And then there was Balkus and the other allies who were here, but whom nobody knew what to do with. After plans were laid, the tacticians had found themselves with three commanders that had no obvious place in their scheme, but whose numbers were such that it would be imprudent to leave them out. They had in the end given the right flank to Balkus: the trailing right flank that straggled back behind the main line of advance in case some Beetle loudly fell over his neighbour. Here were Parops’ Tarkesh expatriates and the little contingent of Tseni that Plius had called for. Here were the Collegium merchant companies, with their snapbows at the ready, and nailbowmen interspersed throughout in case the Wasps got too close.
The Collegium contingent did not have a mindlink to keep them together and, as they drew closer, Balkus could not risk shouting at them the way an officer of such a rabble would normally need to. He was uncomfortably aware that they were getting strung out, unable to match the brisk pace that the Sarnesh had set, but there was nothing he could do about it. He would just have to trust that not too many of them would get lost. At least, back here, they were not likely to sound any alarms.
In Balkus’ own head were the Sarnesh officers. He had tried to block them out, but it was a constant rattle of orders and reports, relaying information he needed to know. It had been a long time since he had counted himself a son of Sarn but the wider family had closed about him seamlessly. He was dragged along with their advance, hearing the tacticians convey out their orders to adjust the facing of the line, to increase the pace, and hearing the reports come back from the officers at the front – enemy scouts down, the lights of the camp now in sight.
When the word came to charge, Balkus found that his pace picked up instantly and without question, so that he almost left the men under his command behind in the dark. Those nearest him hurried to catch up, and so the unspoken order to run was passed back simply through people finding themselves being outdistanced by those in front of them. Out there in the dark thousands of swords had been unsheathed, while crossbows were cocked on the run.
He sensed the precise moment that the Wasp camp, as an organism, became aware of the attack, seeing a sudden, vast and unheralded rush of movement in the torchlight, the sentries already falling to arrow-shot. It was as though, for just a second, the Wasps themselves partook of the great Sarnesh mind, if only to register a brief surprise.
Then the Sarnesh line thundered into the Wasp encampment, braving the first scatter of sting-shot, breaking the fragile shell formed by the sentries to get at the meat within.
‘All right let’s go!’ Balkus yelled to his people, to Parops and Plius, his whole ragged command. ‘Form an archery line on me!’ And with that he was off, running and not waiting for them. They would have to catch up with him, and already he was sending a thought out – Where do you want us? – abandoning himself to the greater mind.
The general was shouting desperately at the nearest Wasp soldiers as they rushed by, trying to re-establish his authority. Salma rushed him just as another member of the dusty rabble did – a stocky Beetle-kinden woman wielding a simple workshop hammer. Malkan rounded on her furiously, swayed aside from the heavy stroke, and then loosed a sting-shot into her face, blasting her backwards. Salma drove his sword into the general’s side, but the man’s heavy mail turned the blow. Reeling from the force of it, Malkan was spun half-around, but then his blade came lashing back at Salma, trying to gain room.
Salma kept with him, almost inside the reach of their swords, knowing that if he fell back then Malkan would scorch him. He managed a glancing gash across the man’s face with one thumb, and jabbed up with his sword, though too close to put any force into it. The tip dug between Malkan’s armour plates but there was chainmail beneath to catch it. Salma caught a glimpse of the Wasp’s expression, twisted in fury with blood smeared across it. Then the general’s shoulder slammed into Salma’s chest, knocking him backwards. He expected the lash of the man’s sting, but instead Malkan was coming at him sword-first, the short, swift blade dancing and swooping in the gap between them. Salma fell back before the first three swings, and then caught the next on his own weapon, trying a riposte that Malkan instantly turned back on him. The Wasp kept his attack going, for a moment forgetting both his army and his rank, becoming just one duellist intent on the death of another. Salma picked up the rhythm: it had been a long time since he had fought one-on-one like this. Malkan’s offence was savage, leaving almost no gap for Salma to get a blade through.
He’s good, he’s good. Salma flung himself up, wings flaring, arcing overhead and coming down behind the man, sword striking backwards to take him as he turned. Malkan was faster, catching the blow but not strongly enough to counterattack. Salma took the lead now, lunging and cutting, always moving his feet, darting left and right or flicking up with a moment’s rush of his wings. Malkan’s armour, which had turned so many blows, now slowed him down. He could not match Salma for speed. Even defending, he still kept his poise, slowly turning the tide, letting Salma wear himself out against Malkan’s immaculate parries until he had an opening to strike. Salma’s blade pierced his guard once, to dent his pauldron and bound away, and Malkan took this opening smoothly. His blade lanced narrowly past Salma as the Dragonfly threw himself aside, and then Malkan’s offhand blazed with golden fire.
The bolt was badly aimed, hurried. It seared across Salma’s shoulder and side rather than smashing into his chest, but it was enough to make him reel, stumbling over the corpse of the Beetle-kinden woman, and Malkan drove forwards with a snarl of triumph.
His sword blazed with white fire, the night around them as bright as noon. The blade drove beneath Salma’s ribs with all the force that Malkan could give it.
She had gone by many names already. It was the custom of her kind to don a new name as easily as a new garment, to suit fresh circumstance. She had been Free of Lilies and Soaring Fire. She had been Grief in Chains and Aagen’s Joy. And most recently she had been Prized of Dragons, and the lover of Prince Minor Salme Dien.
Her kind were strange and few, living in remote places, secluded glades throughout the Commonweal and beyond. They lived off the sun’s own light, and had no needs or cares save when others found them. They were coveted, taken, forced, enslaved. They were the bright cousins of the Moth-kinden, too shining and beautiful for others to contemplate without wanting to possess them. When they were enslaved, though, they brought a trail of ruin, being passed from hand to hand, stolen, bought in blood, becoming the cause of fights and murders and the sundering of friends and brothers. It was only from other kinden, and their small and greedy minds, that they learnt of such things as sadness.
Salma had been different. Salma had been an island in the raging sea of anger and fear and lust. Salma had brought back to her an awareness of the nobility of his people, the one people that the Butterfly-kinden consented to live amongst. But Salma had a flaw, in that his nobility had driven him to a desperate, violent course.
She had known it would end like this, but she had led Morleyr and the others here anyway, desperate to find him in time to snatch him from the claws of the Empire, to rescue him as she had rescued him before the walls of Tark. Freed now from the earth, from the tunnel that Morleyr had crafted with his own hands; freed from the general’s tent and rising with flaming wings above the fighting that spread out from it, she saw him.