Dragonfly Falling (78 page)

From
who?
she demanded, stalking out of her tent with her greatsword balanced
on her shoulder.

A
mixed force, Tactician: Flies, Scorpions, Spider-kinden, others I do not know—

And the speaker was gone
in a brief impression of shock and pain. There were others there clamouring for
her attention, but she blocked them out. With the remainder of her staff she
headed north, and it took all her control not to run.

Joined by the forces
reclaimed from Collegium’s north wall, she tried to make a decision, but she
craved only an outcome that would enable her to sack Collegium, and that goal
was fast receding. Her eastern force was pinned against the very wall they should
have been taking, under attack from the defenders above and from the
inexplicable new forces that had come in off the sea. Her western force was
held in the city by the Tarkesh, and under attack from the rear by the
copper-armoured strangers. She had but a third of her army left to her name.

We
will attack.
If she returned to Vek with this disgrace, then she would
never have the respect of her kind again. She began marching her forces back
towards the city walls. The breach was still there, so she would force her way
into the city and then proceed to hold it against the newcomers.

Ahead, a force had
gathered to oppose her. There were Tarkesh there, and the copper men, and many,
many diverse men and women of Collegium, Beetles and all other kinden. They outnumbered
her surviving force by more than three to one.

They were not Ant-kinden
in the main, though, so they could not stand together and fight together as
Ant-kinden could. What were such odds, therefore, compared to the iron
discipline of Vek?

Shields
to the fore and stand fast
, she ordered, for the enemy were charging
now, coming for her people at a run, hoping to break them. Obedient to her
will, her soldiers closed ranks, crouched behind their shields, and waited to
weather the assault.
Crossbows. Volley fire.

She saw the first sheet
of crossbow bolts strike them, saw some parts of the attacking force crumble
back, others press on. The Tarkesh held, and so did the copper men, while the
exhausted locals were knocked back, thrown into confusion. Many of them had not
even possessed shields.

Hold
firm. Throw them back.

She sensed the
realization go through the enemy Ant-kinden that their assault had failed
before contact was made. Almost immediately they were making their withdrawal,
the enemy force falling back piecemeal to its starting point and leaving its
dead behind. She herself had suffered barely a dozen casualties.

Artillery!
came the warning in her mind. The repeating ballistae had now been brought up
from the beach, and the copper-skinned artificers were setting them up with
grim efficiency. The Vekken force was well within their range.

Shields
,
she ordered.
Advance. Drive them into the sea.

The mass of Vekken
infantry, her prize soldiers, the finest in the world, locked shield to shield,
before them and overhead, and marched forward in double time towards the enemy
line.
Let them use their ballistae when it has become sword
against sword
, she thought.

The artillery was now
launching, the bolts peppering her lines, punching through shields, knocking
holes in her formation that were quickly filled. There was still confusion as
her enemies tried to arrange their line. She saw, to her surprise, that they
were going to charge again, to try to halt her by the sheer force of their
momentum, to wrap around and take her force in the flanks.

An
Ant-kinden army has no flanks.
The men at the sides would simply turn to
face their aggressors like pieces in the machine. Collegium could still be
hers.

They were in crossbow
range now, both sides loosing a torrent of bolts to thud into shield or stab
into armoured flesh. Then she saw her enemies gather what courage they had left
and charge her.

Hold
,
she instructed, and then,
Cut them to pieces—

Something loomed just
then over the enemy force, something dark in the great span of sea and sky
behind them. It was rushing towards her army, coursing with and around and
between her enemies: a great barbed shadow cast by nothing at all, but thorned
and spined and shifting like the shadows between great trees, and Akalia screamed,
in her mind and out loud, as it descended upon them.

It was a trick of the
light, or a moment’s hallucination, but every man and woman of her army saw it
just as she did, and they shifted and started, and their shields slipped, and
then the enemy struck them.

*

It was a long time ago.
It seemed a hundred years ago. It seemed like yesterday.

They were already
rebuilding, Stenwold knew with satisfaction. They were planning the
regeneration of Collegium, from the wounds it had inflicted on itself, and the
wounds the Vekken had dealt it.

And
I would rather be out there with them
, but that was not true.
I would rather be at home
. He did not want to be here in
the Amphiophos in his formal robes.

‘Master Maker, can I
introduce the Lord-Martial Teornis of the Aldanrael?’ asked Lineo Thadspar,
stepping into his view.

Stenwold managed a weary
bow to the immaculate Spider-kinden Aristos. This was the one who had commanded
the fleet, he realized: the man who had saved Collegium.

The Amphiophos was full
of new faces today, but most keenly he felt the lack of so many of the old
ones. The Assembly, like the city it governed, was peppered with holes. Where
now was Waybright, who had fallen to a crossbow bolt on the east wall? Where
was Doctor Nicrephos, and where was the stern old visage of Kymon of Kes?

‘Lord-Martial, I have no
words to thank you,’ he said, all too truthfully. ‘I had not thought the
Spiderlands would be such a supporter of our city.’

‘The Spiderlands holds
no single opinion as one entity, nor takes any single action, War Master,’
replied Teornis drily. ‘However, I myself see sufficient advantage in trade and
political futures to go so far on behalf of your city. You must thank another,
though, for the invitation.’

Stenwold could see, from
Thadspar’s face, that this was something new, and he made a politely enquiring
sound.

‘You are acquainted with
a most enchanting member of my kind named Tynisa, are you not?’

‘You’ve seen Tynisa?’
gasped Stenwold. ‘Where?’ The world was making no sense to him now.
Is it because I am so tired, or it is really all nonsense?

‘The full story I shall
tell you when we can find more leisure,’ Teornis promised. ‘It is unfinished as
yet, for she and her companion had some small matters to attend to before their
own return, or else I would have offered them space on my flagship.’

Stenwold nodded, mind
still reeling, and thanked him again before looking for a place to sit down. It
was five days since the Vekken army had been defeated and Collegium saved, but
people still moved about their city as though there was a war going on. There
were a great many foreigners here, and the locals regarded them nervously. If
Teornis had wanted Collegium for himself he could have made a serious attempt
on her, Stenwold knew, and in their negotiations the day after the battle the
Spider had pointedly not quite said as much. Stenwold knew a little of the
trade concessions that the Aldanrael family would reap from this, the loans and
the technology and the student places at the College, even two Master’s seats
that were also seats on the Assembly.

‘Commander Parops,’
Thadspar said, drifting past. The Tarkesh officer was still in his armour, and
he shook Sten-wold’s hand heartily. ‘You’re Stenwold Maker!’ he said.

‘I am indeed,’ Stenwold
admitted. He still felt that he should sit down, but just now he was supposed
to be a diplomat. It was a wrenching change from being a soldier, and after an
hour of this he was not sure which he preferred.

‘You know a Fly-kinden,
name of Nero,’ Parops informed him.

It was obviously a day
for name-dropping. ‘Yes, I do,’ Stenwold said, ‘although it has been a long
time since I’ve seen him.’

‘Then I have a lot I can
tell you,’ said Parops. Then, seeing Thadspar anxious to introduce him to
others, he grimaced and added, ‘Later, though.’

I
can see I’ll not have many evenings free for a while.
Stenwold allowed
himself to lean back against a convenient wall, before he saw another Assembler
approaching him, leading a copper-hued man of rangy build.

‘This is
Artificer-Commander . . .’ the Assembler started, and the name had obviously
evaded him.

‘Dariaxes,’ said the
copper-coloured, copper-clad man whose eyes were a startling red.

‘Commander Dariaxes is
Fire Ant-kinden from Porphyris,’ the Assembler announced excitedly. ‘This is the
first-ever formal contact between our cities. Isn’t that remarkable, Master
Maker?’

Stenwold tiredly
conceded that it was. ‘I am only pleased our first meeting is under such
amicable terms, Commander,’ he said. ‘Your men are . . . mercenaries for the Spiders?’

‘My city is a satrapy of
the Spiderlands,’ Dariaxes corrected. It was a word Stenwold was only vaguely
familiar with but the context told him more than he was happy with. How
different was a satrapy from a city the Wasps had conquered? He supposed that
the chief difference would be that the Spider-kinden, who could convince anyone
of anything, had probably persuaded the Fire Ants that they were perfectly
content with their servitude. They were not the only ones, though, that was
clear. The Spider-lands were vast – unmapped as far as any reliable atlas of
Collegium went – and the Fire Ants had not come alone. Stenwold had already
been introduced to a Dragonfly soldier whose ancestors in the Days of Lore had
fled so far from the Commonweal that the Spiders had taken them in.

Sour thoughts were easy
to hold, with the scars of the war still so fresh. Dariaxes’s men had died
outside the walls to make his city safe, and there had been Spider-kinden
amongst the dead too, along with Scorpion mercenaries and a dozen other races.

‘Collegium thanks you,’
he told Dariaxes, whose smile told him he had guessed at some of the thoughts
in Stenwold’s mind.

Stenwold glanced around
the room, seeking escape, and he picked Balkus out of the crowd – a full head
over anyone except the Scorpion captain. The big Ant was, at least, enjoying
himself. He had a bandage on his face, still, where a Vekken sword had cut open
his cheek, but he was still managing to form a smile around it, and there was a
young Beetle-kinden woman, an artificer of the College, hanging adoringly on
his arm. Stenwold could not begrudge him that.

There was a touch at his
elbow, and he turned to see Arianna, with one hand resting on the sling that
marked his own war-wound.

‘Ah,’ he said, with
false jollity, ‘you’re here to tell me there’s something urgent I need to
attend to.’

‘Yes, I am,’ she said,
with such intensity that his stomach lurched.

‘Something’s happened?’
he said, instantly worried. ‘What?’

There was such a serious
look on her face that it could be nothing good. ‘You had better come with me,’
she said. ‘Some of the guardsmen outside have picked up someone who came asking
for you. You need to see this.’

She led him outside,
while he was still trying to figure out who it could be. True, everyone seemed
to have learned his name during the war, but he had hoped to return to
obscurity as soon as it was over.

‘In here,’ Arianna
guided him, tense as a taut wire, her hand seeking her knife-hilt. Stenwold’s
mind was full of wild speculation as he looked inside, but none wild enough to
prepare him for what he saw.

Sitting at a table,
between two men of the city militia, was none other than Major Thalric of the
Rekef.

*

Beyond the wide tiered
steps of the Amphiophos, where the Assembly of Collegium met, there was a broad
plaza where ancient statute forbade any market trader to set up stall. In
former times the people of the city had gathered there to hear proclamations
from their most respected leaders, but more recently it had been a good vantage
point from which to protest, wave banners, shout obscenities and throw things
at the Assemblers as they hurried inside.

Now it had been returned
to its original purpose. The people of Collegium packed it, wall to wall,
shoulder to shoulder, with their children held up high to see too, and
Fly-kinden thronging every window-ledge, and the roof-gardens packed with even
more, since residents were allowing complete strangers up through their houses
to enable them to witness this gem of history being cut and mounted.

Stenwold, one of that
gem’s key facets, had a hard time bringing his thoughts to the moment. When
Thalric had told him that the Wasp major had fled from his own people, Stenwold
had not believed him at first, despite the deep wound in his erstwhile enemy’s
side that some Inapt healer had neatly dressed. Then Stenwold had recognized
the livid mark across the man’s face as the result of burning from a Wasp
sting, and had begun to think. Arianna had urged him not to believe anything
the man said, for Thalric was subtle as a Spider, she said, and Stenwold had no
doubt that was true.

But even Spiders, it was
said, got caught in their own traps, every so often.

Lineo Thadspar led them
out onto the steps, and the roar of approval seemed to shake the very marble
beneath them, making Stenwold stagger a little until Balkus caught his good arm
to steady him. There were no words in that roar, but the unadulterated joy of a
people freed from terror. Ever since the previous Vekken attack had retreated
from the city before the arrival of a Sarnesh relief force, in the days when
these grown men of Collegium were but boys, there had been the knowledge that
the Vekken would try again. Now the Vekken army had been smashed so decisively
it would take that city a decade to regain its strength.