‘Commander Termes, Chief Officer Padstock,’ he began formally, regarding his two subordinates. The Vekken Ant was expressionless as ever, but there was a hard anticipation on Elder Padstock’s face. She wanted to kill Wasps in the name of her city, Stenwold knew. ‘I’m heading up the wall to get a first-hand view,’ he told them. ‘I’ll send orders down, to brace the gate in the worst case, to sally out in the best. Until then, eyes on the sky. I’m expecting company soon.’
‘War Master,’ Padstock acknowledged. Termes just nodded wordlessly.
Stenwold climbed the steps at speed, because, if he slowed, then he might just grind to a halt altogether. The weight of his breastplate and helm combined with score of aches, pains and old wounds to nag at him, and he consoled himself with thoughts of the magical time of after this. .
Chief Officer Outwright, of the Pike and Shot, was young enough to be Stenwold’s son, and looked young enough to be his grandson. His armour shone like the best silverware, but his face was ashen and frightened when Stenwold reached him. His attention had been focused across the wall, of course, where the Wasps were navigating the complex earthworks with steady determination, closing and closing even as more and more wall engines began bedevilling them. Stenwold saw that they had chosen a mixed marching order: there were solid blocks of their heavier infantry out there, but they were surrounded by a looser-knit shifting mass of soldiers that must be the Light Airborne, and whose open order denied the Collegiate artillery good targets. There were plenty of small siege engines amongst the Wasps, though, making heavier work of the terrain and attracting much shot from the walls. Even as Stenwold watched, a lucky leadshot impacted near one, the missile exploding into shrapnel as its internal charge went off. The distance was too great to count casualties, but the Imperial engine — some sort of modified leadshotter — seemed to have ended up on its side.
‘Be ready, Outwright,’ Stenwold told the young chief officer. ‘They’re taking a lot of damage from our engines. They’ll try to do something about that soon, when they’re close enough to make a swift rush of it. Just remember your briefing.’
‘Yes, War Master,’ Outwright gasped. Thankfully his company had experienced officers who were already relaying the order: Ready snapbows, ready pikes. Stenwold clapped the man on the shoulder, a public gesture to boost his morale and his soldiers’ confidence, and carried on along the wall, looking for Madagnus,
The Ant artillerist was sighting up one of the magnetic bows, and Stenwold could feel, as much as hear, the crackle from its charged lightning engine. A moment later the air relaxed as the machine discharged, its explosive-tipped bolt vanished from its groove, and Madagnus was obviously cheered by the result, because he was cackling to himself even as he dragged at a lever to recharge the device. Down the wall from him, a pneumatic repeating ballista was just starting to loose, its pistons banging out a solid rhythm as it began throwing bolts into the front line of the enemy.
Stenwold looked out at the Second. They were just about close enough, he reckoned. A lot depended on the speed and stamina of their Airborne, but there seemed to be a distinct order now imposed over the somewhat unruly ranks. He took out his glass and extended it, scanning the lines, seeing definite preparation, the magnification enough to see individual faces, to spot sergeants passing amongst their men, mouths opening to shout silent orders. More than Airborne, too: as well as the Wasp heavies, he saw a good number of Spider troops, also in loose skirmish order, and starting to move ahead of their Imperial colleagues. But they don’t fly, and so they don’t bother me as much.
It was back to basics for the Wasp army, at least for now. The Light Airborne, their traditional strength, was about to test itself against Collegium marksmanship.
‘There!’ Madagnus barked out. ‘Let’s take a crack at that monster.’
He was indicating a Sentinel, the armoured, woodlouse-like form humping and scrabbling over the broken terrain without obvious difficulty. Stenwold had seen the automotives in action first-hand at Myna and, once the wall had come down, they had been a terror in the street-to-street fighting, but he did not see them as a priority. Because it won’t come to that. Because we will hold the gate, and they do not have the means to break the wall.
The Sentinel was making quick work of the earthworks, its multiple legs scrabbling and pulling it over anything it encountered, and the magnetic ballistae had not been intended for such a mobile target, but Madagnus apparently took this as some sort of a challenge. His lips moved, counting to himself, and he wound the engine degree after degree until he was leading the galloping Sentinel by the required distance.
Then he loosed, soundlessly, only a shudder in the air to indicate it, and cried out with triumph as he scored a hit. Stenwold looked out at the stricken machine — close enough to need no glass now — and saw it shake itself just like an animal, as though getting its armour plating to fall back into place again. A moment later it was moving on again, not even a serious dent to show for the impact.
‘Right.’ The set of Madagnus’s jaw presaged dangerous risk-taking, and Stenwold grabbed his arm.
‘Go for the threats to our gate, Chief. Priorities, remember.’
The Ant stared at him blankly for a second, then nodded briefly. ‘Ramming engines,’ he confirmed.
There was a series of shouts and snapbow shot from down the wall, and for a moment Stenwold thought he had missed the Second’s attack, but it was one of the great hornets, far from the Imperial airship and still mad for blood, that had come droning over the wall. The snapbowmen were far better suited to destroying such creatures than were the pilots who had shared the air with them but there were still some scores of the beasts circling out there.
He had just turned again to look out at the enemy when the Wasps made their move, and the entire front seven ranks of the Second Army exploded, thousands of soldiers taking to the air in a vast cloud, and he felt a ripple of shock pass through the entire Collegiate wall detachment. Then the Airborne were coming for them like a storm, and he heard the cries of officers on both sides: ‘Pikes out and hold! Snapbows ready!’
The Airborne had taken dozens of cities like this, making a mockery of traditional fortifications, but, back during their heyday, there had been nothing as accurate as a snapbow in their enemies’ hands. Even the Sarnesh crossbowmen at the Battle of the Rails had inflicted savage casualties on them. Stenwold did not envy those attackers their duty, even as he prepared himself to kill as many of them as he could. He had his little pocket snapbow already out, and two score bolts he did not intend to waste.
On the ground, the Imperial ramming engines were grinding on towards the gate, with the heavy infantry to back them up. The Airborne alone would not be able to engage the wall for long, and the Empire would need to get its better-armoured troops inside the city soon. Without serious artillery to break down the walls, without the provisions for a long siege, that meant that they would have to force the gate and hope to hold it somehow.
The shock of seeing the Imperials suddenly in flight was still evident in the faces of many of the Company soldiers about him, but enough of them had their snapbows levelled even as the artillerists bent to their task of singling out the ramming engines as they advanced.