‘A night assault?’ Which would be messy, Alder thought.

‘They’re bound to notice their walls coming down, General. Wait till morning and they’ll have barricades up. We must force the issue now. And while they’re busy fighting it out over the breach, in the darkness which will whittle away at their crossbows’ effectiveness, we can try to put a few more holes in them. I’ve not been idle these last few days, and one of the leadshotters is now converted into a ram.’

‘Major Grigan mentioned as much. He was not pleased.’

A derisive noise emerged from within the cowl. ‘Major Grigan, of your precious engineers, is a dull-minded fool.’

‘Major Grigan is an imperial officer-’ Alder felt his temper rise.

‘He is a fool,’ Drephos repeated. ‘He should be over on their side of the walls, hampering them. I am ten times the artificer he would ever be even if he opened his eyes to the world mechanical. A fool, General, and you would best give me what I ask for if you wish this war won.’

At this late hour it was too much. Alder’s one hand clutched Drephos by the collar again, drawing the man up onto his toes. ‘You forget your place, Auxillian.’

The general felt Drephos’s left hand, gauntleted in steel, take his wrist and, with an appalling strength, remove it from its owner’s person. Still maintaining that grip, which was gentleness backed with the threat of crushing force, Drephos’s unseen face looked straight into his.

‘Judge me on this, General,’ he said. ‘Prepare for your assault. If the walls still stand, then do what you wish.’

Not half an hour had passed before Alder had his command staff woken and rushed to his tent: Colonel Carvoc for the camp; Colonel Edric for the assault; the majors, including the sullen Grigan; the Auxillian chiefs and other unit leaders.

‘We are going to attack,’ he informed them, seeing blank incomprehension on all sides. ‘Drephos assures me that the wall will be down shortly and I want to be ready for it.’

He saw Grigan’s lip curl at the name, but when he fixed the man with his gaze, the major dropped his eyes.

‘Colonel Edric.’

‘Yes, General.’

‘Get me all of your Hornets that are still able to fly. Back them with two wings of the light airborne and a wing of the Medium Elites. Go and organize them now.’

Edric saluted and ran from the tent.

‘Carvoc.’

‘Yes, General?’

‘I want three wings each of Lancers and Heavy Shield-men, and our Sentinels. Go now.’

When Carvoc had gone, a worried frown already appearing on his face, Alder turned to the Auxillian officers. Discounting the maverick Drephos there were two of any worthwhile rank. Anadus of Maynes was a ruddy-skinned Ant who was either the army’s swiftest dresser or slept in most of his armour: a solid, bitter man who detested the Empire and all it stood for. Alder knew all that, just as he knew that so long as the man’s city-state of Maynes, his family, his people, were all held hostage to his behaviour, that hatred would be turned on the Ants of Tark. Besides, Ants fought Ants. All the subject races had flaws, and that feuding was theirs.

Beside him was Czerig, a grey-haired Bee-kinden artificer from Szar. There was never any trouble from that direction, fortunately. The Bee-kinden were loyal to their own royal house and, since the Emperor had taken their queen from them and made her his concubine, they had served the Empire as patiently as if they were its born slaves.

‘Captain-Auxillian Anadus,’ Alder said, enjoying the dislike evident in the man’s eyes, ‘assuming Drephos is correct, your brigade gets to take the breach.’

Anadus’s eyes remained bleak. The worst danger, the greatest glory, a chance to kill Ants of a city not his own? Alder could only guess at the thoughts going on behind them. ‘Go and prepare your men, Captain. If there’s a breach I want it packed end to end with your Maynesh shields before the Tarkesh can fill it.’

‘It shall be so, General,’ said Anadus, his tone suggesting that he considered death in this other man’s war the only way out with honour for him and his men.

Which concept I have no concern with.

‘Captain-Auxillian Czerig.’

The old man looked up tiredly. Like all his kinden he was short, strong-shouldered, dark of skin.

‘Get the new ram Drephos has tinkered with ready for the gates. You know the one?’

Czerig nodded. He said nothing that was unnecessary, and when he spoke it was mostly about his trade.

‘Good. And I also want the Moles.’

Czerig pursed his lips.

‘What is it, Captain?’

‘They… are not happy.’ Czerig twisted, clearly less than delighted himself. ‘They say… they are not warriors, General.’

‘So what makes a warrior?’ Alder enquired. ‘If they have the ill luck not to be born Wasp-kinden, then they have this: they have armour, they have weapons and they are going to war. Tell them they’re all the warrior they need to be. I want them against some patch of the walls within a hundred yards of the breach – if it ever happens. So I can support the main assault. Is that clear?’

Czerig nodded glumly and saluted.

Awake. Totho’s eyes were abruptly wide in the darkness. It was not the sound, although there were sounds, but a shudder that had awakened him. He clung to his pallet because the floor was shaking.

People were running about in the hall outside. He was in Tark – that was it. Not in Collegium. Not Myna, which for some reason had come to him as a second guess. The Ants of Tark. The siege…

He stumbled up from the floor, feeling it twang again like a rope pulled taut. Part of him was desperate to believe he was still dreaming. He tripped over his discarded clothes on his way to the door and pulled it open. There were lamps outside, and he stared at them blearily: simple globes over gaslight, but one of the covers had fallen and smashed, leaving the naked flame guttering.

A squad of soldiers charged past him, heading for the outside. They were armed and armoured, but there was an uncharacteristically slipshod look to them: warriors who had harnessed in haste. He called after them, but not one of them looked back.

‘Totho, lad.’ The small figure of Nero almost tripped down the stairs, his wings flaring as he caught himself. He was wearing only a nightshirt. ‘What’s happening?’

Totho could only shake his head, and a moment later Nero was displaced by Parops, his chainmail hauberk hanging open at the back. Totho expected him to say this was no place for civilians, that they should go back to bed and let the army deal with it. Instead Parops hissed, ‘You’ve arms and armour? Put them on!’

‘Parops, what in blazes is going on?’ Nero demanded.

The Ant commander’s face was haunted. ‘The wall’s down.’

‘The what?’

‘The wall’s down,’ and the floor shook as he repeated himself. ‘It’s coming down right now, and the Wasps aren’t far behind.’

And then Parops was charging back upstairs, his loose armour flapping. Even as Totho watched, Salma bolted from his room, heading for the outside, his sword in his hand.

Nero shook his head. ‘I have a bow upstairs in my room,’ he remarked philosophically. ‘I think I shall go and string it.’ He left Totho gaping.

But gaping would solve nothing. Totho stumbled back into his room and wrestled on his leather work-coat: that would serve as armour better than his bare skin would. He had the repeating crossbow that Scuto had given him and he slung on his sword-baldric that had a bag of quarrel magazines hanging from it.

I am no soldier, he inwardly protested. But the Wasps would not care.

Totho blundered out into the hall again.

‘Hey, Beetle-boy? You fighting now?’

It was Skrill. She wore her metal scale vest and her bow and, to his surprise, she looked more frightened than he felt.

‘I suppose,’ he said uncertainly.