‘Stand ready!’ he called to his forces. He wanted to deliver an encouraging speech, such as the one Kymon had given, but he, whose life had been measured in words often enough, found himself without them.
He had already found a greying militia officer to be his second in the all too likely event that something happened to him. Third in command was Balkus because, if it came to that, they would need the man’s fighting spirit more than any gifts of leadership.
‘Heads up,’ the Ant muttered to him, and he scanned the wall, looking for some new threat. Balkus was glancing backwards, though, and he turned to see Arianna running to join him.
‘No!’ he shouted at her. ‘Wait for me back at the house, please!’
‘What kind of fool do you think I am?’ she asked him. She had found a leather cuirass from somewhere, and there was a strung shortbow over her shoulder. ‘If you fail here, do you think they won’t kill me anyway?’
‘But… I want…’ I want you to be safe. He stared at her helplessly, and with pointed determination she took her bow and nocked an arrow to it.
‘Let her fight,’ Balkus said. ‘We need her. You’ve seen all who’s left here. We need everyone.’
‘The ram’s coming in!’ the lookout shouted. A glance at the archers on the walls showed that they were shooting almost straight down now, and that others were heaving great stones up to the lip of the battlements.
‘Artillery ready!’ Stenwold shouted, and drew his sword. Between the Vekken and Arianna, he did not see the strength his followers derived from that simple, calm motion.
There was a hollow boom, and the automotive jumped a foot forwards, and then slid another foot down the loose stones, and Stenwold could hear the ram’s engines straining, imagined its toothed wheels clawing for traction.
‘And loose!’ shouted the artillerist artificer, and the repeating crossbow began its work, sending bolt after bolt, as fast as Stenwold’s heart was beating, into the gap the ram had created between the automotive and the wall. The big old ballista had misfired, and six men were frantically rewinding it, cranking the string back while the bolt was replaced.
‘Shields ready!’ Stenwold called out, and his rabble of citizens and militia formed up into a mockery of a military formation. Every single man or woman with any kind of shield stood in the front rank, some with no more than a few nailed-together planks on a leather strap as a handle. At each end stood the archers, crossbows levelled shakily, or arrows ready at the string. Arianna had run to join them. The look of desperate bravery on her face made his heart ache, and all the more so because it was mirrored on every face around her.
With a tremendous crack the ancient ballista hurled its eight-foot bolt forwards, the wooden arms shattering into pieces with the force, but the missile drove straight through the ram’s hull, and Stenwold saw a sudden venting of smoke and heard the engine squeal in protest and then die.
There was a great cheer from the defenders, for the ram had gained a gap of no more than four feet either side of the automotive for the Vekken to press through, but then the Vekken were coming regardless, surging through the gaps in tight order with their shields raised. The repeating ballista slammed its bolts into them, knocking them back two or three at a time, and stones were pushed off the battlements above to crash down into the packed intruders, battering their shields aside. Arianna and the other archers needed no further orders now. They were shooting into the Vekken as they came, arrows and bolts and slingstones bouncing from shields or whipping past them. For a moment, one mad moment, it seemed that the Vekken did not have the force to seize the gaps, that they would be driven back so that the defenders could retake those narrow breaks and hold them against all comers.
They were Ant-kinden, though, and in the simple business they were engaged in there were no finer soldiers anywhere, and once that moment of hope had gone, they pushed through, despite the bolts and the stones, and over the heaped bodies of their kin, and onto Collegium ground.
As soon as he saw that the archers could not hold them, Stenwold drew a great breath and cried out, ‘Forwards!’ and, because there was no time to wait, he was first in, trusting to them to follow where he took them.
He met the Ants with their shield-line, and without expectations, but he was an old fighter. No Ant soldier, but he had held a blade for longer than these Vekken men and women had been alive. In those first seconds he surprised himself by killing two of the enemy, lunging past their shields as they skidded on the last loose stones. On either side the mismatched shields of Collegium pressed, and there was still a fair barrage falling on the enemy from above.
And there was no more to think about, no regrets, no worries, just the savage, simple business of putting his blade into as many Vekken as he could reach. It was turned by shields, turned by armour or by other blades, but he did not let up, stabbing and cutting with a fury, because this was his city and these were his people and if Collegium fell, then the whole world fell with it into a dark age that would make the Age of Lore seem like enlightenment.
He was dimly aware that Balkus was now beside him, the only other man in the front rank without a shield. Balkus, with a shortsword in each hand, battering down Vekken shields with brute force, always keeping an eye out for Stenwold, as if some mindlink had joined them in their extremity, so that he could anticipate each blow even as Stenwold registered it, putting a sword in the way to deflect it.
They were losing ground, but not as swiftly as they should. The sheer savagery of the Collegiate charge had shaken the attackers, put them back on the shifting stones. Ant faces were impassive at best, but Stenwold thought he could see something like bafflement within their eyes. They were soldiers, superior in every way to this mixed-race rabble that confronted them, so how could they be held up for even a single minute? They locked shields and pressed, but they were confronted with men and women who were totally cornered now, nothing to lose and nowhere to go. They died, of course, those defenders of Collegium. Tradesmen were run through, merchants wearing ill-fitting armour were hacked down, labourers and militamen fell with crossbow bolts buried deep. There was not one of them who went easily, though, and even as they fell they dragged at their enemies, pulled their swords down, hooked shields with their fingers. A thousand acts of final bravery and defiance, shaking the Vekken advance, if only for a moment.
And seeing this hesitation, Stenwold’s heart soared with pride in his city, and a lunging Ant laid his arm open and he fell back, sword falling from his grasp. Balkus killed the man who had wounded him that same instant, and already a shield was raised to take his place, but Stenwold was reeling, being passed back through the crowd until he was standing clear, with Arianna descending on him and swiftly tearing a strip off her robe to bandage him.
‘I can fight!’ he insisted, but she dug her fingers into the wound until he stood still enough for her to finish. ‘I can fight!’ he said again, looking round for a sword.
‘War Master!’ someone was shouting and, feeling dizzy, he turned to look. A man he felt he should recognize was running towards him, waving his arms. ‘War Master!’
‘I’m here! What news?’ He could barely hear himself over the fighting behind him.
He knew this man – one of his own soldiers from the harbour guard-
His heart sank and he could have virtually mouthed the words along with the man: ‘War Master! The harbour! They’re coming in at the harbour!’
Stenwold turned, torn by doubt, seeing the line surge back and forward, the final throes of Collegium’s defence. He was responsible for the harbour, though, and there were people needed there.