Part 10 (1/2)

Nero shook his head. 'I have a bow upstairs in my room,' he remarked philosophically. 'I think I shall go and string it.' He left Totho gaping.

But gaping would solve nothing. Totho stumbled back into his room and wrestled on his leather work-coat: that would serve as armour better than his bare skin would. He had the repeating crossbow that Scuto had given him and he slung on his sword-baldric that had a bag of quarrel magazines hanging from it.

I am no soldier, he inwardly protested. But the Wasps would not care.

Totho blundered out into the hall again.

'Hey, Beetle-boy? You fighting now?'

It was Skrill. She wore her metal scale vest and her bow and, to his surprise, she looked more frightened than he felt.

'I suppose,' he said uncertainly.

She clapped him on the shoulder. 'I'll stick right with you then, Beetle-Boy. Whole world's coming apart at the seams.'

And it was. Another shudder racked Parops's tower, and Totho pushed his way to the door and flung it open.

Behind him, Skrill uttered something, some awed exclamation, but his ears were so crammed with the sound from outside that he heard not one word.

The wall was down. The wall beside the tower had fallen and was still falling. Totho saw the stones of the lower reaches bulge and stretch like soft cheese, shrugging off the colossal weight of their higher-up brethren, so that to the left and right of the breach whole stretches of wall were bulging inwards or outwards as though pressed either way by a giant's hand.

There were Ant soldiers running for the gaping breach, each man and woman falling into formation even as they ran, s.h.i.+elds before them, locked rim over rim. The stones fell on them as they ma.s.sed forwards.

There were other soldiers charging the breach from the outside. For a moment Totho could not work it out at all. The s.h.i.+elds of the defenders were meeting the same locked rectangles of the attackers, and in the poor light of the moon he could see no difference between them. Ant against Ant, shortswords stabbing over s.h.i.+eld-tops, second-rank crossbows shooting, almost close enough to touch, into the faces of the enemy, and all happening in silence: metal noises aplenty but not a cry, not an order yelled on either side. The battle line twisted and swayed over the breach, which widened and widened, dropping further stones that slammed gaps into the ranks of both sides.

The skies were full. He found himself dropping to one knee, a hand up to s.h.i.+eld him. The skies were crowded tonight with a host of madmen out for blood. There were Wasp soldiers darting and pa.s.sing there above, and the spear-wielding savages in their howling hosts. From the rooftops of nearby houses, from the ground and the still-standing wall, Ant crossbows were constantly spitting. As Totho's wild gaze took in the archers, he saw that most were merely in tunics, others were near naked. They were citizens, off-duty soldiers, the elderly or children no more than thirteen straining to rec.o.c.k their bows by using both hands.

The skies were busy with more than just flying men. Even as Totho watched, a great dark shape cut through a formation of the Wasp light airborne, its powering wings sounding a metal clatter over all the rest. Totho saw the flash of nailbows from within and knew it must be a Tarkesh orthopter. More of the machines flapped, some loosing their weapons against the airborne while others were dropping explosives on attackers beyond the wall.

Beyond the wall: there were more, then. Totho craned up and saw the trebuchet on Parops's tower pivoting, leaning at an angle, launching a missile past the section of wall that still held the gate. Then something thundered over it, and there was the flash of incendiaries that briefly silhouetted the siege weapon in sharp detail. Moments later it was on fire, and Totho saw one of its crew drop blazing down onto the soldiers fighting below. He hoped Parops was well clear.

The juddering machine flew on, a great ugly heliopter clinging to the air with its three labouring rotors. It would have been a simple matter to dispatch it with artillery or with the orthopters but the Wasps had given Tark all manner of distractions tonight.

Totho raised his crossbow, but the sky was such a jumble that he could find no sense in it. He fell back against the tower wall, feeling the stones s.h.i.+ft against one another. He had never been intended to see this: it was a world the sedate College had no words for.

Cheerwell, he cried in his mind, but no doubt she had already forgotten him in his self-imposed exile.

Skrill crouched beside him, tracking a pa.s.sing Wasp with her bow and sending the arrow off, a hiss of annoyance already on her lips as she saw her shot fall short. Totho himself could not even manage to shoot, though. The a.s.sault on his senses was overwhelming.

He had put his sword into Captain Halrad, all those tendays before, put it right into his back as they had escaped the Sky Without Sky Without. The first blood he had ever shed and it had been spilled for Che Maker. He had been there, as one of Stenwold's men, but only for Che.

He had fought in h.e.l.leron and then tracked her into the very Empire, stealing into the Governor's Palace in Myna. He had used this same crossbow to kill Wasps there, and it had been to rescue Che, to bring her safely home.

But in gaining her he found he had lost her. Her heart had been stolen from him. Stolen, because she had barely met the other man, Achaeos, the Moth-kinden deceiver. And in the end, for her sake, he had left to go along with Salma, to go to war.

He knew a great tide of despair that almost eclipsed him, and when it receded he found himself standing, shooting into the soldiers pa.s.sing overhead, dragging the lever back over and over until the wooden magazine was empty, and then reaching for another from his bag.

Outside the city wall the advancing infantry of the Empire was almost untroubled, as the defenders sent their missiles at the flying corps or at Anadus's Ant-kinden. Captain Anadus's men had not been able to press into the breach, for the Tarkesh were holding them at bay, although the carnage on both sides was unspeakable. The very bodies of the dead were now starting to clog the gap. This was the ancient war that the Ant-kinden had always waged upon themselves. s.h.i.+eld rammed against s.h.i.+eld, neither side would give an inch.

Drephos's new engine was almost at the gates, s.h.i.+elded from above by a great curved iron coping. It was a lead-shotter in essence, a siege engine that should launch great powder-charged b.a.l.l.s of stone or metal. Drephos, however, had given it a new purpose.

Captain Czerig himself had taken on this duty, along with two of his artificers. The three of them now sheltered under the eaves of the machine's metal roof, and guided it forwards until it was mere feet away from the gate. Behind them came a ma.s.s of Wasp armoured infantry, bristling with spears and desperate to join the fight.

The sound of missiles above them was more persistent now. If the Tarkesh got a siege engine to bear on them it would be over. The Tarkesh had other things to think about, he knew.

The Wasp army had ramming engines, of course, but they traditionally relied on their engines' power to push through the barriers. Drephos had a better plan, though. Czerig gave the signal and his artificer had the great machine ratchet back, cogs and gears moving the foot-thick arm into place. There was a firepowder charge in the chamber that could have hurled a stone from the Wasp camp all the way over Tark's walls, but its force would now be concentrated into the three-knuckled metal fist. Czerig did not like Drephos: the man made him s.h.i.+ver to his very core. Nevertheless, there was no denying his skill as an artificer.

'Stand clear,' he said, and his men scurried back, raising round s.h.i.+elds against the engine itself in case it failed.

He took a deep breath and released the catch. The powder exploded, swathing them instantly in thick, foul smoke, and the trapped power of the charge went into the ram that punched against the gates of Tark. Czerig heard them bend inwards, heard the crunch of ruined wood, the snap of metal fixings.

His artificers were already moving to draw the ram back and put a second charge in place. Something heavy struck the coping above and bounded off, either engine-shot or a stone hurled from the walls. Czerig remained phlegmatic: the ram would succeed or fail, he himself would live or die. He was a slave of the Wasps without hope of freedom and he found he cared little enough.

Across the field his fellow slaves of war were marching into battle, dwarfing the Wasp soldiers all around them. The giants were striding forth and Captain Czerig felt a stab of sorrow. They were so wretched, he knew: they hated the fighting even more than he did, had less hope even than he.

In his heart he wished them luck or a swift death.

There were a dozen of them only, half of their kinden's unwilling contingent currently serving with the Wasp Fourth Army. As tall as two men, as broad as three, sporting ma.s.sive slabs of metal armour and thick sheets of studded leather that would crush a normal warrior, they bore great spade-headed spears and seven-foot s.h.i.+elds of metal and wood. They now moved with five-foot strides towards the walls of Tark. Mole Cricket-kinden they were and, like the other Auxillians, they were slaves whose families were held hostage to their loyal service. Few and reclusive, to them it seemed that they had always been slaves to someone or other. They had laboured and built for the Moth-kinden and Spiders when the world was younger and the revolution still a dream, but at least their masters had known where their true skills lay. Now the Wasp-kinden had garrisoned their towns and their mines, and turned them into warriors.

There was some shot coming from the city walls now and they put their s.h.i.+elds up, feeling the metal shudder as crossbow bolts bounced from them. Their kind were onyx-skinned and pale-haired, huge and strong, but, though they were armoured like automotives, a keen shot with a crossbow could finish them, just like any mortal man.

But their present enemies were creatures of the surface and the sun, while the Mole Crickets saw better at night than in daylight. They were closing on the walls.

Their leader glanced left, seeing old Czerig with the ram and that the gates were almost broken through. No doubt it was important to the Wasps that all these holes be made in one go. He had no wish to learn strategy himself.

A fistful of grenades suddenly landed all around them, dropped from an orthopter already burning, even as it pa.s.sed overhead. An instant volley of explosions erupted about them, killing three and wounding another, denting and splitting s.h.i.+elds. The remainder picked up their pace. Their orders were to go through the wall, they knew, and then through the men beyond.

None of them would survive. So much seemed certain. The Mole Cricket leader braced himself as the great stones loomed before him.

Pardon this violence, he said silently, dropping his spear and s.h.i.+eld. His great chisel-nailed hands found the gaps between the stones, and he called upon his ancestors, called upon the Art they had given him. The stones within his grasp and those his brothers grasped began to soften and to s.h.i.+ft.

Totho found himself crouching against some of the fallen wall, frantically slotting another magazine in place and knowing he was almost out of ammunition. Skrill was behind him, her back to his, sending sporadic arrows up at the enemy. More and more Ants were coming to help hold the breach, and even Totho could see how the attacking force was being made to give ground, every inch of it bought in blood. Above them the cavalry had arrived, Ant-kinden soldiers riding great winged insects, c.u.mbersome in flight as they buzzed ponderously through the darting Wasp airborne. Each flying beast had a big repeating crossbow mounted above its thorax and soon the newcomers were taking a savage toll of the enemy.

Knowing that Salma was up there somewhere, Totho just hoped he would be safe, but he could spare him no further thought.

Yet more Ant-kinden were coming to join the defence. Some had brought packs of giant ants under leash, drawn from the nest of tunnels beneath the city. The creatures were the guards and soldiers of the nest below, and another resource the city could barely spare, but they had stings and jagged mandibles. As soon as they were within sight of the enemy their leashes were loosed, and they scuttled towards the foe with jaws gaping in idiot threat.

Totho tried to track another Wasp soldier while the man darted overhead, hands spitting golden fire. Then one of the Wasp heliopters rumbled past, and Totho noticed it was failing, one of its rotors torn and still. The ponderous, blocky machine limped through the air, tilting and tilting further. One of the great flying insects was clinging to its side, riderless, peeling at the metal casing with its jaws. Then it went out of sight over the rooftops, but Totho felt it come down, felt the ground shake and heard the sudden blast as its engine ruptured and its fuel exploded. Looking over the rooftops he saw the night was punctuated by a dozen red gleams where Tark was burning.

There was a sudden sense of movement around him, Ants pus.h.i.+ng into him, wordless but eyes wide as some unheard alarm went through their heads.

A bright light, a sound he was lifted up by a great hand. He heard Skrill scream and then . . . and then . . . Nothing.

Totho's head was ringing, and he did not know why. He was aware of lying on some uneven surface and there seemed to be a great deal of noise and confusion going on. He sat up, clutching his head, and then saw what he was lying on.

Bodies.