‘Officer, we’re done!’ She heard the words but made nothing of them as she twisted aside away from an axe-stroke, her own thrust scraping off mail. Gerethwy’s halberd blade bounced off her opponent’s shoulderguard, and sent the man staggering.
‘Seriously, Antspider! Time to go!’ the Dragonfly yelled, while someone else shouted, ‘Clock!’ as though they were still at the Prowess Forum.
Belatedly the understanding stumbled into her mind that all this chatter meant that the bombs would shortly explode.
She measured her sword against the axe of her opponent, let his stroke fall short and then lunged, throwing her shoulder forward the way she always employed to out-strike her fencing opponents, this time gashing the Scorpion across the side of his neck and sending him staggering away.
‘Clear! Go!’ she cried, and did her best to obey her own order. Clock meant that it was time they were gone for good — too much time having elapsed since the first explosion. Time to try and extricate their fingers from the trap, or the airships would leave them behind.
Another enemy was upon her, though, before she could get more than three steps away — a cadaverous Spider in dark mail, whipping an axe at her double-handed. She tried to dodge back, fell over instead, so that the crescent blade scythed just overhead. Her reflexive stab caught him at the knee, but his armour turned the blow. He had his axe upraised again in one smooth motion, and she rolled aside frantically, but then he had turned, shoulder coming up, and Gorenn’s arrow struck the high neck-guard of his pauldrons, sending the Spider reeling but otherwise unharmed. Straessa seized her moment and scrambled away, but gained only another foot of ground before a Scorpion blade sliced down in front of her.
Gerethwy barged into the newcomer, knocking him aside, and the two of them went down in a tangle of flailing limbs. Straessa forced herself to her feet even as the Spider came back for her.
Then the explosives blew.
The artificers had done well, for the automotives were gutted in an instant. The force of the blast was mostly directed in and up, so that one machine’s entire weight of iron and brass and wood jumped five feet before coming down on its side, a second explosion slewing its back end towards the fighting. The rush of displaced air knocked the Spider over, and Straessa as well, slapping her to the ground with casual force and leaving her weak and dizzy with the impact. A moment later, though, long, lean arms had hauled her up, and she was in Gerethwy’s grip, being hurried away, as Gorenn’s arrows darted past, swift as angry thoughts, to discourage pursuit.
‘Put me down, you bastard, I can run as good as anyone.’ But she said it so quietly, mumbling through a mouthful of blood, that he didn’t hear her.
‘General, we’ve got them on the run!’
Tynan regarded Colonel Cherten narrowly. ‘Don’t give me that nonsense. They’re Mantis-kinden.’ The problem with the Intelligence Corps is that they underestimate everyone else’s. ‘What’s the situation?’
‘The saboteurs have fled, at least,’ Cherten amended. ‘All key resources are now under our control.’ Just then, another explosion retorted like thunder from somewhere in the camp and, under other circumstances, Tynan would have laughed at the timing. Instead he forcibly restrained himself from punching the colonel.
Hurriedly, Cherten went on. ‘The Mantids are still in the camp. Most of them are gathered up now, and the Spider-kinden are holding them. We’re mopping them up right now — infantry and airborne squads have surrounded them. They’re fighting to the last, of course, but with snapbows and stings we have them outmatched.’
And what bloody cost has this night brought us? ‘I want a full report of the damage: lost men, supplies and siege-’
Just then a sergeant landed nearby, stumbling slightly as he saluted. His armour was streaked with blood. ‘General, sight of airships coming in.’
And their damned orthopters too, of course. And we’ve formed up in nice big groups and there are fires all over camp to light their way. ‘Send out the order: break up every unit into skirmish spread, if they’re not actively fighting. And get me — Major Oski!’
The Fly had been skulking about a moment before and now he appeared at Tynan’s elbow as though brought into being simply by the use of his name. ‘Sir?’
‘I want everything you have aimed at the sky — I know their Stormreaders are too fast for you, but just make the air as busy as you can. Make their lives difficult.’
The Fly saluted, wings flashing from his shoulders to carry him away.
‘Now-’ Tynan started, and an arrow struck Cherten in the chest, bouncing off his armour but knocking him down. Tynan’s blade cleared its sheath, without need for thought, and his left hand jabbed out at a target he had not even consciously seen as the Mantids arrived.
‘Defend the general!’ someone shouted, but Tynan was too busy defending himself. His sting crackled, catching the onrushing woman a glancing blow that barely slowed her, and then he had caught her spear with his sword, beating it away as she raked him with her arm-spines, which squealed across his mail. One of his aides got a sword into her then — too close to risk a sting — but the Mantis woman seemed barely discouraged. There was clear knowledge in her eyes that she was fighting the Wasps’ leader.
She struck him in the chest with the shaft of the spear, trying to knock him back far enough for her to ram the point into him, but he flailed out and somehow seized her by the wrist. Furious, she pulled back, but a tug of war was not what he intended. The fierce heat of his sting charred her flesh to the bone and she hissed — such a small sound — and rammed the spines of her other arm at his neck, abandoning the spear altogether.
His aide got his sword into her back then, and practically levered her off his superior, while all about there was fighting. Surely there were no more than eight or nine Mantids broken from their main force, but they had struck the mother-lode of enemy officers to kill. Cherten was on the ground, one arm running with blood but still lashing out with his sting at any target that presented itself, and Tynan saw the Red Watch captain, Vrakir, fighting savagely with a Mantis swordsman, matching his enemy for three fierce exchanges of blows before getting a sting in that sent the man reeling back with his chest on fire.
Another Mantis came for Tynan with one of those bladed gauntlets, but by that time his staff had rallied, and a snapbow bolt cut the enemy down before he got close. In another moment the Spider-kinden were there, striking from the same direction the Mantids had issued from. Tynan saw Mycella’s bodyguard literally hurl himself into a pair of them, slender sword flashing, his shield and mail warding off their return strikes, and yet he moved nearly as fast as they did, for all the weight of metal he carried.
Then he saw her, striding through the fighting like a queen, the rapier in her hand stained with blood. Despite the attack, and despite the losses he knew his army must have suffered, the sight of her brought a smile to his lips.
The airships were coming for them. Straessa could see them descending, so silent and peaceful, as if they belonged to another world entirely, while behind her the Wasp camp burned and the fighting continued. One of the Stormreader pilots must have been watching for the first bombs exploding, then gone to fetch the transport straight away.
‘Let me down!’ she insisted, somewhat louder and clearer now. She was aware that some of her people were turning to shooting behind them. ‘Curse you, Gereth, put me down. I need to fight!’
‘With what?’ he asked. There was a flash and a boom from ahead, and she realized that some of the airship crew had brought smallshotters up to the rails and were now loosing, randomly into the enemy camp to discourage pursuit.