Heirs of the Blade_ Shadows of the Apt_ Book Seven - Adiran Tchaikovsky [189]
She felt the reverberation as the cavalry struck home almost unopposed, and the balance of Whitehand’s force was not far behind, though enough of the brigand archers had kept their heads to make the Mantis’s charge a difficult one. That was his problem, though, as Tynisa’s thoughts were all now focused on the perfection of her dance.
The Spiders used the word ‘dancing’ to refer to their endless round of politics, but for the Mantis-kinden, Tynisa’s true inheritance, it meant something far cleaner and deadlier.
The enemy were all around her but, because of that, they were crippled: unable to run, unable to bring their spears to bear on her or to swing their staves and axes without striking their fellows. Her rapier seemed able to pass through them as though they were air. She gave the weapon its head and it leapt joyously about her, weaving its killing patterns. Soon they started trying to scatter, shoving their own allies aside in their haste to remain amongst the living.
Isendter had now arrived. She felt the movements of the enemy mob change as he struck against them, sending their foremost scattering. She kept forcing her way inwards, lashing her rapier behind at those who thought her back would be an easy target. She was looking for the telltale signs of someone giving orders.
A brief glance told her that her own fellows were having a hard time of it. Whitehand was giving a bloody account of himself, but the sheer numbers of the enemy had brought his charge to a standstill, and his followers were dying left and right of him. The archers up on the bluff continued to drop arrows into the close-packed brigands, but were taking twice as many in reply. The cavalry had broken off and were wheeling for another charge, after leaving two of their number behind.
Tynisa’s ears were suddenly ringing with thunder, causing a moment of utter confusion in which an opportunistic spearman almost killed her outright. I know that sound. A nailbow, she realized with shock, dragged out of her bloody reverie. Who in the Commonweal would possess such a thing?
The weapon spoke again, and this time she spotted its wielder. A determined-looking Wasp-kinden had begun unleashing it on Whitehand’s people, its impact punching men and women off their feet. Tynisa went for him without a further thought, clearing others from her path like chaff.
He noticed her at the last moment, or someone had warned him, and she saw the Wasp drag the nailbow around towards her, but too late. He hauled on the trigger and the weapon boomed, a single bolt zipping past her ear even as she thrust her blade into the device’s workings. That was not a feat a rapier would normally have been capable of, for the nailbow was made of heavy steel, solid and durable enough to withstand the percussive recoil of its use, but her blade nevertheless sheared through some vital part of it and silenced the thing for ever.
Withdrawing the blade, she noted with approval the Wasp’s expression of disbelief, then an arrow rammed her shoulder and knocked her down.
For a second the pain of it utterly destroyed her, so large in her mind that there was no room to think of anything else.
Then it was gone again, caged away in the furthest recesses of her skull, and she had already leapt to her feet, the sword that had flown from her right hand now secure in her left.
She saw him again: the same Dragonfly with greying hair, the man she had picked as their leader from the moment she saw him. He was right there in front of her, hauling the Wasp out