Adrian Tchaikovsky - Heirs of the Blade

He had to wait for the captain’s report, for the ruins were some distance away, and by then there was so much dust raised that his glass could not penetrate it. Still, it was not quite dusk when the officer finally presented himself, saluting smartly, as though Angved had not been working as a menial in a factory only tendays before, when Varsec was a prisoner in a cell.

They received the report on the wall, looking out at the ruins that were now slowly sinking into twilight as though the desert itself was swallowing them up.

‘What happened when the Scorpions reached there?’ Angved asked.

‘Not that many of them did, sir. A surprising amount tried to turn and fight, again and again. They were desperate to avoid being driven there. I’d estimate no more than forty or fifty of them reached the first stones.’

‘And then?’

The captain’s expression was that of a man without much imagination being faced with something that troubled him nonetheless. ‘Screaming, sir.’

Angved frowned, and Varsec murmured, ‘Does that pass for a report in the army, these days?’

‘I apologize, sir. It was difficult to make out what happened, and those of my men I’ve questioned tell contradictory stories. The Scorpions scattered amongst the buildings, losing all cohesion, as if each was looking for a different place to hide. Then we heard them start screaming, just some of them, then others. None of them for very long. I did my best to keep some in sight, but amongst the ruins it was difficult. Many of the structures there seem relatively intact, some almost completely so, and I thought I saw…’ There was a pause, signifying a soldier trying to couch his experience in permitted language. ‘Movement, sir. Terribly swift movement between buildings. Something large and fast. Others have reported the same.. .’ His tone indicated that there was more, but that it would require prompting.

‘Speak, Captain,’ Angved duly ordered.

‘One squad hasn’t returned, sir. Sergeant Stasric and his people didn’t come back with us.’

‘You passed on my orders for nobody to enter the ruins?’ Angved asked sternly.

‘I did, sir, word for word.’

‘What’s this Stasric like, would you say?’

A diplomatic pause. ‘He is a man who seizes opportunities as they come, sir. He has been reprimanded in the past.’

Angved and Varsec exchanged glances. ‘Any other casualties, Captain?’ the aviator asked.

‘Eleven men lost, sir, all to enemy crossbows,’ the captain confirmed. ‘Twenty-one in total, including Stasric’s men.’

Twenty-one dead to six hundred of theirs, Angved considered. A mere skirmish, but the numbers would look good when sent home. ‘Have your men stay ready, since we can expect further attacks by the Many. They’re a stupid, brutal people.’

Midnight was approaching when the watch lieutenant awoke Angved, sounding panicked. ‘Something’s outside the wall, sir.’

It took a blinking and blurred moment of recollection before the Engineer remembered where he was and what he was doing there. For a moment he had thought he was back accompanying the first Khanaphir expedition, making war on the city on behalf of the Many of Nem, rather than the other way around.

‘The Scorpions are back?’ he demanded, shrugging his way into a leather cuirass and locating his sword.

‘Sir, we’re… we’re not sure what it is. The sentries don’t think so, sir.’

‘We’re under attack?’

‘Not yet, sir.’

Angved sighed, putting him down as the sort of overexcitable type who should never be left in charge of a night watch, for the good of everyone else’s sleep. Still, now that he was awake, it seemed prudent to go and investigate what had spooked the watchmen. He dragged a woollen cloak over his shoulders to keep out the night chill, and shouldered his way out of his tent.

There was barely any moon, and only the torches and lanterns of the camp repelled the night. Angved tugged his cloak closer about him and let the lieutenant lead him to the walls, where a flick of his wings got him up on to the parapet.

‘I don’t see anything,’ he grumbled, scowling into the darkness.

‘Report, soldier,’ the lieutenant instructed, stepping back and patently hoping thus to disappear from the angry major’s notice.

‘There’s something big out there, sir,’ one of the sentries said promptly. ‘It’s been back and forth three times now.’

‘An animal,’ suggested Angved dismissively.

‘The only glimpse I had of it, it seemed like a man, sir. Or at least a little like a man. Most of the other sentries have seen it, too.’ Even as he spoke, there came a shout from further along the wall, and Angved bustled over there to peer out beyond the range of the camp lights.

He saw it then, not very clearly but enough to confirm all that the sentry had said. The movement, as it slunk back into the night, was unpleasant – human but not quite, its limbs out of proportion, not quite on two legs, but not quite on all fours.

The Imperials exchanged unhappy glances.

‘What was it up to, that time?’ the watch lieutenant asked. ‘It was… digging, was it?’

‘Can you see something still out there?’ one of the other sentries wondered, squinting. ‘Looks like it left something behind.’

‘Get me a strong flier with a lantern!’ Angved snapped. Once this order was obeyed, he continued, ‘You, fly out there and drop the lantern down where we saw it.’

The soldier looked none too happy at this, but the Imperial Light Airborne did not admit to being scared of the dark, so he kicked off from the wall and swooped in, making the pass as swiftly as he could and letting the lantern drop from ten feet up, ending tipped on its side on the sand, still burning.

At the sight revealed, one of the sentries swore. The rest were silent.

They could see a neat pyramid of human heads out there: Wasp-kinden heads, without a doubt. Angved felt quite equally sure that, asking around, he would find someone able to recognize the twisted features of Sergeant Stasric. Each of the expressions that the lantern picked out suggested that their deaths had not come quickly or easily.

At the far edge of the lantern’s reach, something shifted, a hulking, long-armed thing with its knuckles resting on the ground, its massive fists clublike and thorned. It seemed as big as a Mole Cricket-kinden, but thinner and longer of limb. The head jutted from between broad shoulders heavily knotted with muscle, and although the eyes glinted, even the lantern light seemed reluctant to illuminate its face.

Angved felt its attention focus on him, as though it had somehow managed to identify him as the man in charge. His soldiers were thoroughly spooked, he knew, but they would still launch an attack on his word. And besides, this thing must surely be mortal, susceptible to sword and sting and snapbow bolt.

But still… ‘Message understood!’ he called out. ‘You’ll see no more of us in your city. That’s not what we’re here for. And we’ll see no more of you, either. Agreed?’

His voice seemed to roll out for ever across the desert, as if the only sound in the world. He was aware that most of the camp was awake by now, with eyes on him alone.

The thing crouched even lower, leaning forward a little, and Angved caught a brief, stomach-twisting glimpse that made him wish its face had stayed hidden. The skull-like contours, that brutal tusked jaw… and yet those eyes were so human that they seemed to be agonized and appalled by the monstrosity that they were set in. Then it was gone, and it was Angved who cursed, this time, as it moved off, vanishing like wind and shadow in an instant.

‘I dearly hope it understood you, sir,’ said the lieutenant, standing at his elbow. Angved had feared that his actions might have made him seem weak before his men, but he realized then that he had gained their unexpected approval. Not one of them had wanted to go out and fight that thing, whatever it was, and no amount of tactical or technological superiority would change that.