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By Root 1793 0

gaggle of men, women and children. They were Grasshopper- and Dragonfly-kinden, most of them unarmed and many only partly dressed, blinking in the moonlight as their headman addressed them in moderate tones, not shouting or ordering. And Dal Arche saw the headman look across as the front-runners in the bandit charge pelted in amongst the houses, with torches and blades. The man’s face fell apart, that was the only way Dal could think about it. He was an old Dragonfly whose whole life must have been spent in this same village. When the war came, Dal would put money on it, the Salmae had instructed him on who to send off to fight, and told him to stay here safe with his family. Here was a man who trusted implicitly the traditional order that set him over his fellows, and under his betters. He knew that Leose would protect him, and did not have it in him to credit Avaris. He had dismissed the garrulous Spider-kinden as a mere trickster.

Run, thought Dal, even as he plucked back his bowstring, and some of the villagers were running. The mothers, the fathers, those who had the most immediate things to protect, they began breaking free of the headman’s spell, even as the old man continued to urge them to stay where they were. But not all of them were running; some were turning to fight. Others just stood staring, mesmerized by the certainty in the old man’s voice, as he kept croaking on at them despite the shock fragmenting his lined features.

Dal put his first arrow between the headman’s wide eyes and counted it as a mercy to the village as a whole, as more people started fleeing.

Lycene banked over the smoke, and then cut a wide arc around the ruined village’s perimeter. Astride the insect’s back, Alain looked down, with Tynisa clinging to his waist.

She had risen in the ranks of the Salmae’s soldiers since the fighting had started. The peasant levy now regarded her with almost superstitious awe, for she never flinched from bloodshed, never feared, never retreated. The brigands had learned to recognize her, too, and her arrival would sometimes send them fleeing even before she drew steel. Those that were bold enough to go up against her, she slew, or her flickering rapier cut their arrows from the air as she sped closer and closer.

But she could be in only one place at a time, whilst the brigands always seemed to be everywhere, or elsewhere. When Salme Elass led her forces down en masse, the bandits would be gone, or some small pocket of them all that could be found. Meanwhile they would strike somewhere else, not defending any of their gains but making daring inroads into Elas Mar Province like this – pillaging, burning and murdering even within sight of Leose Castle.

The Salmae kept a dozen dragonflies trained to carry a rider, and they were all of them deployed now, scouring the ground below for signs of the bandits. There had been some successes, and only a few days ago a mob of thirty ruffians were cut down to a man, after Alain had spotted them from above. Most of the time, however, the brigands were in and out of the trees, following shadowed and hidden roads to seek out their prey.

‘There,’ Tynisa snapped, squeezing Alain tighter with one arm as she pointed. He took a moment to read her direction, then nudged Lycene with his knees, propelling the insect across the speeding ground. In the first pass he missed them, but at Tynisa’s insistence he swung back, before spotting a score of figures hurrying across between stands of trees. No doubt these were the very villains who had set the fires.

Alain gestured in the direction they had come from: We must fetch help.

She leant close and spoke in his ear. ‘Set me down.’

He glanced back at her, so that for a moment they were almost kissing. Tynisa felt her blood race. Almost. I almost have him. Perhaps I shall win him with this deed. She had been bold in the fray, since finding her new purpose, and none bolder. She knew that Alain and his mother had both been impressed by her fury and her skill, the many lives she had taken in their names. Surely her success was working