plainly already arrived. Then she remembered.
Oh, no, no, no! Because that was the signal, the get-out-of-the-pissing-air signal, which meant Maker or whoever was ready to make something terrible happen.
Still cursing to herself, she rammed her Esca towards the ground, because if she was to die, let it be in the air, yes — but let it also be a pilot’s death. Whatever Maker had in mind, whatever the artificers of the College had cooked up, she did not want to know. Most particularly she did not want to find out in person.
A staccato rattle of impacts into her undercarriage made her pull the stick back by instinct, heading up again — the second Farsphex had second-guessed her and was trying to drive her into the aim of the first, but most crucially he was driving her away from the ground. How long had the Ear been sounding? How long did she have left? She tried to slip sideways, to lose them just long enough to cut down below the rooftops, but she had gone too high and they were wise to her piloting now, and they would not let her go, would not let her down.
A panicking glance showed her no hope of reprieve. The bulk of the Collegiate machines were down — or downed — and those still in the air were sharing her plight: unable to get out of the fighting without leaving it the hard way.
Frightened as she had not felt for a long time, she threw the Esca across the sky, never quite getting free of her pursuers, never quite able to push through the scythe of their shot to land — even to crash. And all around her there were more of the enemy, and they all knew exactly where she was.
Straessa lunged again, spearing a lean Spider — old enough to be her father — in the shoulder, her point piercing between the plates of his chitin mail. Around her, the bulk of her soldiers had resorted to their swords, with a few opportunists behind her still taking potshots with their bows, almost directly into the face of the enemy. The other maniples around them were also locked into the fighting, or else had fled, running back towards the camp and what scant salvation could be found there. Every so often — so incongruous she would have laughed — she heard someone sound the whistle for retreat, but the input of tacticians into this battle had come and gone. It was not even a matter of selling their lives dearly. The flesh wanted to live, and could not be made to understand that this was no longer an option. So they fought, and shed the blood of their enemies just to buy mere minutes more for themselves.
Overhead, the Light Airborne were a constant curse, shooting or diving about the battlefield, but they seemed most concerned about chasing after the runners: whole fistfuls of the black and gold stooping on the backs of fleeing Collegiate soldiers with sword and sting.
Then the Imperial infantry came. They struck over to Straessa’s right first, shouldering through the skirmishers and smashing into the already battered maniples with their close order and their years of experience; the Collegiate line simply cracked and fell apart, individual maniples disintegrating within moments of their charge, dying or fleeing. The Wasp soldiers, already bloodied in the initial exchange, were now recapturing their honour, solid, disciplined men in good armour going about their trade.
Straessa risked a glance behind her, because her maniple had now been stripped of a third of its numbers by the skirmishers, and a personal retreat was looking like a good idea, The soldiers behind her, the reserves and the rear squares, had lost formation, most of them milling, some running. She had never much liked trying to rush through a crowd.
‘Sub!’ someone yelled — possibly a soldier from another maniple calling a different officer altogether, but the cry drew her attention and her heart, already a battered thing, lost what little hope remained in it.
The Imperial infantry had not rushed her people yet, but only because there was a Sentinel on its way and they did not want to end up underneath it.
‘Anyone got a grenade?’ she shouted, fending off a sword blow, and then the enormous, armour-plated machine surged forwards, absurdly fast for such a weighty thing, and essentially obliterated the maniple to Straessa’s left, the force of its impact throwing a few boneless bodies high, crushing far more, and the survivors fell almost instantly as the Sentinel loosed a spray of snapbow shot around it.
Behind it, the Imperial infantry were abruptly in motion, closing the distance.
The Sentinel turned, legs moving in a careful little dance, until its great blind prow was facing Straessa, that covered eye boring into her — specifically her and nobody else, or so it seemed. Then the eye opened, the metal cover sliding up to reveal the gaping barrel of its leadshotter.
One of her people did have a grenade, and also the good sense to wait until that moment before hurling it, the hatched metal sphere arcing overhead towards that gaping hole. The missile was off the mark, though, striking the armour and rebounding, exploding pointlessly in the air. With a desperate war-cry the Dragonfly Castre Gorenn leapt into the air, loosing a final arrow that vanished, without trace or effect, into that gaping eye, her ancient Commonweal skills utterly surpassed by modern artifice, but the silver flecks of snapbow bolts were rebounding from the vehicle’s metal hide to no greater effect.
I resign my commission, Straessa decided, effective immediately.
Then the Sentinel rocked under a handful of impacts, lurching forwards a few yards, then spinning furiously on the spot to face this new challenge. From behind it, and cutting bloodily through the Wasp lines, a dozen automotives were on the move, the vanguard of the miscellany that Collegium had used for its strike at the enemy artillery.
Does that mean we won? was her first mad thought. But she could see only that dozen or so and, even as she watched, one of the machines at the rear simply exploded, and she saw that there were another handful of Sentinels in hot pursuit.
Oh. But then she saw what the automotives were actually doing — for the line of their charge cut between the Collegiate forces and the bulk of the Wasp army, ploughing into the enemy infantry with brutal abandon, forcing the lines apart.
‘Retreat!’ Straessa shouted, then she blew the signal on her whistle for all she was worth. After that, she took her own advice, first killing a final Spider skirmisher who was too keen for his own good and then turning to run, keeping pace with her maniple because she was still responsible for them. All around her, the Collegiates were doing the same — some retreating in better order, some simply dropping their weapons and fleeing.
The lead automotive struck the Sentinel at a narrow angle, rocking it back on its legs and rebounding onto a path that churned through the Imperial infantry. The Airborne were already returning to the fray, shooting at the automotives that were causing such havoc to their lines.
They’re going to destroy the machine! Stenwold thought, ripping his little snapbow from inside his tunic — the beautiful, vast and yet fragile machine that Banjacs and the artificers had been so frantically tuning, which was even now poised to wipe the skies clear of Collegium’s enemies. And now the Rekef had arrived to smash it.
He loosed desperately, because there were almost a dozen of the attackers, and the great vulnerable machine was all around them. There was no way that he could stop them all.
But they were not here for the machine, it seemed. Imperial intelligence extended just so far, informed as it was by Spider agents who were almost entirely Inapt. They began shooting hurriedly, almost wildly, but at the people.
A bolt passed across Stenwold’s scalp and he reeled back, but his own quick shot had taken one of the men down, and he was already loosing the second before the tight knot of enemy could break apart.
He saw Banjacs take a bolt in the chest and jerk backwards, a tangle of elbows and knees, blood abruptly appearing bold across his white robes. Almost as valuable as the machine itself was its creator.
The Imperials were not soldiers, and their skill at arms had played second to their intelligence training. After taking the two Company soldiers at the door, they had expected to face only Maker and a handful of scholars. They forgot, or never appreciated, that there were few College men or women who were complete strangers to the Prowess Forum, and that Collegium had been through two sieges over in the last few years.
A heavy workman’s hammer, thrown with remarkable skill, took one man full in the face. Another of the artificers had brought a sword, and rushed to meet the attackers blade to blade.
Then the burn-scarred man spotted Averic.
‘You little bastard!’ he shouted, seeing before him, in the flesh, that fatal miscalculation that had spoiled their operation. What went through the man’s mind then, viewing this pure-blooded Wasp-kinden of good family who had inexplicably betrayed all the generations of Empire, was written in ugly lines over the Beetle spy’s face. Immediately, he charged the youth, without thought for any aim beyond killing him.
Stenwold was trying to get to Banjacs, but a swordsman was suddenly upon him, a lean Beetle with a knife in his offhand and enough rough skill to force Stenwold on the defensive, driving him further away from his allies.
