A

Thirty-Five

That day, Stenwold had cause to remember how he had told Doctor Nicrephos that it could wait until evening because of the urgent duties he had to fulfil.

He remembered particularly in the first few hours after dawn, when the remaining Vekken armourclads made another pass at the harbour, grinding their engines to breaking point to try and nose their own half-sunk siblings out of the way, whilst simultaneously their artillery lashed the harbourfront again and again. As Stenwold’s role was to defend the harbour, he had waited there with a few hundred soldiers, crouching behind every piece of cover that was available and watching while the great ships shoved repeatedly, and the sound of their engines groaned across the water.

Over sixty of his men had been killed during the bombardment because, at that range, if he had pulled them far back enough to be out of the way, the Ants would have been able to establish a presence on the waterfront itself before he could have formed up enough men to stop them.

And then, mid-morning, the armourclads had given up and reversed their engines, pulling back into open water. To Stenwold, however, it did not seem like a victory.

He had thought about going to Doctor Nicrephos at that point. The old man had been very agitated, talking about some artefact that must be given over to his own protection. He knew it was somewhere in the city, and he believed he could even divine its location. He had obviously been very serious, but to Stenwold it had made very little sense.

But then a messenger had come for him from the north wall, saying that he was needed there urgently. There was never any time.

His journey across the city had been nightmarish. Over the last day the Vekken had begun using special trebuchets, far out of range of any armaments on the Collegium walls. They were incredibly spindly contraptions, his telescope had told him, and they flung handfuls of grenades arcing from their slings. These exploded over the city, showering it with fire and shrapnel, or else burst in flames on the roofs of buildings. It was a random barrage, doing little damage, but it meant that nobody in the city was ever entirely safe. Those few who braved the streets had to keep one eye on the sky, and Stenwold, passing through the streets of his home city, felt the doom of the place keenly, like a cloud hovering above him.

‘I’m starting to wonder about how this is going to go,’ he had told Balkus, and the big Ant only nodded.

In the hour before dawn a messenger had got through to the city. His name was Frezzo and he had been expected days before, but an Ant crossbowman had shot him down, and he had been resting within sight of the city walls, building up the strength to fly again. However he had insisted, with the honour of his guild at stake, on giving his news before they treated his wound. The news itself was just one more burden for the defenders. It appeared Sarn was not coming to their aid. They all knew that Helleron had gone to the Wasps, but not even Kymon had made the logical step that a westward-moving imperial army would occupy Sarn’s attention and thus prevent any chance of rescue from the north.

Kymon and his soldiers were down off the west wall today, but only because there was no immediate assault. Instead, what artillery the Ants had left was pelting the wall mercilessly with rock and lead shot. The artillery on the tower emplacements was returning the favour in daylight now, and most of it was second- or third-generation, as more and more engines were smashed by increasingly accurate incoming missiles. Stenwold had seen some machines being fixed in, during the pre-dawn, that were just the previous engines reassembled with desperate haste, and therefore sure to fly apart after a few shots.

The north wall was bearing the brunt of it today, with tower engines and rams and legions of Vekken infantry. Stenwold came at a run, expecting disaster, but then he found himself cornered by an enraged academic.

‘Master Maker! Or I suppose I have to call you War Master now.’

‘Call me what you want, Master…?’

The Beetle-kinden was squat and balding and enraged. ‘I am Master Hornwhill, and I demand that you discipline these military fellows! It’s an outrage!’

‘What’s an outrage?’ Stenwold asked, trying for calm. Hornwhill was so incensed by whatever had outraged him that it took Balkus looming menacingly at his shoulder to calm him down.

‘Master Maker, my discipline is in the mercantile area. I design barrels, and they are not meant for military use!’ the man protested. Stenwold goggled at him.

‘What are you talking about?’

‘This!’ Hornwhill stomped over towards a row of catapults that the north wall commander had set up, and which even now were launching their shot in a high arc, right over the wall and onto the men and machines arrayed on the far side. Hornwhill grabbed one of the missiles from the engineers and brandished it fiercely. ‘This is my double-hulled safe-passage barrel intended for breakable goods!’ the excited artificer exclaimed. ‘Five hundred of them have been seized from my warehouse and I demand restitution.’

‘Who’s in charge here?’ Stenwold called out, and a dirty-faced engineer popped his head up above the winding winch of a catapult.

‘Here, War Master!’

How is it that everyone knows me? ‘Why are you throwing barrels at them?’ Stenwold asked him.

‘Got precious little else to throw,’ the engineer said cheerily. ‘Besides, these beauties are just what we need. They crack open when they hit, but they don’t damage their cargoes, just release them all cosy like. They’re lovely.’

‘Cargoes? What cargoes?’ Stenwold said, trying to block out Hornwhill’s jabbering complaints.

The engineer grinned at him, still winding back the catapult. ‘Well, I figure we might as well use every dirty trick in the book, War Master. Last night me and my lad raided every menagerie, animal workshop and alchemist’s store in the city. I got the lot in these barrels. I got scorpions, poisonous spiders, stinging flies, glasses of acid, explosive reagents. I got the Vekken doing a real guessing game with what’s going to land on ’em next.’

‘Balkus,’ Stenwold said.

‘Here.’

‘If Master Hornwhill doesn’t shut up and go home, throw him in the river.’

Nothing was going quite as it should. Akalia was becoming increasingly aware that, in the estimates of the Royal Court of Vek, Collegium should have fallen by now.

It seemed impossible that a city-state of tinkerers and philosophers could hold off the elite of Vek, the most disciplined soldiers in the world. Still the walls stood, though, the defenders rushing to throw back every incursion. The Beetle-kinden and their slaves seemed indefatigable, never-ceasing. Every time it seemed the walls would be taken, the Beetles dragged out some new scheme, and thus held her off for yet another day.

She shook her head. It had been a run of disturbed nights for her, and for her men as well. Her ill dreams had communicated themselves to her army, or else she had been infected with theirs. She feared. In waking moments she would not even have acknowledged it, but she feared. She feared the derision of her peers, that no Ant-kinden could escape. She did not fear that Collegium would never fall, but she feared that she would not take it fast enough, that, had the King chosen differently, a more skilled tactician would be within the walls by now.

And those Wasps had run mad and killed one another. It should be expected from a weaker race, but still it shook her. She could see no logic to it, no sense at all. Without warning they had left the camp and butchered each other to the last man. The report of her sentries had been easily brushed off at first, but the event had returned to prey on her mind. Was this some ploy, some new weapon, some contagious insanity? Will it happen to us? Her artificers had assured her that it was impossible, but she found herself losing faith in them. Clearly the Collegium scholars know things that we do not. In her mind, in the hearts of all Apt people, there was a tiny worm so deeply buried that it would never normally see the light. It was a worm born many centuries before, in the Days of Lore before the revolution – those days when her kind and the Beetles had both been slaves. It was fear of the unknown, of the old mysteries. In now facing the scholars of Collegium, Akalia was rediscovering her fear of the unknown.