Adrian Tchaikovsky - Heirs of the Blade

Isendter Whitehand’s eyes narrowed, watching their hesitant approach, one hand half raised. Every bowman kept that pale glove in the corner of his eye as they chose their target. At Isendter’s smallest gesture, they all loosed together.

With so many close-packed enemies, it would have been near-impossible to miss, and Tynisa saw several brigands crumple in their front line. Then returning arrows peppered the air, mostly shot from the small hunting bows the bandits carried and falling far short. A few of the enemy must be better equipped, though, for the odd shaft flew far enough to land between the well-spaced defenders, and the man beside Whitehand took a shaft in the shoulder, between the plates of his mail.

Whitehand’s own bowmen let fly again, determined to make the most of their advantage, but Tynisa had seen just how many arrows had flown in reprisal. If the bandits gathered the courage to close half of the distance, they would have enough bows to devastate Whitehand’s people in short order.

She pulled herself up into the saddle and guided her newfound steed around the edge of their lines, until she came alongside the front rank. At first the brigands had fallen back, out of longbow range, but she saw that they were re-forming, organizing. If she looked carefully, she could see a few of their number hustling the rest into order, exhorting them to press forward. One of those, she knew, must be their elusive leader. She had seen him, she was sure, a Dragonfly-kinden man with greying hair and a fiercely determined manner. He had nearly put an arrow through her on more than one occasion, and she had nearly put her sword through him. But today I shall catch you, she thought. You shall be my gift to Alain.

For a moment the brigands refused to be drawn, stepping into the light rain of long arrows and then flinching back, but at last their leaders motivated them enough to surge forward, with the Salmae arrows picking at them but unable to slow them, and then they were within their own bowshot, and arrows from the more optimistic brigand archers began to feather across the gap. The rest of them were urged forward another dozen yards, to a range where their weapons might do the most good.

Tynisa noticed Whitehand’s little detachment of cavalry ready itself, but a charge of only ten riders into that great mass of men would surely vanish without a trace.

So what about a charge of one? she wondered, as the arrows started to come down, first a few, then thicker and thicker. She saw Whitehand gather himself to give the order, but could not know whether it was to retreat or to charge. She would take the responsibility of that decision away from him.

She dug her heels into her horse’s flanks and the beast rushed forward blindly, She caught a brief glimpse of Isendter’s expression, as she coursed into the space between the two massed forces, her horse drawing an oblique course towards the right-hand extreme of the enemy’s front line.

The bandits saw her, of course, and she saw them react. There was a flurry of motion within their ranks, and then the arrows were speeding for her, cutting past her on both sides like the flight of dragonflies. She had her rapier directed straight at the enemy, alongside her horse’s head.

Behind her she heard shouting, and then Whitehand’s order to charge. You will thank me, she thought, her mind as calm as a pond, for showing you the right decision. Retreat was cowardice. The only way was onwards. Whitehand himself must be Mantis enough to recognize such a fundamental truth.

She felt the shuddering impact as the first arrow found her mount, then a second a moment later. A shaft tore across her shoulder, another nicked her thigh. By then she was on them.

Her mount failed at the moment before she would have smashed into them, collapsing to its knees with a sound of agony, but she was prepared for that. Giving the dying animal no thought, she leapt to the ground over its bowed neck, now within reach of the brigands, and began killing those closest. They had made their front lines out of archers whose weapons were suddenly useless to them, and for the first few seconds her fight consisted entirely of killing defenceless people in the act of dropping their bows and reaching for knives. She spun and glittered amongst them, her rapier etching red lines in the air on all sides, creating a steel web that caught anyone within her reach until she had cut a space amongst them. They might have been able to use their bows against her in that moment, but she was already leaping on, driving a one-woman wedge into the very heart of their formation.

She felt the reverberation as the cavalry struck home almost unopposed, and the balance of Whitehand’s force was not far behind, though enough of the brigand archers had kept their heads to make the Mantis’s charge a difficult one. That was his problem, though, as Tynisa’s thoughts were all now focused on the perfection of her dance.

The Spiders used the word ‘dancing’ to refer to their endless round of politics, but for the Mantis-kinden, Tynisa’s true inheritance, it meant something far cleaner and deadlier.

The enemy were all around her but, because of that, they were crippled: unable to run, unable to bring their spears to bear on her or to swing their staves and axes without striking their fellows. Her rapier seemed able to pass through them as though they were air. She gave the weapon its head and it leapt joyously about her, weaving its killing patterns. Soon they started trying to scatter, shoving their own allies aside in their haste to remain amongst the living.

Isendter had now arrived. She felt the movements of the enemy mob change as he struck against them, sending their foremost scattering. She kept forcing her way inwards, lashing her rapier behind at those who thought her back would be an easy target. She was looking for the telltale signs of someone giving orders.

A brief glance told her that her own fellows were having a hard time of it. Whitehand was giving a bloody account of himself, but the sheer numbers of the enemy had brought his charge to a standstill, and his followers were dying left and right of him. The archers up on the bluff continued to drop arrows into the close-packed brigands, but were taking twice as many in reply. The cavalry had broken off and were wheeling for another charge, after leaving two of their number behind.

Tynisa’s ears were suddenly ringing with thunder, causing a moment of utter confusion in which an opportunistic spearman almost killed her outright. I know that sound. A nailbow, she realized with shock, dragged out of her bloody reverie. Who in the Commonweal would possess such a thing?

The weapon spoke again, and this time she spotted its wielder. A determined-looking Wasp-kinden had begun unleashing it on Whitehand’s people, its impact punching men and women off their feet. Tynisa went for him without a further thought, clearing others from her path like chaff.

He noticed her at the last moment, or someone had warned him, and she saw the Wasp drag the nailbow around towards her, but too late. He hauled on the trigger and the weapon boomed, a single bolt zipping past her ear even as she thrust her blade into the device’s workings. That was not a feat a rapier would normally have been capable of, for the nailbow was made of heavy steel, solid and durable enough to withstand the percussive recoil of its use, but her blade nevertheless sheared through some vital part of it and silenced the thing for ever.

Withdrawing the blade, she noted with approval the Wasp’s expression of disbelief, then an arrow rammed her shoulder and knocked her down.

For a second the pain of it utterly destroyed her, so large in her mind that there was no room to think of anything else.

Then it was gone again, caged away in the furthest recesses of her skull, and she had already leapt to her feet, the sword that had flown from her right hand now secure in her left.