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.
Ahead, a force had gathered to oppose her. There were Tarkesh there, and the copper men, and many, many diverse men and women of Collegium, Beetles and all other kinden. They outnumbered her surviving force by more than three to one.
They were not Ant-kinden in the main, though, so they could not stand together and fight together as Ant-kinden could. What were such odds, therefore, compared to the iron discipline of Vek?
Shields to the fore and stand fast, she ordered, for the enemy were charging now, coming for her people at a run, hoping to break them. Obedient to her will, her soldiers closed ranks, crouched behind their shields, and waited to weather the assault. Crossbows. Volley fire.
She saw the first sheet of crossbow bolts strike them, saw some parts of the attacking force crumble back, others press on. The Tarkesh held, and so did the copper men, while the exhausted locals were knocked back, thrown into confusion. Many of them had not even possessed shields.
Hold firm. Throw them back.
She sensed the realization go through the enemy Ant-kinden that their assault had failed before contact was made. Almost immediately they were making their withdrawal, the enemy force falling back piecemeal to its starting point and leaving its dead behind. She herself had suffered barely a dozen casualties.
Artillery! came the warning in her mind. The repeating ballistae had now been brought up from the beach, and the copper-skinned artificers were setting them up with grim efficiency. The Vekken force was well within their range.
Shields, she ordered. Advance. Drive them into the sea.
The mass of Vekken infantry, her prize soldiers, the finest in the world, locked shield to shield, before them and overhead, and marched forward in double time towards the enemy line. Let them use their ballistae when it has become sword against sword, she thought.
The artillery was now launching, the bolts peppering her lines, punching through shields, knocking holes in her formation that were quickly filled. There was still confusion as her enemies tried to arrange their line. She saw, to her surprise, that they were going to charge again, to try to halt her by the sheer force of their momentum, to wrap around and take her force in the flanks.
An Ant-kinden army has no flanks. The men at the sides would simply turn to face their aggressors like pieces in the machine. Collegium could still be hers.
They were in crossbow
range now, both sides loosing a torrent of bolts to thud into shield or stab into armoured flesh. Then she saw her enemies gather what courage they had left and charge her.
Hold, she instructed, and then, Cut them to pieces—
Something loomed just then over the enemy force, something dark in the great span of sea and sky behind them. It was rushing towards her army, coursing with and around and between her enemies: a great barbed shadow cast by nothing at all, but thorned and spined and shifting like the shadows between great trees, and Akalia screamed, in her mind and out loud, as it descended upon them.
It was a trick of the light, or a moment’s hallucination, but every man and woman of her army saw it just as she did, and they shifted and started, and their shields slipped, and then the enemy struck them.
*
It was a long time ago. It seemed a hundred years ago. It seemed like yesterday.
They were already rebuilding, Stenwold knew with satisfaction. They were planning the regeneration of Collegium, from the wounds it had inflicted on itself, and the wounds the Vekken had dealt it.
And I would rather be out there with them, but that was not true. I would rather be at home. He did not want to be here in the Amphiophos in his formal robes.
‘Master Maker, can I introduce the Lord-Martial Teornis of the Aldanrael?’ asked Lineo Thadspar, stepping into his view.
Stenwold managed a weary bow to the immaculate Spider-kinden Aristos. This was the one who had commanded the fleet, he realized: the man who had saved Collegium.
The Amphiophos was full of new faces today, but most keenly he felt the lack of so many of the old ones. The Assembly, like the city it governed, was peppered with holes. Where now was Waybright, who had fallen to a crossbow bolt on the east wall? Where was Doctor Nicrephos, and where was the stern old visage of Kymon of Kes?
‘Lord-Martial, I have no words to thank you,’ he said, all too truthfully. ‘I had not thought the Spiderlands would be such a supporter of our city.’
‘The Spiderlands holds no single opinion as one entity, nor takes any single action, War Master,’ replied Teornis drily. ‘However, I myself see sufficient advantage in trade and political futures to go so far on behalf of your city. You must thank another, though, for the invitation.’
Stenwold could see, from Thadspar’s face, that this was something new, and he made a politely enquiring sound.
‘You are acquainted with a most enchanting member of my kind named Tynisa, are you not?’
‘You’ve seen Tynisa?’ gasped Stenwold. ‘Where?’ The world was making no sense to him now. Is it because I am so tired, or it is really all nonsense?
‘The full story I shall tell you when we can find more leisure,’ Teornis promised. ‘It is unfinished as yet, for she and her companion had some small matters to attend to before their own return, or else I would have offered them space on my flagship.’
Stenwold nodded, mind still reeling, and thanked him again before looking for a place to sit down. It was five days since the Vekken army had been defeated and Collegium saved, but people still moved about their city as though there was a war going on. There were a great many foreigners here, and the locals regarded them nervously. If Teornis had wanted Collegium for himself he could have made a serious attempt on her, Stenwold knew, and in their negotiations the day after the battle the Spider had pointedly not quite said as much. Stenwold knew a little of the trade concessions that the Aldanrael family would reap from this, the loans and the technology and the student places at the College, even two Master’s seats that were also seats on the Assembly.
‘Commander Parops,’ Thadspar said, drifting past. The Tarkesh officer was still in his armour, and he shook Sten-wold’s hand heartily. ‘You’re Stenwold Maker!’ he said.
‘I am indeed,’ Stenwold admitted. He still felt that he should sit down, but just now he was supposed to be a diplomat. It was a wrenching change from being a soldier, and after an hour of this he was not sure which he preferred.
‘You know a Fly-kinden, name of Nero,’ Parops informed him.
It was obviously a day for name-dropping. ‘Yes, I do,’ Stenwold said, ‘although it has been a long time since I’ve seen him.’
‘Then I have a lot I can tell you,’ said Parops. Then, seeing Thadspar anxious to introduce him to others, he grimaced and added, ‘Later, though.’
I can see I’ll not have many evenings free for a while. Stenwold allowed himself to lean back against a convenient wall, before he saw another Assembler approaching him, leading a copper-hued man of rangy build.
‘This is Artificer-Commander . . .’ the Assembler started, and the name had obviously evaded him.
‘Dariaxes,’ said the copper-coloured, copper-clad man whose eyes were a startling red.
‘Commander Dariaxes is Fire Ant-kinden from Porphyris,’ the Assembler announced excitedly. ‘This is the first-ever formal contact between our cities. Isn’t that remarkable, Master Maker?’
Stenwold tiredly conceded that it was. ‘I am only pleased our first meeting is under such amicable terms, Commander,’ he said. ‘Your men are . . . mercenaries for the Spiders?’
‘My city is a satrapy of the Spiderlands,’ Dariaxes corrected. It was a word Stenwold was only vaguely familiar with but the context told him more than he was happy with. How different was a satrapy from a city the Wasps had conquered? He supposed that the chief difference would be that the Spider-kinden, who could convince anyone of anything, had probably persuaded the Fire Ants that they were perfectly content with their servitude. They were not the only ones, though, that was clear. The Spider-lands were vast – unmapped as far as any reliable atlas of Collegium went – and the Fire Ants had not come alone. Stenwold had already been introduced to a Dragonfly soldier whose ancestors in the Days of Lore had fled so far from the Commonweal that the Spiders had taken them in.
Sour thoughts were easy to hold, with the scars of the war still so fresh. Dariaxes’s men had died outside the walls to make his city safe, and there had been Spider-kinden amongst the dead too, along with Scorpion mercenaries and a dozen other races.
‘Collegium thanks you,’ he told Dariaxes, whose smile told him he had guessed at some of the thoughts in Stenwold’s mind.
Stenwold glanced around the room, seeking escape, and he picked Balkus out of the crowd – a full head over anyone except the Scorpion captain. The big Ant was, at least, enjoying himself. He had a bandage on his face, still, where a Vekken sword had cut open his cheek, but he was still managing to form a smile around it, and there was a young Beetle-kinden woman, an artificer of the College, hanging adoringly on his arm. Stenwold could not begrudge him that.
There was a touch at his elbow, and he turned to see Arianna, with one hand resting on the sling that marked his own war-wound.
‘Ah,’ he said, with false jollity, ‘you’re here to tell me there’s something urgent I need to attend to.’
‘Yes, I am,’ she said, with such intensity that his stomach lurched.
‘Something’s happened?’ he said, instantly worried. ‘What?’
There was such a serious look on her face that it could be nothing good. ‘You had better come with me,’ she said. ‘Some of the guardsmen outside have picked up someone who came asking for you. You need to see this.’
She led him outside, while he was still trying to figure out who it could be. True, everyone seemed to have learned his name during the war, but he had hoped to return to obscurity as soon as it was over.
‘In here,’ Arianna guided him, tense as a taut wire, her hand seeking her knife-hilt. Stenwold’s mind was full of wild speculation as he looked inside, but none wild enough to prepare him for what he saw.
Sitting at a table, between two men of the city militia, was none other than Major Thalric of the Rekef.
*
Beyond the wide tiered steps of the Amphiophos, where the Assembly of Collegium met, there was a broad plaza where ancient statute forbade any market trader to set u
p stall. In former times the people of the city had gathered there to hear proclamations from their most respected leaders, but more recently it had been a good vantage point from which to protest, wave banners, shout obscenities and throw things at the Assemblers as they hurried inside.
Now it had been returned to its original purpose. The people of Collegium packed it, wall to wall, shoulder to shoulder, with their children held up high to see too, and Fly-kinden thronging every window-ledge, and the roof-gardens packed with even more, since residents were allowing complete strangers up through their houses to enable them to witness this gem of history being cut and mounted.
Stenwold, one of that gem’s key facets, had a hard time bringing his thoughts to the moment. When Thalric had told him that the Wasp major had fled from his own people, Stenwold had not believed him at first, despite the deep wound in his erstwhile enemy’s side that some Inapt healer had neatly dressed. Then Stenwold had recognized the livid mark across the man’s face as the result of burning from a Wasp sting, and had begun to think. Arianna had urged him not to believe anything the man said, for Thalric was subtle as a Spider, she said, and Stenwold had no doubt that was true.
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