Adrian Tchaikovsky - Heirs of the Blade

An arrow spiked Mordrec’s shoulder and he went down on one knee with a curse, the other arm flung out to sear its way across the bowman’s chest. Another archer loosed a shaft at Thalric, but hurriedly, the shot flying wide despite its close range, and then Dal Arche shot the man in the back, shouting, ‘Run for the woods! We have to move!’ In truth, by now only Tynisa, the two Wasps, Dal and Soul Je were still left.

Tynisa let her rapier twist about the sword of the scout attacking her, flicked it aside with a circular motion of her wrist and then jabbed into the opening she had created, pricking him through the throat. The cavalry had meanwhile regained their courage, and a couple were plucking lances from the holsters beside their saddles. She risked a glance behind her, gauging the distance to the treeline.

A bowman was there, the string drawn back to his ear and the arrowhead directed at her face. Even as she spotted him, he loosed.

She felt the impact like a hammer blow, but it had fallen on the guard of her blade, the weapon and her arm both finding their way by the age-old Weaponsmasters’ partnership. The impact drove her sword hand back to her chest, and the archer’s jaw dropped as the arrow sliced to one side of her, deflected from the curved quillons.

So it was me, and not him. She killed the bowman even while registering the thought, leaping into a lunge that drove her blade through the chitin of his armour, barely slowing. Then she was running, Dal Arche helping Mordrec along beside her; as Soul Je and Thalric sent arrows and stingshot at the oncoming riders.

Abruptly the trees were above and around them, the riders behind them slowing and turning aside, and then they were running uphill towards tumbled stone walls.

Within the trees, the bows were of less use, which was just as well, as the enemy were bringing up considerably more of them than the brigands could muster. The cavalry would be next to useless, too, unable to charge or manoeuvre between the trunks. There would be a moment when the front-runners of the attacking force hesitated, waited for their fellows, fearing some trap, perhaps brigand reinforcements. It was enough to give Dal Arche’s people a headstart on reaching the ruins.

The airborne scouts were ahead of them, though, and a half-dozen had the wit to try and claim the ruin before the brigands could get there. The tower itself had been a circular structure, its height undeterminable now, but the lowest storey remained almost intact, surrounded by a broken area of fallen stone coated with moss and entwined by creepers. The fleetest brigands arrived just in time for one of them, a lean Grasshopper, to take an arrow in the throat from a Dragonfly archer crouched in the doorway. The others then scattered, taking cover amongst the trees. More arrows sped from the pair of narrow slit windows flanking the door.

Tynisa took in the situation the moment she arrived. Dal and Soul Je were shooting from within the trees, but the doorway lent cover enough that they were getting nowhere. She grimaced – but somehow it turned to a grin.

A moment later she was running forward, her sword levelled before her. She saw the man in the doorway draw back his string, focusing on some other movement within the trees, before one of his fellows shouted a warning and he saw her. His expression was all she could ask for, fright and shock making him twitch away, the arrow flying harmlessly high. Another shaft from one of his comrades hissed past her like a breath of air, and then she was amongst them. Her sword lanced the closest man under the ribs, but she just carried on running, plunging into the gloom of the interior while dragging her victim round until her blade slid free. The men within were dropping their bows, reaching for swords or daggers instead, but the walls close about them gave nowhere to run to. Her mind plotted a pattern on the dusty, leaf-blown floor and she let her feet trace it, treading in a jagged star with each point punctuated by blood. The rapier was never still, flicking and dancing through the air like a silver insect, fending off their strikes at her, leaping over their guards to pierce their armour of leather and chitin as though it was nothing but cloth. The last man got by her and ran through the doorway out into the open, only to meet Thalric’s sting that hurled him off his feet.

The brigands raced inside. Che limped in next, leaning on Maure, and finally Mordrec aided by Soul Je. It was now crowded company there, but even so it was plain that several of them had not made it. Aside from Dal and Soul, even now trying to extract the arrow from Mordrec’s shoulder, there were only half a dozen brigands left: two apiece of Grasshoppers and Dragonflies, a halfbreed and the Spider, Avaris.

‘They’re hiding in the trees now,’ someone called out, and bandits moved to the slit windows, arrows nocked. Tynisa herself went to the door, waiting for her next challenger. Overhead the sky darkened, the evening coming on fast. They had been constantly on the move for most of the day.

And I don’t feel tired, not at all. She suspected that she would, though, as soon as the rush of it all had drained away, but for now Tynisa felt as though she could run for ever.

The first wave to come against them included a fair number of noble retainers amongst the levy, their armour glittering in the last rays of the sun. They met arrows and stingshot from the defenders – and then they met Tynisa in the doorway.

For a moment she felt fear: not fear of them but that the spectre of her father, or that murderous piece of her father that had been left behind, would descend on her again and make her his creature. Instead, she felt her training, her skill, her heritage and her blade all converge within her, a council of war that was resolved in moments, and she swayed away from an arrow and then met the first blade, flicked it aside with a small motion of her wrist and then laid open the wielder’s forehead, beneath the rim of his open helm, sending him staggering backwards with blood in his eyes. She cut aside spearheads as they quested for her, darting to gash hands and arms, to sever fingers, making a mockery of their reach. Then another noble was rushing at her, a Dragonfly woman with a fixed look of hatred, and Tynisa let her try to strike, let the sword cleave empty air, and then put an elbow in the woman’s eye and ran her through as she stumbled, dropping her neatly. The longer she held the door, the more damage the others could do through the arrowslits, and now Mordrec had hauled himself over to a window, so that stingshot was crackling from both sides.

The enemy fell back, the levy giving way first, and their betters following suit rather than be left exposed.

The next wave, after a pause of almost half an hour, was a throng of armed peasants: a mob of desperate, frightened Dragonflies and Grasshoppers lacking armour save for quilted jackets or the odd cuirass of chitin scales, and armed only with spears. Tynisa steeled herself, and took a lot less joy in staving them off, but the confrontation was a brief one. With no inbound arrows, other bandits had the courage to back her up with bows, and the wretched peasantry broke and fled a minute after they had reached the door. By then the dark had fallen, and she knew that, whilst Dragonfly eyes were as good or better than hers, their Grasshopper levy could not see well at night.

And besides, she suddenly considered, how many of them are left?

It was an unexpected thought, but a salient one. After all, how many had Salme Elass been able to muster for her grand campaign against the brigands? And how many remained with her now, of her guests and their retainers, and whatever peasants she had pressed into service along the way? Oh certainly, she would still have a force that greatly outnumbered the defenders, but even so, not vast by the standards that Tynisa was used to thinking of: not the resources of an Ant city-state or a Wasp army, or even a Collegium merchant company. Not enough to waste.