‘You forget yourself,’ said the eldest. ‘Magic is fear, uncertainty, doubt. Where better to find these things than on a battlefield? Now join with me.’
Scelae turned from them, trusting them to do what they could. To the expectant Ant adjutant she said, ‘When your companies make their stand we shall stand with them. Tell your masters that.’
‘That is now,’ the Ant said, and indeed the Wasps were approaching, on the ground and in the air, a wave of the Wasp soldiers who so recently had been fleeing, but were now howling for revenge.
The nearest Ant companies had formed a long shieldwall two men deep, with crossbows levelled at the rear. The soldiers braced for the impact of the Wasps, knowing that in their sacrifice, their inevitable deaths, they would buy their kin time to run for home.
When that was all they had to give, they gave it gladly.
‘Ready!’ Scelae called. Already there were Wasp airborne streaking overhead, diving on the running troops, their stings crackling, or racing onwards towards the auto-motives.
She had lived a long enough life, she decided. Spying for the Arcanum in Sarn, she had not thought to be given this honour at last: to die as a Mantis ought.
‘Hunt out your deaths!’ she cried out to her warriors, and they raised their weapons and rushed forwards.
‘I cannot see-’ Sperra gasped. ‘No! I see some soldiers staying behind to hold them back. The Mantis. The Mantis-kinden are fighting on the left. They have charged the Wasps-’ She choked on the words for it had been like watching sand disappear before a wave. They were in there, though, spinning and slashing, inside the Wasp formation, cutting and killing, and dying. ‘They are holding them!’ she cried out. ‘I think. I think some of the Wasps are fighting with each other! They are falling on each other, butchering each other in mid-air.’
The first of the running soldiers were past them now, heading for the train. The wounded were still only half loaded on board.
‘I think-’ Sperra continued, telescope still to her eye, and just then the first of the Wasp airborne struck her, sending her tumbling from the sky. He had been lunging blade-first, but in his haste only his shoulder had struck; he swung round for another pass and an arrow sprouted beneath his armpit, and he spiralled away with a yell.
Achaeos nocked another to his bow. The Ants doubled their pace with the wounded soldiers, knowing that some would die from the exertion, but more would if they did not.
‘Ach!’ Sperra was now holding her ribs, cursing but desperately trying to find her telescope. Che lifted her bodily onto the nearest automotive, despite her protests.
‘Go!’ the Beetle told her, and then the machine was moving, grinding off, as soldiers flooded along beside it, filling the train neatly from the front carriages back, orderly even in defeat.
Achaeos loosed his second arrow, and then a brief moment of desolation and despair swept over him. Out on the field, the madly fighting ball of Wasps had swept over the little group of Moth-kinden, silencing what magic they had raised against the minds of their enemies.
He put a third arrow to the string and drew it back, but the fire of a sting-blast washed past him, struck him to the ground. He heard Che scream but it was distant, very distant, because his pain was so large and so immediate.
It hurt so much more when they lifted him bodily onto the automotive’s flatbed amongst the wounded he himself had been tending. ‘Che!’ he cried out, and he had a vague glimpse of her face even as the vehicle began to move, but his out-thrust arm was clutching at nothing. He was leaving her behind. The train was moving now as well, and there was only one automotive left, and it seemed full to him. ‘Che!’ he yelled again, through the searing pain. She was shouting something back at him, but he could not hear it.
Che looked round, and saw that she had left it very nearly too late to do the sensible thing. She ran for the last big transporter, clutching at the rungs and slats. It had already started to move, and she felt her grip slipping. She called out, but the driver was only listening for the voices in his head. She stumbled helplessly-
One of the Sarnesh inside leant over, caught her by her belt and lifted her in effortlessly. There were Wasps passing over them now, but most were starting to turn back, not wanting to get too far from the main body of their army. The vehicle’s driver flung the machine forwards over the uneven ground, aiming for the line of the rails, and Che heard a kind of whistling noise that she barely had time to register.
Something caught her a massive blow across the head, the slats of the automotive’s side slamming into her as the ball of metal from the leadshotter ripped through the back of the automotive in a maelstrom of jagged shards. The automotive was suddenly veering around. All around her the Sarnesh were leaping out even before the vehicle had come to a halt. Che was too stunned to follow, lying in the automotive’s belly with her head spinning. A moment later there was a muffled crack from the engine and the machine was enveloped in smoke.
Choking, gasping, Che drew her sword, half jumping and half falling from the back of the vehicle as it ground to a stop. Everywhere she looked, there were Wasps. Behind her the train and the automotives were retreating towards Sarn, and she had the single candle-flame of comfort that at least Achaeos was on one of them. The others who had been unlucky enough to be on the last automotive out were fighting already, falling to the swords and stings of the Wasps. She felt herself begin to tremble, her sword shake in her hand.
So ended what would become known as the Battle of the Rails.
Thirty-Nine
In the last few days Stenwold had become an old hand at estimating the numbers of soldiers. Now he looked at the citizens of Collegium who had joined him at the wharf front and knew he had less than one hundred and twenty.
The armourclad had been hauled around now in the harbour, and a great, wide-beamed ship was coasting through the gap, with grey sails piled far higher than the ruins of the harbour towers. Its bow was square and there were men there manhandling a folding bridge, and beyond them the rails were lined with armoured forms.
‘We have no chance here!’ Stenwold told his tiny force. ‘The Vekken are breaking in at the west wall even as we speak, and we cannot hold them here. Go back to your families. Go back to your wives and husbands and children. There is no sense in your staying here.’
‘What will you do, War Master?’ one of them asked him.
‘I will remain,’ Stenwold said heavily. ‘When they dock I will see if the word of one Master of Collegium can yet carry weight, but you must go, all of you.’
He heard some take him up on his offer, but when he looked round he still had more than a hundred remaining.
The great ship was coming in, coasting with a terrible grace. The sails were being furled and there were two anchor-chains in the water to slow her as she approached the charred wood of the wharves.
‘Stenwold,’ Arianna said in awe. ‘That isn’t a Vekken ship.’
He looked from her to the approaching vessel, and back again. ‘How do you know?’
‘Because that’s a Spiderlands ship out of Seldis, and I ought to know my own people’s work.’
Stenwold gaped at her and then at the ship. The bridge was coming down now that the ship was yards from its berth. ‘Hold your shot!’ he told his men.
A Spiderlands ship. He saw her sleek lines, the pattern of waves and arabesques that decorated her rails — but those rails were lined with Ant shields.
The bridge struck the wharves, and his men began backing up nervously, fingering their crossbows and swords. If it is the Vekken, then a surrender offered here, without a shot loosed, may buy these men their lives. ‘Hold still!’ Stenwold told them.
And the Ant-kinden coursed out onto the Collegium docks, forming up even as they did so into a fighting square. They were not the glossy onyx of Vek, though, their skins were pallid, pale as fishbellies.
Tarkesh Ants. What is going on? Stenwold moved forward, more to keep a distance between these newcomers an
d his own ragged followers. His people were nervous, and seeing these new Ants assemble, moving from shipboard to land in impeccable order, was not helping them.
‘Identify yourselves. You are on the soil of Collegium!’ he shouted. He had the feeling of every set of too-similar eyes on him, all those swords and crossbows, directed straight at him.
One man broke from their ranks, slinging his shield. He regarded Stenwold without expression, unknowable conversations passing through his mind. ‘You speak for Collegium?’ he asked.
‘I am Master Maker of the Great College. What is your business here? We are not at our best to receive visitors,’ Stenwold said, thinking, If this goes badly, then I take the brunt. At least Arianna has a chance to get clear of it.
The Tarkesh officer smiled grimly. ‘I am Mercenary-Commander Parops, formerly of Tark. I hear you have a little Vekken infestation.’
One of Stenwold’s men exclaimed and pointed, and then they were all rushing to the broken edge of the wharves to stare out to sea. The Ants shifted, but only to give them a clearer view. Something was burning out on the water, sheets of flame shooting forty feet in the air, and Stenwold saw that it was one of the Vekken supply barges. There were little copper-hulled ships out there, darting through the waters with steaming funnels, gallantly doing battle with the remaining Vekken armourclads and blazing away with flame cannon at the other barges, which were already starting to smoke. Stenwold saw one of the little ships blown apart as a leadshot from an armourclad struck its steam engine, but the others were nipping nimbly through the hail of shot and loosing their own weapons.
Larger, flat-hulled boats were meanwhile driving through the waves to make a landing west of the city, packed with soldiers, and beyond them all another half-dozen of the elegant Spiderlands galleons were tacking wide of the fighting, whilst smaller sailing ships with high forecastles made passes against the armourclads, showering the Vekken sailors with arrows. It was only for a moment that Stenwold watched that slow melee, the sails of the Spiderlands frigates a nimble elegance against the lumbering ironclads. He saw one of the Vekken ships listing, Spider-kinden marines fighting on its decks with grim desperation. The wooden ships were fleet, but when the Vekken caught them they were matchwood in short order. Still, the sea was full of sails. It was an entire fleet that the Spiderlands had sent them. The Vekken navy, already diminished by its assaults on the harbour, was falling to their numbers and to their grace.
‘Stenwold,’ Arianna hissed to him. ‘The wall!’
‘Commander,’ Stenwold said, bringing his mind back to his responsibilities. ‘The Vekken are in at the west wall.’
‘Take us there,’ Parops instructed him. ‘And we shall turn them out again.’
The Vekken rushed into the city, desperate to flood their soldiers past the breach, to set foot at last on the conquered enemy ground. When they were past the wall there was a moment of confusion. Akalia’s plan had gone so far and no further. The wall was down, the city was therefore taken.
But the people of Collegium did not see it that way. There was no surrender. Even as the Vekken formed up in the wall’s curving shadow, the arrows and the sling stones fell on them, rattling from their shields, bouncing from their mail. There were men, women and children at the windows of every house, throwing rocks, loosing crossbows. Impromptu lines of citizens formed before the orderly Vekken advance, armed with clubs, with spears. Every house became an archer’s platform, every street a choke-point. The Vekken advance was never halted, but it was slow, so slow. Two streets from the wall and a house they were passing suddenly erupted in fire and stone, razored shards scything through the tight-packed Vekken ranks, killing scores of them. As the invaders recoiled and recovered, the people of Collegium were in the next houses, shooting down at them. Girls of twelve, old women of seventy, Fly-kinden publicans and fat Beetle shopkeepers, grocers and clerks and cooks swarmed from doorways and alleyways, holding their knives and chair-legs, their scavenged waster bows and stolen Vekken shields. In the fore, always in the fore, was a giant Sarnesh Ant-kinden with a nailbow and paired shortswords. He became the man the Vekken hated most, the man they needed to kill. A crossbow bolt found his shoulder. A sword-stroke had riven the armour over his hip. He refused to fall. To the Vekken it seemed that he even refused to bleed.
Another house detonated to the Vekken rear, and every building of Collegium had become their enemy. The call was going out for artificers, but the streets were so full of Vekken soldiers, their advance backing up all the way to the wall, that no engineers could have got through.
A grey-haired Fly-kinden woman almost fell on Stenwold and his new allies in her eagerness to intercept him. With commendable precision she got out her report on what the people of Collegium were sacrificing for their city. The persistence of his own people astonished Stenwold, and even more so because by now there was no command, nothing from the Assembly that could order the defence. The street-by-street stalling, the sabotage of their own homes, this all represented the men and women of Collegium taking their fate into their own hands.
Parops digested the situation quickly. ‘Have people lead my men to each major thoroughfare before their advance,’ he said. ‘People who can explain that we’re on your side. We will hold the Vekken as long as we need, and holding them is all that needs doing.’
Stenwold recalled the landing craft he had seen. ‘There are a great deal of Vekken out there, Commander,’ he warned.
Parops’s face lacked something human in it. ‘That’s my employers’ problem, Master Maker, but they have brought a great many troops.’
‘But why?’ Stenwold demanded.
‘Does it matter? Now let us do our work,’ Parops cut him off.
Arianna clung to Stenwold’s good arm, practically dancing with glee, watching the Tarkesh rush into their time-honoured calling of killing the Ants of other cities.
*
Tactician Akalia stared at the flames of her barges and could not understand what was happening to her war. An open call had gone out to every man and woman of her officers to explain it to her, and not one had the answer. A mass of ships had crept up on them at night from who-knew-where, and was going about the savage business of finishing her entire fleet. There were little sparks in her head that were the masters of her vessels, and they were flickering out, one by one, each giving his life and his ship for the greater glory of Vek, and leaving nothing but ripples in his wake.
Tactician! We must withdraw troops from the siege!
No! We are inside the wall, she threw back.
But, Tactician, they are coming for us! And she saw through the eyes of the officer the approaching ships already close to beaching on the shore. The soldiers left in the camp were already rushing to intercept them, but the vast majority of the Vekken force was up about the walls of Collegium.
Bring the force back from the north wall, she decided. Our men here will hold the enemy until then.
Even as she thought it, her men at the beach were dying. For a panicked moment nobody realized why, but then she saw that there were repeating ballistae mounted on the front corners of the flat-bottomed craft, and as the Vekken soldiers came to repel the beachhead they were being systematically shot down. Some managed a ragged shield-wall, and began to return shot with crossbows, but then the first of the craft had ground on the sand of the beach.
Men with skins like burnished copper were leaping out. They wore long hauberks of the same colour, mail with rings of incredible fineness, and long oval shields with a distinctive notch cut into them. Many of them were fitting repeating crossbows to those notches even now, advancing on the diminishing Vekken while they began to loose. Others were lifting the ballistae from the bows of their boats and running forward with them to where artificers were setting up three-legged mounts for them.
She instructed the men coming back from the north wall to pick up their pace.
Tactician, we are encountering heavy resistance within the city!
No excuses! she snapped. There could be no excuses, now, for failing to capture Collegium: not these newcomers of unknown kinden, not the new ships, not any device of the Beetle academics.
But, Tactician, we are facing soldiers from Tark, several hundred at least.
The situation began to slip from her fingers. Tarkesh, in Collegium? Even as she considered it, the last of her men at the beach died. Too few to mount a proper defence, they had been outflanked and shot down. Now the enemy was rushing up the beach, and two hundred yards inland lay the Vekken camp, all but undefended.
Withdraw all from the camp and join the northern force, she decided. Then we shall sweep them back into the sea.
Tactician! The eastern force is under attack!
From who? she demanded, stalking out of her tent with her greatsword balanced on her shoulder.
A mixed force, Tactician: Flies, Scorpions, Spider-kinden, others I do not know-
And the speaker was gone in a brief impression of shock and pain. There were others there clamouring for her attention, but she blocked them out. With the remainder of her staff she headed north, and it took all her control not to run.
Joined by the forces reclaimed from Collegium’s north wall, she tried to make a decision, but she craved only an outcome that would enable her to sack Collegium, and that goal was fast receding. Her eastern force was pinned against the very wall they should have been taking, under attack from the defenders above and from the inexplicable new forces that had come in off the sea. Her western force was held in the city by the Tarkesh, and under attack from the rear by the copper-armoured strangers. She had but a third of her army left to her name.
We will attack. If she returned to Vek with this disgrace, then she would never have the respect of her kind again. She began marching her forces back towards the city walls. The breach was still there, so she would force her way into the city and then proceed to hold it against the newcomers.
Dragonfly Falling sota-2 Page 57