Adrian Tchaikovsky - Salute the Dark

‘We’re at war now, and the Sarnesh understand that they have to put aside their preferences,’ Stenwold replied. ‘And you have more experience than anyone else in the army here.’

‘Well, you’ve got that right,’ Balkus grunted.

‘Shall we inspect the troops, now?’ Stenwold asked. The Ant nodded gloomily and led the way out of the hall of the Amphiophos, Collegium’s seat of government. While Stenwold had been in Sarn, arguing diplomacy, Balkus had been training troops here at home. Collegium had never possessed a standing army and, although the recent siege by the Ants of Vek had created hundreds of veterans, it was short of full-time soldiers. Balkus would not normally have been considered officer material in anyone’s book, but he had a loud voice, and he was an Ant, meaning warfare in his very veins. What he had so far made out of the recruits they had given him was nothing to compare to a properly regimented Ant-kinden force, but it was something entirely new to Collegium.

There were already a dozen other officers waiting on the steps of the Amphiophos, leaders of the merchant companies watching as their troops assembled in the square below. They were Beetle-kinden men and women for the most part, broad and solid of build, wearing breastplates over quilted hauberks padded out with twists of rag and fibre that, in theory, would slow or even stop a crossbow or snapbow bolt. They also wore caps armoured with curved metal plates designed to deflect shot. As armour went, it was very new and mostly untested. The breastplates had all been stencilled with the arms of the Prowess Forum, namely a sword over an open book sketched in silver lines across the dark metal, but many of the officers and their gathering charges had overlaid these with sashes and surcoats carrying the various company badges they had chosen to display.

There had been no time for complex planning, or for establishing elaborate networks of supply or support. On the other hand, since Collegium had begun building its army from scratch, it had created something uniquely Beetle and previously unseen. The term the war council had coined was ‘bow and pike’. A third of the soldiers were equipped with glaive-headed polearms, the stock-in-trade of watchmen everywhere, to hold off an enemy either on the ground or in the air. The rest were armed to fight at a greater distance. The Wasps were not an enemy to stand solidly together like Ant-kinden and hack at close quarters. Instead they moved swiftly, struck from range or attacked from above. The square before the Amphiophos was currently filled with repeating crossbows, nailbows and the new snapbows, the Beetle-kinden having taken to the weapon so readily that its designer might have specially intended it for them.

Could it be that the Wasps themselves have given us the tool we needed to defeat them?

There were some from other kinden too, for Collegium was not too proud to turn away any who wished to help. The army would include Fly-kinden spotters and archers, and some of the pikemen were Mantis-kinden or Spiders. There were Ants of four or five different cities amongst the ranks, all former renegades like Balkus who had given their tireless loyalty to Collegium.

The city was now sending just under a thousand soldiers to reinforce Sarn – because if Sarn fell, then Collegium might as well surrender. It was the one point that the war council had not bickered about. Several times that number of battle-ready troops would remain to guard the walls of the city against a surprise attack by the Wasps, or even by the Vekken. Meanwhile volunteers kept arriving in droves for the new regiments.

My city will be changed irrevocably by this , Stenwold reflected. Not for the better, either – we could have lived happily without this war.

The sound of precisely marching feet came to his ears and the final part of the relief force came into view with a discipline that shamed the locals. Commander Parops had arrived, with 700 pale-skinned Tarkesh Ants to his name. This was the bulk of the Free Army of Tark, as Parops himself had named it, comprising the military strength of his currently occupied city. They were the best-armed Ant-kinden in the world, just now: every second man of them carried a snapbow as well as a sword and shield, and many sported nailbows and crossbows as well. Their linked minds meant that this entire force could go from weapon to weapon, in whole or in part, as the battle demanded. They would form the core of the Collegiate force, from whom the locals would take their strength and their example.

Parops halted his men and strode up the steps towards Stenwold.

‘All ready to go, War Master,’ he said, and smiled because he knew Stenwold could not abide that title.

‘The troop trains are waiting at the station,’ Stenwold confirmed. ‘Already loaded with supplies, canvas, even some light artillery, I’m told.’ He clapped the Tarkesh on the shoulder. ‘I know what’s at stake for you, Commander.’

Parops nodded soberly. ‘The Sarnesh are bound to be cursed ungrateful hosts as well, but we’re short of choices right now and my soldiers want to fight. With your permission, I’ll begin getting them stowed on board.’

Stenwold nodded silently and the Ant marched back to his men and began to move them out. Stenwold turned to Balkus to find him now a little distance away, kneeling down by a small figure that was hugging him tightly. Sperra, Stenwold saw, was looking better in health than she had been before, though clearly upset that the Ant was leaving. She and Balkus had been close since their time as agents working for Stenwold’s cause in Helleron.

‘You look after yourself, you oaf,’ Sperra was ordering him. ‘Don’t you dare let anything happen to you.’

‘What could happen to me?’ Balkus replied, trying hard to smile. ‘And if those Sarnesh give me any grief, I’ll give them double in return.’

‘You do that,’ she hissed fiercely, and clung to him one last time, before letting go and giving place to Stenwold.

‘Suppose this is it.’ Balkus grimaced.

‘You’ve said your other goodbyes?’ Stenwold asked.

Balkus grinned. ‘To those that have time for it. Everyone seems to have something urgent on their minds right now.’

‘That’s true enough.’ Between Achaeos’ injuries and whatever emotional gauntlet Tisamon seemed to be putting himself through, it had been a lonely time for Sten-wold recently. ‘Good luck, Commander. I hope you won’t need it, but good luck all the same.’

‘A man always needs luck,’ Balkus murmured, and went down into the square to order his troops. All around the Amphiophos square men and women were bidding goodbye to their loved ones: wives, husbands, parents, children. Beetles in unfamiliar armour bent for a last embrace from a lover, friends clasped hands, business partners thrust forward knapsacks of choice tidbits from the stock to lighten the journey. Eyes took one last look over the roofs of Collegium, the Amphiophos and the College, and there cannot have been many who did not wonder whether they would see any of it again – or what flag would be flying over it if they did.

Tisamon had spent the day deliberately seeing no one. He had found a high tower of the College, the stairs leading to it thick with dust, and some abandoned study given over by its occupant in exchange for somewhere less exerting. It gave him a fine view of the city, if he had wanted it, but instead he looked up at the sky. Even the clouds that scudded there, ragged nomads in that vast blue, weighed upon him. He felt as though he was dying.

He should be with Tynisa now, he knew. She was suffering, and he should go to her. It was good Mantis suffering, though, and that was what she did not understand yet. They had brought her up amongst soft Beetle-kinden, who did everything in their power to stave off pain, and so she had never learned the catharsis of hurt.