He had lost his tower, almost the first structure to fall. During the evacuation, half of Parops’s staff had succumbed to shot or flame, not just soldiers but his messengers, his clerks, his quartermaster. As soon as Parops was clear he had new duties forced on him: to take command of a hastily formed body of men, to oppose the Wasp advance. Yet his progress had been retreat after retreat. He knew that several of the other detachments were advancing slowly and that there must be some grand plan that the Royal Court was working towards, but he himself was not privy to it. He must only hope that it was a good one, so that if he was called upon to give his life for his city, it would not be in vain.
He had always thought himself a bit of a philosopher amongst his people, a man who questioned where others never thought to. Now he discovered that he was, after all, just a soldier. If the orders came to die for Tark, he would do it and gladly. He surprised himself with the thought.
‘I’ve been looking all over for you!’
A blur of motion above, and Parops only just gave the order in time for them to stay their hands before Nero would have been transfixed by a dozen crossbow bolts.
‘What are you doing here?’ he demanded of the Fly.
The bald man shrugged his shoulders, settling on a windowsill one floor up. ‘Looking for you, you fool! What the blazes are you up to?’
‘Obeying orders,’ Parops told him shortly. ‘You should move back – we’re the front line here.’
‘Oh, I know that.’ Nero wore a padded cuirass, that was an arming jacket meant for a child of twelve, and a short-bow was slung over his shoulder.
‘You’re no soldier!’ Parops insisted. ‘You’ll get killed if you stay here, probably by us. Go find yourself somewhere safe!’
‘You tell me where that might be, and I’ll go there,’ Nero said.
Parops wanted to argue, but orders came through again at that instant: Commander Parops. Advance.
He spared one more upward glance at Nero, then sent this command onwards, watching his men come out from their shelters, from side streets and within buildings. Those armed with shields formed up to the fore, and the rest quickly crowded in behind. Parops took his place, as naturally as any of them. It seemed he had always been trying to find his place in his own city, and it was terrible that only a disaster such as this could show it to him.
But they were now advancing, as ordered, and he knew that the detachments on either side, that were within the reach of his mind, were doing likewise. Ahead he could see a flitting of black and yellow as the Wasps spotted them and began to get into order. They were lightly armoured advance troops, and many were already taking to the air. The first bolts of energy spat towards the front rank of Parops’s men, most falling short and fading, and one crackling impotently against a shield.
At a thought relayed from himself the third rank passed their shields up and forward, making a second level of defence against shot from the air. The second rank then levelled crossbows through the gap between the two lines of shields.
Fire at will. Target the airborne, he instructed them, and the crossbows began sounding off with dull clacks. Their range was further than the Wasps’ Art-born weapons, and men began to tumble from the sky ahead of them.
‘Parops, the airships!’ he heard Nero shouting. He had one of his men near the back look up for him, his own range of sky being covered with shields. Two of the lumbering machines were indeed manoeuvring into position above the Ants even as they advanced.
Increase pace. Engage. The Wasps could do one thing or another, he decided. They could drop fire on them or resist their advance on the ground. Anything else and their own men would be forfeited, surely?
The first bomb, plummeting in front of Parops’s troop, ignited while still in the air and incinerated two dozen Wasp soldiers. The balance scattered left and right, darting to avoid the spreading flame.
But there was a second airship overhead, and Parops relayed this information to the Court even as his advance continued. The enemy on the ground were falling back, fleeing even, giving up the scorched and blackened streets without a fight.
The next incendiary exploded towards the rear of Parops’s formation, amongst those least prepared for it. Ordinary citizens of Tark with swords and crossbows were suddenly ablaze and searing, the hair, skin, clothes of them instantly becoming a torch in human shape – twisting briefly and dying in Parops’s mind. His advance continued and in his mind he now heard the yawning silence of a lack of orders. The tacticians of the Royal Court were reeling in shock.
He saw the remainder of Juvian’s men under even heavier bombardment, the impact of it cracking their formation, grenades and explosives from on high flinging men – and parts of men – into the air.
He heard the voices of the King’s tacticians and for an awful moment they were talking all together, their orders contradictory: go forward, go back, spread out, stay tight. Parops’s teeth were grinding helplessly together, his men were looking to him, but he would not relay that babble of panic that was being passed his way.
And then the King’s own voice. Retreat and split up. Retreat! And he instantly followed the order. His men spread out and began falling back. Wasp soldiers darted in at once, their stings sizzling everywhere, but Parops kept his troops in order, delegating men to turn with crossbows and loose their bolts on the enemy before retiring in good order.
Nothing had been gained. Hundreds had been lost. The battle continued.
The composition of Parops’s detachment changed almost hourly. His continuing casualties were balanced by survivors from less resilient squads who came to join him. He picked up a greater number of armed civilians, many now wearing scavenged Ant or even Wasp armour, and even the tail end of a detachment of elites who had been mostly smashed in a fierce day-long engagement in and out of the blackened hulks of houses in the mid-city. They included nailbowmen, men with repeating crossbows, piercers or wasters – and Parops did not know what to do with them.
He had mounted another abortive attack yesterday, only to find the soldiers he was sent to support all dead even as he arrived. Then the airships had loomed and he had ordered a fall-back almost before he heard it directed by the Royal Court. Another street lost. Another battle conceded to the enemy. The numbers of his force might rise and fall, but the ranks of the city’s defenders only fell, singly or in their tens and hundreds.
When he allowed himself to think it, Parops had to acknowledge that the situation here was poor, and that he could not see a way out of it. He had to hope that the King and his tacticians had some master plan, something more than a series of futile holding actions.
It was the fifth day, and the surviving population of Tark was packed into the western half of the city, while the Wasps controlled the rest.
Nero was still alive, however. Parops was forever surprised by this, as he had never thought of the man as a fighter. He had turned out to be a true survivor, his Fly-kinden reflexes not one whit dulled by age. Now the ugly little man was again perched on a rooftop, watching the combat that was no longer distant.
The Royal Court itself was under attack, Parops knew that, and his men could not fail to realize it. He wanted to lead them to the Court’s aid, but direct orders from the King had countermanded it. As the list of available officers had shortened, so those remaining had become more familiar with their ruler than they would previously ever have imagined. It seemed the ruler of Tark now even knew Parops by name.