It was easy to see how the Wasps had upset that familiar way of life. It almost seemed that a third of the walls of the city was spun in scaffolding, as though some great metal spider was saving the city for a later meal. The buildings along the road running beside the rails had all gone, demolished and then levelled to strip any enemy of cover, despite the fact that the main assault would most likely come from the air. The walls themselves were changing shape, from the original smooth curve that encircled the city to something spiky, with sloping, pointed buttresses jutting out to give defending archers more inroads into any besieging force, also battlements that curved up and out and then in again, so that sheltered crossbows could fire through slots above them at any airborne enemy. The summit of the wall was studded with siege engines and, as the rail-automotive drew closer, Stenwold watched an impossibly spindly crane winching one of these into position. Some were heavy-barrelled leadshotters, some repeating ballistae plated in steel. There were others still that were new to him – racks of tubes that must be the new serial scrap-shotters he had heard about, which would fill a space of air with enough loose metal to bring down anything flying through it. He saw the machines tilt and turn experimentally with hisses of steam leaking from their joints. All the wall emplacements were armoured with shields before and above to protect the engineers. Too heavy to be winched by hand, the engines were kept grinding back and forth by steam or clockwork.
They don’t really know what they’re doing, Stenwold decided, but it was still a hopeful sight. At least they were doing something. The Sarnesh, backed by the ingenuity of the Collegiate artificers, were preparing for a conflict with the Wasps that would come all the way to the walls of their city.
And he saw further emplacements beyond the walls, too: bunkers and entrenched weapons, that might or might not be connected underground to the city’s subterranean levels where the ant hive housed the working insects that the city used as beasts of burden. He hoped this activity would impress the others as much as it impressed him.
Across from him dozed a pale-skinned Ant. His name was Parops and he was from Tark, and normally a Tarkesh would be risking death merely by coming to Sarn. Tark was in the hands of the Wasps, however, and Parops had been almost eager to come along with Stenwold. The last chance for Tark would be the utter defeat of the Wasps, and he was willing to break centuries of xenophobia to achieve that. It was enough to give a man hope.
If we beat the Wasps, Stenwold reminded himself. ‘If’ was a poisonous word. Let’s beat the Wasps first. For, in fact, even welding together a unified front against the Wasps seemed to be almost impossible, for everyone was pulling in different directions. It was like trying to shoo flies out of a window: no sooner had you swept them into the open air than they were back again.
Aside from Parops, he had come with only two of his staff: Sperra, who was now sleeping curled along the length of one seat and quite oblivious to the roar of the engine and the rattle of the wheels, and Arianna. Looking a little queasy, she sat pressed up against him with her head resting on his rounded shoulder. Travel by rail was the fastest and most efficient way to get anywhere these days, but it was a rough experience for the Inapt.
He reached for her hand and squeezed it, and she managed a wan smile. Before them, just then, the walls of Sarn opened up to swallow the train of open-roofed carriages in which they travelled.
When the automotive pulled in, they were ready waiting for him: it was hard to fault the Ant-kinden for organization. A small delegation had obviously been passed his mental image by some Ant that had once met him, and so they singled him out easily even as his little company disembarked.
‘War Master Stenwold Maker.’ He found himself addressed by a Sarnesh woman robed in the Collegium style, which counted as a token of high respect.
‘I suppose I must be.’
‘You have requested an audience with our Queen,’ he was further informed. ‘It is granted. Even now rooms are being prepared at the Royal Court for you and your fellows. Kindly follow me.’
Nothing would have singled the Queen out from her fellows, save for the ornament that she adopted out of pity for the foreigners’ confusion. She had not been born royal. Unlike Spider Aristoi the Ant-kinden put no stock in hereditary dynasties. The Queen’s childhood had displayed in her an aptitude for command, decision-making, leadership. Such traits were watched out for, among the Ant-kinden. They were discouraged, in most cases, but sometimes these gifts shone in exactly the right way, and in such children they were cultivated.
She had been young for the post when made an officer, and very young when given her commander’s rank, stepping easily up through the simple hierarchy that was all the Ants needed. Her ability, and the soundness of her judgment, marked her as exceptional in a race where conformity was the rule, but it was that rare breed of ‘exceptional’ that managed to complement the whole rather than challenge it.
At thirty they had made her a tactician. She had been chosen from a hundred candidates, her every thought and action having been carefully scrutinized without her ever knowing that the Court was watching her. Never let it be said that the Ants could not keep any secrets from their own.
When she was thirty-eight the old King had died, and she had joined his other tacticians as they put their minds together even as his body cooled. The decision had been unanimous. In putting herself forward she had showed no personal ambition. They had simply measured one another by the standards of each other, and she had stood taller than the rest.
The absolute trust of an Ant city-state was a burden she was proud to bear, for all it weighed on her heavily. For eleven years she had lived with such iron responsibility, but never to this degree. It was the time of crisis that any Ant regent dreaded.
The Queen of Sarn now sat at her war table, on which maps and charts were pinned in immaculate order, updated daily by the clerks of her army. Eleven years ago she had been chosen as the supreme voice of Sarn, the fount of all authority, the ultimate origin of all orders. She knew that outsiders considered the Ant city-states to be merely autocracies but the truth was richer than that, infinitely more complex. The mindlink that laced them all together did not exclude her, nor did it make them her unthinking slaves. She was constantly present in the minds of her subjects as they were also an influence in hers. The Beetles of Collegium thought they had achieved government by the people in choosing their quarrelsome leaders by the casting of lots, but in reality they had no idea, no idea at all.
And speaking of Beetles, here was one arrived to see her, she was informed, and it was a name she had heard before.
She did not even need to glance at them for their reactions. She felt the presence of her tacticians supporting her. They were eight Ant-kinden men and women, the keenest military minds in the city, with a pair of Beetle women, an artificer and a merchant, to advise on matters less warlike. There would, she guessed, be little need of those last two in the next months.
Stenwold Maker, she reflected, seeing the doors open to reveal a stocky, bald man dressed in the folded white robes of a College master but looking as though he missed a sword at his side, approaching with a walk that still compensated for the blade he had not been allowed to bring in.
Tell me about him, she directed.
– He has been quite a maverick, causing trouble for the Assembly, came the first voice from among her tacticians.
– Reports confirm that he has been spreading warnings of the Empire for at least fifteen years.
– He was in Sarn six years ago, starting an agent network. We have the details of some of his contacts here, but not all.
– Reports suggest that he was in the thick of the fighting during the Vekken siege.
– His position at the College was in the department of history, but prolonged absences have punctuated his teaching. Known associates…
The Queen waved that information away in her mind, and all this time Stenwold had been approaching the war table, hearing none of it, not
guessing how he was being weighed up. His character, then? she said.
– Resourceful. Charismatic. He has been able to control the Assembly.
– He inspires loyalty in others. A good officer – for a foreigner.
– Do not forget that Beetles endure. He has endured a great deal.
‘War Master Stenwold Maker,’ she began, and he gave her a stiff, somewhat paunchy bow. ‘Your Majesty,’ he acknowledged, and then gave a brief nod left and right to her council.
‘We are pleased to find our allies in Collegium still in possession of their freedom,’ she said to him.
‘We are pleased to still be in possession of it. I see you anticipate a siege here, your Majesty.’
‘We do, but no siege such as these walls have ever known. We have sent Fly-kinden scouts to investigate the Wasp army. It seems they have made fortifications for the winter, and their defences are intended against both an air and ground assault. We have therefore borrowed from their designs.’
Stenwold nodded. ‘Clever,’ he admitted.
‘And it may be that we can borrow from them even further,’ the Queen remarked, almost casually, and then fixed him with a steel gaze. ‘We understand an agent of yours who fought beside us may have escaped the Wasp forces with something of immense value.’
‘The reports of agents…’ began Stenwold, holding up a hand, but she forestalled him.
‘We mean the new weapon, that the Wasps turned on us at the Battle of the Rails.’ Even as she spoke her advisors were in her mind.
– Reports suggest that Collegium has been constructing their own version. It was unclear whether this was purely from first principles or…
– There is a Spider-kinden now waiting in the antechamber with a wrapped bundle of the correct size and shape, according to battlefield recollection.
She saw the Beetle glance sideways at her expressionless Tacticians, obviously guessing at their constant exchange and yet deaf to it. ‘War Master Maker?’ she prompted.
‘They call it a snapbow,’ he told her at last, bowing to necessity and the accuracy of her own intelligence. ‘Your own soldiers have seen its efficiency. My agent was able to bring me the original plans.’
– There is more to this, though. He is holding back information.
He is entitled to, the Queen responded. He is an ally, not a citizen.
– We cannot risk the future of Sarn on the squeamishness of our allies.
– If we merely requisition the sample weapon he has brought, it could be reverse-engineered by our artificers.
In offending Collegium we would lose more than we gained, the Queen decided. ‘You can recreate this marvel?’ she asked.
‘And we have done so,’ Stenwold said. He still felt a stab of pain when he recalled those plans, the so-familiar handwriting of his student, Totho, who was working with the Empire now somehow, driven there by the curse of his blood and the fall of Tark.
On the crest of a wave of mental voices, the Queen announced, ‘We will set our artificers to the task, Master Maker. We will require the plans, therefore, in order to work efficiently at rearming our soldiers.’
This was the moment he had been waiting for, but she had dropped it on him sooner than he had wanted, though perhaps not sooner than he had expected.
‘I… The Assembly, that is, is unsure… the weapon is of a remarkable design. We fear to see it in general usage, you understand. We are therefore training elite groups of-’
‘The weapon is already in general usage, Master Maker,’ she reminded him. ‘The Empire, we understand, is very large and has many, many soldiers. If it is to be defeated we cannot now stint on any advantage your agents have procured for us.’
Stenwold pursed his lips, thinking of the golden future he had envisaged, and how the Sarnesh having the snap-bow would change it. Oh, they were the best of Ant-kinden, without doubt, and had come so far in just a few decades. They were Ant-kinden all the same, though, so how long before their armies were at the gates of Vek or of Tark?
‘I have not brought the plans with me to Sarn,’ he said.
– He is lying.
– He should be persuaded to send back to Collegium to collect them.
– I concur that he is lying. The Beetles clearly do not trust us.
– We cannot therefore trust them.
– We need allies now if we are to stave off the Wasp-kinden when they come.
‘Master Maker,’ the Queen said softly. ‘We understand that you have been the man to cut through philosophical procrastination at Collegium, and to impart a keener view of reality than your people might otherwise have achieved. Allow me to do the same for you. We must defeat the Wasps at all costs. If Sarn falls, the Lowlands has lost its heart. We cannot stand on niceties or other such considerations. I wish you to think very carefully about how much our need for victory outweighs any other needs of your own just now.’
‘I understand, your Majesty. I have another proposal, though. I would like to use Sarn as a rallying point for those cities willing to send troops and aid in order to resist the Wasps. You are correct that Sarn is the keystone of the Lowlands, as matters now stand, and I am also aware that there is an alliance of Moth and Mantis-kinden north of here. So, as well as Collegium, we can hopefully bring several others to the table. We can then plan a unified strategy regarding how best to fight and how best to hamper the imperial advance. Would you be willing to consider this?’
‘You do not deflect us so easily, Master Maker,’ the Queen remarked acidly. ‘You must come to accept that this weapon you have discovered is wasted in the hands of Collegium. You are builders and inventors but not warriors. That is our profession here in Sarn. To pass weapons into our hands is simply an efficient division of labour. However, I am confident that you will, after due thought, come to make the correct decision on this point. As to your own request, we are agreed. Let those who are prepared to stand against the Wasps send their Tacticians and embassies here in safety. We shall receive them all.’
Stenwold backed out of the war room, feeling off-balance and ill at ease. He had expected that Sarnesh agents would have sniffed out Collegium’s new acquisition, and he had come armed with the authority of the Collegium Assembly to deny the Queen’s logical request, but she had ambushed him with it before he was ready, launching him into the pitched diplomatic battle he had been hoping to defer. Nor was that battle won yet.
He wondered uneasily how far news of the snapbow had spread.
Back in the antechamber he rejoined Arianna, hugged her briefly, and then turned to look at the next petitioner ready to enter the war room.
It was Salma.
Stenwold blinked at him, seeing the same lean, hard-edged man he had encountered when recovering his niece. Salma all grown up, calloused and lean, standing here still in his brigand’s armour as though he were not about to speak to a queen.
‘Hammer and tongs,’ Stenwold said softly. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Merely a prince calling on fellow royalty, what else?’ Salma said. His smile was the same old smile gleaming through a filter of time and pain. ‘It’s good to see you, Sten.’
‘It’s good… very good to see you,’ Stenwold told him. ‘I wish I’d been able to bring along Che or Tynisa.’
The smile lingered, now sadder. ‘Those were the days, weren’t they?’ said the Dragonfly. ‘How little we knew. Except you, of course. I listened to everything you said, and I still wish I’d listened harder.’
‘At least you listened. It took my own people a lot longer.’ Stenwold looked him up and down, this most unlikely of royal petitioners. ‘You’re here on the business of your… surrogate people?’
Salma nodded. ‘My followers, yes. I come to barter like any tradesman. To horse-trade, in fact.’ Seeing Stenwold’s expression he waved a hand dismissively. ‘It’s a Commonweal expression, although more fitting than you’d think. Your own business here is your grand alliance, of course.’
‘Let us hope
it’s more than just my business,’ Stenwold said, and at that moment an Ant functionary was at Salma’s elbow. The two old friends clasped hands, and Stenwold said, ‘Good luck,’ before returning to Arianna.
She raised the wrapped bundle questioningly, but he shook his head at her, relieved to be out of here without having to unsheathe it. She kept her questions to herself until they were well clear of the royal palace and pacing back through the well-ordered streets of Sarn proper towards the Foreigners’ Quarter.
‘So I carried this along for nothing then?’ she said eventually.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘We knew they knew that we knew how to make it, so to speak, but the Queen is not going to be derailed from her intentions.’ He grimaced about him at the perfectly grid-patterned streets, at the silent Sarnesh going about their lives without fuss or haste, at soldiers trooping past them carrying material to the walls. ‘I suppose I can’t blame them, given that they were on the receiving end, but they really, fiercely want Totho’s invention. I’m starting to worry about precisely what they’ll do if I don’t willingly give them the plans.’
‘The Assembly opinion seemed to be fairly unified on that point,’ she noted.
‘The Assembly of Collegium, lucky fellows, aren’t here facing the Queen of Sarn.’ He sighed. ‘I know it’s an artificial situation. Old Thadspar wanted to keep it out of the wrong hands, and yet the Wasps already have it. And, anyway, the Sarnesh will capture one eventually, build their own copy, and then they’ll have it too, and they’ll only remember that we didn’t want them to get it. And they want it now. They want to be able to put it to use against the Wasps next spring, and for the short term, of course, that’s the best idea.’
‘And for the long term…’
‘They will turn it against the world, sooner or later. No doubt about that. The temptation to win a few battles over their old enemies will prove too much. This weapon is dangerous enough in Wasp hands, but in Ant hands the possibilities are even worse.’
Now they were securely inside the Foreigners’ Quarter, approaching the elegant Beetle-style two-storey that was the Collegiate embassy. Once inside, past the guards and the functionaries, Stenwold retired to the suite of rooms that had been made available to him.
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