War Master's Gate

Twenty-Seven

‘What just happened to the orthopters?’ Straessa demanded. She had no telescope, and the only glass within reach was at the eye of Madagnus, her commanding officer. There was a sort of a cloud that had suddenly sprung up around that looming airship, though, now dispersing into. . were those other flying machines? There was some sort of ferocious air battle going on, which hadn’t been the plan explained to the ground forces.

And speaking of ground forces. .

The Second Army was making its advance, too far away for her to see anything more than solid blocks of black and gold broaching the uneven, churned-up ground that would funnel them into the hammer of Collegium’s artillery.

Madagnus swore and rammed the telescope into her hands. ‘Get the magnets ready! Loose as fast as you can — put as much shot into them as you’re able.’

The magnetic ballistae were already charged, so the first volley went off in glorious unison, explosive bolts breaking into bright flashes of fire across the Imperial front lines. There were only a dozen of these weapons along Collegium’s wall, all the artificers had been able to build, and they had been intended for destroying the Empire’s greatshotter artillery, which had been mostly lost on the road to Collegium. All their range and accuracy meant little against the great mass of the Second Army.

Then they were recharging from their lightning engines, and that meant just dead time in which the Empire’s soldiers crept closer and closer. The earthworks were slowing them down, but not as much as they should have done: most of the Imperial army could fly, after all, and even armoured men could manage a brief hop over obstructions. Straessa could see knots of soldiers struggling with siege engines, though, carrying ramps to ease them up the jumbled path the Collegiates had dug for them. She remembered how much sweating, back-breaking work all that digging had entailed. And now we see if it was worth the effort.

Judging that the Empire was still a way off from reaching snapbow range, she lifted the glass to view the aerial battle, steadying it as best she could to try and make out something of what was going on.

By that time it was mostly over. The great Imperial airship hung there, listing slightly, its hull seemingly peppered with holes, but the skies around it were almost clear of orthopters, for those winged forms madly circling the vessel didn’t look like. . Straessa blinked, lowering the glass when at last she understood what she was looking at. But that wouldn’t work, surely? But even now there were Stormreaders overhead, yet so very few of them, and many virtually limping through the air with wings battered and torn. And the Imperial Air Corps? The only blessing was that it seemed to have gone to ground as well, and Straessa wondered just how discriminating those infuriated insects had been.

The flying elite that had dominated the battlefield up until now had been abruptly swept away. The war had been reclaimed for the ordinary soldiers, such as the thousands of Wasps presently toiling towards them, heedless of the magnetic ballistae, and now getting within range of the other wall engines.

They’re certainly keeping up a pace, Straessa thought, slightly nervously.

Someone dumped a crate full of what looked like random pieces of metal beside her, and she looked round, into the face of Gerethwy.

‘Where have you been?’ she demanded.

‘It’s finished,’ he declared. His eyes were red-rimmed and wide, the look of a man with too many ideas and not enough sleep. ‘My rational snapbow, Antspider. I just need space to set it up.’

‘What the pits are you doing?’ Madagnus demanded. He had been sighting up at the Wasp vanguard, calculating ranges, and nearly fell over Gerethwy’s apparatus on his way to the nearest leadshotter crew. ‘Get that out of here.’

‘Chief, this is my new weapon,’ the Woodlouse student objected. ‘You won’t believe it, I’ve rigged a repeating snapbow to a ratiocinator and-’

‘Son, this is not the time for experiment,’ his chief officer interrupted him flatly. For once, Madagnus looked scowling sober. ‘Get that out of here, I said.’

Gerethwy frowned. ‘Chief, you don’t understand.’ It seemed as if he was about to deliver a lecture to enlighten the man.

‘I don’t have time for you,’ Madagnus told him. ‘Get this junk off the wall. Get yourself off it, too. You can’t even shoot straight. You’re no use to me.’

The Woodlouse gaped at him, mouth forming unspoken words of protest.

Straessa took his arm. ‘Gereth, just go. Get yourself somewhere safe,’ she said softly.

He stared at her in a look of utter betrayal, his maimed hand twitching towards the crate, and then he was dragging it back down the steps.

A street further back from the wall, in the incongruous surroundings of a rooftop garden, Eujen Leadswell was trying to stay calm. He had a maniple of his Student Company surrounding him, armed with pike and snapbow, while, to left and right, every rooftop that would take them had another. In the end the Assembly had not trusted his latecomer soldiers with manning the wall or the gate, but this line of defence had been judged within their capability. Now he could see the new wall engines — the longrange ones — loosing at targets somewhere beyond the wall, and the other engines were being readied and aimed.

‘Nobody here can fly?’ he demanded. Nobody could, as he had known already. The troops stationed on the wall — Coldstone Company and Outwright’s Pike and Shot — were supposed to send messengers back to keep him informed, but that appeared to have been overlooked. Let’s face it, they don’t think we’re up to much as soldiers. ‘Learn to Live’ indeed, and starting with trying to learn our own battle plan. He tried to spot Straessa but there were too many soldiers there, at this distance seemingly crammed elbow to elbow. She would be just one more helm and backplate amongst many.

In the streets below was gathered the strength of Maker’s Own Company, maniples spread out in case of enemy artillery, but ready to hold the gate or sally forth as needed, with the heavy armour of the Vekken to back them up. Kymene’s Mynans, a notably smaller contingent, had a mobile brief to reinforce the wall or the gate as required. Eujen could only take comfort in the fact that Remas Boltwright’s Fealty Street Company was even further from the fighting, held in reserve to deal with possible incursions by the Airborne. We rate higher than that, anyway.

There was a twitch of alarm amongst his troops as Averic dropped down at the roof’s edge, fending off an over-eager pike-head.

‘Everyone’s in place, Chief,’ he told Eujen. ‘We’re on pretty much every roof within bowshot of the walls.’

Eujen nodded, on the point of saying, Go and find Straessa, Make sure she’s all right, even though the real fighting had not even started yet. But that would not be a responsible course of action. He was going to live up to the rank the Assembly had bestowed on him. He was going to do the Right Thing.

There was a hollow boom, then he saw smoke rising from the wall. The tense glance he shared with Averic spoke volumes. That was the first leadshotter. How fast are they coming? And what happened to the Stormreaders?

‘Averic, go and poach a Fly-kinden from one of our maniples. No, make it two: I need messengers or I’ll never find out anything,’ he decided. The Wasp student’s hand moved, a gesture hastily suppressed, and Eujen realized that his friend had been about to salute him.

‘And Averic?’ he added, as the Wasp’s wings flashed from his shoulders. ‘Go check on. . Officer Straessa, if you get the chance.’

‘Will do.’ With a brief, wan smile, Averic stepped off the rooftop and swerved away over the city. Another half-dozen leadshotters spoke, then, a hollow percussion that rolled back and forth along the wall.

Down at ground level, Stenwold heard out the hurried, somewhat garbled report of the air battle impatiently. Before the messenger had finished, he had already considered a half-dozen plans and eventualities. He had seen the Wasp army in action many times before, but they did not stand still, and each engagement had brought some manner of new artifice to change the nature of the battlefield. So what comes now? The remaining Imperial air power was an unknown question, but for the moment it seemed that the field had been abandoned to more traditional tactics: the mass movement of fighting men.

‘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.

‘Ready!’ called out a young officer nearby — that Antspider woman, Stenwold recognized; Eujen Leadswell’s friend. ‘And loose!’

The stuttering racket of hundreds of snapbows exploded from around him, rippling along the wall as the other maniples took their cue. Stenwold saw soldiers falling from the sky, here and there, but the great mass of oncoming enemy seemed undiminished. All around him the Company soldiers were recharging and reloading their bows and, although they had trained and trained again, and although many of them had actively fought before, now their hands shook and he saw plenty of faces taut with fear. Because this is our home and they’ve come this far.

‘And loose! Pikes brace!’ the Antspider shouted. When she had discharged her own snapbow she slung it over her shoulder and drew a rapier from her belt. Beside her, Madagnus focused on targeting another ramming engine, muttering calculations to himself with utter absorption, as though nothing else in the world mattered.

Then the Airborne were on them. All along the wall, the Inapt soldiers of the Companies had levelled their pikes so as to make a mass onslaught by air as costly as possible, and nobody had actually imagined that the Empire’s soldiers would just blunder right in, but that was exactly what happened. Whether it was bravery or stupidity or merely momentum, Stenwold never knew, but he had a chance to get off one shot with his little snapbow — too close to miss, right into a man’s face — and then he was almost thrown off the wall altogether, with a Wasp solder scrabbling on top of him, his sting-warm hand finding Stenwold’s face. A moment later a Company soldier had put a bolt into the assailant, the impact sending the Wasp convulsing off Stenwold, and down, down towards the streets of Collegium. Stenwold sat up and dragged his sword from its sheath.

All around him was a bitter, frantic melee. The men of the Airborne were trying to get to the wall engines, and in that same moment Stenwold saw the fighting wash over a leadshotter along the line, the artillerists cut down by sting even as they were sighting up, and then a handful of Wasps trying to lever the weight of the machine off the wall entirely, before the Company soldiers could get to them. Interspersed with the human soldiers had come a handful of their insects, not acting to any battle plan but just mad for killing, their sheer carapaced bulk slamming into the Collegiate soldiers, stings and jaws jerking convulsively even as they died. Most of the pikes had been abandoned by now — many with luckless Wasps still impaled on them — and the Company soldiers were switching from sword to snapbow as chance allowed them. Stenwold saw the Antspider, standing practically back to back with Madagnus, as she lunged forwards an impossible distance to pierce a Wasp’s throat, then drew back to parry a sword blow aimed at her chief — whilst a pair of Fly snapbowmen crouched in her shadow and shot at whatever presented itself.

Overhead, the air was full of shot. More and more airborne were arriving every moment, but the Student Company archers positioned a street back — unengaged so far — were sniping at every safe target, meaning every Wasp still in the air. The Imperial death toll was horrific in those first moments, and there was a terrible expression to be seen on the faces of the Wasps. These were the men who had marched here under constant attack from the Stormreaders, and had then faced the last of the Felyen. They had already paid in friends and blood to get this far, and, if they failed now, it would all have been for nothing.

Straessa took down another soldier as he landed — ramming in between his ribs even before he had a chance to see her. Everywhere there were knots of fighting Wasps — her own maniple had been broken apart as the Imperials simply dropped in amongst them, stinging and stabbing indiscriminately. Her only point of stability was Madagnus and his magnetic ballista — and the sound of her own voice, constantly rallying anyone nearby to stand firm with her.

Another soldier stooped on her, but he was dead even as he dropped, taken by one of Eujen’s sharpshooters, and the next flier wore Collegium colours and she still came within an inch of skewering him.

Averic wore a buff coat and a Collegiate lobster-tail helm, and that was just enough to overcome the reality of his kinden.

‘What the pissing pits are you doing here?’ she demanded, jabbing her blade straight over his shoulder at another of the Airborne as the man landed, but this time beyond even her longest reach. ‘And don’t say Eujen was worried about me, or I really will kill you.’

His conflicted expression confirmed the truth of that, or maybe the world didn’t just revolve around her and it was the mass death of his own kin that was torturing him. Even so, when another wave of Airborne was abruptly on them, she saw his hands flashing with his own sting, standing shoulder to shoulder with her.

She saw an opening, and fumbled for her snapbow, the sword tucked awkwardly under one arm. Behind her, Madagnus gave out another shout of joy as he crippled one of the ramming engines.

She had her snapbow to her shoulder, trying to sight along it, when a newly arrived Wasp came up from below the level of the wall and rammed himself into her, the two of them going down in a tangle of limbs. Averic was beside her instantly, hauling the man off. Straessa saw the Airborne instinctively reach out with an open hand, and she yanked at the man’s arm even as Averic’s own sting hammered into the soldier’s chest, melting the armour there but not piercing through. Then the soldier had backhanded the Wasp student, kicking to his feet with a flare of wings, and Straessa stabbed him clumsily through the unprotected leg.

He fell away, and she lost track of him a moment later, because she saw Madagnus get shot. A snapbow bolt came skimming along the line of the crenellations and struck him under the arm even as he aimed, and he pitched sideways with an outraged expression.

‘Chief!’ But by the time she got to him, he was almost all gone. He had a moment to clutch at her arm, no recognition in his eyes, and his last words became just a spray of bloody mist.

She saw Stenwold Maker himself close by, discharging a Wasp snapbow at one of the Airborne, and then lurching over to the wall to measure the rate of Imperial progress down on the ground. She shouted to him that her superior was down, but he heard none of it.

Then he was shouting back at her and pointing down, but she could not make it out, not a word, and then he was drawing back from the wall, still shouting, bellowing even — something about an attack? But surely that was old news: the Wasps were already here. .

They were not alone. She saw the first arm hook over the top of the wall, and Stenwold lunged forwards to hack at it — no finesse, but then none was needed. A moment later the Spider-kinden appeared all along the wall top, because there were other ways to deal with fortifications than with wings.

Straessa cursed, darting forwards to run her sword through a lithe, lightly armoured figure even as the man dragged himself up over the wall. ‘Averic, get reinforcements up here! Get the Mynans, or Eujen, or someone!’

And he was gone, wings a-blur, and she turned to see the Spider-kinden already making a stand atop the wall. Just a score of them so far, but more were on their way, hundreds more.

There was a ferocious hammering, louder than all the other sounds of war except the leadshotters, and one face of the mustering Spider front caved in. She saw a big Sarnesh Ant in a mail hauberk shouldering forwards with a nailbow, knocking Sten Maker aside whilst fitting another magazine to it. Straessa darted in on Maker’s other side, crossing blades briefly with a Spider soldier, letting him get the measure of her before rolling her shoulder forwards to jab at him, even as he tried to pull back out of her reach. Then the Collegiate lines went shuddering back, another flood of Spider-kinden cresting the wall even as the Airborne renewed their attack, and she saw ahead of her, clambering over, a man she recognized from the night fight.

He wore his black armour, still, and he must have been a strong climber to make it up in all that weight, but now that he was here he was laying about himself with that double-handed axe — just the right weapon to carve a space amid the close-quarters fighting. The nailbow hammered again, but the big Ant was shooting up at the Airborne now, while the armoured Spider officer was pressing ever forwards, keeping close to the Collegiates he was fighting to deny anyone a clear shot at him.

Mine, she decided, and was cutting a course to meet the axe-wielder, stabbing out at any Wasp or Spider in the way, but stepping onwards to meet the man as neatly as if they had made arrangements beforehand.

She thought she had him — lancing for his face below the rim of his open helm — but he got that axe of his in the way far faster than she anticipated, and turned his parry into a hasty swipe at her head that she swayed aside from. They were jostled by a dozen other skirmishes all around them, hardly ideal space for either weapon now, but they made do and, if he could not get his blade to her, he beat at her with the haft or the butt, and she punched him in the face with her guard.

Then a shudder went through the melee, and she saw that the Mynans had arrived at the far side of the Spider incursion, recognizing the flash of their black and red colours. They had shortswords and daggers to back up their snapbows, and most of them had cut their teeth in the resistance: vicious, dirty fighting on the streets of their occupied city. Abruptly the Spiders were no longer pressing forwards, but just trying to hold whatever ground they had, and the axeman thrust the haft of his weapon before him and pushed hard, hurling her back into the press of her fellows even as her rapier point scraped off the mail over his groin. Then the axe was swinging freely, and she had to drop almost to her knees to get out of its way. He was shouting something, some encouragement to his fellows, and she struck upwards, aiming for the thin mail under his arm. He twisted at the last moment, and her blade caught on the lip of his breastplate and bowed alarmingly. Then a flagging snapbow bolt ricocheted from his helm and he lurched backwards, his pale face clenching in pain, He was still whirling his axe about him, but the tide had turned, carrying him further away from her, and she was not sure that was a bad thing.

The Spiders were retreating over the wall now, leaving plenty of their dead behind them, and the attack of the Airborne slackened off as the Wasps tried to regroup. Straessa found Stenwold Maker at the wall, looking outwards. The balance of the Second had made good time, but where was there for them to go? The gate was still closed, and where were their rams?

‘The engines?’ she shouted.

‘Gone!’ he called back. ‘I don’t see any that made it to the gate!’ Although there were still plenty of Airborne out there, some of the soldiers on the wall were starting to shoot down at the Imperial infantry. ‘I need a messenger for Maker’s Own Company. They should be ready for a sally once the Empire starts its retreat.

‘They’re going to retreat, then?’ Straessa asked him.

‘What else is left to them?’ he demanded.

The big Sarnesh turned up just then. ‘Maker.’

Stenwold’s glance at him was evasive, ‘Balkus? You didn’t have to come.’ A Fly-kinden passed by, distributing ammunition, and Stenwold grabbed the small woman and sent her down to Elder Padstock with new orders.

‘I need your help for my city, Maker,’ the man called Balkus explained. ‘That means I need you alive.’

Stenwold opened his mouth, but the next voice to be heard came from somewhere along the wall: ‘They’re going for the gate! Artillery!’

Many of the soldiers up on the wall were shooting straight down now, and Straessa saw several artillery pieces testing the limits of their aim, declining as far as they could go.

‘Hammer and tongs,’ Stenwold spat. ‘They’re trying the Sentinels. They must be desperate.’

Then the Airborne were coming back, trying to keep the increasingly punishing snapbow shot off the infantry by offering themselves up instead as fleeter, harder targets, and Straessa could spare the gate no more thought.

Stenwold, though, was still watching. So far, there were a good half-dozen Sentinels ranged before the gate, with others still crawling about the field before the walls. They were not troubled by the wall engines, for those few able to angle low enough to shoot at them saw their leadshot and bolts just scarring and denting that armour, without seeming to touch the workings or the crew within. Stenwold was forced to fight down an uneasy thought. There is someone within, is there not? The sure and fluid movements of the Sentinels had always seemed more like those of things alive in their own right than something piloted by the hands of man. Then the first of them was backing up, legs moving in an intricate dance as it prepared to charge the gate.

This is ludicrous, he found himself thinking. These aren’t ramming engines. But even as he thought it, he saw that, below the blind and covered eye that was its leadshotter barrel, someone had mounted a blunt, square-sectioned point, like an ugly little horn just at the right level for the centre of the gates.

Stenwold felt cold within himself, and looked about for a messenger, but the Wasp Airborne was on the attack all around, and he had nobody available but himself. With sword drawn, he found the steps and half-ran, half-skidded down them towards ground level and the gate.

He found some preparation there: three lines of Vekken soldiers stood before the gates, in the shadow of the wall’s arched tunnel, and someone had already mounted a set of metal braces to reinforce the great bronze shutters that had been lowered into place to back up the gate. Here would always be the weakest point of a wall, but Collegium made solid gates even so.

‘We need more bracing!’ he was shouting, as he reached the ground and started running in earnest. ‘Padstock! Termes! More bracing!’

Then he felt the impact through his feet even as he heard it, realizing that the Sentinel had scrabbled its way forwards, visualizing the great weight of articulated metal rushing on with that horrifyingly sudden speed. Ahead of him, he saw the gate shutters bow, the inner wood of the doors crunching under the tremendous impact, the five bars straining in their sockets, and the metal shutters themselves — all that Stenwold could actually see — warping visibly. One of the braces — a girder of solid steel angling out from the gate’s centre to the ground — buckled all at once, and instantly Vekken soldiers went rushing forwards, manhandling its redundant weight out of the way so that a new one could be put in place.

The next impact came even as they were at it, and Stenwold had only a moment to think, Impossible! There can’t have been time for it to back up! But of course there had been more than one Sentinel out there, and a new one had come thundering in even whilst the first rammer was backing away. The gates groaned like a wounded giant, and abruptly the Vekken had dispersed, splitting into neat units to fetch more bracing forwards, abandoning any idea of a quick sally out to rout the enemy.

Then the Airborne came.

This was their plan, he understood: they must have abandoned the wall top altogether, for suddenly the air and ground on this side of the gates was full of them, Wasp soldiers came shooting and stinging and stabbing — and dying from the very moment they arrived, but fighting to keep the gate from being reinforced. In their midst, the crazed insects brought by their airship still blundered and savaged, men and beasts alike in their utter carelessness for their own lives. For that first brief moment, the Vekken and the soldiers of Maker’s Own were caught unawares, ceding the Wasps a tenuous foothold before the gates, but then the Ants had adjusted to circumstances, descending on their enemies with silent determination, swords out and wreaking a terrible carnage in that enclosed space. Stenwold saw the Mynans hurrying down the nearest steps to provide reinforcement, and the Student Company archers on the overlooking rooftops were taking advantage of every clear shot they could. But the Wasps would not be driven back — the Airborne and their insects driving themselves into a killing frenzy to hold their ground — and all the time the rhythm of the Sentinels pounding against the gate was quickening, each driving in at top speed, with a force that seemed to rock the very foundations of the wall, before rattling smoothly back even as the next one charged.