Adrian Tchaikovsky - Dragonfly Falling

‘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 killing, 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.

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.