Adrian Tchaikovsky - Dragonfly Falling

‘Excuse me, Master Maker.’ The speaker was an Ant-kinden with bluish skin, and Stenwold had no idea even where he came from, never mind who he was. He was no warrior, though, despite his race. Inactivity had left him thin from the chest up and broad below.

‘Yes, Master.?’

‘Tseitus, Master Maker.’ The Ant’s gaunt face smiled. ‘I have an aquatic automotive which, Master Maker, I have been working on for many years.’

‘One boat, Master Tseitus-’

‘Not a boat, Master Maker.’ Tseitus glanced around suspiciously at the others as though they would, at this late juncture, seek to steal his idea. ‘It goes beneath the waters.’

Stenwold stared at him. ‘A submersible automotive?’

‘She is beautiful, Master Maker.’ Tseitus’s eyes gleamed. ‘I have taken her into Lake Sideriti. You would not believe what wonders there are beneath the waters there-’

‘But for now you’ll put her into the city’s service?’

‘This city is my life, Master Maker. And if there might be any funding, in the future, for my project-?‘

‘Yes, yes,’ Stenwold said hurriedly. ‘Let us just save the city first, and then I cannot imagine that the Assembly will not reward its saviours. Your submersible boat, what can it do?’

‘Go beneath the waters,’ repeated Tseitus, and then after a brief, awkward pause, ‘Drill into the hulls of their ships. Attach devices that others here may devise. Is there some explosive that may work underwater?’

‘I haven’t-’ Stenwold started but, as though summoned magically by the concept, one of the other artificers was already raising a hand.

At dusk, Akalia called for the Vekken artillery to be stilled. There was no sense wasting their ammunition in speculative and inaccurate night-time shooting. By the last light, her spotters had confirmed some light damage to the west wall where she had been heaping most of her missiles: some ragged holes punched in the crenellations, and a few patches that might repay a barrage over the next few days and even open up the whole wall. And once the wall was down in even one place her real assault could begin.

There had not been a single answering shot. It had been somewhat vexing the way most of the artillery positions atop the wall had been protected from her own, but it made little enough difference if they were content to hide behind their walls until she battered them down.

There would be casualties to the Collegium artillery when the assault went in, but no war was without casualties and her men understood that.

They cannot have the range to match us , one of her commanders had suggested. She could only shrug at him. For whatever reason, though, the Collegium artillery had remained silent.

Her commanders had secured the camps, in the highly unlikely event that the Beetle-kinden were planning some kind of night raid, and so finally she retired to her tent. The Wasp-kinden Daklan wished to speak with her, she knew. She had considered letting the foreigner stew but decided that, as matters were progressing so well, it would do her good to remind him of the superiority of those he was allying his Empire to.

‘Commander Daklan,’ she addressed him, and then looked to the other man. ‘And it is Commander Thalric, is it not?’

‘It is, Tactician,’ Thalric said. It pleased Akalia that he did not try to deny the Ant rank. In her mind she was doing him more honour than he deserved.

‘And you are pleased with what you have seen, so far?’ she asked the two Wasps. ‘Your vengeance against Collegium will soon be accomplished, will it not?’

‘Indeed, Tactician,’ said the other one, Daklan.

‘One might wonder what the foolish Beetles have done, to inflame such a far-off enemy,’ she said, her eyes narrowing.

‘You know the Beetle-kinden, how they can never leave well enough alone,’ Daklan said quickly. ‘The Empire has its actions focused east of here, as you know, and it seemed likely to us that Collegium would interfere in some way.’

‘They are a pack of meddling old men,’ Akalia agreed derisively. ‘Look at what they have done to Sarn, and in so short a time. They’ve gelded an entire city with their absurd ideas!’

‘True, and well put,’ Daklan concurred. She sneered at his ingratiating manner, but it was fitting, she supposed. It was certain that they feared her and wished her to think well of them.

‘Tell me, Tactician,’ said the other one, Thalric. ‘How do you consider that first bombardment? It seemed to be a little. unorthodox to me.’ Daklan glanced at him sharply, perhaps because this was something they had agreed to leave unsaid, but Akalia shrugged. ‘You are imprecise with your words, Commander Thalric. With us Ant-kinden you must say what you mean. What do you mean?’

Thalric was ignoring Daklan’s frown. ‘Their wall artillery, Tactician.’

‘That was curious,’ she agreed. ‘I have asked my artificers for possible causes. It may be that they have let their artillery become useless with age, although that seems unlikely even for Collegium. However, they are not a valorous race. Perhaps their engineers did not dare take to the walls to man them under our shot.’

‘Perhaps that is it,’ Thalric said, but she could see a look on his face that she did not like.

‘You are here only on sufferance,’ she reminded them. ‘I shall have no impertinence from you foreigners.’

‘Of course not,’ Daklan said quickly. ‘We are merely. unused to such a great display of artillery. Our wars work in different ways.’ She saw Thalric’s face twitch at that sentiment, but she could not read his reaction.

‘You are dismissed,’ she told them suddenly. It was late, anyway, and she would need a rested night, to command on the morrow. She must consider what to do with these Wasp-kinden, too. Perhaps it might be best if they became casualties of war. She watched them walk away, a tension between them, men who would be arguing as soon as they were out of her sight. Another divided and chaotic kinden, then. When the time came they would be no match for the perfect order of Vek.

Akalia went straight to her tent and had a slave unbuckle her armour. Then she fell asleep in anticipation of the morning’s work.

She was awakened instantly by the first crash and sat bolt-upright, feeling the ground shake beneath her. Her entire camp was awake, but for a terrifying moment nobody knew what was going on.

Sentries report! Her mind snapped out, but there was no answer amongst the babble of replies. Her sentries knew of no attack, and yet the camps were under attack. Men were dying, snuffed out instantly, but very few of them. Instead she was hearing a waxing tide of alarm from her engineers, from her artificers.

What is going on? she demanded of them, sensing them rush about in the darkness, that clouded, moonless pitch-darkness. Fires were being lit, men were rushing into formations with still no idea of what was going on. One unit of a hundred men was abruptly half its number down, a great rock having found them in the night, crushing the heart from their battle order.

Report! she demanded once more. I will have executions for this. It is intolerable.

Then the word came rushing through the army like wildfire. Their artillery was being destroyed.

How? she demanded. How are they attacking us? It must be men, some stealthy team sent out, but even as she thought that, the ground shook once again.

And the impossible answer came back, They are shooting from the walls .

For a moment she could not think. She had no answers, and none of her officers had any answers, and so the entire army was paralysed by indecision. The ground shook again, and once more, and the artificers’ minds passed on to her the sound of smashed wood and crushed metal.