‘Shut up now, Gereth. They’re coming.’
His head snapped up. ‘But I’m not ready.’
‘So sorry, I’ll tell them to come back in an hour, shall I?’ She looked at the heap of loose pieces inside his pack or scattered about him. ‘Or would tomorrow suit you better? Inbound, everyone! Looks like grenadiers are back, too!’
All around her, the soldiers of the Student Company, plus a few veterans of her own Coldstone troops, levelled their snap-bows or their pikes, whilst a few checked the always delicate mechanisms of their nailbows in preparation for close-in work. The Wasps were massing three blocks away from the barricades, and snapbow shot was already being exchanged, inaccurate on both sides. Straessa saw Castre Gorenn draw back her bowstring, kneeling under cover of the barricade, and then launch an arrow up at a ridiculous angle. The Antspider was quick enough to see it descend, striking a Wasp who looked as if he had been giving orders just a moment before from the shelter of a doorway.
Gorenn selected another arrow, her expression all business, devoid of pride. The fact that, at full draw, she could outrange a rifled snapbow with an accuracy that Straessa could not have matched at ten feet, had become a tenet of faith amongst the Collegiate insurgents.
‘They’re coming!’ someone shouted, helpfully announcing what was evident to absolutely everyone.
The Antspider levelled her snapbow, butt to the shoulder to steady it, sighting down the barrel and then up a little to adjust for the range, leading the Airborne as they took wing. Her own shot was lost in the general explosive release all around her, like a round of spontaneous applause for the Wasps’ grim perseverance. And that was the thing, because they were not going away, not even slightly. The Empire had been prodding at them all morning, taking light casualties, dealing considerably lighter ones, and all that while the bulk of their forces were not even fighting the Collegiates at all, but brawling with their erstwhile allies four districts away.
This latest attack turned out to be more tentative than most, and the score of grenadiers, whose approach the Airborne had presumably been intended to cover, lost four of their number almost immediately and broke off. Not a single flying assailant’s shadow crossed the line of the barricade, and one Beetle student of agricultural economics took a bolt through the arm and was ordered to get herself off to the infirmary. The massing Wasps down the street had not gone, though, although Gorenn was still making their lives unpredictable and interesting.
Then someone was shouting her name, and she turned to see that Fly friend of Stenwold Maker’s — Laszlo? — spiralling down towards the barricade amidst Wasp snapbow shot zipping past him.
‘Get down!’ she ordered him, ‘What’s. .?’ But the look on his face shook her, transformed from the usual easy-going man she remembered.
‘You’ve got to get out!’ he told her. ‘Pull back for the College right now!’
‘What? No, we’ve-’
‘Shaw Street’s gone. Half of them are dead and the rest are running.’
‘That’s-’ That’s right next to us. Shaw Street ran parallel to Albamarl. ‘Gone how?’
‘Just pissing move, will you?’ the little man yelled at her. ‘How much time do you think you have?’
And if they flank us, they can just come over the roofs anywhere they want. ‘Everyone pull back! Get out of the buildings and head back for the College!’ She saw Gerethwy frantically packing up his kit, gathering all those delicate gears and pieces. ‘Gereth, there’s no time!’ But he would not be dissuaded, his hand and a half moving as deftly as he could to get everything back into his pack.
The thoroughfare behind her was emptying swiftly, her soldiers retreating further down the street, whilst keeping their eyes fixed on the sky. Those at the barricade, however, were ignoring her orders, and she belatedly realized this was because she herself had showed no signs of going.
Hold for another minute. Give the rest a chance to make some distance. ‘What in the pits happened in Shaw Street?’ she demanded.
‘It’s not just Shaw Street. .’ he started, and then pointed: ‘That.’
A familiar metal bulk was moving smoothly onto the far end of Albamarl Street. The sun reflected off its articulated carapace, that one blind eye.
‘Gorenn, got grenades?’ Straessa called.
‘Only works if I can get it in the eye,’ the Dragonfly replied tersely.
‘They’re wise to that, believe me,’ Laszlo told her. ‘It can shove this whole barricade aside and mow the lot of you down with its piercers. It doesn’t need its leadshotter at all. Now are you bloody leaving or what?’
The Antspider stared at the gleaming flanks of the Sentinel as it settled itself to face the barricade. The soldiers around it were obviously preparing to advance, but the way they were massing showed that the war machine would provide their vanguard.
She had seen how fast those things could move.
‘Back,’ she ordered, just the one word. She had a hand on Gerethwy’s shoulder, but the Woodlouse was already straightening up, his toys all cleared up.
The Sentinel shook itself with a clatter of metal and she heard its engine roar even at that distance.
‘Run!’ she decided, and followed her own advice.
By the first sight of evening, the insurgents held the single College building from where their revolt had started, and no more.
They were the students, in the main. The neighbouring townsfolk who had risen alongside them had fled for their homes and workshops, those of them still alive to do so. The Wasp response had been brutal. Any Collegiate had been fair game for the snap-bows, armed or not. Street by street, with their Sentinels at the fore, they had crushed any resistance until only the College itself was left.
The students still held the courtyard wall, their line of snap-bows defended by more archers at every little window, and the Wasps seemed to think they had achieved enough for the day. They had built some barricades of their own, gutting a score of nearby buildings for material, and cordoned off every street surrounding the gate, out of easy snapbow range of the students but well within sight.
They were still fighting the Spiders, by most recent accounts. The soldiers of the Second had not even broken stride, it seemed.
The early evening quiet was broken now only by sporadic demands from the Wasp barricades that the Collegiates surrender, and that any non-combatants trapped on the wrong side of the barricades give themselves up now.
Anyone within our cordon at dawn will be treated as an enemy of the Empire and no mercy will be shown, came the warning. Since the call had gone out, a steady trickle of locals unfortunate enough to live too close to the College had been emerging: men, women and children shuffling hesitantly towards the Wasp lines with their heads bowed, not looking back at the College.
In the corridor outside the infirmary, Stenwold was laboriously pacing, despite the objections of the medical staff, working strength into his ragged muscles, his stick clacking and clicking on the floor.
‘Any ideas from the War Master would be much appreciated,’ Eujen observed.
The sound of the stick stopped. ‘I have none,’ Stenwold admitted. ‘We could try to break out, but the cost would be terrible — their barricades will slow us far more effectively than ours ever slowed the Wasps. We could hold out here until they bring some artillery to bear. Or until they decide the lives of their soldiers are cheap enough for them to force entry. Or we could surrender.’
‘On what terms?’ Eujen asked bitterly.
‘Whatever they offer, which aren’t likely to be attractive,’ Stenwold admitted. He looked the student leader in the eye. ‘I’m sorry it’s come to this, Eujen. You deserved better.’