Salute the Dark

The imperial garrison already had its men out in force in the city. The first reaction to the deaths of both Reiner and Latvoc, neither of whom had been men to willingly share their plans with subordinates, was to round up known troublemakers and attempt to continue Reiner’s iron-fisted bludgeoning of the populace. In many cases the soldiers thus despatched ran straight into the local resistance as it, too, sallied forth. There was a score of separate skirmishes within the first hour of the rebellion, and, in most of the fights, sheer numbers overwhelmed the small punitive forces the Empire had sent out. Where they had expected to find at worst a rabble of malcontents armed with stones, knives and clubs, the imperial soldiers ran headlong into Myna’s military heritage.

The Mynans were close to Beetles, cousins perhaps, but a halfbreed strain that had taken in fresh blood and stabilized into a new kinden entirely. What was not Beetle in them was a core of Ant fighting spirit that had made the taking of this city such an undertaking in the first place. Eighteen years had gone by, and the people of Myna had kept their blades sharp, their crossbows well oiled. The resistance fighters currently on the streets were a patchwork re-creation of the generation before, with their black and red breastplates and helms, their short swords and long shields and heavy crossbows. As the first unwary men of the Empire broke against them, they were overwhelmed or shot out of the sky.

The news soon snapped the officers of the garrison into line. The Empire’s response was swift and proportionate, calculated to ensure that, in order to stop the rot, the rogue elements at large in the city would be destroyed to the last man as quickly as possible. Without exception, those bands of resistance fighters already mobilized were either routed or surrounded and slaughtered. At the same time that the imperial response was being deployed, however, Kymene’s own people, and those that heeded her – over two-thirds of the resistance total – made their own move. They struck at key buildings and positions across the city, encountering surprisingly little resistance because the forces that would normally have rushed forth in defence were already engaged elsewhere. Several imperial detachments even returned to find their own barracks overrun and in enemy hands. Others found themselves holed up and under siege in the very buildings they had just stormed. One detachment, finding itself under threat of being trapped and smashed against the city walls, retreated through the main gates of the city in the general direction of Maynes.

By the end of a single day of savage fighting, without quarter on either side, Kymene found herself in control of over half of Myna, with the Empire still holding out in three improvised positions across the city. The balance was composed of the surviving resistance groups who had not heeded her, or areas that were so devastated or heavily contested that nobody could truthfully claim to have any grasp of them. Had it not been for one factor, her victory would have seemed inevitable.

Her men had put up barricades of furniture, overturned carts and torn down buildings across two of the three routes leading towards her problem, and she stood at one such barricade now, considering the building that had loomed so large in her own life.

The palace was the late Colonel Ulther’s miniature replica of the Emperor’s own in Capitas, a stepped ziggurat with, as she knew, just as much space below ground as above. The majority of the surviving Myna garrison was dug in within the edifice: doorways, balconies and windows bristled with soldiers ready to shoot or sting anything that came within their range. There was also a small catapult that the Wasp artificers had assembled, but Kymene had the luxury of assaulting the grand building from any side she pleased, whenever she chose, and to move the cumbersome weapon around the engineers would be forced to dismantle it each time.

For now there was an uneasy stalemate. Until an hour earlier the Empire had held the neighbouring barracks building as well, but she had since heard from Chyses that his own personal guard had fired the roof and that the soldiers had evacuated into the palace itself, while taking casualties from the Mynan crossbows. It still left her with a solid building that would be a bloodbath to take.

But take it she must. As long as the Wasps were there, her soldiers were here, watching them, instead of consolidating her hold on the city. If she had time, she could starve them out perhaps, but she had an uneasy feeling that time was one of the things not allowed to her.

She heard a step behind her and, turning, she saw the Beetle girl, Cheerwell, looking sombre. She had a sword at her waist and a crossbow in her hands, and the minders Kymene had set to protect her had confirmed at least one enemy soldier dead at her hands.

‘Still thinking about your Wasp friend?’ Kymene enquired.