He was ready to fall back, to grab Che by the arm and haul her out of the way, to let the others do the dying. But the rabble had apparently made its decision, and not a moment too soon.
Thundering between Thalric and Tynisa went the enormous figure of Forge-Iron, the Mole Cricket. He whirled his great hammer in one hand, and Thalric saw it strike a Worm soldier square on, practically turning the creature to paste. There were now sling stones zipping past towards the enemy, too, and then a ragbag of fighters deigned to present themselves: men and women without armour or any real idea about how to fight, but suddenly the odds were in their favour, for all that they looked terrified of everything that they saw – and of the Worm most of all.
‘Now!’ Che yelled, and charged forwards, and although Thalric cursed her for it, he knew it was the right thing to do. He drew his own blade and hurried after her and, like the feeblest tide of history, the slaves came as well.
Once the Worm had been dispatched, all of its bodies strewn at the periphery of Cold Well like broken dolls, the slaves stood around, staring. Not one of them seemed to know what came next, and Thalric felt that he could share their apprehension. Did Che really think she could forge anything from this downtrodden dross, even with the threat of extinction as the whip?
Still, Thalric had been a soldier once. ‘Strip the bodies!’ he shouted at them. ‘They have armour, weapons! Things you lack, you wretches! Come on, do yourselves a favour!’
A few did pick up a sword or pluck disconsolately at the mail of the dead, but most just stood there, staring at the corpses, staring at him, staring at each other.
Then he heard a voice, and knew it for Atraea the Moth woman: ‘What have you done? You have killed us all!’
‘You’re as good as dead, anyway,’ Thalric spat back, but then Che was there, hands extended to call for attention.
‘Listen to me,’ she called. ‘This is just the start! Now you must go to the other communities nearby, all those other people who have lived under the tax, who have suffered as you have suffered. I know that they are there. You must tell them what we have told you. They must do as you have done. They must rise up against the Worm, if they value their lives, and the lives of their kin. This is their only chance.’
‘It is forbidden to travel to other towns!’ someone called back, and Che blinked, plainly finding a complication she had not anticipated.
Thankfully, Messel came to her rescue. ‘And yet it is done! I have done it. Many of you have done it. The word must be spread – so fly, run, follow paths of stone, but go swiftly!’
‘Not swiftly enough!’ Atraea insisted fiercely. ‘Raise a hand against one soldier of the Worm, and all the Worm knows of it! They are on their way here even now! You have only ensured that everyone in Cold Well will die.’
‘Then there shall be no one in Cold Well when they arrive,’ Orothellin’s voice boomed out. ‘You must leave, all of you – strike out into the wilderness, set off for False Hearth or The Shelves. Take all you have, and most especially the food and the weapons that you have already gathered for the Worm.’
‘This is madness!’ Atraea insisted. ‘This . . .’ And her jabbing finger found Che. ‘This is because she knows the Worm is attacking her people in the Old World. She thinks to sacrifice all that we are just to aid her kin under the sun!’
A silence fell, and Thalric looked from face to face: Mole Crickets, Beetles, Woodlice, all the detritus of this grim place, and not one of them with a thought in their heads, or so he assumed.
Then one of the Woodlouse-kinden women coughed and said, ‘So you believe in the Old World now?’
Despite himself, Thalric’s heart leapt. Is it possible? Did one of them just have an idea? Wonders will never cease.
‘That is . . .’ Atraea’s pale eyes flashed as she stared around, trying to muster support. ‘They are using you! That is all that matters. They don’t care about you!’
‘Do you care about yourselves?’ Che countered. ‘The Worm doesn’t care. The Worm remembers the sun. From the moment the Seal was broken, you became nothing to the Worm but a resource, a vessel to be emptied and cast aside. Ask him, he knows – he hears the Worm still though he tries to deny it.’ She was pointing at the Hermit, who hugged himself and flinched away from her. ‘The Worm doesn’t care about you, for all that you have been the fat it has lived off all these centuries of imprisonment. If you sit here like good, obedient slaves then the Worm will harvest all you have, down to the flesh from your bones. But the Worm is already marching. If you make it work, if you run and hide and fight, then it will spend its blood and its time hunting you down.’
The Mole Cricket smith loomed beside Atraea, and she sagged into him, hands about her midriff.
‘We will die,’ she got out.
‘Some of you will, surely. Perhaps I will too,’ Che said equably. ‘But you mistake me if you think I do this for my kin. I do this because the city that gave birth to me teaches what is right and what is wrong, even if we do not always practise it. We hold no slaves, where I come from, and we value human life, of all kinden. And in the Worm’s blind hunger, and with the collaboration of its priests, a great evil has been created here, and it must be fought. Perhaps a year ago you could indeed have said that to live in the Worm’s shadow is better than to die on its swords. Now you will die, every one of you, unless you set yourselves free.’
‘Gather everything you can take, everything you can carry. Use the pack animals the Worm has so thoughtfully brought you!’ Orothellin boomed. ‘Fill those cages with something more wholesome for once. Cold Well must be emptied. Take everything you can.’
‘Teacher . . .’ Atraea’s taut, frightened face turned towards him. ‘There must be some way . . .’
‘It is the end of many things,’ the big man told her gently. ‘Unless we act now, it will be the end of all things.’
Around them, the people of Cold Well began to move, slowly at first but then with a gathering urgency, preparing for their exodus, whilst others were already setting off to pass word of what had happened across the Worm’s realm.
Twenty-Four
Major Oski dropped down beside the artillery crew positioned on the roofs overlooking Collegium docks. ‘All right, what now? What’s so important? The engines have gone wrong or something?’
‘No, sir,’ the sergeant of Engineers reported. ‘Out on the water, though—’
For a moment, Oski went cold. But this is nonsense, isn’t it? Vrakir’s lunacy. There was a half-moon tonight, and it touched the wavetops as they rolled forever in towards land, and out there . . . Ships? Did he see ships?
For a moment he thought this must be it, that somehow Vrakir had been right. Is it the Spiders? Have they sent an Armada to relieve Collegium? Why the pits would they even bother? Then he spat. ‘That’s – what, is that the Tseni, in their little boats?’
‘Yes, sir.’
Oski slapped him across the back of the head, using a flicker of his wings to gain the required height. ‘You stupid sod, you got me out of bed for that?’
‘Sir, they’re moving. It’s as if they’re getting ready for something,’ the sergeant insisted, aggrieved.
‘Do I look like someone who gives a piss? Go send for the officer of the watch or something.’
‘That’s you, Major. You were given the harbour defence.’