The fourth chair remained empty, but Alder's third and most problematical colonel was usually late and kept his own timetable. The general's hand itched to strike the man every time he saw him, but some talents were precious enough for him to suffer a little insolence. For now at least. For now at least.

The others were a.s.sembling in a semicircle before those seats: field brigade majors, the head of the Engineering Corps, the local Rekef observer posing as military intelligence. Behind them were the Auxillian captains from Maynes and Szar, their heads bowed, hoping not to be singled out.

Still Alder waited, whilst Colonel Edric fidgeted and played with the chinstrap of his helm.

His missing colonel remained absent, but she she came at last. He had not ordered her to attend. Supposedly he could not, although he could have had her marched into his tent or out of the camp any time he wished. Instead, he kept a civil accord with her because an officer who was seen to drive away any of the Mercy's Daughters was an officer soon disliked by the men. came at last. He had not ordered her to attend. Supposedly he could not, although he could have had her marched into his tent or out of the camp any time he wished. Instead, he kept a civil accord with her because an officer who was seen to drive away any of the Mercy's Daughters was an officer soon disliked by the men.

'Norsa,' he said, although he had greeted none of the others.

'General.' Norsa was an elderly Wasp-kinden woman in pale lemon robes, walking with the aid of a plain staff. Alder's respect for her was based in part on that staff and the limp it aided, which had been gained in battle, retrieving the wounded.

'Colonel Edric. The morale amongst your . . . adherents?' Alder asked.

'Ready to make a second pa.s.s on your word, General,' Edric confirmed.

'I suppose we should be grateful that they're all so stupid,' Alder said, noticing the sudden crease in Edric's forehead. The fool believes it. He's gone native. The fool believes it. He's gone native. In that case it was an illness that time would soon cure. In that case it was an illness that time would soon cure.

'Major Grigan. We lost three engines, I counted.'

The Engineering Corps major nodded, not meeting Alder's eyes. 'We can retrieve parts, and we have enough spares in the train to construct six new from the pieces.'

'Your estimation of their defences?'

Grigan looked unhappy. 'Maybe we could go against them again tomorrow. Don't think we made too much impression. Can't be sure, sir.'

'I want your opinion, Major,' Alder said sternly.

'But he doesn't have one, General,' snipped out a new voice, sharp and sardonic. Here was the errant colonel at last and, despite the man's usefulness, Alder always preferred a meeting where he did not appear.

'Drephos,' Alder acknowledged him.

'He prefers to defer to my opinions, since my judgment is sounder.' The newcomer swept past Grigan with a staggering disrespect for a man of his heritage. He wore an officer's breastplate over dark and decidedly non-uniform robes. A cowl hid his face. 'General, the normal engines just won't dent those walls.'

'Well, Colonel-Auxillian Drephos, just what do you suggest?'

'I have some toys I'm longing to set on the place,' Drephos's voice rose from within the cowl, rippling with amus.e.m.e.nt, 'but I'll need the cover of a full a.s.sault to do so. Specifically, throw enough men at those emplacements atop the towers, as their crews are too skilled for my liking.'

'Well we wouldn't want to see any of your toys broken,' Alder said.

'Not when they're going to win your war for you.' With his halting tread Drephos took up the final seat, on the other side of Colonel Carvoc. 'We all know the plan, General,' he continued. 'And the first part of the plan is to knock a few holes in those walls of theirs. Give me the cover of a full a.s.sault and I'll work my masterpiece. Stand back and watch me.'

'A full a.s.sault will cost thousands of lives,' Carvoc noted, 'and it will be difficult to sustain it for long.'

'Don't think I'll need all that long. Mine are exquisitely clever toys,' Drephos said, delighted with his own genius as usual. 'I'd suggest that you start by putting your usual tedious engines up front, give them something to aim at. While you're at it, give the archers on the inside something to think about. We all know Ant-kinden: if it works, they won't change it. Which always means they only try to mend something after after it breaks. And if something breaks messily and finally enough, well, we artificers know that sometimes things just can't be fixed.' it breaks. And if something breaks messily and finally enough, well, we artificers know that sometimes things just can't be fixed.'

Salma awoke as she slipped from his bed. There was wan light spilling sullenly from the two slit windows up near the ceiling, and it caught the paleness of her skin. He had never known skin so pale, like alabaster with ashen shadows. In that grim, colourless light she seemed to glow, picked out from all the surrounding room.

Her name, he recalled, was Basila. Her second interrogation had been gentler than the first, and the third, after the hours of night, gentler still. He had not believed, quite, that these Ant-kinden even possessed a concept for the soft arts, as his people called the intimate act. They seemed all edges and planes and cold practicality. There had been heat aplenty, though, until he wondered just how many women across the city he was making love to simultaneously. She was stronger than he was, and fierce, constantly wresting control from him, an officer commandeering a civilian. For a man used to casually seducing women, it had been quite an experience.

He watched, eyes half open, as she pulled on her tunic and breeches. She was lacing her sandals before she noticed his watching attention.

'You might as well sleep,' she said.

'I'm awake now. It's dawn already?'

'It is. I have duties.'

He watched as she shrugged on her chainmail, twisting for the side-buckles from long practice. He knew, or at least suspected, that they would not lie together again, that it had been merely curiosity that had drawn her to him. For his part it had been, at least, a way of showing the world and this city that his destiny had not escaped entirely from his own grasp.

Back in Collegium his liaisons had been the t.i.tillation and scandal of the Great College, scandal most particularly among those he had pa.s.sed over or those who would have indulged in the same liaisons if they had dared. The strait-laced of Collegium would not have believed it, but Salma's own kinden had a strict morality of coupling. It divided the world of the preferred gender into two parts, not based on race or social standing or anything other than the subjective feelings of the individual concerned: sleep where you wish, amongst those who mean little to you, and amongst those to whom you mean little. Amuse yourself as you will, but with those close to you, those who love you or those you love, bestow your affections only where they are sincerely meant.

He had never elaborated on this creed for Collegium, for there it would not have been understood. He had never lain with Tynisa who had, he knew, wanted it. Particularly he had never lain with Cheerwell, who would have agreed, for all the wrong reasons, if he had asked.

Basila buckled on her sword and, seeing Salma smiling at her, ventured a small one of her own.

'Off to a hard day's beating people?' he asked, and her smile slipped. He a.s.sumed it was annoyance at him, but then she said, 'It is dawn. The enemy is advancing on the walls.'

He dressed as fast as he could, his belongings having been returned to him. He took up the stolen Wasp sword without even buckling on a scabbard. Basila was now gone to join her unit or await prisoners or whatever she had to do. She had left him to cower here behind doors like the slaves of Tark and await his fate, and that cut deep.

He found Totho emerging from the next-door room just as he left. For a second he had time to wonder whether the halfbreed artificer had heard anything of the previous night's activities, before recalling that Basila, of course, had been silent throughout.

So Totho heard nothing but the whole city knows we did it. He had to grin privately at that. He had to grin privately at that.

'What's going on?' Totho asked sleepily.

'The Wasps are attacking. Get your sword and bow.'

'But the Ants won't let us fight-'

'Totho, if enough of the Wasps get over the wall, then our hosts' preferences won't come into it.'

Salma bolted up the stairs as Totho turned back for his gear.

They had been billeted in the rooms beneath Parops's tower. Salma chose the first outside door, the ground-level door, and stopped with it half open, frozen.

The s.p.a.ce before the gate was filled with ranks of Ant-kinden soldiers with crossbows and plenty of quarrels. Above them the walls, their crenellations slightly scarred from the previous day, were lined with more of them, and some of those had greater weapons. There were nailbow-men there with their blocky, firepowder-charged devices, and two-man teams with great winch-operated repeating crossbows resting on the walls.

They were shooting. All the men on the walls were shooting, either straight ahead or slightly upwards. Salma heard the grinding thunder of mechanisms, and the arm of the trebuchet atop Parops's tower flung itself forward, slinging its load of man-sized stones in a high arc. All along the slice of wall that Salma could see, other engines were busy doing the same.

Then the Wasps were at the wall itself, and what he had only been told about became real.

The first wave was a great ragged sweep of spear-wielding savages who hurtled into a field of crossbow bolts. There were already deep holes punched in their scattered ma.s.s. Salma watched almost three in four get ripped from the sky in that first instant, as soon as their silhouettes appeared in the sky above the walls. Some were killed outright. Others screamed and plummeted from the air to be finished on the ground with pragmatic brutality. The surviving attackers paid them no heed. Some alighted on the walls. Others ploughed into the waiting men below or scattered across the city. They were in a blood-rage, foaming at the mouth, hurling their spears and blasting with their stings, drawing great slashing swords from their belts to lay about them. One came down close to the tower's entrance, flinging his lance with such force that it punched right through an Ant's chainmail, knocking the man off his feet. Salma leapt out instantly, taking to the air and dropping on the attacker with sword extended. Another Ant was there already, and the Wasp savage took both sword-blows simultaneously. He howled in something that was more rage than pain, swinging his own blade at Salma and then at the Ant soldier, cutting a long dent in the latter's shield before falling.

There was a second wave of them at the walls already, coming too swiftly for many of the soldiers to have reloaded, although the repeating bows had taken a savage toll of the incursors. There was now hand-to-hand fighting all along the wall, and attackers kept dropping, or sometimes falling, down into the courtyard before the gates.

Salma had never seen Ants in combat before. There was no confusion here, no hesitation. The invaders were set upon efficiently, without haste. All found that any Ant they attacked was ready for them as those they tried to surprise turned to see them. The Ants had a hundred pairs of eyes watching each one's back. The Wasps took a toll with their stings and their frenzied hacking, but how small that toll was! Most of their second wave had been turned into corpses, all for the loss of no more than two dozen defenders.

'Get back inside, you!' one of the Ants shouted over at him. 'No place here for a civilian.'

'I'm not a civilian!' Salma called back. 'Look, I have a sword!'

The man was about to answer him when something pulled his attention upwards. They were all looking up, and across all those raised faces one expression was asking: 'What . . . ?'

And then they were moving. Without a word, without panic or cries of alarm, they scattered as best they could. Those at the edge of the square were backing quickly into the side streets, others were pushing up against the wall itself. Some found the shelter of doors or doorways. All this in the s.p.a.ce of seconds. Salma would have remained standing still if an Ant had not cannoned into him, pushing him back into the tower door, where he collided with Totho so that all three of them fell in a heap.

The first explosion came across the other side, just left of the main gate. A crack of sound, a burst of fire and stone and dust, flinging half a dozen soldiers up and away, shearing through the next nearest squad with jagged metal and shards of stone. Up above, the trebuchet was winching itself ponderously round, while other enemy missiles were landing now, some right before the gates and others impacting on nearby buildings in a sporadic and random rain of fire. Wherever they struck, they split and burst, cracking stone and flinging pieces of their sh.e.l.ls in scything arcs. Soldiers everywhere were holding their shields up, falling back to what cover they could find. Each second yet another fireball burst close about the gates, and there had been so many soldiers gathered there a moment ago that each missile claimed at least one victim. Salma, clinging to the doorframe, saw shields punched inwards by the invisible fists of these explosions, a nearby door smashed to kindling, men and women given a second's notice before being blown apart.

Yet there were no screams, and it seemed horribly unreal with that essential element missing. The Wasps that had come in first had screamed and shouted in fury and terror, but the Ants even died in silence, save for whatever last words they conveyed through that essential communion between them. In their last moments, he wondered, was that link a blessing for the fallen, or a torture for those still standing?

The artillery atop the wall was still pounding away, and Salma could see the Ant-kinden weapons, the ballistae, catapults and all the other murderous toys of the Apt, pivoting and tilting to get the range of the enemy siege engines. Totho went struggling past him, repeating crossbow cradled in his hands, even as another wave of Wasps pa.s.sed overhead. These were the ones that Salma was familiar with, more disciplined and better armoured: the imperial light airborne. There were crossbows enough to deal with them but they had seized their moment and swiftly struck before the defenders had regrouped. Some circled overhead, spitting down with their stings, while others bedevilled the wall or pa.s.sed into the city. There were strangers amongst them, Salma spotted: men of another kinden wearing breastplates and leathers in the imperial colours. One of these pa.s.sed low over the crouching soldiers, and cast something behind him that erupted in a plume of fire and shattered paving flags.

Salma felt his wings flare into being before he had even decided what to do next, and an instant later he was springing for the wall-top. He caught a descending Wasp as he did so, the force of his flight driving his blade between the man's armour plates and doubling him up in agony. Salma let the sword go, pushing upwards the height of the wall to leap up next to another Wasp soldier while the man was grappling with one of the defenders. Salma twisted the blade from his hand and stabbed him with it before even alighting on the stone walkway.

It was not chaos, but it was not far off. Beyond the wall the plain was crawling with war machines. Many of them were still flinging their explosive burdens inside the city despite the presence there of their own men. The walkway of the wall had become a ma.s.s of small skirmishes. The Ants were stronger and more unified, but the Wasps could fly and they took full advantage of it, dragging men and women off the walls or stinging their victims from on high and swooping down on them from all angles.

But the defenders below were rallying. The crossbow-shot began to pick up, Wasp attackers plucked from the air by the increasingly thick and accurate barrage. There would be no chance for Salma to take wing now without the risk of being taken for an invader. He looked about for a chance to intervene and then a Wasp leapt at him from over the battlements, almost knocking him off the walkway altogether. He grappled fiercely with the man, each keeping the other's sword away. The Ants were fighting all around him but each would be waiting for a mental cry from him for help and Salma could not give it.

The Wasp was the stronger and he began forcing Salma back so that he was pushed half out off the wall, hanging over the battlefield beneath. The rough stone ground into Salma's ribs, but then he got a knee up into the man's groin and twisted around, using the soldier's own force to pitch him headfirst into s.p.a.ce.

The man's wings rescued him, but he took a crossbow bolt even as they did, and fell. Salma dropped to one knee behind the shelter of the crenellations and tried to take stock of what was going on. Most of the flying attackers had been dealt with but their artillery was still moving. Salma risked a quick look over the wall.

Some of the enemy engines had been destroyed, but others were still active and an explosive missile struck Parops's tower even as he watched. The Ant artillery seemed to be concentrating on the engines that were still advancing. He could see two of those in particular that seemed mostly armoured metal plates, like great woodlice, grinding forwards with their own mechanical power. One rocked under the impact of a scattering of great stones that put huge dents in its armour.

There were more fliers streaking overhead. One of the firepots landed on the walkway close by, throwing him from his feet and casting three Ant-kinden off the wall entirely, down onto their brethren below. As the next flier streaked close over the wall-top, he jumped up and rammed his sword home. The impetus of the man's flight nearly dragged Salma from the wall, but he succeeded in wrestling his opponent onto the walkway.

Something beyond the walls exploded thunderously, with enough force to shake every stone beneath his feet. He dropped onto the man he had just stabbed, his head ringing with the din, and then dragged himself upright to look.

The armoured engine was gone. Instead there was a crater ten yards across, and splintered metal thrown ten times that distance.

Its brother engine was unfound by the artillery so far, and now it began to attack. A fat nozzle in its front opened and spat a great stream of black liquid out onto the wall, coating and clinging to the stones. The Ants were shooting down on it but it was inside the arc of their artillery fire and crossbow bolts simply shivered to pieces or bounced from its plating. Salma watched in horror as the black stain spread across the face of the wall, before the flood slowed to a trickle and stopped.

The engine began to retrace its steps towards the Wasp camp, crawling backwards without even turning round, and the artillery did not a.s.sail it. Instead, the Ants were waiting to see what happened.

Nothing happened. The black liquid simply hugged the wall. Whatever terrible effect the Wasps had antic.i.p.ated did not materialize.

Salma dropped back down and rested his back to the stone crenellations. He saw beside him the body of the last man he had killed. It was one of the others, not a Wasp but a stocky, dark-skinned man in partial armour, with flat, closed features. He still lived, just, his eyes moving to seek out Salma's own. Then he died.

What city? What kinden? Where had the Wasps taken this luckless man from, to force him to fight enemies not his own, to have him die in panic and pain far from his home? Where had the Wasps taken this luckless man from, to force him to fight enemies not his own, to have him die in panic and pain far from his home?

On the face of the wall, the black liquid had evaporated, leaving only a great blotchy stain to disfigure the walls of Tark.

The plated engine's retreat was the signal, and the Wasp a.s.sault slowed, the commands moving around as fast as they could be shouted. One more wave of soldiers, too enthusiastic for their own lives, flew out unsupported into the Tarkesh crossbow-shot, while the wall artillery made the imperial engines' return a hazard, sending rocks and ballista bolts hurtling at them to the very far extent of their range. The imperial soldiers who regained their camp were the whole ones, or those with only light wounds. All others had been left to the sharp-edged mercies of the Ant-kinden. If they could not fly, they died.

General Alder watched the survivors, so few of them now, struggle back into camp. The two waves of Hornets had been wiped out to a man, and only a third of the light airborne had made it back, with half of the Bee-kinden engineers he had risked. By traditional military standards the a.s.sault had been a disaster. Generals had been executed for such performances, he thought bleakly. This had better not be the battle they remember me for. This had better not be the battle they remember me for. Morale would be low in the camp tonight, and would only get lower. His soldiers would still fight, but they would lack fire, for the discipline of the Ants would destroy them. The Wasps would inevitably batter themselves to death against the defenders' steel resolve. Morale would be low in the camp tonight, and would only get lower. His soldiers would still fight, but they would lack fire, for the discipline of the Ants would destroy them. The Wasps would inevitably batter themselves to death against the defenders' steel resolve. Of all things I hate fighting Ant-kinden. Every step forward's nothing but b.l.o.o.d.y butchery. Of all things I hate fighting Ant-kinden. Every step forward's nothing but b.l.o.o.d.y butchery.

He cursed wearily. Those wounded fortunate enough to have returned would be under the care of the field surgeons now, or else the healing skills of the Daughters. Later he would walk amongst them, as was his tradition, and it was more than just show put on for the men. The general felt the responsibilities of his position keenly.

For now, though, there was one meeting that he was anxious to get over with, and the spark of antic.i.p.ation he now felt was that it might just give him an excuse to have the maverick artificer killed.

'Get me the Colonel-Auxillian,' he snapped at his attendant staff, and one of them flew off to locate the man.

Colonel Edric was at that moment coming over to make his report, in all his barbaric splendour. Alder found himself vaguely surprised that the man was still alive, but then recalled: Third wave is his tradition. Lucky for him we pulled out when we did. Third wave is his tradition. Lucky for him we pulled out when we did.

'Colonel, speak your piece.'

'Sir.' Edric had not forgotten himself so far as to miss his salute. 'We made progress, sir, we really did. I'm told that the combination of engines, troops and the grenades broke up the defenders so that we were able to send a whole wave of the airborne over the wall without resistance.'

'Really, Colonel? And amongst the hill-tribes, this is considered progress?'

'Sir?'

'And will you take the city with just one wave of the light airborne?' Alder shook his head. 'Go see to your men, Colonel. Those few that are left.'

There was a bitter taste in his mouth, and he had n.o.body to share it with. That is what it means to be in command. That is what it means to be in command. But of his subordinate colonels, Edric was too savage and Carvoc too dull. Only Norsa, of the Daughters, could possibly understand his feelings. He promised himself that he would visit her tonight, share a bowl of wine and talk of this in tones that would not be overhead. But of his subordinate colonels, Edric was too savage and Carvoc too dull. Only Norsa, of the Daughters, could possibly understand his feelings. He promised himself that he would visit her tonight, share a bowl of wine and talk of this in tones that would not be overhead. An imperial general shows no weakness to his men. An imperial general shows no weakness to his men. His bleak thoughts could not hide from his own scrutiny, however, nor would he disown them. His bleak thoughts could not hide from his own scrutiny, however, nor would he disown them. We have done poorly today, and that b.a.s.t.a.r.d Drephos is to blame. We have done poorly today, and that b.a.s.t.a.r.d Drephos is to blame.

He saw the man in question now, swathed in his robe as always, with not a crease or scratch on him. As he watched the Colonel-Auxillian make his way over, his gait slightly offset from some old injury, his face was just a blur under the cowl, but Alder was sure that he could glimpse a smile there.

'Drephos,' he growled, 'explanations, please?'

The cowled man made an amused noise. 'It's war, General. Surely you know your own business.'

Alder's one remaining hand caught him by the collar, twisting the cowl half across his face. 'For what cause have you spilt the blood of so many of my men?' he demanded.

'For your your cause, General,' said Drephos, his voice showing no sign that Alder held him by the throat. cause, General,' said Drephos, his voice showing no sign that Alder held him by the throat.

'I don't see any of the walls down, Drephos,' Alder snapped. He knew that Wasp lives were less than nothing to this man. Spending life in the Empire's name was one thing, while spending it to fuel the Colonel-Auxillian's private games was quite another.

'Let us have this conversation again in two days' time,' Drephos suggested. 'Then you might see something quite different.'

Six.

Tisamon and Tynisa were duelling, pa.s.sing rapidly around the circle of one of the practice halls of the College. There were a dozen or so spectators, students garbed or half-garbed as Prowess contestants, sitting on one of the tiers of steps. There was none of the cheering and shouting of a public performance; instead, the watchers murmured to one another on technique as they compared notes.

Nor was it the formalized shortsword technique of Collegium's duelling circle being practised here. The pair carried rapiers, live steel blades, and the air between them flickered and sang with the lightning clashes of the weapons. It struck Stenwold, as he entered, that he had never seen Tisamon with a rapier in his hand before: the folding blade of his clawed gauntlet had always been his first choice. Rapiers were a Mantis-kinden weapon nonetheless and he was showing his proficiency here. They dodged and lunged so abruptly, father and daughter, that Stenwold felt that they must have rehea.r.s.ed this between them. Each move was matched by the other and he thought, at first, that the entire bout, starting however long before his entrance, must have continued entirely without contact.

Then he heard Tisamon's voice coming in at irregular moments. 'Strike,' he would declare, and then after another furious pa.s.s with the weapons, 'Strike.' He was marking his touches, Stenwold realized. Unlike any sane or civilized duel the fight did not pause on a hit. There was no moment permitted for Tynisa to regain her composure or her balance. Sweat gleamed on her forehead, soaking her arming jacket, but Tisamon's brow was pearled as well. Stenwold could not tell if it was the injury from h.e.l.leron or the pace of the current duel that strained him.

'Strike,' Tisamon noted again, and they fought on. Neither was cut: the blows had been delivered with the flat of the narrow blades only. Their faces had so much the same expression of intense concentration that in that moment Tynisa truly resembled her father. The features of her dead mother were momentarily banished.

Stenwold sat down a little way from the rapt students. Tisamon had promised to train his daughter the one gift he could give and he took that vow as seriously as the Mantis-kinden always did.

'Strike,' he said again. Stenwold expected Tynisa to become frustrated now, stirred to anger that would be fatal for a duellist. Instead she seemed calmer after each call, focusing more and more within herself.