Adrian Tchaikovsky - Dragonfly Falling

Half the Royal Court buildings were covered in char, the stone beneath cracked and riven by the sheer heat of the incendiaries. The gates had been staved in during the last reaches of the fighting, splintered by a ram borne by six great Mole Cricket-kinden. The ram-bearers had all died in the attempt, or immediately after it, and their colossal bodies had only just been removed. Not one of their kind was left living in the Wasp army. Every one had given its sad life for the taking of this city.

Before the gates stood two dozen Ant-kinden, still wearing their armour. Their hands and their scabbards were empty. They stood in precise ranks, watching. They were all of the Tarkesh royal staff that remained. It seemed likely that they would be executed, but it was less likely that they cared very much, at this point.

It was Colonel Carvoc who now approached them, with a guard of a hundred light and medium infantry. His face, seeing those defeated men and women, held no sympathy, nor even much triumph. The day did not belong to the Fourth Army, the glorious Barbs. The day belonged to science, and that left a sour taste in the mouth.

He signalled to his men, who remained as wordless as the Ants themselves. One of the light airborne stood forwards and saluted him, carrying a cloth-wrapped lance in his off-hand.

As Carvoc nodded to him the man’s wings flared, and he launched into the air, tracing a graceful curve up onto the roof of the Royal Court. There had been no insignia kept there, no emblem or banner to be cast down, so the soldier was forced to hunt across the rooftop, to the gathering silence of the men below, before he found a crack in the stonework that would fit his ambitions. With a decisive gesture he jammed the lance’s pointed ferrule in, forcing it down until it was firmly rammed in, lodging deep in the substance of the Tarkesh heart. Then he loosed the cords, and the wind caught the cloth, streaming it out in a billowing gust of black and gold.

The city of Tark had fallen to the Empire after only five days of bombardment.

The Wasps then took control with a firm hand born of long experience. They appointed their deputies amongst the conquered people, giving their orders and leaving the delegation of them to the Ant-kinden mindlink, so that by speaking to a single Ant they could effectively command the whole city. Drephos and General Alder were able to walk through the streets of the conquered city, watching the disarmed inhabitants set to clearing the ruins of their own homes. They worked in silence, and both men felt the shocked quiet that filled the space between their minds: How could it have come to this?

‘I must confess, I do not trust this silence,’ Alder remarked. He had an honour guard of a dozen sentinels, implacable in their heavy plate armour.

‘That is because you do not understand Ant-kinden, General,’ Drephos told him.

‘And you do?’

‘I make an effort to know who my machines are to be used against, so that I can better direct that use. They have come to the conclusion for now that to resist the Empire is only to invite greater wrack, so they surrender.’

‘They’ll rebel in time, then.’

‘Every subordinate always does, when given the opportunity,’ Drephos said airily, and then qualified it. ‘Except for the Bee-kinden. They don’t seem to have the knack.’

‘And that squad that got away.’ Alder shook his head, his plan having not provided for that. Eight hundred men suddenly breaking from the west gate and running his blockade — which, needless to say, had not been expecting any assault and broke almost instantly. He had himself been there to witness the tail end of the fighting and the Ant soldiers making their orderly retreat from their own city, flanked by nailbowmen and heavy crossbows. The pursuing airborne had been cut to pieces, and he had realized that he could not spare more men to go after them just as the Royal Court was being cracked open. So he had reinforced the western perimeter and waited for them to make their vengeful return to attempt to break the siege, but they had not come back. They had simply gone. ‘Did they run?’ he wondered aloud. ‘Did their nerve break, at the end?’

‘It was done by design, General. I am sure of that,’ Drephos said. ‘You’ve not seen the last of them.’

Alder nodded gloomily. ‘Do you believe it about their ruler?’ he asked. ‘Again, I don’t trust it. All these Ants look the same to me.’

‘I believe it implicitly, because it is the only way the matter could reasonably be accomplished,’ Drephos said. ‘While he was King, no matter what order he had just given, his people would still be waiting for his word. They would never lay down their arms. They would always think that some further move could be made in the game.’

‘Game?’ Alder surveyed the dead Wasp soldiers that were, one by one, being hauled from before the palace gates. ‘This is a game for you, is it?’

‘For all of us, General, and you can’t say you didn’t know the stakes. No, the King had to go, and he knew it.’

‘So he killed himself, or had his generals kill him,’ Alder said tiredly. He had read the report. The first Wasp soldiers had burst into the tunnels beneath the Tarkesh throne room to find their King slain. The tacticians of Tark had been waiting there peaceably, accepting their fate. They had been put to death, of course. There was no sense inviting further trouble by letting them live.

‘I’ve sent a messenger for the Supply corps,’ Alder added. ‘The administrators, the Auxillian militia, the garrison and the slavers — they’ll all be here in a day, perhaps two.’

‘And for you the conquest goes on?’ Drephos asked him.

‘I have orders to move west,’ Alder confirmed. ‘There are two Fly-kinden communities to take into the Empire but I’m not anticipating a fight there. Then my information is that there is another Ant city-state offshore, and some Mantis savages in the woods that we can root out.’

‘I wish you luck with it, General.’

Alder frowned at the halfbreed. ‘And where will you be, Colonel-Auxillian, that you’re wishing me luck?’

‘I have arranged a transfer to the Seventh for myself and my people, General. I have given you the tools to unpick an Ant city, but the Seventh is yet to be thus supplied. They are listed to march on Sarn eventually and, besides, their more immediate destination is of interest to me.’

Alder shrugged, one-shouldered. ‘If you have wheedled such orders, then so be it.’ He glowered at the artificer briefly. ‘I don’t like you, Drephos. You’re a worm, and don’t think I don’t know how much you hate us.’

Within the shadow of his cowl, Drephos smiled thinly. ‘But.?’

‘But you have accomplished a great deal here,’ Alder admitted reluctantly. ‘I shall note it in my report.’

‘You’re too kind,’ Drephos said. ‘If you do not mind, General, I will return to the camp. I have business to take care of before I bid you a final farewell.’

A few fires were lit, well hidden in hollows to escape unfriendly eyes. They had marched a long way, far enough that they were long out of the reach of the Ant minds left in Tark. Parops and his men had thus no clue as to the fate of their city, but it seemed clear that it would be one of two results: either Tark would bow the knee or it would be overwritten on future maps by some Wasp name, a new town dug out of Tark’s ashes.

His men were as dispirited as he had ever seen soldiers be, and he shared their despondency. They were creatures of routine and loyalty, creatures of the city they were born in, conditioned to obedience there, knowing nothing but the will of Tark and its monarch. Now they were alone. Six hundred and seventy-one Tarkesh men and women out in the wilderness, on the road to Merro, with no idea of where they could go or what could be done next.