She was aware that she was holding her breath, and that seemed only wise because these shadows – or some at least – were Mantis-kinden who had no love for her kind, and she felt that she had no disguise sufficient to cloud their eyes to what she really was.
But too little, too late, for one such shadow had turned to her, if shadows could turn. There were no eyes, but as it gazed on her she was aware of a shadow thing part woman, part insect, part twining plant, but also the very shape that hate might take if some alchemist could distil it and then make it flesh.
She had a sense that this unfolding of power – this long-denied awakening that she had provoked – was not going unheard, and just as the things from the box stretched their serrated limbs, so distant minds that had been searching for this moment were sparked into wakefulness. The imperial contract, she thought, and in her mind was the instant image of a pale, emaciated man with bulbous red eyes, the skin above his forehead shifting with blood. One long-nailed hand was reaching for her, his face cast into a covetous scowl . . .
And she gasped in shock, and it was gone, they were all gone, and the sun was shining back through the hayloft hatch, and the beetles below were straining at their tethers, clawing at the walls, with oily foam welling between their mandibles, causing enough ruckus to bring the farmer. She ducked out of the hatch and climbed down the outside wall.
She was no true magician, no seer, but her people had their women and men of magic, just as the Moths did, and she had learnt a lot from them back when she was young and willing enough to subjugate herself to others. She had no idea what this box truly was, but she realized that it was powerful. The magic trapped within it, from the Days of Lore for sure, was of an order she had never encountered before. She had no idea what the pragmatic Wasp Empire could want with it, but one thing was clear: she was being offered only a pitiful fraction of the true value of the thing. More, the Empire, ignorant as it was, would never come forward with a fitting price.
She knew places she could take it where a proper buyer might be found. Once word was out, then there was still gold enough within Moth haunts, still collectors of the arcane, rogue Skryres, Spider manipuli, all willing to bid for what she possessed. To the wastes with the Wasps. She would go find her own buyers and name her own price.
She did not stop to ask herself where this thought of betrayal, so natural to her, had first sparked, and whether the idea was really hers at all.
Thirty-Six
They were three days out of Sarn, moving at the speed of the slowest automotive. The Queen was unwilling to let the Wasps bring the place of battle any closer than their current camp, and Che read from this that the Queen wanted the battlefield to stay as far away from her city as she could get it. She supposed that this was to protect the farmland and villages on which Sarn relied, but another thought suggested that Sarn’s ruler was already planning where to make her next stand, if her army lost the contest here.
Che and Sperra had been packed in with the rest of the non-combatants. This was Sarn’s trade-off for doing things Collegium’s way. In exchange for the mechanization and the superior weaponry, they had inherited a baggage train of foreign artificers and support staff doing jobs that would normally have been done by Ant-kinden soldiers.
She had seen little of Achaeos since the journey began. He was liaising between the various Mantis and Moth leaders of the newly formed and fragile Ancient League. Che understood that the League itself was still settling, and that neither of the kinden concerned came easily to placing their sovereignty under the leadership of others, even others of their own kind. Achaeos was worried about the battle, she knew, and whether things might go badly wrong even without the Wasps’ intervention.
And then the train itself was abruptly slowing, with an unmistakable forward-lurching as the brakes were applied.
‘Perhaps it’s a broken line,’ Sperra suggested, but there were Ants in the carriage with them that had stood up instantly and, as soon as the train was at rest, were flinging the doors open and ordering everyone to get out as quickly as possible. That was when Che realized that they had sighted the enemy.
It was really tremendously civilized, she supposed. The Wasps had arrived by train too, as though this were merely some polite meeting of diplomats. The Queen of Sarn had sent a big block of crossbowmen and nailbowmen out to screen the army from airborne attack, but the rest of her men were pitching tents methodically, checking the engines of the automotives or fitting the wings on the fliers.
‘What about the Wasps?’ Che wondered.
‘Too late in the day for a battle,’ an Ant told her. ‘If they come for us, we’ll be able to form up in time, but there’s no sense in just waiting.’
Of course they would be able to simply stop what they were doing, all at once, and begin to fight, for a single order could mobilize the entire Ant army. Che realized this was a luxury the Wasps did not have, so their soldiers must be currently preparing for a possible attack, and would have to stand ready at least until nightfall. Their tents were already pitched, though. Moth scouts reported that they had arrived at this point – where the rails gave out – some days ago, and had been steadily reinforcing their numbers ever since. She tried to get a better view of them, but they remained just a black stain on the horizon, further down the gleaming and interrupted metal line.
Achaeos suddenly dropped out of the sky beside her, making Che jump.
‘You should witness this,’ he told her. ‘The Queen and Scelae are having their first command conference. I think we should be there, too, in case they have a falling out.’
The three of them rushed through the Ant camp towards the Queen’s tent. The guards barred them momentarily, but then the word obviously came to let them pass. They did not even need to demand admittance before they were being ushered inside.
Within the barely furnished tent was a single table, with one map pinned upon it. Behind stood a handful of tacticians gathered up about their Queen, a clutch of sibling-similar Ant-kinden wearing partial plate-mail but with no other sign of rank or precedence. On the near side of the table were Scelae in her scaled armour, and a single grey-robed Moth-kinden. The way they looked at the Sarnesh was more adversarial than allied.
The Queen acknowledged their arrival with a brief nod. ‘It is as though you are truly part of my army,’ she said drily. ‘I only have to think of sending for you, and at once you are summoned.’
‘We have a certain responsibility for this meeting,’ Che said boldly. It was what Stenwold would have said, were he himself here.
The Queen nodded. ‘Cheerwell Maker,’ she said. ‘Sperra the Fly-kinden. You shall be our translators, should we need them. I do not know, as yet, whether this Ancient League shall speak a language Sarn understands.’
She looked to Scelae, who shifted stance slightly, ready for a confrontation.
‘Speak, O Queen,’ the Moth said, quietly, ‘now that you have called us to you.’
Che sensed hostility radiating from the tacticians, at a possible lack of respect, and only the Queen herself seemed wholly calm. This alliance is so brittle, still, and they have marched side by side for only days. She could sense relations between their different cultures straining and stretching.
‘So tell me,’ the Queen of Sarn invited. ‘What will our battle order be on the morrow?’ She met Scelae’s sharp Mantis glance without hesitation.
The other woman shrugged. ‘We will fight the Wasps alongside you. We know how to fight.’
There was no sound or expression from the tacticians, but Che felt their disapproval deepen until the tent almost reeked of it. The Queen shook her head. ‘We are grateful for your assistance and your support, but we cannot dispose of this matter so casually. Tomorrow shall stand or fall on precise details such as this. The strength of Sarn is in its order, its discipline, each man and woman knowing exactly where they are supposed to be, what they are doing, and what the rest of the army is doing all around them. Your people are known
as great duellists, archers, killers. I do not dispute it. They are indeed warriors, but they are not soldiers. In that field, my own kinden have no rivals. Not the Wasps, not the Mantis. Do you deny it?’
Scelae’s expression, her brief glance towards the open flap of the tent, indicated the great numbers of the Ants all around, and the few followers she herself had brought. That was the only superiority she would recognize, but she said nothing. The Queen smiled thinly.
‘Your people will fight their own battle tomorrow, each one of them alone,’ she said, softly but firmly. ‘My people will fight my battle all together, united, for that is our strength. So, tell me, how shall we use you?’ As the Moth opened his mouth to speak she raised her hand in a gesture of such simple authority that she silenced him. ‘I do not cast your alliance back in your faces. I value, more than I have words to say, that your people have come to honour us in this way. I ask the question for no other reason than that I need to know the answer. You cannot move with us. You cannot hear my orders in your minds, even if you were disposed to follow them. Tell me how I may make use of you. Show me, that I can make my people understand.’
After that speech there was a space of silence. Scelae and the moth exchanged glances, and Che found herself thinking, So it is not just the old races that can practise subtlety.
The Mantis woman cleared her throat. ‘I have lived in Sarn for many years,’ Scelae began, ‘and I have some idea of how your kinden think. You are right, of course. In the heat of battle, your orders may not seem right to us, so I cannot guarantee that my people will follow them, even if we could hear them. Tell us then how are you intending to progress the battle tomorrow?’
‘Aggressively, we have decided,’ the Queen said, after a brief silent word amongst her surrounding advisers.
Scelae nodded. ‘Then let’s be plain with it. Any fancy planning and contingencies we come up with now won’t survive a meeting with the Wasp battle line. We cannot hope to react to your sleights and changes and tactics. You, however, can react to ours.’
‘Explain,’ said the Queen.
Scelae leant over the map, but it was obvious that she could make little sense of it. ‘I will split my force and place one half on each of your flanks. We will screen your advance with our bows, and our wings. We will prevent their flying soldiers from wrapping your lines. I have many skilled archers amongst my people. Then, when we’re close to the enemy, we will attack, draw them out, break their lines. Wasp discipline does not match your own. They can be provoked, dispersed. With your mind-speech, you will be able to take advantage of what we can give you. Let us be the spearhead, then. Give your orders based on how we strike. That way you can make best use of us.’
The Queen considered this, still surrounded by the silent counsel of her tacticians. She nodded slowly, a deliberate affectation simply for the benefit of the other kinden there. ‘The idea has merit, although you take a great deal of risk on your people. If you yourselves break rank, to charge or pursue, we may not be able to save you.’
Scelae tilted her head on one side. ‘We are warriors. We fight. We understand all that means.’
The Queen looked down at the map-tables, then up at Cheerwell, the shock of eye contact startling in its intensity. And how many others now look at me out of her eyes. ‘Your comments?’
Che opened her mouth, trying to think, but Sperra said, ‘Messengers, surely.’
‘Little one?’
‘Messengers. If it goes wrong you can send someone out to the League soldiers,’ the Fly-kinden said. ‘You can call them back, put them elsewhere.’ She spread her small hands. ‘Not that I know the first thing about war, anyway, but that’s what I’d do.’
‘You wouldn’t need actual messengers—’ Che broke in suddenly.
The Queen found a smile for her. ‘Yes, we have the same thought. I shall place a few of my fleetest soldiers with each half of your warriors,’ she told Scelae. ‘They at least will be able to hear me, and they can tell you what I . . . suggest that your forces do. Many things can happen in a battle, and we can never predict them all. I may have need of your warriors in ways we cannot yet consider.’
Scelae glanced at the Moth-kinden, who nodded.
‘Agreed,’ she said, and moved to go, preparing to explain to her people a plan that all the Ants already understood.
Che coughed pointedly. ‘I have . . . something to say, I think. Something that my uncle himself would say, if he were here.’
The Mantis stopped, looking back at her.
‘Speak,’ the Queen directed.
‘This is something that stretches beyond the battlefield of tomorrow,’ Che said, sounding to her own ears unbearably awkward and pompous. ‘We’re writing history, right now, here in this tent. The three cities of the Ancient League, and Sarn, and Collegium, are all standing together and of one mind. We must remember our common cause. We must. If we turn the Wasps back, then it would be all too easy just to go back to trying to ignore each other, to forget how we have stood here, all together, for one purpose. We should remember that, for as long as we can.’
Scelae, who had so long been a spy in the Queen’s city, smiled bleakly. ‘I am not sure even the threat of the Wasps can bring us to that degree of unity. Let us defeat them first, and see what remains.’
Che slept that night in Achaeos’s arms, clutching at him for security, while Sperra lay as a curled and lonely shape at the other end of the tent. The morning woke Che not with dawn light but with his absence.
‘Achaeos?’ she called softly. There was a noise from outside, not loud, but a constant and steady sound of the Ants getting ready to fight: preparing armour and weapons, the engines of the automotives, the propellers of the fixed-wing fliers, and not a single human voice to be heard.
‘Out here,’ he said finally. Sperra was slowly uncurling as Che put her boots on. Stepping outside made her head swim because of the sheer quantity of movement all around. The entire Ant force was afoot, forming into its traditional tight units of shield and crossbow. There were several thousand infantry in her view alone, and every single one of them knew where he or she should be.
Sperra ducked out after her just as the engines of the flying machines began to settle into a low grumble beyond the tents and the machines themselves to slowly crawl across the ground.
‘Apparently the Wasps tried to attack at dawn,’ Achaeos explained, his voice sounding oddly empty. ‘A strike force of fifty or so intended to destroy the fliers. The Queen had put the Mantis-kinden on guard, though. They can see well in the dark, and their bows can shoot further than any Wasp sting.’
‘Are you all right?’ Che asked him. He sounded shaken and numb.
‘Our scouts came back,’ he said. ‘The Empire outnumbers us by about three to two, but the Ants don’t seem to think it makes much difference. It’s tactics and discipline, not numbers, apparently.’ There was a ragged edge to his words, emerging as though he had not the least interest in the conflict that was about to unfold.
‘Achaeos, what’s wrong? Tell me!’
‘I have dreams, Che,’ he told her. ‘Terrible dreams. The Darakyon is hounding me but I cannot understand it. It is going mad, it seems, over something new that it cannot get through to me. Something terrible is going to happen, Che.’
‘Here? In the battle?’
‘Something dire enough to make this battle look like children brawling,’ he said.
The engines of the automotives roared suddenly, and the entire Ant army set forth together, every single man and woman of the infantry marching precisely in step. Sperra poked her head further out of the tent and swore in a small, lost voice, as thousands of men and women all around them were suddenly on the move and falling into place. It felt as though the whole world was leaving them behind.
Technically, all three of them had been seconded to join the field surgeons, as they each had some experience of medicine in various forms. There would be a blessed pause before any casualties came back, thoug
h, and Che wanted to see for herself exactly what was going on. She looked around for a vantage point and picked one of the transport automotives, empty of everything except rations now. With a clumsy flick of her wings she cast herself up at the overreaching cage of struts that defined its cargo area, clung tight and hauled herself up until she could stand on them, looking out over the battlefield. She was just in time for the first of the orthopters to drone overhead, just taking off but still going fast enough for the downbeat of their wings to buffet her. She sat down hurriedly just as Achaeos and Sperra joined her on her perch.
Plated with shields, the units of Ants were themselves like great crawling insects. The centre of the Sarnesh battle array was made up of them, square after square plodding forward with a single will. Interrupting these black metal lines, armoured automotives drove forward at walking pace, their brand-new nailbows glinting proudly in the sun.
On either side, the soldiers of the Ancient League were a diffuse cloud, now getting a little ahead of the line, now being reined in again. Che pictured all those Mantis-kinden, all running as individuals, some with arrows to bowstrings, others brandishing swords, claws or lances. She saw in her mind’s eye the tight clusters of Moth-kinden with short-bows and knives and blank white eyes.
Ahead of the Sarnesh advance, the Wasp army moved like a living thing. Behind their soldiers, blocky flying machines began to lurch into the air.
‘The scouts said they had “armoured heloropters” or some such,’ Achaeos reported.
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