Adrian Tchaikovsky - Dragonfly Falling

But the defenders below were rallying. The crossbow-shot began to pick up, Wasp attackers plucked from the air by the increasingly thick and accurate barrage. There would be no chance for Salma to take wing now without the risk of being taken for an invader. He looked about for a chance to intervene and then a Wasp leapt at him from over the battlements, almost knocking him off the walkway altogether. He grappled fiercely with the man, each keeping the other’s sword away. The Ants were fighting all around him but each would be waiting for a mental cry from him for help and Salma could not give it.

The Wasp was the stronger and he began forcing Salma back so that he was pushed half out off the wall, hanging over the battlefield beneath. The rough stone ground into Salma’s ribs, but then he got a knee up into the man’s groin and twisted around, using the soldier’s own force to pitch him headfirst into space.

The man’s wings rescued him, but he took a crossbow bolt even as they did, and fell. Salma dropped to one knee behind the shelter of the crenellations and tried to take stock of what was going on. Most of the flying attackers had been dealt with but their artillery was still moving. Salma risked a quick look over the wall.

Some of the enemy engines had been destroyed, but others were still active and an explosive missile struck Parops’s tower even as he watched. The Ant artillery seemed to be concentrating on the engines that were still advancing. He could see two of those in particular that seemed mostly armoured metal plates, like great woodlice, grinding forwards with their own mechanical power. One rocked under the impact of a scattering of great stones that put huge dents in its armour.

There were more fliers streaking overhead. One of the firepots landed on the walkway close by, throwing him from his feet and casting three Ant-kinden off the wall entirely, down onto their brethren below. As the next flier streaked close over the wall-top, he jumped up and rammed his sword home. The impetus of the man’s flight nearly dragged Salma from the wall, but he succeeded in wrestling his opponent onto the walkway.

Something beyond the walls exploded thunderously, with enough force to shake every stone beneath his feet. He dropped onto the man he had just stabbed, his head ringing with the din, and then dragged himself upright to look.

The armoured engine was gone. Instead there was a crater ten yards across, and splintered metal thrown ten times that distance.

Its brother engine was unfound by the artillery so far, and now it began to attack. A fat nozzle in its front opened and spat a great stream of black liquid out onto the wall, coating and clinging to the stones. The Ants were shooting down on it but it was inside the arc of their artillery fire and crossbow bolts simply shivered to pieces or bounced from its plating. Salma watched in horror as the black stain spread across the face of the wall, before the flood slowed to a trickle and stopped.

The engine began to retrace its steps towards the Wasp camp, crawling backwards without even turning round, and the artillery did not assail it. Instead, the Ants were waiting to see what happened.

Nothing happened. The black liquid simply hugged the wall. Whatever terrible effect the Wasps had anticipated did not materialize.

Salma dropped back down and rested his back to the stone crenellations. He saw beside him the body of the last man he had killed. It was one of the others, not a Wasp but a stocky, dark-skinned man in partial armour, with flat, closed features. He still lived, just, his eyes moving to seek out Salma’s own. Then he died.

What city? What kinden? Where had the Wasps taken this luckless man from, to force him to fight enemies not his own, to have him die in panic and pain far from his home?

On the face of the wall, the black liquid had evaporated, leaving only a great blotchy stain to disfigure the walls of Tark.

The plated engine’s retreat was the signal, and the Wasp assault slowed, the commands moving around as fast as they could be shouted. One more wave of soldiers, too enthusiastic for their own lives, flew out unsupported into the Tarkesh crossbow-shot, while the wall artillery made the imperial engines’ return a hazard, sending rocks and ballista bolts hurtling at them to the very far extent of their range. The imperial soldiers who regained their camp were the whole ones, or those with only light wounds. All others had been left to the sharp-edged mercies of the Ant-kinden. If they could not fly, they died.

General Alder watched the survivors, so few of them now, struggle back into camp. The two waves of Hornets had been wiped out to a man, and only a third of the light airborne had made it back, with half of the Bee-kinden engineers he had risked. By traditional military standards the assault had been a disaster. Generals had been executed for such performances, he thought bleakly. This had better not be the battle they remember me for. Morale would be low in the camp tonight, and would only get lower. His soldiers would still fight, but they would lack fire, for the discipline of the Ants would destroy them. The Wasps would inevitably batter themselves to death against the defenders’ steel resolve. Of all things I hate fighting Ant-kinden. Every step forward’s nothing but bloody butchery.

He cursed wearily. Those wounded fortunate enough to have returned would be under the care of the field surgeons now, or else the healing skills of the Daughters. Later he would walk amongst them, as was his tradition, and it was more than just show put on for the men. The general felt the responsibilities of his position keenly.

For now, though, there was one meeting that he was anxious to get over with, and the spark of anticipation he now felt was that it might just give him an excuse to have the maverick artificer killed.

‘Get me the Colonel-Auxillian,’ he snapped at his attendant staff, and one of them flew off to locate the man.

Colonel Edric was at that moment coming over to make his report, in all his barbaric splendour. Alder found himself vaguely surprised that the man was still alive, but then recalled: Third wave is his tradition. Lucky for him we pulled out when we did.

‘Colonel, speak your piece.’

‘Sir.’ Edric had not forgotten himself so far as to miss his salute. ‘We made progress, sir, we really did. I’m told that the combination of engines, troops and the grenades broke up the defenders so that we were able to send a whole wave of the airborne over the wall without resistance.’

‘Really, Colonel? And amongst the hill-tribes, this is considered progress?’

‘Sir?’

‘And will you take the city with just one wave of the light airborne?’ Alder shook his head. ‘Go see to your men, Colonel. Those few that are left.’

There was a bitter taste in his mouth, and he had nobody to share it with. That is what it means to be in command. But of his subordinate colonels, Edric was too savage and Carvoc too dull. Only Norsa, of the Daughters, could possibly understand his feelings. He promised himself that he would visit her tonight, share a bowl of wine and talk of this in tones that would not be overhead. An imperial general shows no weakness to his men. His bleak thoughts could not hide from his own scrutiny, however, nor would he disown them. We have done poorly today, and that bastard Drephos is to blame.

He saw the man in question now, swathed in his robe as always, with not a crease or scratch on him. As he watched the Colonel-Auxillian make his way over, his gait slightly offset from some old injury, his face was just a blur under the cowl, but Alder was sure that he could glimpse a smile there.

‘Drephos,’ he growled, ‘explanations, please?’