Dangerous Offspring by Steph Swainston Page B

the Insects. I could not help them. I did what every Eszai should do in a disaster: cut your losses and save your fyrd.
    ‘When we ran out of ammunition I sent fifty men to bring more. Only ten returned. It was a suicide mission. We had no way of knowing what was happening beyond our palisade. We just kept shooting, holding out against the instant we would be annihilated. I felt the Circle break and I knew Hayl Eske was dead, but I didn’t tell the men.’ He glanced at me. ‘I was waiting for the Circle to break for Comet and Tornado. It was not the first time I have had to leave the battlefield on my own.
    ‘After that first hour I knew everything out there still moving was an Insect. I kept up volleys in pulses for six consecutive hours, until dawn began to resolve.
    ‘The light came up slowly, pale grey, and through the murk we could at last see the utter devastation. The ground in front of us sloped straight into the pit. The middle of the camp had vanished. Only the tents at the far end were left standing, leaning inwards. Around us, the corrugated stockade sagged and twisted like a ribbon. Insects were everywhere, feeding on the bodies. We were helpless, stranded in our corner and tired to death. My vision was dark at the edges with exhaustion but I wrapped my wings around me and I persevered.
    ‘Then came the sound of thunder along the road. Heavy cavalry were riding in. They were armoured head to foot and they poured into the camp with their lances levelled, riding the Insects down. Do you know who was leading them? Rayne. The Doctor. Bundled up in her old cloak on the back of a destrier.
    ‘She had felt the Circle break. She had been here in Slake with the rearguard and at first light she gathered all the cavalry left and set out to find us. We climbed the palisade and hailed her.
    ‘She brought her horse around the lip of the crater. “Bracing morning you have for it, Saker,” said she. “Where are the other two?”
    ‘“I don’t know,’ I said. They were both pulling on the Circle, we could tell that much.
    ‘She said, “You have exposure. Go back to town.”
    ‘I did not return to town. I picked my way over the subsiding ground with her, looking for Comet and Tornado. She spotted the sunburst on his shield–’ He gestured at me ‘–through the scattered soil and set her soldiers to dig him out. Finding Tornado was more difficult. She had to bring in some of her trained dogs. But of Hayl Eske we never found a single piece…Long, drawn-out ordeals are the ones that change us. For me it was just one night. But what a night!’
    I said, ‘It was my biggest battle.’
    ‘Falling down the hole was not the best thing to do under the circumstances,’ Lightning assured me.
    ‘At least I wasn’t as useless as Hayl.’
    Frost said, ‘Everybody remembers where they were when they heard the news.’
    Lightning nodded. His face was flushed. He unlaced the strings at the neck of his shirt, downed the dregs of his wine and called, ‘Bring some more claret. No, no…that old bottle…You’ll like this one, Eleonora. I had to sell a house for it.’ A servant gave him the bottle and he clinked his intaglio ring against its glass. ‘We shall toast Frost’s dam with this. There are only six bottles left in the world…Well, five. But you only live once.’
     

    I made my excuses, left the table and walked out to the washroom block to have a piss. I was just buttoning my fly when a figure loomed behind me. I glanced over my shoulder and saw Eleonora at the doorway. She looked left and right with a pervert’s smile. ‘Hmm. Interesting in here. Why is it such a mess?’
    ‘Why are you following me?’ I asked.
    ‘You have a pert backside.’
    ‘Oh, bugger,’ I muttered.
    ‘Don’t give me ideas!’
    ‘Eleonora… no .’
    She laughed. I was begging and that was good enough for her. She said, ‘No, anyway. I want to talk to you about the Archer.’
    ‘What about him?’
    ‘Not here.’ She