Salute the Dark (4 page)

As he arrived, they were still training. He stopped to watch the prodigy of it, though feeling his heart sink. Neither men nor beasts were much taking to the idea of discipline.

He had sent to Sarn, to his man Sfayot there:
Give me all the horses they can spare, all the riding beetles, every beast broken for riding and not too weary to gallop.
He had been obliged
to send twice, because the Sarnesh had not taken him seriously the first time. Then the animals had started to arrive, trains of five, ten – twenty even. Two-thirds were horses, which he
preferred for riding, being better for stamina and speed than most insects. Beyond that, they had been gifted as motley a nest of creatures as he had ever seen: a racing beetle long past its prime;
a dozen plodding draught animals with high, rounded shells; a brace of nimble coach-horse beetles, fiery of temperament, their tails arching like scorpion stings. There were even a couple of exotic
creatures that might have come from a menagerie: a black-and-white-striped riding spider that had the alarming tendency to jump ten feet when it became unsettled, and a low-slung, scuttling cricket
that could give a horse a decent race over any short distance.The animals’ overall quality was variable, their temperament uncertain, since cavalry had little place in the Lowlander or
imperial view of war. A combination of airborne troops, accurate crossbows and the Ant-kinden’s reluctance to rely on any minds not linked to their own had seen no development here of the
noble art of horsemanship. Riding, after all, was for scouts and messengers, not real soldiers, so when Salma had told them what he planned, they had looked at him as though he were mad.

Except, that is, for men like Phalmes, who had served in the Twelve-Year War against Salma’s own people. They had seen how the Commonwealers fought.

Of course, the Commonwealers had better mounts, and longer to train. Still, the circling mounted rabble that Salma was now watching was at least managing to remain in the saddle. Phalmes, in the
lead, kicked his mount on to a gallop, and most of the rest followed, the horses changing pace from a canter with rather more will than he had witnessed before, the insects scuttling after them,
their legs speeding into a frantic blur.

Phalmes spotted him and slowed his mount, letting the column of riders behind disintegrate into a rabble. The Mynan rode over, looking as though he had been playing teacher to them far longer
than he was happy with.

‘How goes your cavalry?’ Salma asked him.

Phalmes spat. ‘Three more broken legs since you went off,’ he said. ‘Still, the Sarnesh finally made good on those new saddles you designed for them, and riders are staying on
more often than not, now we’ve got them. I haven’t yet explained why we need them, because I didn’t think they’d like it.’

Of course the Commonwealers had better saddles, too, and Salma had sketched his recollection of them, and sent the resulting drawing to Sarn for their leatherworkers to puzzle over. It seemed
that something had actually come of that, although he had not been hopeful. The high front and rear were not to keep the rider seated so much as to prevent a charging lancer from being flung from
the saddle on impact.

But Phalmes was right: it was not the time to explain about that.

‘Are they ready, then?’ he asked.

‘Not by a long ways,’ Phalmes told him. ‘Keep training them, they’ll get there eventually, but if you’ve got something happening soon, we can’t rely on
them.’

Salma bared his teeth, but nodded. ‘I trust your judgment,’ he said, ‘but we need to make a stand sooner rather than later. Malkan’s reinforcements are with him already:
the Sixth is joining the Seventh, and that means they’ll stop dragging their feet and start marching properly at last. If we’re to make good our promises to Sarn, then the time is upon
us.’

* * *

General Malkan had ordered an automotive driven out to oversee the arrival himself, standing on its roof with some guards and his intelligence officer, eyes narrowed as he
watched 15,000 soldiers marching towards his temporary camp.

‘Tell me about the Sixth, then,’ he directed, having observed they were in good order. Despite the long march, the troops on the ground were keeping ranks, forming columns between
the snub-nosed wood and metal of the war automotives embellished with their turret-mounted artillery, and amid the huge plated transporters that plodded along patiently like enormous beetles. The
scouts that had flown ahead and those on the flanks of the army were pulling in now as they neared the Seventh’s fortifications, filtering down to land ahead of the column in order to make
their reports.

‘Well,’ the intelligence officer said, ‘you must have heard that the Sixth took the brunt of several engagements against the Commonwealers in the Twelve-Year War.’

‘Battle of Masaki, wasn’t it?’ Malkan asked.

‘Well . . . “battle” is probably overstating the case, General,’ the intelligence officer confessed. ‘Their then commander made the mistake of pushing too far into
Dragonfly lands, ahead of the rest of the advance. My guess is that he mistook a lack of technical sophistication for mere weakness. In any event, the bulk of the Sixth was ambushed near Masaki by
a Dragonfly army that outnumbered them at least ten to one. It was perhaps the largest single force the Commonweal ever put together.’

‘You sound impressed, Captain,’ Malkan noted.

‘Organization on that scale for an Inapt kinden is indeed impressive, General,’ the man said blandly. ‘Certainly it must have represented the high point of Commonweal strength,
because the balance of the war was just a staggered holding action.’

‘So what about the Sixth? I thought it was a great triumph.’

‘Oh, well,’ the officer said, ‘a small detachment of Auxillian engineers had been split off to fortify a nearby camp, and thus escaped the massacre. Then they came under attack
themselves from what should have been an overwhelming Commonwealer force. However they managed to hold out for seven days from behind their fortifications, and killed so many of the enemy that the
relieving force was able to put the Dragonflies to flight and save the honour of the Empire.’

‘And those Auxillians were Bee-kinden?’

‘Yes, sir. And so the new Sixth, when it re-formed, became known as the Hive.’

Malkan watched as the gates to his camp opened, and the newcomers began to file in. At the very head of the army, the vanguard itself was composed of a rigid block of heavily armoured soldiers,
too short and stocky to be Wasp-kinden, and dressed in black and gold uniforms halved down the front, rather than sporting the usual horizontal stripes. It seemed the Bee-kinden at Masaki had won
themselves some privileges in their mindless defence of another race’s Empire.

‘So tell me about General Praeter,’ he said. ‘He wasn’t the original general, of course.’

‘No, sir. General Haken died at Masaki, which most think was the best thing that could have happened to him. Praeter was merely a lieutenant at the time, but he had already been given
command of the engineers. Rumour suggests that he was not popular with his superiors, and it was a punishment duty.’

‘Engineers and glory seldom go hand in hand,’ Malkan admitted. Praeter had been the man the Empire chose to make a hero, though. He had been the only Wasp-kinden officer available
for the post, hence the man’s sudden rise through the ranks.

‘They say he is a little . . . too comfortable with the Auxillians,’ the intelligence officer said carefully, ‘and he likes things done his way. Traditional ways.’

‘We shall have to see about that,’ Malkan decided. ‘Send a message to him. Give him two hours to settle his men, and then I request his presence.’

Praeter was older than Malkan had expected, and his short-cut hair was liberally dusted with grey. He must have been quite an old lieutenant, at Masaki. He was relatively
slight of build, neither tall nor broad of shoulder. The two Bee-kinden soldiers who clanked in alongside him were barely shorter, and much more heavily set. He wore a simple black cowled cloak
over his armour.

‘General Praeter,’ Malkan acknowledged.

‘General Malkan.’

Malkan had expected resentment from the older man forced to serve under the younger’s guidance, yet Praeter’s manner was anything but, which triggered a current of unease.

‘Alone, General,’ he suggested. ‘I think we should speak alone.’ His pointed glance took in the two Bees, without deigning to acknowledge his own intelligence
officer.

Praeter frowned, glancing back at his men.

‘I did not ask you here to have you murdered, General,’ declared Malkan, with hollow good humour.

The older man nodded to the two Bees, who ducked back out of the square-framed tent that Malkan commanded from. Nevertheless the sound of the two of them taking up stations outside the door was
pointedly clear.

‘They’re obviously fond of you,’ Malkan noted.

‘We’ve been through a lot,’ Praeter agreed, expressionless.

‘How many of them? Bee-kinden Auxillians, I mean?’

‘Two thousand, one hundred and eight.’

Malkan glanced at his intelligence officer, his smile brittle. ‘General, are you quite mad? Surely you’ve heard the news from Szar. What happens when your Bee-kinden troops hear it
too?’

‘They have already.’

‘Have they?’

‘Unrest in Szar,’ Praeter said. ‘Their queen dead. They know it all.’

‘And you’re not worried?’

‘No.’ Without ceremony, Praeter drew off his cloak. The armour beneath was not the banded mail of the Empire but a simple breastplate, half black and half gold. ‘That’s
why they’ve sent us out here, to keep us away from Szar, though there’s no need.’

‘Is there not?’ Malkan asked.

‘With respect, no. My men are loyal.’

‘They’re Auxillians nevertheless, General. You surely can’t say that they’re as loyal as the Imperial Army.’

‘They are
more
loyal,’ Praeter said simply. ‘Nobody understands the Bee-kinden – not even after we conquered their city. The inhabitants of Szar were loyal to
their queen. It was a commitment that they never even thought to break. When we had the queen, we had them too. Now the queen is dead, they have no reason to obey us. That is the root of
Szar.’

‘But
your
men are different?’
Something’s wrong here
, Malkan was thinking. Praeter was like a man with a sheathed sword, just waiting for the moment to present
it. All this talk of Auxillians was just a prologue.

‘They have sworn an oath to me,’ Praeter said, ‘and they will not break it. An oath from Masaki, which binds them and their families, their fighting sons, to me.’

‘And if you die, General?’

‘You had better keep me alive, General Malkan.’

Malkan nodded.
Here we go.
‘I must admit, General, that I had expected a frostier man to stand before me. After all, it’s a rare senior officer content to serve beneath
someone twenty years his junior.’ That ‘twenty years’ was a deliberate exaggeration, but not a flicker of annoyance crossed Praeter’s face.

‘Why, General Malkan, you mistake me,’ he said blandly. ‘I have no intention of doing so.’

Malkan carefully raised a single eyebrow.

Praeter smiled shallowly. ‘Perhaps this will explain.’ He reached for a belt-pouch and retrieved a folded and sealed document, which Malkan took cautiously.

Men have encountered their death warrants like this
, he was aware, but he opened it without hesitation, seeing on the wax the sigil of the palace.

In a scribe’s neat hand, there were a few brief lines written there:
This commission hereby grants to General Praeter of the Imperial Sixth, known as the Hive, on account of his
seniority and notable war record, joint command over the Sixth and Seventh armies, for the duration of the campaign against the Sarnesh.

Malkan peered at the signature. ‘General Reiner,’ he said slowly.

‘Of the Rekef Inlander. He is most kind,’ Praeter said flatly. Malkan felt the situation now balanced on a fulcrum. The Sixth were settling themselves in, the Seventh were already
established. A single word from him and things could get bloody.
Bloody and potentially treasonous.
The mention of the Rekef, the Empire’s secret service, had charged the air in the
tent as though a storm was about to break.

‘You are aware that I was installed in this position by the grace of General Maxin,’ Malkan said. ‘
Also
of the Rekef Inlander.’

‘Do you have his sealed orders to confirm that?’ Praeter asked him expressionlessly.

Well, no, of course not, because since when did Rekef generals actually put their
own
cursed names on such things? Since when was that the drill?
But the answer to that was
since now
, he supposed, because here was Reiner’s own name, clear as day. Malkan had been distantly aware of the Rekef’s internal squabbling, but he had never thought it would
come to bludgeon him out here on the front.
Don’t they know there’s a war on?

‘Well, General,’ he said, with brittle brightness. ‘Do you have any orders for me, or shall I have my intelligence staff brief you on our present situation?’

Balkus shuffled, shrugging his shoulders about and looking uncomfortable. ‘Remind me again why I’m doing this?’

Stenwold looked the big Ant-kinden soldier up and down. ‘Because you’re desperate for a reconciliation with your own people.’

Balkus spat. ‘Not likely. They’d lynch me.’ He shifted his broad shoulders, trying to settle the new armour more comfortably.

‘They won’t. You’re not turning up at their gates as some kind of renegade,’ Stenwold pointed out. ‘You’re arriving there as the field officer of a Collegiate
relief force, Commander Balkus.’

‘
Commander
Balkus,’ the Ant mused. ‘Hate to say it, but a man could get to like the sound of that.’

Stenwold shrugged. ‘You wanted it, I recall.’

Balkus scowled. ‘You get tired of being on your own. It’s in the blood,’ he muttered. ‘Never thought I’d end up going home, though.’ He bit his lip.