Salute the Dark sota-4

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  Mantis-kinden were a notoriously stand-offish race and, although the men and women of Etheryon often hired themselves out to Sarn, the hold of Nethyon was perhaps the most isolated and insular state in the Lowlands. Still, they had come in the end, and they were still coming. They had arrived with their customary arrogant disdain, singly and in twos and threes, and then in dozens, and twenties, until there was a loose camp of many hundreds of them, always shifting and moving around, impossible to count. They were still arriving and nobody knew, perhaps not even the old women who led them, how many there would eventually be.

  The Moth-kinden had come with them: fewer, but still a few hundred grey-skinned, blank-eyed men and women. Not just crabbed quacks or scholars, either: the people of Dorax came attired for war in armour of layered leather and cloth, with their bows and knives, but above all with their wings, with their dark-piercing eyes. The possibilities had the royal court of Sarn almost frothing with new thought.

  ‘Commander Balkus!’ someone was calling from halfway up a stairway running up the inside of the wall. They leant over to see a corpulent Ant-kinden with bluish-white skin, wearing wealthy Beetle-styled clothing. Two Sarnesh soldiers had stopped him there, and he stood looking up at them with a baggy hat in his hands. ‘Commander Balkus! I need to speak with you urgently!’

  ‘And who are you supposed to be?’ Balkus demanded, stomping over to the stair-top.

  ‘My name is Plius. I am known to your master, Stenwold Maker.’

  Oh yes, you are, Balkus thought. And he suspected you were up to something. He went down the stairs towards the small group, knowing that Parops was backing him up almost as certainly as if he could feel the man’s mind.

  ‘What do you want?’ he asked. The new arrival was smiling too much, plainly someone desperate to inspire ill-placed trust. Balkus felt his hand drift towards his sword.

  ‘I want to speak to a tactician of Sarn at the very least. The King would be better, but one of his court otherwise.’

  ‘Why?’ Balkus demanded, and even as he said it, he felt the stir, a sudden rustle in the mind of Sarn. His erstwhile people kept him out, but their thoughts leaked in nonetheless, and something was happening now. He became aware of soldiers suddenly spurred into action, armoured men and women running.

  ‘I think we are about to see why,’ Plius explained helpfully.

  Ten minutes later saw the three Ants, from three different cities, standing up on the west wall with a grey-haired Sarnesh woman, a genuine tactician of the Royal Court. They were watching the approach of more soldiers. The distance was too great to see in any detail, but there were already Fly-kinden being sent out as scouts to assess their strength and nature. One thing was clear, at any distance: by their regimented order they were Ant-kinden.

  ‘Six hundred soldiers,’ Plius explained. ‘Soldiers of Tsen.’

  ‘Where or what is Tsen?’ Parops asked.

  ‘A city on the western coast of the Lowlands, beyond even Vek,’ the tactician said slowly. ‘Explain yourself,’ she instructed Plius.

  ‘Easily. I am not, or not only, an agent of Master Maker of Collegium, but also an agent of the Queen of Tsen. Since I came to Sarn, that role has not encumbered me with any actual duties save for my reports, but a month back I received new orders. Specifically, I am appointed their ambassador, if you will have me.’

  ‘And what does the spy-turned-ambassador have to say to us?’ the tactician demanded sharply. What Plius said to her, he would be saying to the King – and to the whole city if that was deemed wise.

  The fat Ant-kinden shrugged. ‘Tsen is a long way off,’ he said. ‘Tsen is small and friendless. If the Wasps destroy your city, then eventually they will come against us, and we will not be able to defend ourselves. There, that’s a frank admission of our position that your own sources can surely confirm.’

  The tactician nodded.

  ‘Well, then, Tsen now sends you these soldiers to assist in the defence of your city. We can spare no more, and we know this gesture will not sway the battle, but we need to do something. We have not been part of your counsels, nor would we make ourselves part of the Lowlands, because we are happy in our distance from the stormy centre. However, we recognize the need.’ He crushed and tugged at the hat in his hands, and it was only this that told them of his nervousness. ‘The need,’ he confirmed, ‘is great.’

  * * *

  Praeter took quick stock of the situation. Here was his left wing, with solid formations of his heavy infantry making slow progress across the thorny, uncertain terrain, their shields raised. The light airborne were above them, making sallies forward, but then recoiling back. There was no sign of the enemy, just a patch of woodland that extended back along the ridge of the hill and down, but already there was a litter of Wasp bodies between his advancing infantry and the trees.

  Damn Malkan for letting them get the new weapon. He tried to estimate how many soldiers could be hidden in those woods, and guessed that if they were crammed full it could even be a full thousand.

  The leadshotter spoke from nearby, arcing a solid ball of stone over the infantry to crash into the trees. I need more of those here. But there was no chance that the right-flank artillery could get over here in time and, besides, they might need it themselves. He cropped his beetle, sending it skittering behind the slowly advancing infantry. Too slow. He saw them ducking behind their shields. At this range the snapbow bolts were dancing off them, but his soldiers obviously knew that would not continue to be the case if they got much closer.

  ‘Signal me the officers of the airborne,’ Praeter ordered, and one of his bodyguard unfurled a red flag and began waving it in great sweeps. ‘And get me some of our own snapmen up here.’ That now proved to have been his first true tactical mistake. He had not sufficiently trusted the new weapon, and so the snapbowmen were bringing up the rear.

  The leaders of the airborne were dropping down around him, and he twisted round in his saddle to regard them. He saw Wasp soldiers in armour light enough for flight, equipped with swords, spears and the fire that their Art gave them. These were the mainstay of the Wasp army, but they died, he knew. They died in their hundreds to give the infantry a chance to close. It was their purpose in his plan of attack, however, so he could spare them scant sympathy.

  ‘It’s time, men!’ he shouted to them. ‘I need the heavies into those trees and rooting out the enemy, but if our fight with the Sarnesh told us anything, it’s that snapbows can cut down an armoured line without pausing for breath. You know where that leaves you, so I want you to rush the woods, all the way along its extent, and get as many of you as possible into the trees where they won’t be able to get clear aim at you.’ Even as he spoke, there were more explosions down the hillside. His head jerked that way automatically, which was bad. He should be able to ignore it and thus show them his strength in doing so. ‘You understand your duty,’ he admonished the airborne. ‘Now go to it.’

  He saw more than one hollow gaze amongst them as they cast their wings out again and launched up to rejoin their men. Praeter wheeled his steed and sent it scuttling back along the rear of the line, calling out, ‘The airborne is going to buy you the time to move! Don’t waste that time! As soon as they dive in, I want to see every man of you running!’

  He looked into the sky, seeing the airborne mass there. As he had known they would, the enemy had predicted the move and, even before that great dive had started, dozens of Wasp soldiers were dropping, spinning helplessly out of the sky. Praeter watched them because it was his duty, in return, to observe the carnage that his orders had created.

  Then they dived, a great cloud of them, hundreds of soldiers sweeping in for the trees, packing closer and closer as they came, until the snapbow shot of the defenders was mauling whole clumps of men out of the air at once. Praeter was only peripherally aware of the clatter as the heavy infantry began to rush forwards as best it could, spears held high to clear the brush.

  ‘General!’

&nb
sp; He turned to see a messenger alighting beside him, so coated with dust it was impossible to make him out clearly.

  ‘What is going on down there?’

  ‘Fly-kinden, General,’ the messenger reported. ‘They’re passing over us, dropping bombs on us. They’re targeting the automotives.’

  The only thing they could make out, in this dust. ‘Press forwards,’ Praeter instructed. ‘Press forwards with infantry and engage their fortified positions from ground and air. Have the airborne keep the skies clear. That’s the only way to counter grenadiers.’

  ‘Yes sir.’ The messenger leapt into the air again, but began falling instantly, twisting desperately with a bolt clear through him.

  ‘General!’

  But Praeter was already turning to see where the missile had come from.

  A hammerblow of shock hit him. There was a new airborne coming in now, but it was not imperial. Instead it was a ragged assortment of men and women: Flies, Moths, Mantids, even Beetles and halfbreeds. With the most immediate Wasp airborne of this flank already engaged in the trees, they had the sky to themselves for just enough time to drop onto the advancing heavy infantry and take them in the flank, scattering across them, shooting crossbows and shortbows or simply throwing things. This was no disciplined attack, nothing an imperial officer would suffer from his men, but there was nevertheless a core of unity there. This ragged pack of brigands had obviously trained together.

  The infantry was responding with sting-shot, the air above them crackling with it, but the enemy fliers were already fleeing, leaving behind them a formation that was stationary and broken up.

  Praeter grimaced. ‘Get me a unit of the heavies back here!’ he shouted at one of his men. ‘Make that two.’

  ‘General-?’

  ‘Do it!’

  He turned his animal, because he had the plan now. At last, when it was almost too late, he had an understanding. Where would the earth now erupt with them? Why, from behind – or from the far slope of the hill he was watching from. The enemy had been given ample time to work the land, to sap and mine it with remarkable skill. The advance scouts had seen none of these flanking forces.

  Those earthworks and palisades ahead would be deserted: he would stake his rank on it. But then he had known it was a trap from the start, and at last he had seen the way the jaws of it hinged.

  The infantry was clattering back around him now, and he called for them to form ranks before him.

  ‘Sir, the airborne…’ one of their officers began.

  Praeter spared one glance for the light airborne, who were still battling at the forest verge. He had thought that the enemy there might flee once their bait was taken, but that did not seem to be so. The enemy general was a cursed mix of evasion and bravado, which in a Wasp would have been admirable, but in an enemy was something to be crushed as quickly as possible.

  Behind him, amidst the ranks of the infantry, the hill suddenly exploded. His beetle lurched forwards, then reared back on to four legs, antennae flicking madly. He clung to the tall saddle with his thighs, looking up for the grenadiers, but there were none.

  He heard the hollow knock of a leadshotter, but not close. A spume of smoke rose from a neighbouring hilltop also swathed in greenery.

  Artillery? His own leadshotters were tilting towards the smoke, his engineers frantically taking measurements, calculating angles.

  It was then that the enemy appeared, swarming along the ridge of his own hill with a motley of fliers above them. Praeter found his throat instantly drier even than the dust could make it. They were coming at a run, all shapes and sizes of them: armoured Ant-kinden soldiers, Mantis archers and swordsmen, Spiders, Beetles, Scorpions, Mynan Soldier Beetles, lumbering Mole Crickets. These were the dredgings of the Lowlands and the Empire both, a great froth of angry men and women now rushing the Wasp position.

  His eye counted, even while his mind reeled. Two thousand, perhaps three – and how many of them wearing pillaged Wasp armour or using imperial weapons? Have we come this far just to arm every ruffian in the Lowlands?

  ‘Set your spears!’ he shouted, leading his cavalry between the infantry blocks. ‘Someone call some airborne from the other flank. We need them here! This must be the main attack!’ Send word to Malkan. But he bit down on that last unspoken command. He would not do so, not for all the soldiers who might die here. He would not bend his pride so far as to ask for Malkan’s aid.

  Taking his entire force into account, he outnumbered this enemy ten to one, but here, right here and now, he unfortunately did not.

  She, the one who had been Grief in Chains and was now Prized of Dragons, watched as the flying soldiers of Salma’s army dived in again, plunging down into the dust. Her blank white eyes followed their course, and she wondered how many they would lose. She hated fighting. She hated all war.

  She loved Salma, who had come after her, even into the teeth of the Wasp army. For that she called herself Prized of Dragons now, who had been Grief in Chains, and then briefly Aagen’s Joy. One of the things that she loved most about Salma was that he, too, had no love of war. Perhaps he did not hate it as she did, but he took no joy in it. He was doing this, mounting this savage assault on the Wasp advance, because in his heart was his love for her and a prince’s love of his subjects. He had thousands of people in Sarn who needed his protection, and this battle was the price – as would be all the battles still to come.

  Salma touched down lightly near to her, glancing about. She ran to him, her robes flapping. His smile, when he saw her, was like the sun to her.

  ‘Surely you must flee now, Salma,’ she said to him. ‘Their army, all their other soldiers, will be coming.’

  ‘That’s precisely what I need to know.’

  There were warriors of Salma’s ragtag army passing back and forth all the time – busy hurrying the injured away or rushing in from other engagements. Salma peered through them until he saw a squad of horse cavalry galloping in.

  ‘Phalmes!’ he cried, and the Soldier Beetle reined his horse in, skidding slightly on the loose sand and stones.

  ‘General!’ the Mynan acknowledged. It was a title that Salma did not want, a Wasp title, but to his men he had become a general, and there was nothing he could do about that.

  ‘Where is their main force now?’ he asked.

  ‘The harriers have done what they could,’ Phalmes reported. Prized of Dragons noticed how his horse panted. Phalmes must have ridden miles back and forth today.

  ‘We’ve pulled out?’

  ‘Broken, almost. We’re gone, though.’ The harriers had been squads of men designed to make the far flank of the Wasp army assume that it was the main point of attack. They had been instructed to sow as much confusion as possible, while the real assault would come at the opposite corner of the advance.

  ‘We need to finish here. How do we stand?’ Salma asked.

  ‘You need to see for yourself,’ Phalmes said. ‘There’s only one group standing here, but they won’t budge.’

  ‘Show me.’

  Phalmes wheeled his horse, and his men – mostly his original bandit followers from before he met Salma – rode after him. Salma’s wings flared and he coasted over Phalmes’ head, and Prized of Dragons let her own bloom into the air in a rainbow splendour of dancing light to follow him.

  Phalmes’ words were instantly clear. The Wasps had been thrown off this side of the valley, killed and scattered or simply retreating in good order. Smoke from burning automotives still thickened the dusty air. Only one band of black and gold remained, a few hundred men surrounded by a loose cordon of Salma’s people. Prized noticed that only a few of them were Wasps.

  ‘Auxillians, Salma,’ she observed. ‘They are Bee-kinden.’

  ‘I see them.’

  ‘We have little time, General,’ Phalmes reminded him.

  Salma nodded, walking forwards. He saw a few crossbows lift, but trusted to his reactions and the obvious threat of retribution to safeguard him.

/>   ‘Who commands here?’ he demanded.

  There was a stir amongst the soldiers, and then an old Wasp-kinden walked forth. Salma, who had been hoping that these would be unattended Auxillians ripe for desertion, grimaced.

  ‘You must be the Lord of the Wastes,’ the Wasp said, his clear voice cutting across the distance. ‘I am General Praeter of the Sixth Army.’

  There was a stir through Salma’s troops at that news. A general? A real Wasp general!

  ‘General,’ Salma said, aware that, all the time, the rest of the Wasp army would be moving. ‘I have one chance to offer you and your men. Surrender now, throw down your arms, and I will spare you.’

  ‘I must congratulate you on your conduct of this war, Commonwealer,’ General Praeter said, with all the time in the world. ‘I see now how little of resources you had, and how far you have marched on it.’

  ‘Will you surrender?’ Salma demanded of him.

  ‘You know I will not.’

  Salma ground his teeth. ‘Then I call upon your Auxil-lian troops gathered here. You have no reason to stand and die for your oppressors. You may join us, or simply go back to your homes or wherever you choose, but you must drop your arms, and do it now. I have not the time to give any of you a second chance. Why die for the Empire when you can live for your own people?’

  Silence then, with the Bee-kinden staring at him. Not a one of them moved, and Salma read quite clearly the pride, the almost tearful pride, on General Praeter’s face.

  ‘You have your answer,’ said the Wasp. ‘You must come and take us.’ He walked back into the ranks of his men, who closed their shields protectively after him.