Achaeos felt the air around him swim in and out of focus. His heart was like a hot stake being driven into his chest, flaring with pain at every beat, and the beats had become irregular, stuttering. He was held on his feet only by the collective will of those around him. Others had already fallen: the oldest of the Skryres was a crumpled heap across the circle; one of the Mantis-kinden had dropped to her knees.
It is not working. That much was obvious. Less obvious was whether Achaeos would survive this failure, let alone a success. Opposite him, across the circle, Tegrec’s face glimmered under a sheen of sweat.
I can’t… Achaeos could feel a tight coldness in his chest now, an unforgiving clenching that intensified with every breath.
Che, he thought.
There seemed to be a darkness blotting out the stars, but he knew this was in his vision only. The voice of one of the Skryres came to him, as if from far away.
‘We do not have the power for this! We must stop before we lose what we have!’
Another voice cried, ‘Remember the Darakyon!’
‘No!’ It was the lead Skryre, the great force of whose mind was felt all about the circle. ‘We cannot give up now. We have this one chance only to drive the invader from our halls. Find more! Draw on every reserve you have! There can be no holding back. Drain your wells and give me all!’
What reserves? What wells? Achaeos thought numbly, but around the circle he sensed the grudging obedience of the others. Not all, maybe, but still there were many who reached and found in themselves some hoarded cache of strength to cast into the ritual. Some had artefacts from the Days of Lore to which a shred of glamour still clung. Others had places to which they had forged a link, receptacles in which they had stored their faith long years ago. Some had siblings they could draw upon, or else family, students and servants. Achaeos saw the Wasp Tegrec reach back, and the hand of his slave girl was in his own without hesitation. He saw Raeka pale as she gave of herself to him, the strength and will leaching out of her.
I cannot, Achaeos thought, but on the heels of that came, I cannot stand, cannot last, unless I do.
He had called to her once before, before ever she had given herself to him. How much stronger now was the bond between them.
Che! he cried, simultaneously in his mind and across the miles that lay between them. Che! Hear me! Please help me, Che!
The Wasps had now mounted two catapults on the palace roof, but the Mynan resistance had merely found mustering points that lay outside their angle of fire. It had been a costly lesson.
They had no time: that was what everyone knew and nobody said. The Wasps still held the palace despite a day of savage fighting. They had barricaded the doors over and over, and the resistance had stormed them with firebombs and crossbows, swords and claw-hammers, and torn the barricades down or burnt them up. The prized furniture of the palace, which Ulther had spent years collecting, was mostly smashed and charred now, and yet the Wasps held out. They met the Mynans at every door, with sword and spear and sting, and they did not give an inch of ground.
Kymene knew that she was running out of chances now. Fly-kinden scouts were reporting hourly on the relief force on its way from Szar. If she had possession of the palace, then they might be able to hold off the reinforcements. Otherwise, as soon as they engaged the new force, the Wasps barricaded in the palace would sally out and take them from the rear.
‘We just have to keep hammering at them all night,’ Chyses advised her. She knew that already, though it did not seem acceptable, in this day and age, to have no options but sheer bloody-mindedness.
‘What about the new explosives?’ she asked.
‘Still being brewed,’ Chyses replied, and his tone made it clear that he knew they would be ready too late. ‘We’ve got another batch of the firebombs, though.’
Kymene scowled. Those were unreliable weapons, just bottles of anything flammable with rags as their fuses. They had caused carnage amongst the Wasps, but had taken their share of the Mynan attackers too. If the flames really caught in the palace doorway, they could lose hours of progress in which all the Wasps needed to do was retreat up to the balconies above and watch an impassable blaze raging away below.
If we had our own flying troops… but all she had were a motley rabble of Fly-kinden who would scout for her, but not fight.
‘We’re losing too many fighters,’ she observed. Chyses merely nodded. He was someone who believed in the inevitability of casualties, an ingredient that made eventual victory all the sweeter. Kymene, however, could only think of her people and the price she was setting on their promised freedom.
‘Issue the firebombs,’ she instructed him. ‘Pass the word along. Twenty minutes and we’re going in again.’
Che watched and said nothing. She was now wearing a chainmail hauberk of Mynan make, and so far she had stood anxiously at the edge of groups, even on the barricades that the Mynans had erected facing the palace, but had seldom been called upon to fight. She had simply watched the ghastly business unfold: the Mynans’ repeated, bloody charges at the palace; the Wasps’ equally costly defence. She had seen Kymene try everything, had even made her own suggestions. At her behest, they had made up a small catapult to pelt the palace door with grenades, but then they had run out of grenades and explosives, and the home-made firebombs were sufficiently volatile that not even Chyses would suggest delivering them by engine.
This is where it ends, is it? But that seemed ridiculous. After all, Thalric had been right about the Mynan situation, so everything should be working as planned. Instead the Wasps stayed stubbornly in place despite the losses that the resistance had inflicted on them. They knew that all they had to do was sit tight and wait.
Che.
She flinched. The sound of his voice was as though his mouth was at her ear, yet at the same time it was faint, far away.
‘Achaeos?’
Help me, Che.
She looked over at Kymene, saw that nobody was paying her any heed. A shiver went through her. ‘Achaeos?’ She could not simply form the name in her mind. She had to say it aloud. ‘Tell me you’re all right.’
I need you, Che. There was a terrible wrongness to his voice, and she thought instantly of his wounds and how frail he had looked when she left him.
Che, I need your strength. I’m sorry… please…
She did not even ask what for. She did not need to know. Her reaction was as unquestioning as a child’s.
Take it, she said, and this time there was no need to voice the words aloud.
Beetle-kinden were not a magical people, nor were they great warriors, neither fleet nor graceful. Beetles, however, were enduring: their dogged pragmatism had made them a power in this world because they worked and worked tirelessly. They owned reserves of strength that other kinden could never guess at.
Achaeos suddenly felt the tenuous connection he had built towards Che start to wax and surge – and he touched her spirit, the core of her. It shook him to discover that within the one short and amiable Beetle girl there was such a wealth of power. Without hesitation it was offered to him, began flowing into him, and thus passing through his conduit into the ritual. Along with it he felt, like an aftertaste, her feelings and the love she held for him.
There was agony writ large on many faces around the circle, so when the tears started up in Achaeos’ blank eyes, nobody noted or cared. Between them all the air shook and trembled, not through the force of their will, but with their sheer frustration. All throughout Tharn apprentices and servants gave of themselves, ancient archives of power were looted, gems went dark, books burnt and staves cracked. The Wasps were suspicious now: even they could tell that something was happening. Already they were seeking for their governor, not guessing that he was part of the conspiracy against them. Soon there would be soldiers storming ever upwards, drawn by a taste in the air that would become stronger and stronger.