The brigands raced inside. Che limped in next, leaning on Maure, and finally Mordrec aided by Soul Je. It was now crowded company there, but even so it was plain that several of them had not made it. Aside from Dal and Soul, even now trying to extract the arrow from Mordrec’s shoulder, there were only half a dozen brigands left: two apiece of Grasshoppers and Dragonflies, a halfbreed and the Spider, Avaris.
‘They’re hiding in the trees now,’ someone called out, and bandits moved to the slit windows, arrows nocked. Tynisa herself went to the door, waiting for her next challenger. Overhead the sky darkened, the evening coming on fast. They had been constantly on the move for most of the day.
And I don’t feel tired, not at all. She suspected that she would, though, as soon as the rush of it all had drained away, but for now Tynisa felt as though she could run for ever.
The first wave to come against them included a fair number of noble retainers amongst the levy, their armour glittering in the last rays of the sun. They met arrows and stingshot from the defenders – and then they met Tynisa in the doorway.
For a moment she felt fear: not fear of them but that the spectre of her father, or that murderous piece of her father that had been left behind, would descend on her again and make her his creature. Instead, she felt her training, her skill, her heritage and her blade all converge within her, a council of war that was resolved in moments, and she swayed away from an arrow and then met the first blade, flicked it aside with a small motion of her wrist and then laid open the wielder’s forehead, beneath the rim of his open helm, sending him staggering backwards with blood in his eyes. She cut aside spearheads as they quested for her, darting to gash hands and arms, to sever fingers, making a mockery of their reach. Then another noble was rushing at her, a Dragonfly woman with a fixed look of hatred, and Tynisa let her try to strike, let the sword cleave empty air, and then put an elbow in the woman’s eye and ran her through as she stumbled, dropping her neatly. The longer she held the door, the more damage the others could do through the arrowslits, and now Mordrec had hauled himself over to a window, so that stingshot was crackling from both sides.
The enemy fell back, the levy giving way first, and their betters following suit rather than be left exposed.
The next wave, after a pause of almost half an hour, was a throng of armed peasants: a mob of desperate, frightened Dragonflies and Grasshoppers lacking armour save for quilted jackets or the odd cuirass of chitin scales, and armed only with spears. Tynisa steeled herself, and took a lot less joy in staving them off, but the confrontation was a brief one. With no inbound arrows, other bandits had the courage to back her up with bows, and the wretched peasantry broke and fled a minute after they had reached the door. By then the dark had fallen, and she knew that, whilst Dragonfly eyes were as good or better than hers, their Grasshopper levy could not see well at night.
And besides, she suddenly considered, how many of them are left?
It was an unexpected thought, but a salient one. After all, how many had Salme Elass been able to muster for her grand campaign against the brigands? And how many remained with her now, of her guests and their retainers, and whatever peasants she had pressed into service along the way? Oh certainly, she would still have a force that greatly outnumbered the defenders, but even so, not vast by the standards that Tynisa was used to thinking of: not the resources of an Ant city-state or a Wasp army, or even a Collegium merchant company. Not enough to waste.
Enough to kill us, she had to concede, but the odds she faced were simply extremely bad, not actually overwhelming.
That thought made her laugh, startling her fellows, but then her reputation amongst them was for bloody-handed madness, so this did not seem out of character.
Tynisa stood watch, peering into the gathering darkness and waiting for Salme Elass’s next assault. Occasionally she thought she heard wings overhead, but no onslaught came from the trees.
How many of them have we killed, in all? she wondered. With her blade to aid them, and with the great doomed assault Varmen had made on the enemy camp, the brigands had certainly given far better than they had received. This was helped by Salme Elass’s lust for vengeance, which had made her throw her people pell-mell at them, in whatever numbers could be mustered, rather than conserving her strength. Still, that vengeance would mean the end of the bandits, however long it took. She would keep spending the lives of her own people until nobody was left, and most of all until Tynisa herself was dead.
If I walked out there now and gave myself up… She glanced back at her companions: Che she would die for certainly, Thalric, probably not, and she barely knew Maure. Of the others, they were desperate, violent men, and scarcely worth a grand sacrifice.
She found, though, that she liked and respected them, their leader most of all. She had seen him shepherding his people all the way from Leose to this forsaken place, and decided he was a man to admire. If the Commonweal could have recognized such qualities in a man of common blood he would no doubt have become a war hero, an officer, a tactician. But all that life had granted him was to be a leader of criminals.
Che appeared at her elbow. ‘I’ll take over now.’
‘You get your sleep,’ Tynisa urged her.
Unlike the meek girl she remembered, Che managed a smile with about a hundred years of pain and wisdom in it. ‘And you’re so fresh, after a day running and fighting? We’ll need you tomorrow, so go get something to eat with the others, then sleep. And be thankful the nights are still long.’ When Tynisa opened her mouth to protest, Che added, ‘And I can see in the dark, like a Moth.’
Her tone was almost commanding, imperious, and Tynisa found that her natural reaction was to nod and obey. But you and I will talk, about what has happened to you.
The bandits had stoked up the embers of a fire, and the walls around them helped a little to confine the heat. They all looked ragged and drained, but they were passing around jerky and grain cakes, and someone had a little pot reluctantly coming to the boil. To her amusement they were making kadith, Soul Je producing a roll of sad little dry bundles to steep in the water.
‘How the other half lives, is it?’ she asked, elbowing herself some room and sitting down.
‘Kadith is an ancient and inviolable ritual,’ Soul Je replied softly, almost reproachfully.
‘And besides, what are we saving it for?’ added Dal Arche. The brigands produced a motley collection of drinking vessels, from clay bowls to tin cups that still bore the stamp of the Imperial army.
Thalric was carefully bandaging Mordrec’s shoulder with torn cloth. The Wasp’s armour, metal plates sewn into cloth, had taken some of the force, but the arrow had still driven in some way.
‘Well,’ he said, after the kadith had been shared out, just a half-cup for each, ‘this will be it then?’
There was sober nodding about the fire.
‘We’ve given them a run, though,’ one of the Dragonflies remarked.
‘We were close, too,’ added the other. ‘They won’t forget us.’
‘Small comfort,’ Thalric muttered.
‘Oh?’ Maure challenged him. ‘And when the next leader comes along to rouse up the underclass, is it no consolation at all that the work of those gathered here will inspire them?’
Thalric gave her a bleak look. ‘Rouse up the underclass? And how did that ever solve anything?’