She stalked up to him, her cloak swirling. The four of his heavies that he had stationed about the room went tense. He held up his hand, the one with the broken claw, to calm them.
‘Do you know what happens if you betray me, Hokiak?’ she asked.
Hokiak put on an easy smile that was a nightmare of jutting gums. ‘Don’t bandy threats, lady. I ain’t got this old by being scared of ’em.’ With measured unconcern he took up his walking stick and hobbled away from her, pointedly showing her his back if she wanted to take the opportunity. Inwardly, he waited for the blow and sighed raggedly when it did not come.
This one’s trouble, he decided. Hokiak had taken on a lifetime of trouble, from his half-forgotten youth as a Dry-claw raider to his current station as a black-marketeer in the occupied city of Myna. He had made a living out of trouble, more money than he could ever spend now. If this trouble-woman did kill him, it was not as though she would be cutting many years off his life.
But she was a mad one, no doubt about it. He could smile casually at her but he avoided her eyes. They burned, and there were fires there that would be raging when the world went cold.
Dragonfly-kinden. He didn’t know many of them. They had to go off the path of virtue early to become wicked enough to end up in his business. Otherwise they were all peace and light as far as he knew. So where’d this waste-blasted woman come from?
She was tall, almost as tall as he had been when he could still stand straight and without need for a cane. She kept herself cloaked but there was armour beneath it, and a blade that seemed always in one hidden hand. But she had money and, when she had talked to him, the money seemed to outweigh that drawn and hungry sword.
Now he wasn’t too sure. He was going to be in real trouble if his contact didn’t show, and equally so if the Empire had got wind of this deal and sent along more than he could handle. Either way he guessed that her first move would be to stick him for it, his fault or no.
Risk, risk, risk. He used to say he was getting too old for pranks like this, but then he had got too old for it, and still not given up the habit.
He hobbled back across his backroom’s width, cane bending under his weight at each step. Propping it against a table he took his clay pipe out and filled it, trusting that his age would excuse any shaking of his hands. He had dealt with murderers, fugitives, revolutionaries, professional traitors and imperial Rekef, but this woman, now, she gave him the shudders.
She called herself Felise Mienn and, apart from the name of her mark, that was all he knew.
At last a Fly-kinden boy dashed in, making everyone start.
‘He’s here, Master Hokiak,’ the boy blurted out.
‘How many’s he got, boy?’
‘Got three. Three and hisself.’
‘Then get out of here,’ Hokiak advised him. As the boy dashed off again he looked about him at his other lads. They were regulars of his and three were Soldier Beetle locals: blue-grey-skinned and tough, wearing breastplates that had the old pre-conquest red and black painted out. The fourth was an innocent-looking Fly-kinden who could puncture a man’s eyeball with a thrown blade at twenty paces. They all looked ready, relaxed. In contrast, Felise Mienn seemed to be shaking very slightly and very fast. Hokiak decided that discretion was a good trait in an old man, and poled himself behind the vacant bar counter.
The men who stepped in were also locals, less well armoured but with swords at their belts and one with a crossbow, its string drawn, hanging loose in his hand. They inspected the room suspiciously, and then stepped aside for their patron.
After all the tension he was an anticlimax: a plump Beetle-kinden with a harrowed expression who looked as soft as they made them. He wore a cloak but the clothes beneath it were of imperial cut and colour.
‘Draywain,’ Hokiak greeted him from behind the bar. In a moment’s inspiration he added, ‘Fancy a drink?’
‘Never mind the wretched drinks. Where’s the money?’ Draywain demanded. He was some manner of Imperial Consortium clerk, Hokiak gathered. He had been quite the big man under the previous governor but, since that man’s mysterious death, the former favourites, those who had survived him, had been having a hard time of it. Sometimes a fatal time.
‘She’s the money,’ Hokiak said, and Felise Mienn stepped forwards.
Draywain flinched from the sight of her. ‘A Common-wealer? You must be mad! Where could I spend her gold?’
‘She’s got good imperial gold. I seen it myself,’ Hokiak assured him, privately reckoning she had taken it off good imperials.
‘Do you have what I want?’ Felise asked impatiently.
Draywain narrowed his eyes. ‘Let me see the money.’
‘Do you have what I want?’ She asked it more slowly, emphasizing each word separately. ‘If you don’t know where Thalric has gone, nothing for you.’
‘Thalric of the Rekef? That bastard!’ Draywain barked. ‘Oh, I know where he went, don’t you worry. Now let me see the money.’
Without taking her eyes from him she unshipped a pouch, emptied it onto the table. A flurry of gold and silver spilled out, and Draywain and his men pulled closer to inspect it.
‘One hundred Imperials – our agreed price,’ she said. It was a decent sum of money, Hokiak decided, for just a piece of information. Not a fortune, certainly, but an awful lot.
Draywain looked up from the money, and he had obviously come to a slightly different conclusion. ‘It’s not enough,’ he said. ‘Not enough for imperial secrets that nobody else’ll sell you. My life’s hit the rocks recently, Dragonfly-lady. I need to relocate myself somewhere an honest man can do business, and that isn’t cheap.’
‘That is not the arrangement,’ Felise snapped.
‘Well then the deal’s changed places when you weren’t looking,’ Draywain replied. ‘Now you double what you’ve got there and I’ll start talking.’
‘That is not the arrangement.’ Again the words were slower, more pointed, as though she was clarifying some simple matter for a simple man.
‘I have what you want, Wealer,’ Draywain told her. ‘Cough up the goods or I’m taking it right back out with me.’
‘Draywain—’ Hokiak began, but the Beetle cut him off sharply.
‘Stay out of this, old man!’ he snapped. ‘I’m doing business here.’
That’s all I need to hear. Hokiak rubbed the two claws of his good hand together, seeing his men pick up the signal.
‘So let’s see the rest, Wealer,’ Draywain insisted.
‘You knew the terms I offered,’ she said. ‘I need that information.’
‘I’m a merchant and this is a seller’s market,’ he responded without sympathy.
And she smiled and Draywain took that for a good sign.
Then the sword came out from under her cloak, the whole gleaming length of it that had been held close down the line of her body. The cloth was flung back as she lunged into action, revealing armour beneath that was iridescent blue and green and mother-of-pearl.
She had the blade through the first bodyguard’s gut before he could react, drawing it smoothly out to smash the next man’s crossbow and the half-fired bolt on the back-swing. The crossbowman fell backwards, reaching for his blade, and the remaining bodyguard went for her.
He was not bad, that man. Clearly he had seen a few fights before. It was a waste, Hokiak decided, but that was the nature of this business.
Felise Mienn’s sword was four feet long, but half of that was the hatched and bound metal hilt. The blade itself was straight and double-edged, tapering only towards the very point. She swung it with both hands and in either hand, dancing it round and past and over his guard as the luckless man tried to defend his patron. In a single fluid move she had sidestepped his strike and put the blade across his neck with far more force than her slender arms looked able to muster, half taking his head from his body.
Draywain bolted then, and she flung the sword at him as if without thinking. It slammed into the wal
l right alongside his head, cutting a line across his cheek. He screamed and stopped there, tugging at the hilt. The point of it had pinned his ear to the wall. His ear? Hokiak had never seen such a throw, and it had been solid enough that the Beetle could not yank the sword free using both hands.
The crossbowman had his blade now and he went for the unarmed woman. She stepped back and back as he came, cloak swirling about her, and then blades flicked out from her thumbs. It was the first Hokiak knew of the weapons that their Ancestor Art gave to Commonwealers. They were two-inch curved razors and she now stood poised with them ready, fingers clenched inwards but thumbs ready to strike.
The last bodyguard paused, weighing up the odds.
‘Kill her!’ Draywain screamed weakly. ‘For blazes’ sake, just kill her.’
He was a professional man now torn between his reputation and safeguarding his health. In that moment Felise went for him, claws slashing across him three times before he could even get his sword between them. He stumbled back, blood trailing from his face. Lunging forwards, Felise caught his head with both hands, as though she was a lover about to kiss him. Then she gashed both claws across his throat and he fell at her feet.
She looked at Hokiak then, and if her eyes had been burning mad before there were whole fiery suns of demented rage there now.
He forced himself to lean peaceably on his cane and indicate, with a twitch of his chin, that not one of his men had moved to intervene. He was not sure that she would understand him, but then she was stalking across the bloody floor towards Draywain.
‘Keep away!’ he shrieked. ‘Someone help me!’ but Hokiak knew that his backroom had thick walls and people around this part of the city always minded their own business.
She put one hand up, stilling the quivering hilt of her sword.
‘Thalric,’ she said simply, conversationally.
‘Thalric, of course!’ he gasped. ‘They sent him away. They sent him west, to the new-found lands. The city Helleron, where the foundries are. He’s Rekef Outlander. You know what that means?’
‘Oh, I know exactly what that means,’ she said. Only Draywain could see her expression just then, and his voice dried up to a whimper.
‘Do you know where this Helleron is, Hokiak?’ she asked, without turning.
‘Sure I do,’ the old Scorpion said. Seems like every month I’m shipping people west.
‘Good,’ she said and pulled her sword out of the wall effortlessly. As Draywain gasped in relief she rammed the point of it double-handed through his chest and then whipped it out, all in one movement. He was dead instantaneously, without even realizing what was happening. Perhaps, Hokiak thought, that was her way of mercy. Or her thanks. Charming thought.
‘You will find me means to get to Helleron,’ she told him. ‘And supplies. A map that I can read.’ That last was because she was not Apt, of course, not one for machines or crossbows or technical drawing.
‘I got an old Grasshopper chart,’ Hokiak said. ‘Ain’t what you’d call recent but I don’t guess they moved the cities that much. Look, this all is going to cost. I earned my one-in-ten for bringing him here, no matter what he did.’
She turned then, smiling, and she was a lovely-looking woman, when she smiled – and more likely to kill a man than any Spider-kinden seductress.
‘But Master Draywain has just chosen not to collect his fee. What’s one-in-ten of nothing, Master Hokiak?’
The Scorpion gave out a sigh, and his men around the room tensed, ready. ‘Now that ain’t how we do business around here. You got what you came for.’
‘Do you think I care about gold?’ she asked him. ‘Do you think that I can’t find more? Do you think for me this is about money?’ She snarled at that last. ‘I would empty the coffers of the Empire and the treasuries of the Commonweal to find this man Thalric. You want money? Take it all.’ She gestured at the pile, the not-quite-a-fortune, that she had left on the table. ‘Just get me what I want.’
Five
‘I was right here in my front office,’ Parops told them. ‘I had a crossbow and a telescope, but after I while I just used the telescope. It was quite something to see.’ He indicated the view from his slit window.
‘Nothing’s happening now,’ Totho pointed out. There was a tray of bread and spiced biscuit on Parops’s desk, and he was aware that Skrill seemed to be working her way through it all methodically.
‘That’s war: boredom and boredom and then everything’s far too interesting all of a sudden,’ Nero confirmed. He was sitting on the desk looking at Skrill and obviously trying to decide what she was.
‘So what happened?’ Salma asked.
Parops put his back against the wall beside the arrowslit. ‘Take a look at the disposition,’ he invited. Salma did so, seeing only a large extent of land between the city walls and the Wasp camp, which was dotted with a few tangled heaps of wood and metal.
‘First off, they moved their engines in,’ Parops explained. ‘They started shooting straight off and they must have some good artillerists, because in only a few shots they were sweeping the wall-tops with scrap from their catapults, forcing everyone’s head down. They were loosing some at the walls, too, lead shot rather than stone, I think. We were shooting back from embedded positions like the one atop my tower. You can see evidence of some of our successes out there, but with our lot flinching back all the time it took a while to make the range to them. And of course nobody was getting a peaceful time of it. They had their men flying over the wall amidst the rocks.’
‘Sounds risky for the men,’ Salma said, studying the tents, making out what he could with his keen eyes.
‘A good few of the incomers got squashed, no doubt, but nobody seemed to care on either side,’ Parops confirmed. ‘They were frothing mad, attacking everything along the length of the wall itself, or just charging off into the city in bands of eight or ten. Shields and a chitin cuirass was all they had, most of them, and javelins, and that fiery thing they do with their hands. They didn’t seem like proper soldiers, to be honest – more like a rabble.’
‘A rabble is what they were,’ Salma confirmed. ‘The Wasps call them Hornets, but they’re just Wasps really. We saw a lot of them in the Twelve-Year War when they invaded my own people’s lands. They’re from the north-Empire, nothing but hill-savages. Your average Wasp is a touchy fellow at the best of times, but the Hornets are downright excitable.’
‘And clearly expendable,’ Nero added.
‘Right,’ confirmed Salma. ‘So what happened?’
‘Well, we had crossbowmen on the walls, and line soldiers defending the artillery,’ Parops explained. ‘Their first charge, coming with all that rock and lead, took its toll, but we knew they were a flying kinden, so we had ranks of crossbowmen stationed beyond the walls as well. Any that lingered on the battlements or tried to press into the city were picked off. We think the toll was about four hundred of them, in all, and just thirty-seven of ours. Most of those fell to their artillery and first charge, too. After that we were well dug in.’
‘And are you calling it a victory?’ Salma asked him.
‘Opinion is divided,’ Parops admitted. ‘Some who fought on the walls say it was, but I, who was just watching from inside here, say not. They had their tacticians out, carefully seeing how it went, so I’m suggesting to my superiors that they’ll do better next time.’
‘Wise man, good advice,’ the Dragonfly told him.
‘So what are we supposed to do in the meantime?’ Totho asked. ‘We can’t just sit here. We have to get word to Stenwold.’
‘The city is sealed,’ Parops said sadly. ‘That’s the one thing we and the Wasps seem to agree on, as we’re not letting anyone out, and neither are they. If you left without permission from the Royal Court you’d be shot by our crossbows, and even if you weren’t, they have flying patrols on the lookout all the time.’
‘They’ll try to recover the broken engines after dark,’ Totho said suddenly. ‘They’ll send s
laves to do it, probably.’ He had taken Salma’s place at the slit window. ‘Your artillerists should keep the ranges, and keep watch.’
‘Night artillery’s always a challenge,’ Parops said. ‘I’ve said it, though. Let us hope they take it up.’
Totho frowned at that ‘I’ve said it,’ and then realized what the man meant, remembering the mindlink that the Ancestor Art gave to all Ants. It united them within their own walls and equally divided them from their brothers in other cities.
Skrill finished another mouthful of bread, and took a swig of beer from the nearby jug. ‘I ain’t fighting no siege,’ she said.
‘They wouldn’t have you anyway,’ Nero told her.
‘Now I ain’t good enough for your siege?’
‘We fight together, as one,’ Parops explained. ‘Foreigners on the walls would only get in the way. No offence, but that’s how it is.’
Skrill shrugged.
‘On the other hand,’ Nero said, ‘if the walls do come down, then we’re all invited.’
‘Did their engines break through anywhere, when they turned them on the walls?’ Totho asked. He closely examined the arrowslit, seeing how its flared socket was set into a wall three feet thick at least.
‘A few stone-scars but nothing structural,’ Parops said. ‘They’re going to need a bigger stick to get through these walls. Nero tells me my kinden aren’t renowned for having new thoughts, but one reason for that is that the old ones have always served us pretty well. We know how to build a wall that won’t come down.’
‘And of course, this is another thing their . . . tacticians out there will have noted. That they will need more . . .’ Totho mused. ‘What are their artificers like, Salma?’
‘I’m no judge,’ the Dragonfly admitted. ‘They’re like people who put big metal things together. That’s about my limit.’
‘It’s an odd thing,’ said Nero, ‘but the best imperial artificers, in my experience, are Auxillians: slave-soldiers or experts from the subject-races. True Wasps always prefer to be proper warriors, which is more about the fighting and less the tinkering around. I’ve had a good look out there and a lot of the big toys are in hands other than the Wasps’.’
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