‘They said-’ Varmen bit the words off. He was keeping his hands clenched very deliberately because, if he opened them, the fire within would turn this small man into ash.

‘They said they’d be right behind us,’ said Pellrec from behind him, sounding as amused as always. ‘Didn’t say how far, though.’

‘Right behind us,’ Varmen growled. He stomped back to the downed flying machine. The heliopter had been a great big boxy piece of ironmongery when it was whole. When it struck the ground the wood and metal had split on two sides. What roof was left, shorn of its rotors, would barely keep the rain off. A rubble of crates and boxes had spilled out of it, some of them impacting hard enough to cause little ruins of their own.

The pilot had not lived through the crash, and nor had two of the passengers. Lieutenant Landren was, in Varmen’s opinion, now wishing that he was in the same position. The bones of his shattered leg were pushing five different ways, and there was precious little anyone could do with them.

‘Oh, we love the imperial scouts, we do,’ Varmen muttered. ‘Bonny boys the lot of them.’

‘You should have seen what hit him,’ the Fly said. The tiny man, barely up to Varmen’s waist, was supposedly a sergeant as well, but he was happy to hand the whole mess back to the Wasp-kinden. ‘Cursed thing came right down on the props, like it was in love.’ The corpse of the dragonfly was in smashed pieces around them, along with what was left of the rider. Did he know? Varmen wondered. Did he bring them down deliberately? Probably the stupid bastard thought he could fly straight through, ’cos the rotors were going so fast he couldn’t see ’em.

The ground around here was as up-and-down as anyone could wish not to get holed up in. The Dragonfly-kinden could be anywhere, and probably were. The red tint to everything told Varmen that the sun was going down. The unwelcoming hill country around them was about to get more unwelcoming in spades.

‘Where are they?’

‘I said-’

‘Not our lot, them.’

‘Oh, right.’ The Fly’s face took on a haggard look. ‘Oh, they’re right all around us, Sergeant. They cleared out when you got here, but for sure they’re still watching us. You can bet, if we know the Sixth Army isn’t coming, then so do they.’

‘Get fires going,’ Varmen heard Pellrec saying. Pellrec wasn’t a sergeant, but Varmen wasn’t a planner. They had an arrangement. ‘The Commonwealers see cursed well in the dark. Your little maggots are therefore on watch.’

The Fly sergeant’s face went even sourer but he nodded.

Tserro, that was his name. Remembering names was not a strong point for Varmen.

Stupid place to end up, frankly. For the cream of the imperial military, the spearhead of the Sixth Army, the very striking hammer of the Wasp invasion of the Commonweal, he had hoped for better. And it had all seemed such a good idea. Varmen was a professional soldier, after all: he was used to sniffing out dung-smelling errands and dodging them. This had carried all the marks of little risk and high praise. I’m such a sucker for the praise… Scouts have got into trouble again – like they always do - leaving a squad of Fly-kinden irregulars and a heliopter suddenly stranded. Go hold their hands until the army picks up the pieces. Sixth is heading that way anyway, won’t be a day even. So off we trot with a little iron to give the scouts some backbone. Five sentinels and a dozen medium infantry slogging ahead of the advance in all our armour. Because we knew the rest were right behind us. They told us they were coming, after all. How can a whole army be lying to you?

‘Get all the luggage into some kind of front wall,’ Pellrec snapped, to get the infantry moving. ‘One man in three with a shield at the front, while the rest keep under cover and be ready to shoot out. Tserro?’

‘Here.’ The little sergeant was obviously still weighing who was supposed to be giving orders, and where the chain of command ran. He clearly accepted the fact that Varmen had not countermanded anything as his casting vote. ‘Where do you want us?’

‘Space your men so they can keep watch over every approach,’ Pellrec told him. ‘Bows and crossbows, whatever you have. When they appear, get in under the heliopter’s hull.’

Wings bloomed from the Fly’s shoulders and he skipped off to instruct his men. Pellrec leant close to Varmen. He was a proper Wasp-kinden beauty, was Pellrec: fair haired and handsome, and a favourite with any ladies they met that the army hadn’t already slapped chains on. Compared to him, Varmen was a thug, dark haired and heavy jawed and five inches taller. The two of them had come through a lot in the vanguard of the Sixth Army. Seeing Varmen’s expression, Pellrec laughed and said, ‘So, still glad you signed up?’

‘Enough of that,’ Varmen snarled. ‘We’re the Pride of the Sixth. Who are we?’

The one sentinel close enough to hear said, instinctively, ‘The Pride!’ and even Pellrec mouthed the words, grinning.

‘Sentinels, boys,’ Varmen said louder, in his battle voice. The words carried across and on past the wreck of the downed heliopter. ‘The pit-cursed best there is.’ He hoped that the Commonweal soldiers out there could hear him.

He stalked into the shelter of the downed flying machine to check on the man who was nominally in charge. Lieutenant Landren was conscious again, just now. The Fly-kinden quack the scouts had brought was crouching beside him, changing the dressings on his mangled leg.

‘What’s it look like, Sergeant?’ Landren’s voice was ragged enough for Varmen to know there would be no help from him.

‘Seen worse, sir,’ he said dutifully. ‘We’ll get through. Sixth is on its way, sure as eggs.’

‘We’ve made contact?’

A little sharper than I reckoned, after all. ‘Not so much, sir, but when we set out, they were right behind us. What’s going to have happened to them?’ And what in the pit has happened to them?

‘Good, good. Carry on, Sergeant.’

‘Will do, sir.’ Varmen grimaced as soon as he had turned away from him. His eyes met those of Tserro, the scouts’ own sergeant. The man was perched up under the heliopter’s fractured ceiling, stringing a bow with automatic motions, not even looking at it properly. His stare was made of accusation. Varmen scowled at him.

‘Three of my men I sent to the Sixth,’ the Fly hissed as the sentinel passed him. ‘One got far enough to know the Sixth ain’t coming. Two didn’t come back. Why’d the first man live to get through, Sergeant Varmen? You think perhaps they want us to know we’re stuffed?’

‘Shut it, you,’ Varmen growled at him. ‘Pell, how’s it coming?’

‘Oh, it’s arrived, Varmo,’ Pellrec told him. ‘Or at least, as much of it as we’re likely to get.’ He had made the best job of turning the crashed machine into a defensible position, with the broken sides of the heliopter to fend against airborne assault, and a jumble of crates and sacks to turn aside arrows.

‘Arken!’ Varmen snapped. The man he’d put in charge of the medium infantry clattered up instantly. From his privileged position at the front, Varmen had always regarded the medium infantry as a bit of a botched compromise: armour too heavy to fly in, and yet not heavy enough to hurl into the breach without losing more than you kept. Varmen’s chief memory of men like Arken was as a froth of shields and spears on either side of the sentinel wedge as the thrust of the imperial assault went home. He never seemed to see the same men in charge of the medium infantry twice.

‘All right, here’s the plan,’ Varmen told him, and loud enough for everyone nearby to hear. ‘What them out there don’t realize is that we’re exactly the right men for this job. Screw flying about like racking moths and Fly-kinden. We’re the armour boys, so we don’t need to go dancing all over the sky. We just need to stand and hold. Me and the lads will take the front. I want your lot in a line behind us. Sting-shot at anything that tries to come in above us. Anything that gets past us, or that attacks the scouts, take them on – sword and spear.’