooden ballast to help them along. The locals did not swim, and surely the Scorpions did not, but most of the Iteration's crew had been born and brought up around the clear waters of the Exalsee.
Corcoran kicked his boots off. The ship was listing at a sick angle, the port rail almost under water. The men who threw themselves into the river from there were providing targets for the crossbowmen, whose bolts skipped across the waves towards them. Corcoran scrabbled and slipped, trying to reach the higher starboard rail to throw himself clear there with the ship's bulk to shield him. There was an escalating shriek from the engines, and he knew that whatever damage they had sustained had not prevented the boiler pressure rising: they would blow at any moment.
With a supreme effort he grasped a strut of the starboard railing. A crossbow bolt struck the slanting deck nearby and fell back into the river.
Sorry, my love, he mentally addressed the dying ship, but it's time we were parting. He bunched himself for the effort of hauling himself over the rail, but then the engine went with an enormous crack, shaking him loose, and the stern half of the Iteration tore itself to pieces in a hail of splinters and shrapnel that scattered even the Scorpions on the bank.
Forty-Two
The interrogation room was filled with the sound of engines, the hiss of the steam boiler below and the whine and rumble of the tools above her. She could barely hear one word in three of the careful conversation that Thalric was holding with the engineer, Aagen. It was some convoluted piece of Wasp politics involving the governor and the Butterfly-kinden Grief in Chains. She strained her ears to catch it, since any information would be useful.
Thalric had now finished, telling Aagen, 'Now, dispatch it straight,' and the engineer left them swiftly. She felt the straps taut about her wrists and ankles. The mechanical drills and blades vibrated on their extending arms, spread above her like the limbs of a spider. Thalric had gone to the levers and was regarding them cautiously. She realized that he was not artificer enough to know how to turn the device off.
'The one at the end!' she shouted out to him. 'The red band!'
He turned to regard her, with a slight smile on his face. His hand found another lever and pulled it, in a brutal, brief motion, and the tool assembly dropped three feet, until it hovered right above her.
'Thalric!' she yelled, and he headed over, still smiling. One of his hands brushed against the surgical tools laid out beside her, and as it came away he was holding a narrow blade.
'Thalric, listen to me!' she said quickly. 'I'll talk. I'll tell you. Please …'
'The time for that has passed,' he said. 'I thought you understood as much. You cannot claim that I have not given you sufficient opportunity to speak voluntarily.' The light glinted on the scalpel blade as he dipped it to caress her cheek. 'Fortunate, really, that your kinden are not such a comely people. I had cause to interrogate a Spider once, and they have so much more to lose.' There was a dreadful reasonableness in his voice and expression that was more terrifying than outright anger could ever be. She felt her breath catch and shudder as sheer terror started building inside her. Don't cut me. Please, don't cut me.
'Thalric, listen to me. You don't want to do this. Not when you can just … just ask. Just ask and I'll say. You might … you might have a use for me later. For me whole. Please …'
'There is an economy of information, in the intelligencer's trade,' he told her, reaching up and bringing down a mechanical separator on its jointed arm. 'Information freely given is debased coinage. How can it be trusted, after all? However, when I have excruciated you until you beg and scream and plead, until you would betray everything and anything you have ever loved for a moment's cessation of pain, then you shall give me information of purest gold. There is a point when everyone, be they ever so strong or wilful or honour-bound, crosses over into the realm of pure honesty. We shall find where your point lies. Similarly with your future service, when I have put my mark upon you in sufficient detail, the very memory of it shall keep you loyal, for you will know in full what shall await you if you betray me. You are right-handed, are you not? I shall start with your left hand.'
She stared at him in horrified fascination. 'Please …'
&nb
sp; His smile only broadened, becoming sharp as the blade he held. He touched the point to the back of her hand, holding her fingers flat.
He cut. The pain was short, sharp, almost lost in her bucking, twitching reaction to it. A shallow incision, but now he lowered the separator towards it, inserting the cold spars of the device between the lips of the wound, and then jabbing down. She screamed for real this time, though it was nothing more than preparation, sliding the machine's fingers between the bones of her hand. There was a delicate clockwork motor contained in the fist of it, and he wound it carefully so that she could hear its contented ticking.
She felt the slightest pressure affecting the bones of her hand. Amid the welter of pain, it meant little to her, but the prongs of the separator would slowly grind their way apart whilst Thalric worked on other parts of her — or even left the room entirely. It would torture her by infinitesimal degrees, all by its mindless self.
She was babbling by then, trying to tell him all sorts of things, about Stenwold, about Collegium, about anything she could imagine the Empire might be interested in. There was a sickness welling inside her, above and beyond the pain. She had not realized, before this moment, just how weak she had always been.
'Now,' said Thalric, ignoring her rush of words entirely, 'nature has gifted you with two eyes. One might almost think this was so that the loss of one would serve as an irresistible inducement to cooperate, lest you face the loss of the other.'
He brought the scalpel up and cleaned it meticulously, as though the intrusion of her own blood might cause her some infection. The pressure against the bones of her hand was noticeably intensifying. She clenched her teeth vainly against it.
His smile as he brought the razor-edge of the blade towards her face was fond, almost doting. She jerked her head back, shrieking at him, twisting as he pulled a strap tight across her forehead to hold her still.
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