Adrian Tchaikovsky - Dragonfly Falling

‘And you and yours will be swept away like chaff,’ Tisamon finished, sounding unnecessarily satisfied at the prospect.

‘All things are possible,’ Teornis allowed. ‘Have you means of returning to Collegium, my lady Tynisa? Because if you would sail today and inform them of the events transpiring here, I would count myself in your debt.’

‘You’re serious, aren’t you?’ Tynisa could not have said just what had convinced her, and this could be another elaborate charade, but something had struck true. ‘You’re sitting here feasting on candied nuts and pickled scorpions, even though one day soon they’ll come over that hill. And you need help.’

‘The mysterious Spiderlands, the subtle Spiders,’ he said. ‘Not so mysterious nor subtle that when a vast army of mechanically inclined savages pitches up almost at our borders we do not sweat a little. There is a sizeable force gathering even now at Seldis, soldiers and sailors both. If the Wasps head west, though, I cannot say that they will do anything but still gather there. But if you were to get word to Collegium. ’

‘You are apparently short on news, Lord-Martial,’ Tynisa interrupted. ‘By now Collegium is certainly under siege.’

She had him. For the slightest moment his mask dropped and he looked genuinely and utterly surprised. ‘The Wasps?’

‘The Vekken, but the Wasps have put them up to it. Collegium is therefore in no position to answer your call, Lord-Martial.’

‘Ah well.’ His composure was intact again. ‘I will have to think of something else, that’s all. Life is a bouquet of surprises.’

‘I have thought of something,’ Tynisa said. The idea had unfurled full-grown in her mind without her ever guessing that it was cocooned there. ‘But I must consult with Tisamon first. Then I may just have a thought for you to mull over, Lord-Martial.’

The field lying east of Sarn was a mass of well-ordered soldiers and machines, as the might of the Ant-kinden prepared for battle. Walking out through the gates, with Achaeos and Sperra close behind, the sight stopped Che in her tracks. She had never seen such a vast assembly of fighting men and women, and every one of them preparing calmly, no orders, no confusion. They queued for their rations and to have their blades sharpened. They handed quivers full of crossbow bolts down the line, and assembled themselves into square formations of hundreds of soldiers apiece. These were soldiers with dark helms and chainmail hauberks and long rectangular shields, with short stabbing swords and light crossbows. Amongst these greater blocks moved smaller squads of specialists: nailbowmen, heavily armoured sentinels, fast-moving scouts with big sniping crossbows, grenadiers and artificers with powder-charged piercer and waster bows. Spanning all ages from sixteen to fifty, both men and women, in the clear morning light they all looked alike, all of them ready to march without question against an enemy they had never seen.

Like fortified towns in this carpet of soldiers were the automotives. The Sarnesh battle-automotives were huge slab-sided things, frames of iron and heavy wood riveted over with armour plates and with only the bare minimum of windows for the crew to see from. The poor view mattered little because the soldiers outside would be able to mentally give them a picture of the battlefield. Even now artificers were crawling over them, making last-minute repairs and adjustments, tightening the clawed belts of their tracks, directing swaying crane rigs in order to lower parts into place. Each automotive had a swivelling tower positioned on its back, though these were currently being swapped with others fresh from the Sarnesh workshops.

Che went over to the nearest machine, even as the new tower found its resting place. ‘What are you doing?’ she asked.

The artificer supervising did not look back at her. ‘Your Wasps — they fly, we understand,’ he said, watching carefully as his apprentices bolted the new tower into place. ‘Well we have a surprise for them. All our automotives have been fitted with forward repeaters, and the new towers house twin nailbows in place of the ballista. They’ll soon learn they can’t just steal the skies from us when we begin to rake them with these.’

‘That’s. good thinking,’ said Che, a little numbly. The newly fitted tower turned first one way and then the other at the cranking of the men within, its nailbows gleaming with oil.

‘Look.’ Achaeos was pointing to another unit of soldiers marching past. Che couldn’t see what he meant until he added, ‘The two ranks.’ The Ant infantry had been formed of alternating ranks: shieldmen and crossbowmen. There would be a lot of eyes on the sky when the battle came, and what one Ant saw, they all saw.

There were other automotives approaching now, huge many-legged vehicles with open backs that soldiers were already climbing up into. Che understood that between these transporters and the train carriages, the entire army would be able to travel to the point where the rail line had been broken, and there they would wait for the Wasps to arrive.

‘Orthopters,’ Sperra said, and Che saw flat, wheeled carriages being pushed out down the rail line, with the flying machines lashed down to them, their wings detached and laid alongside them. They were decked out with nail-bows fixed above and below them and to both sides.

So much technology , she thought, and it gave her some small pride to know that it was Sarn’s alliance with Collegium that had made it the best-equipped Ant city-state in the Lowlands.

‘Cheerwell Maker!’ she heard a voice. She expected this to be Plius, perhaps, but instead it was an anonymous Sarnesh Ant officer, waving her over. He looked agitated and, even as she saw it she realized that the demeanour of everyone around her had changed, all the surrounding Ants pausing for a fraction in what they were doing.

And many of them now seemed to be looking at her.

What has happened? ‘I’m here! What’s the matter?’

‘The Queen needs you urgently!’ the officer called out to her. ‘And your Moth consort too.’

Che gaped a little at this choice of phrase. Achaeos, beside her, merely looked perturbed. Surrounded by thousands of Ants, though, there was precious little they could do if things went wrong.

With Sperra tagging anxiously along behind, the pair of them were led through the impeccably disciplined chaos of an army pulling itself together, and then towards another of the armoured automotives. There were no markings to indicate it as anything special but, when its side hatch was pushed open, Che saw the Queen standing within dressed in full plate armour.

‘What is the meaning of this?’ the woman demanded shortly, not from Che but from Achaeos himself.

‘I do not understand, Your Majesty,’ Achaeos said, genuinely puzzled, and two soldiers grabbed and manhandled him around the bulk of the automotive so that he could look towards the land rising north of the city.

There hundreds of soldiers could be seen, approaching the Sarnesh force in a straggling mob. Achaeos strained his eyes, but the sunlight was very bright and his kind preferred darkness. He did, however, see that the first rank of Ant soldiers nearest the advance had already locked shields, while those in the second rank had their crossbows levelled.

‘I don’t understand,’ he repeated, and then Che cried out, ‘Mantis-kinden!’

‘Not just Mantids.’ The Queen was stepping down from the automotive. ‘My scouts say there are Moths there as well. What do they intend? Is this your doing?’

Achaeos opened his mouth to deny this, but Che cried out, ‘Yes!’

They all turned to her, astonished, Achaeos and Sperra included.

‘Your Majesty, when we first came to your city it was with two purposes. Whilst Scuto and Sperra were to seek out audience with yourself, Achaeos and I were to contact. those allied to the Moths of Dorax. When last we met them they had heard of the fall of Helleron, at which they were much concerned. They were going to speak with their masters and I think. ’ The feeling of hope swelling within her made it hard to breathe. ‘I think they may be friends.’