Like fortified towns in this carpet of soldiers were the automotives. The Sarnesh battle-automotives were huge slab-sided things, frames of iron and heavy wood riveted over with armour plates and with only the bare minimum of windows for the crew to see from. The poor view mattered little because the soldiers outside would be able to mentally give them a picture of the battlefield. Even now artificers were crawling over them, making last-minute repairs and adjustments, tightening the clawed belts of their tracks, directing swaying crane rigs in order to lower parts into place. Each automotive had a swivelling tower positioned on its back, though these were currently being swapped with others fresh from the Sarnesh workshops.

Che went over to the nearest machine, even as the new tower found its resting place. ‘What are you doing?’ she asked.

The artificer supervising did not look back at her. ‘Your Wasps – they fly, we understand,’ he said, watching carefully as his apprentices bolted the new tower into place. ‘Well we have a surprise for them. All our automotives have been fitted with forward repeaters, and the new towers house twin nailbows in place of the ballista. They’ll soon learn they can’t just steal the skies from us when we begin to rake them with these.’

‘That’s… good thinking,’ said Che, a little numbly. The newly fitted tower turned first one way and then the other at the cranking of the men within, its nailbows gleaming with oil.

‘Look.’ Achaeos was pointing to another unit of soldiers marching past. Che couldn’t see what he meant until he added, ‘The two ranks.’ The Ant infantry had been formed of alternating ranks: shieldmen and crossbowmen. There would be a lot of eyes on the sky when the battle came, and what one Ant saw, they all saw.

There were other automotives approaching now, huge many-legged vehicles with open backs that soldiers were already climbing up into. Che understood that between these transporters and the train carriages, the entire army would be able to travel to the point where the rail line had been broken, and there they would wait for the Wasps to arrive.

‘Orthopters,’ Sperra said, and Che saw flat, wheeled carriages being pushed out down the rail line, with the flying machines lashed down to them, their wings detached and laid alongside them. They were decked out with nail-bows fixed above and below them and to both sides.

So much technology, she thought, and it gave her some small pride to know that it was Sarn’s alliance with Collegium that had made it the best-equipped Ant city-state in the Lowlands.

‘Cheerwell Maker!’ she heard a voice. She expected this to be Plius, perhaps, but instead it was an anonymous Sarnesh Ant officer, waving her over. He looked agitated and, even as she saw it she realized that the demeanour of everyone around her had changed, all the surrounding Ants pausing for a fraction in what they were doing.

And many of them now seemed to be looking at her.

What has happened? ‘I’m here! What’s the matter?’

‘The Queen needs you urgently!’ the officer called out to her. ‘And your Moth consort too.’

Che gaped a little at this choice of phrase. Achaeos, beside her, merely looked perturbed. Surrounded by thousands of Ants, though, there was precious little they could do if things went wrong.

With Sperra tagging anxiously along behind, the pair of them were led through the impeccably disciplined chaos of an army pulling itself together, and then towards another of the armoured automotives. There were no markings to indicate it as anything special but, when its side hatch was pushed open, Che saw the Queen standing within dressed in full plate armour.

‘What is the meaning of this?’ the woman demanded shortly, not from Che but from Achaeos himself.

‘I do not understand, Your Majesty,’ Achaeos said, genuinely puzzled, and two soldiers grabbed and manhandled him around the bulk of the automotive so that he could look towards the land rising north of the city.

There hundreds of soldiers could be seen, approaching the Sarnesh force in a straggling mob. Achaeos strained his eyes, but the sunlight was very bright and his kind preferred darkness. He did, however, see that the first rank of Ant soldiers nearest the advance had already locked shields, while those in the second rank had their crossbows levelled.

‘I don’t understand,’ he repeated, and then Che cried out, ‘Mantis-kinden!’

‘Not just Mantids.’ The Queen was stepping down from the automotive. ‘My scouts say there are Moths there as well. What do they intend? Is this your doing?’

Achaeos opened his mouth to deny this, but Che cried out, ‘Yes!’

They all turned to her, astonished, Achaeos and Sperra included.

‘Your Majesty, when we first came to your city it was with two purposes. Whilst Scuto and Sperra were to seek out audience with yourself, Achaeos and I were to contact… those allied to the Moths of Dorax. When last we met them they had heard of the fall of Helleron, at which they were much concerned. They were going to speak with their masters and I think…’ The feeling of hope swelling within her made it hard to breathe. ‘I think they may be friends.’

The newcomers could now clearly be seen as Mantis-kinden. Compared with the rigidly organized Ant army they seemed a ragged host, and far fewer in number. Che studied them individually, though, and saw them differently: lean, hard men and women with spears, bows, swords and claws just like Tisamon’s. No two were alike in their weapons, nor in their armour: she saw leather coats, cuirasses, crested helms, breastplates, scale-mail, even a few suits of fluted plate that looked as if made for another era entirely. They all had about them the same air, though. These were warriors, and they were ready for war.

One of them stepped forward, approaching the rigid Ant line without fear. At some unheard signal from the Queen, it parted to let the envoy through. Che’s heart leapt when she recognized Scelae. The slender Mantis-woman wore a long coat of scales, backed with felt to silence the clink of metal, a tall unstrung bow was slung across her back and she walked confidently through the staring Ants and made a respectful bow to their Queen.

‘Your Majesty,’ she said. ‘I bring you greetings from the Ancient League.’

‘And what might this League be, that you speak of?’ asked the Queen, still not entirely trusting this new force. ‘I have never heard of it.’

Scelae smiled slightly. ‘The name has an irony to it, as the League has existed just these last five days. The traditions it pledges to are ancient, though, for in the face of our changing world we have renewed some old ties. Just as your city is now ranged with the Beetles of Collegium, so the holds of Etheryon and Nethyon have come again to seek the wisdom and guidance of Dorax and the Moth-kinden.’

‘A new power on my doorstep,’ observed the Queen. ‘Should I rejoice in this?’

‘I am no seer and I cannot tell the future,’ Scelae said, ‘save in one thing: this force you see was gathered in one day, made up of all those ready to hear our call. We march with you now against the Empire.’

‘How many?’ the Queen asked and, before Scelae could answer, some word came to her from scouts who had been counting all this while. ‘Eight hundred. Eight hundred Mantids – and perhaps a hundred Moths as well. And you will fight alongside us?’

‘We will fight,’ Scelae assured her. ‘There is nothing in the world you may be more sure of.’