Only Tisamon.
Jons Escarrabin had been a Pioneer for many long years. He had cast in his lot with the Empire during the Twelve-year War, after a stint of fighting against it, because he recognized what winners looked like. He had not looked back since. A loner and an opportunist by nature, the life of a Pioneer suited him well, and being a servant of the Empire provided him with the latest toys — like his snapbow — and the opportunity to use them.
But he had never been anywhere like this, even in the Commonweal. The forest around seemed bizarrely inconstant, nothing ever quite where it should be when he took a second look, and since they arrived they had been stalked by fleeting enemies, never quite seen but always sensed.
Now those enemies had become a reality, though, and he was inching forwards with his snapbow levelled, trying to flank a skirmish that he could hear far too distantly and not pin down. I hope you’re doing your job, Gorrec. But he had a cold feeling that this clash was not one that could ever go well — not in this place.
He was trying to follow a curving course so as to take the notional enemy in the back or the side, as Icnumon should be doing opposite him, but still he had encountered nobody, and the actual fighting seemed to have drifted away, leaving him seemingly the last man alive in this forest.
This is ridiculous; pull yourself together. Just another Mantis forest. But he could not quite make himself believe it.
He pushed onwards, because even the illusion of progress was better than nothing, his eyes scanning the dingy greyness of his surroundings for. . anything, any sign of life. Show him a Sarnesh soldier right now, and he would be glad of it.
And then there was a shadowy figure in the drifting fog that seemed to hang in rotting sheets in front of his eyes. Surely, there was someone there — or, no, perhaps two of them? His eyes ached from squinting, and he had a terror that, if he just loosed now at those nebulous forms, they would be gone and he would have no evidence that they had ever been.
Keeping his eyes fixed firmly on them, and hardly daring to blink, he inched forwards, straining for any detail. For all he could be sure, he might have simply trodden in a grand circle. He could even now have a snapbow levelled on the Empress himself.
No, too short and stocky for the Empress. He wasn’t sure about one of them, but the other was more like a woman of his own kinden. .
A Beetle girl? Hadn’t the Empress been cursing some Beetle girl?
Jons swallowed, and crept still closer, step by careful step, stalking the two women as painstakingly as he would hunt an animal.
Tisamon was faster than Che could follow, each movement appreciable only in its aftermath. Amnon had discharged his snapbow even as he ran forwards, aiming straight at the ornate Mantis breastplate, but Tisamon was already moving, the bolt vanishing between the trees Che was thinking, No, the Empress! Shoot the Empress! But too late, for Tisamon had closed the gap between them, his bladed gauntlet lashing out with blurred speed — and it was over.
She was so convinced of it, of the inevitability, that she could not even watch. She missed Amnon’s skidding to a stop, his sword catching the darting metal claw and knocking it aside, even managing a weak riposte that Tisamon swayed aside from. For a moment the two were poised, drawn back to just outside each other’s reach: the living Beetle — former First Soldier of Khanaphes — against the risen Mantis Weaponsmaster.
Tisamon struck out, making nothing of the distance, his crooked blade driving down like an axe, but Amnon had read the move somehow — not Che’s doing, since she was neither fast nor fighter enough to help him — and twitched to one side, the weapon slicing at the sleeve of his buff coat but not quite drawing blood. His answering lunge met only air. They circled.
Che saw the Empress, then. The woman had sidestepped the duel neatly, her eyes fixed on Amnon and her hand outstretched. Empress and magician, yes, but she was still a Wasp, and she could sting.
Amnon had not noticed her, but with Che watching over him he did not need to. Without knowing why, he had ducked aside, breaking away from Tisamon and drawing the revenant almost into the bolt of gold fire the Empress had loosed He let the Mantis come to him, staying on the defensive, sacrificing his attack to keep Tisamon between him and Seda.
And even as the Empress tried to find a clear line towards Amnon, Tynisa came rushing between the trees. Che sensed her sister’s loathing and rage that this thing was what the Empress had made of her father — nothing but a fighting puppet of blood and old armour. There were no words: the anticipated oaths and threats never came. Instead the girl drove straight for Seda.
Tisamon was faster, taking a blow of Amnon’s blade that dented his mail, but placing himself between Tynisa and his mistress. Then the battle was truly joined and, incredibly, the risen Weaponsmaster was on the defensive, unable to press his advantage lest he let one or other of his enemies past him, dancing and whirling with inhuman speed, and yet giving ground an inch at a time, contending all at once with Amnon’s strength and long-honed experience, and with Tynisa’s speed and skill.
The interplay of blades had been too fast for Che to follow from the first, and she knew Seda was experiencing the same. It was down to the skill of the three combatants now, as to who lived and who died.
For a moment, she felt herself face Seda directly, each looking into the mind’s eye of the other. The bitter loathing there did not surprise her, but there was fear, too. In her innermost heart the Empress of all the Wasps feared this implacable girl from Collegium.
Then Seda was backing off through the trees, retreating behind Tisamon’s fierce defence — but not yet defeated, for she had worked out some use for her magic that Che could not follow, some target. .
Then Che was dragged back to herself, the world wheeling around her, and Maure had crashed into her, knocking her to the ground.
Che shook her head, unable to work out what was going on. The halfbreed was standing over her, blade extended, directed at. .
There was a man there, another Beetle-kinden, a stranger. She almost took him for some ghost of this place, but he had a snapbow and it was levelled at the two of them. It was plain that he would prefer to shoot her, but that he would take Maure if need be, and trust to his speed in reloading.
Che tried to twist him, to deflect him, but she was rattled, and he was Apt. He had managed to walk like a ghost through her battle without her ever realizing he was there. A little magic will destroy him, she thought, for being Apt he would have no defence against it. Surely here, where the land was so fit for it, she could drive this man mad, force him to flee in fear, control his muscles, stop his heart?
But she was frightened now, and the sudden disconnection had scattered her concentration. Maure was already trying something, she knew, but the other woman’s skills were with the dead, not the living. Even so, the snapbowman hesitated, as if for a moment he saw some familiar face before him, or perhaps nothing at all.
The stingshot that struck him had been aimed hurriedly, catching him across one arm and spinning him about, but not knocking him down. The second came even as he tried to swing his weapon about, seeking this new adversary. Then Thalric had him — the searing bolt smashed the snapbow’s air battery and punched into the man’s chest, hurling him, already dead, from his feet.
But he was hunting the Empress. She could not know whether Thalric had come back for her, or just become lost in the greyness, but she had a task for him now. ‘Thalric, follow me! The Empress, she’s. .’ But what is she doing? Che cast her mind out again, fighting for a clear picture of what was going on. There was the furious melee between Amnon, Tynisa and Tisamon. There was the Empress, now barely in sight of it. There. .
The killer, Icnumon, that Tynisa had run through, had been bleeding his last out into the thirsty forest floor, but was not dead, not quite. A spark had remained in him, guttering and flickering with every moment.
Seda had fanned it.
Even as she watched the man haul himself unsteadily to his
feet, Che was thinking wildly, Can that be done? as though the evidence of her own scrying was not enough. Blood still pumped from the wound Tynisa had given him, even more now than before, but there seemed an inexhaustible supply. And then Che understood: this was Mosquito-kinden magic run backwards, something that had surely not been achieved since before the Revolution, but more likely had never been done at all. If blood was power, so too power was blood. Seda was clawing up handfuls of the cold energy of this place and channelling it through the wretched Icnumon, her last remaining soldier still clinging to life. Now she had him on his feet, blades to hand. . and a moment later he was running.
For me? But, no, Seda was looking to her own defence. Tisamon was hard-pressed, and she was sending the revived assassin to settle matters there.
‘We have to go!’ Che could not just pick up Thalric like a game piece and move him towards the fight. She would have to lead him there. She dashed off into the forest, half running, half flying, without another word, knowing that he would follow, with Maure trailing behind them both.
The skirmish ahead was as bright as a lantern in her mind compared to the ghostly trees which loomed and lurched suddenly out of the mist, so that she was constantly moments from running into them or being tripped by their roots. She could see the battle, feel each move of it: Tynisa’s straight-arm lunge that Tisamon stepped aside from, even as he caught Amnon’s descending blade with his claw and bound it aside, almost wrenching it from the Beetle’s grip. The answering sweep of the revenant’s blade sent both of his opponents a step back, and he whipped it up and lashed at Tynisa’s face, Che choked, already seeing the attack carving another brutal mark there, but Tynisa had fallen back before it, ducking so far that one knee was level with her chin. The seeking steel fell short, then was dragged back sharply to deflect Amnon’s next lunge, giving Tynisa a chance to find her balance again.
But the other dead man, the tortured form of Icnumon, would be there at any moment. And beyond, Seda was out there but further and further away, joined by two more allies and shepherding them towards Argastos, and there. .
There was the spy, the impostor, and Che sensed a sour reek of doubt arising from him: a man who did not know what to do. Even as she pelted through the forest, she was crying out to him, Do what is right! This is your one chance!
She was moving as fast as she could, but not fast enough, caught out by Seda’s vicious use of blood magic. Even so, the fighting ahead must have been visible to the mere eye, for Thalric had abruptly taken wing, hurling himself forwards far faster than she could.
Icnumon was weaving his way through the trees, leaving a trail of impossibly still-gouting blood behind him, the poisoned blades in his hands just moments from striking. And Che had no choice. She reached out to grab Tynisa’s attention, showing her the threat, knowing that this distraction itself might be fatal.
Tisamon’s scything blade cut at her neck but her rapier was there to catch it, and Tynisa pushed against it hard, sending the revenant a pace off his mark, and using the resistance provided to throw herself out of his reach. . already turning as the ghastly near-corpse of Icnumon leapt towards her.
Amnon did not hesitate, driving his blade in but reaching for Tisamon’s weapon arm as well. Briefly he had it, and tried to bear the slighter man down, but that slender armoured form was like iron, just as strong as Amnon was. For a moment they were locked together, and then Thalric dropped in, hand extended but denied a clear target.
Tisamon spotted him, and that the dark helm snapped about in clear and murderous recognition, and he cast Amnon aside almost contemptuously. Thalric got one sting off, which vanished past the revenant’s mailed shoulder, and then the dead Mantis was rushing him. Plainly there were some enmities that had carried over quite readily into this new incarnation.
Icnumon moved like a spider on its web, all sudden jerks and stops, nothing so predictable as a living opponent. He lunged and cut with the same speed and skill, but made no attempt to defend himself, and Tynisa had holed him three more times, each one running red, before she realized that she was getting nowhere. The man’s face was twisted in terror and agony, the lips twitching, eyes rolling madly in their sockets.
And Che was there, pausing in horror, in time to see Thalric suddenly backing up, wings flowering from his back, then a second stingshot striking Tisamon in the chest but barely staggering him, boiling off that old Mantis plate.
The clawed gauntlet stabbed out. Thalric’s sword was out of line and too slow to parry, and yet the killing stroke never reached him. Amnon had lunged and hooked a hand about Tisamon’s pauldron, dragging him back, his sword stabbing down.
The point scraped off Tisamon’s mail, the dead man twisting in time to shrug off the force of it, and backhanding Amnon with a faceful of spines, sending the Beetle staggering away, clutching at his eye. Thalric struck again, only to have his sword slapped aside, and then Tisamon kicked him solidly in the chest, pitching him over backwards — and took Amnon’s lunging sword on his forearm, the edge savaging his gauntlet, the blade of his claw drawn back along the line of his arm, inside Amnon’s guard.
It flicked out with a spasm of Tisamon’s fingers, the point resting for a second on the rim of Amnon’s breastplate, before he drove it in with one sure, sudden motion, its keen edge cleaving halfway into the big Beetle’s neck.
Che cried out in horror, and for a second she was fumbling at the last traces of Amnon’s life, fully intent on turning the man into an abomination akin to the thing that Tynisa was battling. But she did not know how, and she could not replicate the magic — and a moment later she was glad of that.
Tisamon paused a moment, whether in respect or simply receiving new instructions, and Che reached out to Icnumon — all power and no subtlety, just like the Empress herself — and unravelled him, pulling apart the knot of blood and magic that was keeping him in motion, so that his body collapsed with a final gasp of relief, and he was allowed to die.
By then Tisamon was on the move again, and coming straight at her, but Tynisa was there to defend her, and Thalric as well. . and Che cast her mind out towards that errant false Wasp whom she could still sense out there and gave him an ultimatum.
Act now, she ordered him, allowing no room for negotiation.
And he did.
Twenty-Seven
‘What just happened to the orthopters?’ Straessa demanded. She had no telescope, and the only glass within reach was at the eye of Madagnus, her commanding officer. There was a sort of a cloud that had suddenly sprung up around that looming airship, though, now dispersing into. . were those other flying machines? There was some sort of ferocious air battle going on, which hadn’t been the plan explained to the ground forces.
And speaking of ground forces. .
The Second Army was making its advance, too far away for her to see anything more than solid blocks of black and gold broaching the uneven, churned-up ground that would funnel them into the hammer of Collegium’s artillery.
Madagnus swore and rammed the telescope into her hands. ‘Get the magnets ready! Loose as fast as you can — put as much shot into them as you’re able.’
The magnetic ballistae were already charged, so the first volley went off in glorious unison, explosive bolts breaking into bright flashes of fire across the Imperial front lines. There were only a dozen of these weapons along Collegium’s wall, all the artificers had been able to build, and they had been intended for destroying the Empire’s greatshotter artillery, which had been mostly lost on the road to Collegium. All their range and accuracy meant little against the great mass of the Second Army.
Then they were recharging from their lightning engines, and that meant just dead time in which the Empire’s soldiers crept closer and closer. The earthworks were slowing them down, but not as much as they should have done: most of the Imperial army could fly, after all, and even armoured men could manage a brief hop over obstructions. Straessa could see knots of soldiers struggling with siege engines
, though, carrying ramps to ease them up the jumbled path the Collegiates had dug for them. She remembered how much sweating, back-breaking work all that digging had entailed. And now we see if it was worth the effort.
Judging that the Empire was still a way off from reaching snapbow range, she lifted the glass to view the aerial battle, steadying it as best she could to try and make out something of what was going on.
By that time it was mostly over. The great Imperial airship hung there, listing slightly, its hull seemingly peppered with holes, but the skies around it were almost clear of orthopters, for those winged forms madly circling the vessel didn’t look like. . Straessa blinked, lowering the glass when at last she understood what she was looking at. But that wouldn’t work, surely? But even now there were Stormreaders overhead, yet so very few of them, and many virtually limping through the air with wings battered and torn. And the Imperial Air Corps? The only blessing was that it seemed to have gone to ground as well, and Straessa wondered just how discriminating those infuriated insects had been.
The flying elite that had dominated the battlefield up until now had been abruptly swept away. The war had been reclaimed for the ordinary soldiers, such as the thousands of Wasps presently toiling towards them, heedless of the magnetic ballistae, and now getting within range of the other wall engines.
They’re certainly keeping up a pace, Straessa thought, slightly nervously.
Someone dumped a crate full of what looked like random pieces of metal beside her, and she looked round, into the face of Gerethwy.
‘Where have you been?’ she demanded.
‘It’s finished,’ he declared. His eyes were red-rimmed and wide, the look of a man with too many ideas and not enough sleep. ‘My rational snapbow, Antspider. I just need space to set it up.’
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