Adrian Tchaikovsky - Empire in Black and Gold

The Fly sergeant’s face went even sourer but he nodded.

Tserro, that was his name. Remembering names was not a strong point for Varmen.

Stupid place to end up, frankly. For the cream of the imperial military, the spearhead of the Sixth Army, the very striking hammer of the Wasp invasion of the Commonweal, he had hoped for better. And it had all seemed such a good idea. Varmen was a professional soldier, after all: he was used to sniffing out dung-smelling errands and dodging them. This had carried all the marks of little risk and high praise. I’m such a sucker for the praise. . Scouts have got into trouble again — like they always do — leaving a squad of Fly-kinden irregulars and a heliopter suddenly stranded. Go hold their hands until the army picks up the pieces. Sixth is heading that way anyway, won’t be a day even. So off we trot with a little iron to give the scouts some backbone. Five sentinels and a dozen medium infantry slogging ahead of the advance in all our armour. Because we knew the rest were right behind us. They told us they were coming, after all. How can a whole army be lying to you?

‘Get all the luggage into some kind of front wall,’ Pellrec snapped, to get the infantry moving. ‘One man in three with a shield at the front, while the rest keep under cover and be ready to shoot out. Tserro?’

‘Here.’ The little sergeant was obviously still weighing who was supposed to be giving orders, and where the chain of command ran. He clearly accepted the fact that Varmen had not countermanded anything as his casting vote. ‘Where do you want us?’

‘Space your men so they can keep watch over every approach,’ Pellrec told him. ‘Bows and crossbows, whatever you have. When they appear, get in under the heliopter’s hull.’

Wings bloomed from the Fly’s shoulders and he skipped off to instruct his men. Pellrec leant close to Varmen. He was a proper Wasp-kinden beauty, was Pellrec: fair haired and handsome, and a favourite with any ladies they met that the army hadn’t already slapped chains on. Compared to him, Varmen was a thug, dark haired and heavy jawed and five inches taller. The two of them had come through a lot in the vanguard of the Sixth Army. Seeing Varmen’s expression, Pellrec laughed and said, ‘So, still glad you signed up?’

‘Enough of that,’ Varmen snarled. ‘We’re the Pride of the Sixth. Who are we?’

The one sentinel close enough to hear said, instinctively, ‘The Pride!’ and even Pellrec mouthed the words, grinning.

‘Sentinels, boys,’ Varmen said louder, in his battle voice. The words carried across and on past the wreck of the downed heliopter. ‘The pit-cursed best there is.’ He hoped that the Commonweal soldiers out there could hear him.

He stalked into the shelter of the downed flying machine to check on the man who was nominally in charge. Lieutenant Landren was conscious again, just now. The Fly-kinden quack the scouts had brought was crouching beside him, changing the dressings on his mangled leg.

‘What’s it look like, Sergeant?’ Landren’s voice was ragged enough for Varmen to know there would be no help from him.

‘Seen worse, sir,’ he said dutifully. ‘We’ll get through. Sixth is on its way, sure as eggs.’

‘We’ve made contact?’

A little sharper than I reckoned, after all. ‘Not so much, sir, but when we set out, they were right behind us. What’s going to have happened to them?’ And what in the pit has happened to them?

‘Good, good. Carry on, Sergeant.’

‘Will do, sir.’ Varmen grimaced as soon as he had turned away from him. His eyes met those of Tserro, the scouts’ own sergeant. The man was perched up under the heliopter’s fractured ceiling, stringing a bow with automatic motions, not even looking at it properly. His stare was made of accusation. Varmen scowled at him.

‘Three of my men I sent to the Sixth,’ the Fly hissed as the sentinel passed him. ‘One got far enough to know the Sixth ain’t coming. Two didn’t come back. Why’d the first man live to get through, Sergeant Varmen? You think perhaps they want us to know we’re stuffed?’

‘Shut it, you,’ Varmen growled at him. ‘Pell, how’s it coming?’

‘Oh, it’s arrived, Varmo,’ Pellrec told him. ‘Or at least, as much of it as we’re likely to get.’ He had made the best job of turning the crashed machine into a defensible position, with the broken sides of the heliopter to fend against airborne assault, and a jumble of crates and sacks to turn aside arrows.

‘Arken!’ Varmen snapped. The man he’d put in charge of the medium infantry clattered up instantly. From his privileged position at the front, Varmen had always regarded the medium infantry as a bit of a botched compromise: armour too heavy to fly in, and yet not heavy enough to hurl into the breach without losing more than you kept. Varmen’s chief memory of men like Arken was as a froth of shields and spears on either side of the sentinel wedge as the thrust of the imperial assault went home. He never seemed to see the same men in charge of the medium infantry twice.

‘All right, here’s the plan,’ Varmen told him, and loud enough for everyone nearby to hear. ‘What them out there don’t realize is that we’re exactly the right men for this job. Screw flying about like racking moths and Fly-kinden. We’re the armour boys, so we don’t need to go dancing all over the sky. We just need to stand and hold. Me and the lads will take the front. I want your lot in a line behind us. Sting-shot at anything that tries to come in above us. Anything that gets past us, or that attacks the scouts, take them on — sword and spear.’

‘Right you are, Sarge,’ Arken said.

I always remember the names, with the medium infantry , Varmen thought. Odd that. A dozen men in a dozen fights and I always know which name to yell, yet I can have a commanding officer for two years and still get it wrong.

‘Sentinels!’ he roared. ‘Get your racking kit on!’

They had hauled it all the way here, each man’s mail spread between three of the sweating medium infantry as well as the man himself. This was the Pride of the Sixth, the elite of the Imperial Army, the honour so many soldiers aimed at, and fell short of. The sentinels: the mailed fist. Let the light airborne rule the skies. Let the engineers hurl forth their machines and their artillery. When it came to where the metal met, you sent in the sentinels. Worst job, best kit, best training. None of Arken’s men could have endured wearing Varmen’s armour.

He helped Pellrec on with his, first: the long chain-mail hauberk, shrugged over the head in a moment of oil-and-metal claustrophobia; breast- and backplates strapped at the side, as the anchor for everything that came later; double-leaved pauldrons for the shoulders; articulated tassets that covered him from waist to knee. Armoured boots and greaves from knee to foot; bracers and gauntlets from elbow to hand. Each piece was spotless, the black-and-gold paint lovingly restored after each fight until not a chip remained. Each curve of metal slid over its neighbours until what was left was not a man but more a great insect, a carapace of armour over armour.

Moving swiftly and surely in his mail, Pellrec returned the favour, putting in place by practised motions the barrier that kept Varmen and the world decently separate. The other three sentinels were similarly clad now, hulking ironclads in imperial livery, their heads looking too small for their bodies. Easy to fix that. Varmen slung his arming cap on, tied it beneath his chin. The coif then slid over that, lopsided at first until he tugged it into place. Last came the helm, cutting down the world into a manageable slot, to be dealt with a slice at a time. The senses he had built up in training were already starting to speak to him, to tell him where the others were, where was a wall, where was open space — without having to look around like some backwoods farmer come to the capital for the first time.