some unfamiliar unit.
‘To what do I owe the pleasure?’ Roder asked, though with nothing pleasant in his tone. Men like Gjegevey unsettled him. The old creature had no fixed place in the world, being simultaneously a slave and a great power within the Empire.
‘Orders, General. I, mmn, bear the Empress’s word.’ Gjegevey extracted a somewhat creased scroll from within his robe, and Roder accepted it reluctantly.
When he had broken the seal, checked the signatures and read the contents, his face lost all expression. ‘This cannot be,’ he said flatly.
‘A temporary measure only, General,’ Gjegevey assured him, ‘but essential. Think of it as part of a greater plan, the, hm, Empress’s own.’
‘Impossible. I cannot give these orders.’
‘They are from the Empress’s own hand, sir,’ the pilot said, imbuing that ‘sir’ with precious little respect.
‘And who are you?’ Roder demanded of the young man, who had the sort of smug confidence he associated only with the Rekef.
‘I am of the Red Watch,’ the pilot replied. ‘I am the voice of the Empress.’
Roder stared at him, and Gjegevey added, in a low voice, ‘There have been changes back in Capitas. Believe me, these orders are not negotiable.’
The general sagged slightly, looking about him at his busy army. In a moment he was going to have to tell them, all of them, that they were to withdraw some several miles east and there make camp and wait for further orders. And all the while still within the Mantis-kinden’s reach.
Gjegevey, though, who had brought such bad tidings, already seemed to have forgotten him. Instead he was staring north towards the great, engulfing shadow that was the Etheryon- Nethyon forest, with a speculative expression on his face.
Thirty-Six
The tent of Chief Officer Marteus looked spartan, with merely a bedroll slung in one corner and a wooden stand for the man’s armour. No map table, for he held his plans in his head, and sharing them with others was not something he was good at. No chair even: he would sit on the floor with his soldiers. Only the fact that he had a tent to himself showed any indication of rank.
Straessa had been called in without warning at first light, and she was not sure whether she had done something wrong. Certainly there had been a fair amount of larking around amongst her troops, which she had hoped was good for morale, or some similar military virtue, for she was not the right officer to quell it.
‘Subordinate Officer the Antspider,’ Marteus acknowledged her with a nod. The renegade Tarkesh Ant was in full uniform: breastplate and buff coat, even the lobster-tail helm dangling from one hand as though he would don it any moment and charge off to war alone.
‘Chief Officer Marteus.’ Straessa could not say that she liked this man overmuch: he was distant and unsociable, as most Ants were in the company of other kinden. Her respect for him, though, had only grown, for he was so much more the born warrior and logistician than the Collegium locals.
‘We’ll engage the enemy tomorrow, most likely,’ he told her. ‘They’re keeping a steady progress and, if they chose, they could hit us before dawn, or earlier. They made a fierce pace from Tark to the Felyal. We don’t know precisely what time they could manage, if they pushed.’
‘I understand, Chief.’
He took a deep breath. ‘Battle order, Sub. Bitter as it is to have to spell it out for you, but there’s none of you who could work it out for yourself or take it from my mind. It’s a simple plan, though. Just keep repeating it to yourself until it sinks in.’ He was overdoing the gruff, and that made Straessa nervous. ‘The automotives are going to form our wings, flying out left and right to assault the enemy in the flanks. Some will carry light artillery, others just troops. They will do their best not to engage the enemy automotives, for reasons you’ll understand full well.’
‘Yes, Chief.’
‘Their objective is the enemy siege train, specifically anything that looks like a giant leadshotter. That’s the word from the Mynans for what took their walls down. From what they say, the Second won’t need to get that much closer to Collegium’s walls in order to deploy them. As for our centre, you’re it.’
Straessa digested all this, standing very still, her face carefully calm, while she played it out in her mind against the backdrop of the desperate retreat from the entrenching works. The more she thought calmly about it, the more her insides churned and twisted, until her mouth came out with, ‘Hammer and anvil, Chief?’ She did her best to make the words sound casual, because that was how she preferred to think of herself, but the tremor emerged despite her best efforts.
‘As you say, Sub.’
‘Chief.’ I have fifty comrades who will follow me, and most of them are friends. ‘I can’t help noticing,’ fighting with each word to keep her voice level, hands clenched into tight fists, ‘that their hammer is likely to be their automotives, Chief, And our a-anvil is going to be us, Chief, flesh and blood.’ And she snapped her mouth shut because to say more than that would be to invite a sundering of her composure.
Marteus nodded briskly. ‘That’s the plan. You’re not to engage their machines, just get out of the way of them if you can, but there will be infantry and airborne coming right after them. They can’t take ground with just automotives. Their soldiers you will engage, and hold them off with pike and shot.’
‘And their… their automotives, Chief?’ Outside the tent she could hear singing, some of her people, no doubt, some filthy Fly taverna chant.
‘I’ve told you, don’t engage.’
But what about when they engage us? She tried to prompt him with her eyes but he was all business, having none of it.
‘Go instruct your troops, Sub.’
She just stared at him, and for a moment almost wanted to laugh. It had, she discovered, all been some dreadful mistake. She was not a soldier, after all. She was just a student with delusions of martial prowess — and what set of ridiculous circumstances had conspired to put her here, eh? Where was the department head now, so that she could apply to switch courses?
But Marteus’s level gaze had not wavered, and he was plainly expecting her to go and spread the word.
‘Chief, I don’t think you know what you’re… What do you think it’s going to be like when I tell them — my soldiers, my people — that we’re to be where the metal meets? That we’re standing at the sharp end?’
His expression — or lack of same — did not alter. ‘I know what it’s like, Sub. Now get a move on. I’ve got plenty more of you to see.’
‘Tonight you’ll understand everything,’ said Stenwold. He had kept the two students, Eujen Leadswell and the Wasp Averic, under watch all morning, without them showing any sign of suspicious behaviour. In the afternoon he had sent for them, and he was now heading for Banjacs Gripshod’s machine-gutted house, ready for the last act of the drama. Last night they had seen an inexplicable failure or betrayal, as the city was laid bare before the knives of its enemies. Tonight, though..
Tonight will go down in history, Stenwold thought unhappily. One way or another, and the ‘everything’ that the boys would understand might leave an altogether more bitter taste. If they see the reasons behind the sacrifices we have made then, if they understand nothing else, they will understand some of how difficult it is to lead. Let Leadswell choke on that.
The citizens of Collegium they saw out on the streets were picking their way through the city as though already living in hostile territory. Stenwold had spent the morning with Jodry, pointlessly going over and over each part of the plan, sending unnecessary orders to confirm to every well-briefed individual what he or she already knew. And each of them knew only their own small part, of course. The grand design remained invisible to anyone but Jodry and himself. Everyone in the city must guess that something was going on, just as the Empire must, but Jodry and Stenwold had kept their secret safe.
Stenwold thought back to his last look at the Speaker before he set out: the man had been haggard, that
