The Modern World

by Steph Swainston

  She is addicted to work and buries herself in it so deeply she’s surprised when her actions affect anyone else. Let me give her a task, a purpose, another dose of work to calm her mind.

  I picked up a scrap from the tide of paper on her desk, folded it into a glider and threw it past her. She looked up resentfully, selected another sheet and made a glider of far better design. She creased the edge of one wing and tossed it. It described a circle around me, turned on its side and flew back to her.

  I said, ‘Do you know that water is running down the spillway?’

  ‘Ha! A little overtopping; I’d expect it to be displaced by all that detritus. The culvert is adequate.’ She sobbed and wiped her nose.

  Lightning sighed, looking at the mortals lingering just out of earshot awaiting our command. ‘Try to put a better front on for the Zascai.’

  ‘She’s in shock,’ I said.

  ‘We’re all in shock.’ Lightning added, ‘There are not so many today. The flight could be dying down of its own accord.’

  ‘I hope so,’ I said.

  Frost began to stutter, ‘D-don’t you see? That’s the point. My lake affected all the Insects in in in the area. When they’ve all … mated … the flight w-will stop. Then what? Then what?’

  Now did not seem to be the right time to tell her and Lightning about the death of the Somatopolis. The Vermiform had implied that Insects don’t lay eggs in sea water. I asked, ‘Can we make the lake saline?’

  Frost’s arms tensed. ‘W-we don’t have enough s-salt here.’

  ‘Well, order some up.’

  Lightning shook his head. ‘Not a hope. How would you take it to the lake? There are too many Insects running free outside. With thousands over such an open area, they would slaughter us even if we had three times the number of troops.’

  A commotion in the doorway interrupted us. Wrenn entered the hall, in full armour, dragging an Insect by its two antennae bundled together in one gauntleted hand. He had hacked off all its legs at the first joint, leaving stumps. Its antlike body squirmed, bending at the neck and waist, and it rotated from side to side as he pulled it over the straw-strewn floor to us.

  He had caught it before it detached its wings. The long, hyaline membranes surrounded it completely, shredded into ribbons on one side, rattling and clattering together. It reared up its front femurs threateningly and yellow paste oozed out of the severed joints.

  Frost stood up. ‘Serein Wrenn Culmish, that is absolutely disgusting. Take it outside!’

  ‘Morning, all. Think of it as one less Insect. I want to show you something.’ He let go of the antennae and the Insect rocked on its back until it rolled the right way up. It was constantly trying to get to its feet, regardless of the fact that it didn’t have any. The loss of a leg or mandible isn’t a serious injury for an Insect because it can regenerate them in subsequent moults. This one was missing all six legs but it was still wriggling. It squirmed around and grabbed Wrenn’s ankle.

  He drew his broadsword with a flourish. As its jaws closed on the greave plate he swept its head off, leaving it dangling from his leg.

  Its body slowly stopped moving. Wrenn kicked his foot free, and the head rolled to rest, compound eyes downward. ‘I picked this one up on the road. Do you see it’s fatter than usual?’ He poked its abdomen with the tip of his sword. Pressing with both hands on the hilt, he punctured the softer sclerites under its abdomen at the waist and sliced it open to the tail. He turned his blade to widen the cut and a mass of white capsules the size of my palm suspended in clear jelly splodged out.

  ‘Eggs. Lots of them. Do you see?’ He stirred them with his sword point, cutting their cuticles, whereupon they leaked a milky liquid.

  I slipped my hand into the cold, gelatinous spawn, picked up one egg and squeezed it. It was the size of a tennis ball and very slimy, with a tough, sclerotic skin. It slipped between my fingers like a bar of soap, and bounced on the floor.

  ‘Ugh,’ said Frost.

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Thank you, Wrenn,’ Lightning said. ‘No less than your usual brilliance.’

  ‘So why do they drop their wings off when they could keep flying and attacking us?’

  ‘They’re working on instinct,’ I told him. ‘They’re interested in the lake. It’s just coincidence that we’re here at all.’

  ‘But why fly? Why do they have to fly to shag?’

  ‘Ask it,’ I said.

  Wrenn took the point. ‘Fair enough.’

  He sat down on a bench end, removed his helmet and padded cap and ruffled his flattened hair to make the spikes stick up. He called to Tornado, ‘It’s your shift, Tawny. I’ve been at it since five. Give me half an hour for breakfast then I’ll come back out.’

  Tornado picked up the Insect by the tip of its abdomen and dragged it, still dripping transparent gel, out of the hall.

  *

  Frost had knelt down and was counting the eggs, picking them up with gluey strands and piling them on one side. ‘There are upwards of a hundred in here. Tens of thousands of Insects are laying. If they all hatch, there’ll be millions of offspring in my lake …’

  She brushed her hair back, leaving a trail of slime stuck to it, sat on her heels and looked at us, wide-eyed. ‘I have to drain the lake – as quickly as possible.’

  ‘How long will it take?’ I said.

  ‘I expected it to take days. I can’t just reel the gate wide open; it would flood everything from here to Summerday. The breakwave would be … well, maximum outflow could easily wash the levee away, and then … I don’t like to speculate.’

  ‘How fast can you open the gate safely? What do you need? Tell us, so we can make plans.’

  She jumped up and dashed to her desk. She whipped a sheet of paper towards her, grabbed two pencils, shoved one behind her ear and poised the other. ‘If Q is the flow rate and dt is the time … Hum! Could the debris block the gate? No, its compressive stress is tissue to that force of water … You there! Yes, you. Bring me some more coffee! Where’s my foreman? Asleep? Why? We have work to do! Oh, if Zaza were here we could do this in a couple of days!’

  Lightning and I backed off. ‘Thank you,’ he said gratefully.

  ‘I’m just trying to keep her occupied. We don’t have sufficient troops to reach the winch tower anyway.’

  He nodded. ‘I know. We’re stranded here, Jant, for now. But at least we’re stranded with the largest store of arrows in western Lowespass.’

  I noticed Kestrel Altergate at the far end of the room, trying to help a field surgeon without actually touching his patient. ‘Just make sure Frost sleeps at some point, and keep those bloody reporters away from her.’

  One of Lightning’s wardens called from the spiral stairs. Lightning raised a hand in acknowledgement and said, ‘I have to organise the archers on the towers. Please bring us some instruction from the Emperor.’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘I hope San knows what to do, because I fear I don’t … Jant, did you find Cyan in Hacilith?’

  ‘Er. Yes.’

  ‘Wonderful! Well?’ Lightning glanced to the Zascai clamouring for his attention. The bolder ones were beginning to approach. ‘Is she safe?’

  ‘She’s safe now,’ I said.

  ‘Now? She wasn’t safe before?’

  ‘She was safe before and she’s safe now.’ But not during the time in between, I thought. Lightning gave me an urgent look, but I met his gaze. ‘Rayne is bringing her here. They’ll arrive in a couple of days.’

  ‘Good. Thank you, Jant …’ I could see Lightning wanted to ask me more but the Zascai were waiting. He fidgeted with the scar on his palm, then he nodded and went back to issuing commands.

  Wrenn beckoned to me. ‘When you see the Emperor, tell him that all our fyrd are knackered and scared stiff. The Cook said that he’ll try to resume the wagon train, with extra outriders for protection, or we’ll soon run out of food. I don’t want to have to chew gum and tighten my belt until new supplies arri
ve.’

  Wrenn pressed the clips to release his plates with a click; gorget, breastplate, faulds, and placed them on the floor. He was so hot his feathers stood up like needles on a pine branch, to let the heat escape. A few detached ones floated down. Wings don’t perspire, but everywhere else his undershirt had brown tide marks and with the sweat of his latest exertion it stank.

  He said, ‘These clips don’t last long. I have to keep threading on new ones. God, that’s better. I feel much lighter now.’

  His armour was state of the art, top of the range. I cast an envious eye over it. ‘Nice gear.’

  ‘Isn’t it? Check out Sanguin.’ He passed me his broadsword.

  ‘Very nice.’

  ‘You can see the temper line and everything.’

  I tilted the blade to see its etched arabesques and the name in a flowing Awian script.

  Wrenn took his helmet on his knee and picked at the lining, then undid the finger-screws that held its bedraggled crest in place. He slid the crest out of its runners and began to wipe mud off it with his sleeve. ‘It’s a quagmire out there. And my arms are covered in bruises from lugging those fucking shields.’ He looked at my bandages. ‘What happened to you?’

  ‘I crash-landed.’

  ‘Did you? Armour, Jant; get yourself some of this.’

  ‘I can’t fly in harness.’

  ‘Wear something on your arms at least.’ He grinned. ‘What do you think you are, bloody immortal?’

  I picked up one of his mirror-finish arm plates from the floor and turned it over. Its canvas straps were hidden underneath it and woven through with steel wire resistant to Insect jaws. The straps had metal spring clips – they could be unfastened in a second if something did go wrong, and they were all easily reachable. Wrenn could don full harness in minutes.

  He nodded at it. ‘You should ask Sleat to make you some. It’s much better than that old crap scale you wear.’

  ‘Show me,’ I said.

  He took off a greave and ran his finger inside it. ‘Well, it’s lightweight. Feel that. My breast and back plates are thinner than the ones for my arms and legs. Chain mail strips sit under every joint – elbows, waist, knees – they don’t add much weight but no claw is going to find its way in there. And see the little holes?’ He ran his finger along a line of perforations. ‘They make it lighter still, but they’re to let the air breathe. It doesn’t collect sweat and rust and I can wear it all day without overheating. Not like old lancers’ armour.’

  It was the highest-quality steel with the sunburst inlaid in orpiment yellow. I ran my thumb over the smooth embossing and Wrenn chuckled. ‘Decoration won’t save your life. Look here – all the plates are straight-edged and tapered. Mandibles won’t find purchase on that. There’s deep fluting along every plate – no jaws will be strong enough to crush that much reinforcement. Sleat’s proved it in trials. Best of all, there are no small pieces for the bastards to grab – the elbow couters are attached to the vambraces and the besagews aren’t discs hanging loose, they’re part of the breastplate, see?’

  ‘Is this Morenzian?’ All human armour was adaptable to Awians these days but sometimes the added pieces were unreliable.

  ‘Sleat extended the pauldrons for me and I tuck my wings under them. He can do the same for you. He took my measurements when I joined the Circle. He made exactly what I wanted.’

  ‘Sleat custom-forges armour for every new Eszai,’ I said.

  ‘He made me a whole garniture suite.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. All interchangeable plates, for all purposes and the decoration matches. I wear this to joust; I just change the breastplate for one with a lance stop, and I have a closed-visor bascinet with a crest instead of this light casque.’

  ‘Clever.’

  ‘Oh, and I have a matching surcoat too. I don’t want to joust in bare Insect-fighting steel when there are ladies watching.’

  ‘Frost is a keen jousting supporter,’ I said. ‘You should talk to her about it and help calm her a little. She remembers all Hayl’s scores.’

  ‘At the moment I’d rather not.’ He began unhooking the leather spats stretched over his feet to prevent mud working in between the joints. ‘These are the only thing I have a problem with. Leather never lasts long in a bout with an Insect – I might as well wrap myself in bacon.’

  Lightning yelled from across the hall, ‘Jant! Are you going to the Castle or are you going to wait until we’ve all been eaten?’

  ‘Damn,’ I said. ‘I’d better go. See you in a few days.’

  ‘Bye.’ Wrenn attended to replacing the madder-red crest on his helmet. His plumes were an Awian symbol of bravery and he must have bought them at market, moulted by a girl whose feathers were so beautiful she could sell them. They couldn’t have been keepsakes from lovers, because Wrenn was enjoying being single far too much. Only one clever lass has come close to snaring him; she was an ardent swordswoman and applied to be taught by him, but when their conversation never turned on anything but swordplay even her patience wore thin.

  I walked out to the square and climbed up to the hall roof, dwelling enviously on Wrenn’s armour. I wanted some. I thought, we have come a long way since the year 430 when Morenzians started sewing thick metal plates onto clothes. Insects’ carapaces are the optimal natural armour and we have learnt from them how to give ourselves the best possible exoskeletons.

  I stood on the ridge, watching Insects descending on the town. I ducked as one buzzed overhead, blotting out the rising sun, and waited for a clear space when it would be safe to take off.

  In the square, Hurricane was forming up a company of shield lines; five lines deep, ten men in each, standing shoulder to shoulder. They wore thick gauntlets, and padding on their left arms.

  Along their lines the heavy rectangular shields reached down to the ground with little space under them; their ground spikes had been unscrewed. Each had one flat edge and the other edge curved into a hook along its length, so they clipped together loosely into a flexible continuous wall without gaps or overlaps that an Insect claw can pin together.

  At the far side of the square, under the direction of the Macer, squads of infantry were dispatching dying Insects with heavy lead mallets, their handles one and a half metres long. They looked as if they were breaking rocks or knocking in tent pegs, but I heard the awful cracking as Insect limbs and heads gave way.

  *

  Three men with shields, one at the front and two beside him on his either side formed a triangle, running towards the gatehouse tower. A young man, sheltering between them, dragged a tiny limber cart loaded with arrow sheaves. They ran as fast as they could, reminding me of servants under umbrellas dashing across the Castle’s courtyards in heavy rain. An Insect descended towards them and the three shield men raised their shields into a roof.

  The Insect landed squarely on the shields – which angled in different directions under its scrabbling feet. It slid off and the whole thing collapsed – the Insect came down in the middle, tangled in the cart and spilling arrows everywhere. Before it could right itself, the men crowded around and I saw their swords flashing as they rose and fell.

  I looked down the road, seeing Tornado’s shield lines coming around the corner. They were clearing Insects before them, pushing them forwards. Insects were bracing their powerful legs on the shields’ rims, tearing at the spears, trying to crawl up the sides of the buildings, slipping over discarded wings and backing, backing, backing, as the shield wall advanced.

  Tornado was walking in the gap between the first and second lines. His company was also five deep. Each line was of shield bearers and spearmen arranged alternately to thrust their spears over the tops of the shields. Those in the last line walked backwards to deal with Insects running up behind them.

  Five lines isn’t many. I’ve seen this formation twenty deep when we were clearing Insects from Awian towns.

  Tornado’s lines were approaching one of the radial roads. Tornado boom
ed, ‘Cover right junction!’

  The men who heard him repeated it at a shout. It made them focus, it bound them together and those at the back heard the concerted yell. They pulled their shields in and advanced towards the street corner. Tornado called, ‘Line one, continue! Line two, stack to right!’

  Behind the first line, line two began to dissolve their line across the road and instead queued up behind the right end of the first line. As they approached the junction, the men in the first line looked down the side road, saw it was crawling with Insects, and called, ‘Ten Insects, right!’

  The queue of shield bearers and spearmen together dashed out from behind the first line and ran across the side road, turning as they ran to face the Insects in it. They filled the side road wall-to-wall, spacing themselves out. They slammed their shields together. ‘Ho!’

  The Insects forced against the shield wall but the spearmen had them under control so quickly Tornado didn’t have to detach another line to stand behind them. He left them blocking the road and all the other lines marched across the junction.

  The shield wall was left defending the junction, a vital position for the overall strategy. They shifted their weight from foot to foot, rubbed their bruised arms and hands and stared up at me. When more Insects hove into view they shouted to steady their nerves. Insects are deaf so our shouts mean nothing to them, but the men needed to reassure themselves over the unearthly buzzing.

  A hiatus in the Insect storm, and I was aloft. I flew over the camp and saw the extent of the devastation. The tents outside the town wall were flattened, plastered in mud. Their drainage ditches had collapsed into brooks of sludge. Shining carapaces bobbed in the moat’s coffee-coloured water.

  Around twenty soldiers were constructing a pyre outside the gate. Bodies were laid side by side next to the woodpile to be cremated. No one buries corpses in Lowespass because Insects simply unearth them.

  A squad of ten women were stripping armour, belts, boots and identification tags from the bodies, leaving only the clothes on. A girl crouched, entering the details in a ledger, because armour and weapons are reissued to new fyrd and she would send any money and jewellery to the family of the deceased.