The Air War (77 page)

They were still advancing, dispersed units reforming and hurrying to catch up, because the enemy airborne and infantry would be following right behind. Straessa risked a look right and left.
Towards the trailing edge of the right flank, one maniple had somehow got it completely wrong, spread too late or not at all. She saw a trail of ragged corpses, a gaping hole in their already
patchwork line, stretcher-bearers rushing to separate the dead from those who might yet be saved.

‘Eyes behind, someone,’ she heard herself order. ‘I want to know when those bastards decide to come back.’

Beyond the advancing infantry’s edge, she saw one wing of the Collegiate automotives start out, overtaking those on foot within moments, dozens of disparate machines converted for war,
along with the heavier, slower war engines of the Sarnesh. Each sported some manner of mounted artillery, but they seemed fleeting and frail compared to the Sentinels.
And they’re what the
Sentinels are after. The plan’s working so far.
She guessed that her side’s war machines had started off back centre in the formation, so the gaps between the infantry blocks would
lead the Imperial scouts to believe that Collegium would be running its auto-motives through the centre, in order to smash the Empire’s ground infantry, just as the Sarnesh had done at the
Battle of the Rails. As soon as the infantry had started the advance, though, the automotives had swerved out towards the flanks, and thus the questing Sentinels would not find their prey.

But they’ll be right back when they realize it, and that’s going to be bloody soon.

‘Airborne!’ someone shouted, and Straessa looked up to see the sky abruptly busy with shapes that resolved themselves into Wasp soldiers dropping down towards them.

‘Pikes up! Snapbows aim and ready. Pick your marks!’ All along the line similar orders were being given. The maniple spread out a little, by long training, their sharp spearpoints
jutting at slanting angles so that the enemy could not simply drop amongst them with sword and sting, whilst the snapbows were all levelled together, with little precision lost from their time
drilling despite the fact that everyone there was surely as terrified as she was.

If it wasn’t for them watching me, I’d run
, she decided.

‘Loose!’

The Wasps were arcing in, already levelling their weapons as they descended, but they had plainly intended touching the ground before shooting, and Straessa’s first salvo caught them still
in the air. They were moving fast and spread out, so she had not expected much, but of the two score descending towards her people, a good eight or so were abruptly falling rather than flying, and
her maniple was already reloading without her having to order it.

‘Pick your marks, forward!’ Half of her immediate problem was about to drop into the gap between her maniple and the unit to the left of her, because they saw the broken order of the
Collegiate troops as a weakness to exploit. The other Wasp squad was coming down in front, ready to stand ground and hold them off until the heavier troops arrived. She could see them quite
clearly: lean, rangy men in light armour striped in black and gold, armed with a snapbow, a shortsword and their Art. They had been at the front of every war the Empire had brought to its
neighbours, at every expansion of the Imperial borders. She wondered how many thousands had already given their lives for such a fundamentally stupid cause.

‘Loose!’

And the snapbows of her maniple’s first three ranks raked into the enemy even as they touched down. She saw a good number fall – taken in that moment when landing stripped them of
their speed. The rest were shooting back, but they were outnumbered now and, at some word from their sergeant, they took wing and put more distance between themselves and their enemies, waiting for
reinforcements that would surely be with them at any second.

The other squad of Airborne had landed mostly intact between the two maniples, intending to take the enemy in the flanks, but those tough little square formations of the Companies had no flanks.
Instead, the soldiers on that side were already facing towards them, three ranks deep and shielded by the pikes, and the same reception was waiting for them from the maniple to their other
side.

The Collegiate snapbowmen were only given time for a single volley into them, catching the Wasps already returning to the air, recognizing an indefensible position when they saw it. A moment
later, Straessa could see that the initial rush of the Airborne was pulling back all the way along the line, and then the three whistle blasts went up again from somewhere, and they were on the
move.

General Tynan travelled at the heart of his army, at the apex of a small phalanx of armoured automotives, but in the open back of one so that his messengers could come and go
as swiftly as possible. The conflict was widespread, and from the ground he had no clear picture of what was happening. He relied on his Fly-kinden and the swiftest of the Wasps to bring him
news.

A Wasp soldier dropped in front of him now, one cheek smeared with blood. ‘First contact with the Airborne, sir. Our men driven back. Casualties light to moderate.’

‘How do their formations conduct themselves?’

‘They can fight on all sides, sir,’ the soldier reported – a man who had only moments ago been involved in that same skirmish. ‘They’re not so packed together as to
give the best target, but their spears and their shot make closing with them difficult.’

‘Our own spears are closing on them?’

‘And they’re still advancing towards us. They seem decently armoured – medium infantry at least, and reasonably drilled.’

Tynan glanced across to his guest, Mycella, who likewise kept a flock of airborne spies at her beck and call.

‘I need some of your skirmishers,’ he told her.

She smiled at him, and he read there fondness and a certain anticipation of bloodshed. Spiders had never held back from the strike, when it counted.

‘What orders should I give them?’

‘Our medium infantry blocks are about four times as big as theirs, so we’ll be engaging several of their squares to each of our own units.’ The strategy fell into place in his
mind even as he spoke. ‘If we can separate them further from each other that will give us a chance to surround them and destroy them individually, but as they are now, the space between each
square is a killing ground for them.’

‘And you want my skirmishers to step into it?’

‘Send your mercenaries, if you want. I’m hoping that these Collegiates won’t hold their calm once we have them in a packed melee. Let your people push some of their squares
together, break others further apart. Then let our superior order tell.’

He could give her no orders, of course, but she considered the matter and then gave a string of concise commands to one of her people, to be carried to the mercenaries’ adjutant,
Morkaris.

The Wasp scout returned to the sky, winging back towards the front to report on the clash of lines, whereupon Tynan beckoned another over.

‘Send to Colonel Mittoc,’ he directed. ‘Have him keep a close measure of the range to Collegium’s walls. We don’t need to reach the city; we only need to be close
enough. Have him get the best use out of these greatshotters we’ve been given.’

The man saluted and was gone, heading for the rear. Even as he did a Fly-kinden took his place.

‘Sir, enemy automotives flanking us.’

Tynan stood up, shading his eyes and peering over to where the Fly directed, seeing only flashes of the sun reflecting off metal at the far edge of his force. ‘What are they
doing?’

‘Making inroads, sir. They’re a mongrel lot but they’re all armed. Our troops there are trying to hold them, but we’re taking losses from their artillery and their
wheels.’

‘Where are the Sentinels?’ Tynan growled.

Amnon’s automotive bounced and rattled over the scrubby ground in the vanguard of a great straggling wedge of machines that had coursed its way almost unopposed down one
side of the Second Army. The enemy had not known what to do with them – and they were gone before any orders could be given. A steady drizzle of opportunistic snapbow bolts and arrows had
banged and rattled off the automotives’ sides, and at least one machine had slewed to an halt, its driver hit, but Amnon’s wing of the mechanized assault was almost untouched so
far.

They were turning now, beginning to drive in towards the marching formations, and at the same time the Imperial soldiers were mustering their response. He saw units turning to face the
Collegiate machines, kneeling or standing with massed snap-bows levelled, but beyond he could see Light Airborne gathering above.

He heard three whistle blasts, keening over the roar of the engines, two short and one long, meaning
Charge.
Beside him, the artificer manning the smallshotter swung the weapon ahead,
squinting through the slot in the metal plate someone had bolted onto the engine to cover her. Amnon took up his own snapbow, though his hands itched for his sword hilt.

‘Down!’ advised the driver, and at the same time they scavenged a burst of speed from somewhere, wheels leaping over the uneven land as they rushed the enemy line. Thus, on both
sides, an uneven arrowhead of ramshackle machines were turned into a hammer to crack open then Second Army’s flank.

Amnon had been knocked back by the sudden acceleration, and so he was already out of the way when the snapbow lines loosed. In his mind, the sound was like a sudden squall of rain against the
metal plates shielding the vehicle. He saw the low-set automotive to his left suddenly swing towards him, its driver dead at the stick, and a moment later it had flipped over entirely, bouncing and
jumping enough to fling out the bodies of its crew.

‘Watch the skies!’ he roared, as loud as he could, but the chances were that nobody heard him over the roar of the machines and the incoming hail of a second snapbow volley. A moment
later the Imperial line broke, the soldiers trying to get out of the way of the metal tide. Most had left it too late. They were armoured too heavily to fly, so it became a matter of sheer chance
whether they were struck or passed by, buffeted to the ground.

Amnon stood up again, unwisely, but he needed to see what was going on. Over there were the transporters, but they were too far, too deeply buried within the enemy, and the Airborne were coming
down. He shot upwards, killing his target neatly, but knowing that he had no time to reload. A moment later his sword was clear of its scabbard, and the Wasp stooping down on him, blade drawn back
and off-hand blazing, was cut from the air as soon as he came within reach. All about Amnon, the Airborne were trying desperately to drop onto the automotives, and some even managed it while others
missed, either left behind or – for the luckless – caught in front of the rushing machines.

Nevertheless, they were taking their toll. Taking stock for just a moment, Amnon saw at least four machines had gone off course or halted, falling instant prey to the Wasp landbound
infantry.

He hacked at another man that came for him, but the Airborne soldier veered out of reach, only to take a snapbow bolt in the back and tumble away – Amnon never knew whether the shot had
come from his own people or the Empire. Nobody was doing well out of a skirmish fought at this speed. Then there was a hollow boom audible well over the engines, and one of the Collegiate machines
went from full charge to full stop within a moment, its front staved in by the fist of a leadshotter ball, its stern lifting high with frustrated momentum, until it had turned over completely.

The whistle signal went up again, just two short blasts:
Fall back and regroup
. Amnon ground his teeth as his automotive wheeled around – smallshotter still barking out its answer
to the Imperial artillery – and rattled back the way it had come, along with its fellows.

‘What’s the matter?’ he demanded. ‘We were reaching them!’ That was a lie and he knew it, but the enemy transporters – with their part-assembled greatshotters
– had been within sight at least, and to turn away now was maddening.

‘Their automotives are coming back, Master,’ the driver replied, and a new stillness came over Amnon as he scanned the dust-covered, soldier-cluttered landscape for the
Sentinels.

The block of Imperial infantry looming ahead seemed absurdly vast compared to their own modest squares. It came stomping across the plain torwards them in perfect time, the sun
glinting on the spearheads and making the gold of their armour flare. In the old days such a unit would have relied entirely on spear and sting, with support from some Auxillian crossbowmen, but
some attempt had been made to modernize, and Gerethwy, peering through his glass, now reported that the second rank was armed with snapbows.

‘I make out four ranks,’ Straessa noted. ‘Only the second has ’em, you say?’

‘Is what I see,’ the tall Woodlouse-kinden confirmed.

A whistle blast was sounded, long then short:
Halt and loose.
Straessa passed it on, hoping very dearly that all these orders were originating from someone who knew what they were doing.
She called out, ‘Ready!’ needlessly, for her soldiers knew the signal and their weapons were charged, each bringing snapbow to shoulder, even as they slowed. And then,
‘Loose!’

The maniples to left and right managed to shoot at approximately the same time, catching the Imperial infantry as they were still advancing, and she saw the ranks of the big unit – four
hundred soldiers or more in all – rupture and ripple under the impact. They slowed then, and she distantly caught the sound of their officers’ voices, eclipsed almost immediately by her
own shout of, ‘And loose!’ She was trusting to her people to have reloaded by now.

They had, their volley ripping into the tight-packed enemy even as they formed up. Straessa was surprised to see just how much damage they had done, the number of sprawled bodies and crawling
wounded.
And now they shoot back
, she thought, and her mouth bellowed, ‘And loose!’ leaving her faintly amazed that her shopkeeper soldiers had got off three complete volleys
before the Wasps had managed a reply.