either. She was merely tied to a tree beside a rank of restless horses, not penned up, not even gagged.
‘Varmen!’ Thalric began running for her. A Grasshopper groom or functionary came dashing along the row of horses, quite possibly for purposes unconnected with the rescue, but Thalric took no chances and stung him down anyway. He heard the clatter of steel behind him and knew that the Commonwealers were regaining their dented courage, and coming in greater numbers. He dared not look back to see how Varmen fared.
There were no chains, no locks. He had his sword out, hacking at the ropes and cutting jagged gashes in the tree itself, and in a moment Che was free.
An arrow dug into the trunk just above her head, even as she slumped forward. Thalric hauled her to her feet, but she sank back on to her knees, and for a moment he thought that she had been shot.
‘Been on a horse for days,’ Che gasped. ‘No idea how sore I am.. . barely walk.’
‘You’re going to have to,’ Thalric cautioned her. ‘Running would be even better.’
She cursed as he dragged her upright again, but at least she managed to stay standing. Thalric calculated quickly, deciding the swiftest way out of the camp. True to his bad luck, the Salmae had tethered their animals safely towards the centre, and of course their prisoner too. For a moment he considered stealing a horse, but his riding skills would barely manage a sedate trot in daylight, let alone a mad gallop at night.
‘Varmen!’ he yelled again. Glancing back, he saw the armoured figure striding in the opposite direction. From here, all ways led out, and it seemed that the Sentinel’s shadow allowed room enough for a bruised Beetle girl as well as a former Rekef man.
Even as they caught up, Thalric forcing Che to keep the pace, another flurry of Commonwealers attacked. A brace of arrows bounded from Varmen’s raised shield, and then there were airborne forms about him, wheeling and darting, striking at his head and shoulders. They were trying to keep him off balance, first one attacking and then another, but it seemed as though Varmen was in another world, within his helm, and no matter how hard they made it ring, none of their feints could fool him. The Sentinel’s skill was not simply in bearing the huge burden of his mail, but in fighting with complete focus and awareness, so that the mail was no burden, the visor no restriction. As each attacker lunged downwards, Varmen was ready, taking their blows on his shield, striking back only when it was economical to do so. He brought down two of five, leaving them, crawling away bloodied on the forest floor, and he did not stop for them.
There was a voice calling out, ahead, and Che’s head snapped up at the sound.
‘That’s her,’ she whispered, and Thalric had no idea who she meant until he saw. They had somehow taken the one path that led them further in, to the absolute centre of the camp, or perhaps Varmen had been well aware of where he was going all along. There was a chaos of activity here, half-armoured Dragonflies flying back and forth, some rushing out to locate a threat that had already arrived at their doorstep, others trying to form up into some semblance of military order. In the midst of it all stood a woman in glorious armour of red and blue that reflected the firelight fiercely. She was practically shrieking orders, striking out at any of her people that came within fist range.
Princess Salme Elass, last of her line.
‘We need to get out, not in. What are you doing?’ Thalric demanded. Varmen’s entrance had been noted, and the tail end of the Imperial awe that had got them this far lashed into the assembled Commonwealers. They did not see Thalric or Che, just that one indomitable armoured form – and, behind him, all the horrors of the Twelve-year War.
‘Varmen, we have to go!’ Che called. ‘They have a Weapons-master.’
The armoured man turned briefly, helm tilting to stare over his shoulder. His sword levelled past them, indicating the direction away .
Varmen took the next sword on his shield, long-honed instincts telling him where his new foe would be even without seeing him, calculating back from the angle of strike. He brought his sword back from signalling Thalric and Che, and chopped it into the path that he knew his assailant would take, feeling a solid impact and knowing that he had caught the man somewhere unarmoured. There seemed to be a host all about him, pressing behind and on both sides, not seen, not even heard, but felt through the weight of his mail. When he now advanced, the foe fell away as though he had a regiment at his back.
Another wave of Dragonfly-kinden dared him, and broke against his shield, passing him by as though they were so many autumn leaves. He felt the impacts of their blades and spearpoints, and had they simply stood against him, probed for the weak points in his mail, then they would have brought him down in short order. They would not stand, though, and these fleeting strikes were all they were good for.
His narrow frame of reference scanned about him: noting the campfires, the running and flying enemy, the tents.
He thought he saw the black and gold banner beside him, shadowed forms in striped mail, his comrades the Sentinels, but they were not really there. They had perished at Masaki, they had died at Malkan’s Stand, they had been disbanded by an Empire that no longer had need of them.
‘Pride of the Sixth,’ he croaked to himself, and took another step.
For a moment he thought he saw the Dragonfly girl, not this chaff that was sleeting past him but the girl he had duelled so long ago, in that moment his life seemed to hinge on. When I was alive. For I was never so alive as in that moment. He thought that she smiled at him, and nodded, and then turned to go. Where I cannot follow, alas. I’d have followed her then, or had her follow me. She was a beauty and no mistake, even when she was trying to kill me. Especially then. After all, I’ve thought about doing the deed myself once or twice, after Malkan’s Stand. I can hardly hold it against her, then, can I?
Another staccato rattle of weapons striking home, arrows, most of them, One shaft stuck in his elbow-joint, clipping in under the shield, but it failed to touch him. None of it touched him.
He saw her. Not the ghost-girl now, for she had gone, or never been. He saw the leader of the enemy shouting her orders. Thalric and his Beetle woman were fleeing fast, he hoped, but he would detain his audience a little longer, to let them make their exit.
For my next trick…
He broke into a run then, and was willing to put money down that none of the enemy had realized he could do it. The weight of his mail made him unstoppable.
He saw the woman straight ahead of him, gorgeous in armour that would have taken ten times as long to make as Varmen’s own, and cost just as much more, even without the gold chasing, and would protect her far less from his blade. She spotted his approach in mid-shout, and he had her face framed perfectly within the slot of his visor, saw her anger stretch and split, shouldered aside by the horror now hatching behind it.
Salme Elass screamed, and her wings sprang into life, hauling her back into an ungainly leap to put more distance between her and the Imperial behemoth now closing with her.
Abruptly there was someone in between them: a pale figure with a twisting blade hooking out from one hand. He struck four times in swift succession, curving past Varmen’s shield each time, his metal claw feeling out for the strength of the Imperial mail.
Varmen’s steel held, and he forged forward. Whatever the antagonist had expected, it was not that. Presumably, when a Mantis-kinden stopped to fight you, you were supposed to stay fought, but Varmen shouldered on towards the Salme woman, and carried the Mantis with him. The man was too quick to get caught by the sweep of the Wasp’s blade, but Varmen gave him no time to seek out the joints and cracks in his armour, and all the while the Mantis was desperately trying to turn him aside from the princess.
The claw-blade came for his eyeslit, but Varmen just ducked a little, feeling it scrape off his helm. The next blow chopped between neck and shoulder, but that was why his pauldrons had those high ridges protecting his throat. A strike to his groin found only layers of mail and the articulated lames of his tassets. As the Mantis gave yet more ground, Varmen caught a glimpse of his face: blank frustration growing behind the warrior’s mask.
Others were also attacking. He felt the punch of arrows and spears against his back. It seemed impossible that one of them had not brought him down yet. But I feel as if I have the whole army with me, the glorious Sixth. I feel like they could never take me, not all the Commonwealers in the world.
The Mantis was suddenly right before him, one hand hooking a thumb into his eyeslit, trying to force his head back, claw-blade ready to strike at his throat. It was a mistake, for now he had sacrificed all his speed and skill in order to brawl like a common soldier, and Varmen was the stronger man. He swept his shield around, feeling the rim catch his enemy somewhere in the side, forcing him away, and then Varmen simply swatted his enemy with the flat of it, knocking him aside.
