Dragonfly Falling

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  On the flanks the Mantids decided they were not to be outdone, and soon made up the distance, dashing along in their light armour, their leather and their scale, rending the air with their war-cries over the utter silence of the Ants.

  They had taken the new weapons as crossbows, imagining the Wasps desperately reloading, winding them back, while seeing the approaching Ants closer and closer. One more round of bolts at close range and then the charging Sarnesh would break them.

  The next salvo of snapbow bolts ripped through them, catching men in the second, the third and fourth ranks. Sarnesh soldiers at a full run were brought to an instant halt as their fellows ran into them, too close in their tight formations to stop or turn. On the flanks there were Mantis soldiers spinning and falling, jerked suddenly back by the power of the bolts. The Ant advance stumbled, faltered, and then surged on into the next lash of the snapbows.

  Totho’s stomach lurched, and he felt his hands clenching uselessly. He wanted, he wanted so very badly, to look away, but he fixed his eyes upon what was unfolding throughout the Sarnesh lines. I have a responsibility to my victims.

  ‘The tests already told us, of course,’ Drephos breathed, even as his soldiers reloaded. ‘This is the true experiment, though. All those Ants in their metal armour, and when our bolts strike metal, they flatten or even bend, and yet they still keep going. They spin, even. A man without armour might have it lance straight through him and leave no more than a hole, if it missed his bones, but any armoured man whose armour fails is a dead man there and then.’

  Totho stared. He felt nothing except cold, as if someone had stabbed him somewhere vital, and he was simply waiting to die. He felt nothing, and he realized that meant not even guilt or remorse.

  At the Great College they had told him that he would never amount to anything.

  ‘Loose!’ the master artificer called once again.

  At close range, the twin ranks of the snapbowmen stopped the advance in its tracks. So many men and women fell in that one instant that those behind were caught, trapped now with a tangle of dead comrades before them who a moment ago had all been living and breathing, had been kindred minds within theirs.

  ‘Down bows and back!’ Drephos told his protégés. ‘General Malkan’s move, I think.’

  ‘Why stop now?’ Totho asked hopelessly.

  Drephos smiled at him. ‘Ammunition, Totho. Have you any idea how many bolts we’ve loosed in the last few seconds? Let Malkan spend his men instead, since they are more easily replaced.’

  Already the Wasp soldiers of Malkan’s army were rushing past on either side of the firing line, both on the ground and in the air, descending on the battered Ant-kinden with sword and sting.

  Before setting out, General Malkan had left Drephos two thousand soldiers in Helleron, but in the end the foundries, though working day and night, had produced only twelve hundred snapbows, and so Drephos had done the best he could with what he had.

  Back among the surgeons, Che was tying another bandage when the invisible wave of news washed over them. In an instant all the Ants were up, and beginning to move the wounded onto the transport automotives. They worked as carefully as they could, but there was an edge of haste to them that she had never seen in Ants before.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked them. ‘What’s happening?’ but they had no answers, just grimly took up each wounded soldier who still had a chance of survival and stretchered him or her away.

  Sperra took her telescope back from Che and leapt into the air, putting it to her eye and holding place with her wings.

  ‘They’re retreating!’ she called, her voice shaken. ‘The Sarnesh are falling back!’

  ‘What?’ Che asked. It made no sense. They had been advancing steadily. ‘What’s going on? Tell us, Sperra.’ Beside her, Achaeos patiently strung his bow.

  ‘The men at the front are standing their ground, but the Wasps are all over them, and the rest are . . . they’re running. They’re actually running. They’re keeping their shields over their heads, but they’re coming back fast.’

  All the remaining automotives were pulling up, and there were men throwing open the doors of the train. Che stared at it all in disbelief. ‘This can’t be happening!’

  ‘The Mantis-kinden on the right edge are still fighting,’ Sperra was saying, her voice sounding less and less steady. ‘They’re fighting like madmen, I’ve never seen the like, never – but they’re all fighting alone. They’re killing them, killing the Wasps, but there are so many coming at them now – they’re falling! All of them, they’re falling!’

  ‘What about the left flank?’ Achaeos called up to her.

  ‘They’ve drawn back with the Ants. The Sarnesh who stayed to hold the line, they . . . they’re being overrun! What can they do? They can’t get all the way back here before the Wasps catch them!’

  The last Ant adjutant assigned to the Mantis left-side company saluted Scelae. He was shaking slightly, but nothing else in pose or voice told anything more of the horror that was in his mind.

  ‘They suggest you pull back,’ he told her. ‘Two companies are going to stand here and hold them off, to allow our people to reach the automotives and the rail line.’

  ‘Will that be enough?’ Scelae asked.

  ‘They say it will have to be. We must fall back towards the city.’

  Scelae cast around. She had lost no more than a quarter of her force because, spread out as they had been, the new Wasp weapon had whipped mostly into empty air around them. ‘You!’ she called, pointing to one of her Moth-kinden, a girl and one of their youngest. Scelae had no time to assess her fitness for the task, time only to give the order.

  ‘Get on to that moving rail-machine,’ she said. ‘Then fly on to Dorax when it stops. Fly, and keep flying until you’re there. They must know of this. Go now.’

  With a look that was close to tears, the Moth darted off.

  ‘I need help,’ Scelae said to the other Moths, a mere dozen gathered close to her. ‘I need what help you can give me. I know I cannot command it, but you see what must be done here.’

  ‘We see what a Mantis must do here,’ said their eldest, an old man of more than sixty years. ‘We shall give you what we can.’

  ‘What can we do?’ one of the others demanded. ‘The sun is out! What can we achieve, in broad daylight?’

  ‘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 kill
ing, 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 and 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.