Dragonfly Falling

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  ‘I must think,’ Stenwold said, standing.

  ‘At least consider the offer.’

  ‘I must think,’ the Beetle repeated, and left the room. Arianna sent Thalric a last poisonous glance before she followed.

  No more bad news, please. No more messengers. Stenwold was still haunted by the stricken look on Sperra’s face, when he had told her of Scuto’s death. Home, now. No more war business. No more shaking hands. Home, was the plan. No more of the heavy marble halls of the Amphiophos. Home and try to find a path to save Che. Any path that does not involve me placing trust in Thalric. It might be that there was no such alternative. And how to keep him mine, once he is loose? If the Empire would accept him back then he would betray me without a thought.

  He stomped wearily down the steps of the Amphiophos, hearing a ragged cheer as some late celebrants recognized him.

  ‘This won’t go away, will it?’ he said gloomily.

  ‘My kinden scheme all their lives for such recognition,’ Arianna said.

  His sharp glance left her instantly contrite. ‘I’m sorry, I know that’s not what you want to hear.’

  ‘It’s what I am, though, isn’t it,’ said Stenwold. ‘I’m as much of a web-spinner as Teornis. The difference is that the people who get caught in my webs are my own. My own friends, my kin.’

  The frightened expression appearing on her face had his hand to his sword instantly, turning and drawing. He froze, then, hearing two or three people cry out in shock at the bared steel.

  ‘So they’re still calling you War Master,’ said that oh-so-familiar voice, that twenty-years-familiar voice, and Stenwold sheathed his sword numbly, noting that neither father nor daughter had so much as flinched at the threat of it.

  He put out his hand, noticing it tremble slightly, and clasped arm to arm with Tisamon, feeling the man’s spines flex. ‘You’ve no idea how good it is to see you,’ he said. I’ve missed having a mad killer by my side. The thought made him laugh out loud, and he went to embrace Tynisa like a true father. But she took a step back, and then he noticed the sword and circle brooch she bore – saw in her haggard features the cost of that honour.

  ‘Tynisa . . .’

  ‘I live,’ she told him flatly.

  ‘The Mantis-kinden?’

  ‘I live,’ she said again.

  Stenwold felt Arianna flinch at the thought. A nation of Tisamons, how could that ever work?

  ‘And Collegium is still standing,’ Tisamon observed. ‘You Beetles will always surprise me.’

  ‘I am told,’ Stenwold said, ‘that you are not entirely free of guilt in that.’

  That dragged a smile from Tynisa. ‘We didn’t know if Teornis would get here. We didn’t know if he would even try.’

  ‘I am surprised,’ Tisamon admitted. ‘And at what cost is the city saved?’

  Stenwold nodded. ‘At least we are here to pay it. The Spider Aristos has saved Collegium, as much as anyone has, and we cannot deny him that.’

  ‘The world,’ Tisamon declared, ‘has turned upside down.’ His gaze sought out Arianna, recognizing her for the first time beyond the College student’s robe. The claw was on his arm, as simple as that.

  Stenwold put a hand on his shoulder as though he had not seen it, facing the man’s hostility head-on. ‘She has stood by me,’ he said. ‘She has saved my life and fought for my city, and she could have betrayed or killed me at any time. She is’ – Mine, she is mine – ‘loyal,’ he finished, at last. ‘And she did warn us of the Vekken, and we put that time to good use.’

  ‘Trust comes slowly,’ Tisamon agreed as Arianna regarded him cautiously.

  ‘I see you didn’t trust them enough to sail here with them,’ Stenwold observed.

  ‘As to that . . .’ Tisamon looked sidelong at Tynisa, ‘we had other engagements.’

  ‘A little job to do,’ Tynisa confirmed. ‘We’ll know, soon enough, if it has worked.’

  Haldred was a Wasp of good family, a captain in the imperial army and a man whose preferred career path would have placed him securely in the imperial city of Capitas all his life. For a rising star in General Maxin’s retinue, however, there came some tasks that could not be avoided. A great deal hung on this, he had been told, and success in achieving it would be remembered. His name would be commented on to the Emperor himself.

  He had passed the camp of the Fourth Army with a brief word to General Alder, and now he was flying with his escort of soldiers over the scrubby terrain, looking for the camp of the Spider-kinden. He had a mouth full of fine words for them, and a pouch full of documents for alliance and mutual benefit. The Empire and the Spiderlands were two giants only just met, and still testing each other’s strengths. This was one of only two places where they could now see directly eye to eye. Given a choice, Haldred would have preferred the city of Solarno, with all the decadence of the Spiderlands ranged beside a vast and beautiful lake stretching beyond the horizon, but instead he had been sent out here into the wilderness, and he had to make do with what orders came his way.

  Dusk was closing on him, though, and he had yet to find the Spiders. It seemed impossible, in this barren country, for two hundred men to hide so effectively, but he had been searching for some time without success.

  One of his men suddenly called out something, pointing, and Haldred saw what could be a group of men sheltering within a copse of trees. This must be them, he decided, and began to descend.

  He and his men landed before the trees, and approached it cautiously. There was no fire alight, no obvious splendour of tents. He stepped within the shadow of the branches, still seeing nobody and nothing there.

  ‘I speak for the Wasp Empire,’ he called out. ‘I have an embassy to the Spiderlands.’

  ‘Do you indeed?’ said a voice softly, almost in his ear. He jumped back – looking up into a pale, fierce face.

  They were not Spider-kinden, after all. He was in a different net altogether.

  In his tent, General Alder looked over the most recent numbers reported from his quartermasters by lanternlight. The supply situation was growing desperate. The Scorpion-kinden were slow in bringing supplies across the desert, and those caravans the Wasp-kinden themselves sent out were plagued by bandits, who were most likely the selfsame Scorpions. Wretched barbarians, Alder sneered inwardly. Give me the order and I’d have the lot of them in shackles. That order would not come in his lifetime, though, because the Dryclaw desert offered nothing the Empire wanted save a right of way, and even that meant just a quicker step than skirting it.

  This interminable waiting was death to a fighting man: each long day not knowing whether the next day would see them finally march. His men had made their temporary night camp when the cursed Spiders had first been sighted. They had been here ever since, sending back to Tark for supplies over and over again. The soldiers were restive, fighting amongst themselves, grown complacent. It was very bad for discipline, but Alder was an army man to the core and he needed his precise orders.

  Now at last the imperial emissary had arrived, that preening little puppet Haldred, and surely tomorrow they would take the Merro road. His men meanwhile were out of all order, growing fat and idle.

  Major Maan had stepped into the tent, saluting. ‘You sent for me, sir?’

  ‘Any sign of that diplomat, Major?’

  ‘He must be staying with the Spiders, sir,’ Maan reported, in a tone of voice that suggested envy. The splendour of Teornis’s tent and servants, the womenfolk especially, had impressed him.

  The Spider had moved around a lot, like any travelling noble, pitching his tent on hilltops and in hollows, now within sight of the sea, now virtually overlooking the Wasp camp. Alder did not trust him for a moment. ‘Where is he camped tonight, Major? What have your scouts reported?’

  ‘I’ve had no word, sir.’

  Alder had sighed. ‘Well find me word, Major.’

  Rather than ceding him the privacy of his own tent, Maan simply sent a soldier off for a lieuten
ant of the watch, and then sat down obtrusively while they waited. When the lieutenant arrived it was a blessed relief.

  ‘Your scouts, Lieutenant, have they reported on the Spider lord’s current dwelling?’ Maan asked him.

  ‘They’ve not returned yet, sir.’

  Alder narrowed his eyes. ‘What, none of them?’

  ‘My squad has not returned, sir,’ the lieutenant repeated implacably.

  ‘It’s no great matter, Major, but when I ask a question I’d like an answer.’

  Maan saluted and left the tent, with the lieutenant in tow. A short while later he was back.

  ‘General, none of the scouts has returned.’

  Alder stood slowly. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘No scouts have returned, General,’ Maan said, tongue licking his lips nervously. ‘I’ll let you know—’

  ‘But it’s dusk already,’ Alder remarked. He put his head out of his tent and then corrected himself. ‘It’s dark. You’re telling me that none of our scouts is in?’

  Maan gaped at him. ‘I . . . I have spoken to at least half of the watch lieutenants . . .’

  Alder just stared at him and then went back inside his tent.

  His swordbelt was hanging to one side and he went over to it and drew the blade.

  At the periphery of the Wasp encampment, sentries patrolled outside a regular ring of lit torches, stopping to exchange a brief word whenever they met. They relied on the fires behind them for their night-vision, because Wasp-kinden were day creatures.

  The first arrow came out of the night without warning, silent on chitin-shard fletchings, burying itself in a soldier’s neck above the line of his armour. He gaped at it, spear falling from his hand, and fell, and the two sentries nearest to him just stared.

  The sound of three hundred shafts splitting the dark air was just a whisper, just a whisper, until they struck.

  General Alder heard the first screams as he emerged from his tent. ‘What—?’ he started, and stopped, the words drying on his lips. He could see, through the line of tents, the torches of the west perimeter and they were winking out, and there was now a wave of darkness surging into his camp. A wave of dark bodies that could see clearly by the waning of the moon and held blackened steel in their hands.

  He heard officers try to sound the alarm, to call them to the defence, but he heard none of them even finish the sentence. Arrows were slicing down around him, punching randomly through the sides of tents, or picking off men as they struggled, half-armoured or even unarmed, into the open.

  ‘To me!’ Alder shouted. ‘Form on me!’

  ‘Form on the General!’ Maan added his voice. ‘All troops form up and—’ Then he was down, clutching at an arrow that had gone so far through him it had pinned him to the ground.

  There were soldiers enough, though, some in armour and some near-naked, and he saw the flashes of stings crackling into the tide of the attackers, and caught split-second revelations across their line. They were spread out, no disciplined block of troops, and he was aware of Wasps trying to form a line ahead of him, to defend him. It would not be enough, surely, though he still had no idea who was attacking his camp. The Spider-kinden, it must be.

  He noticed the Ant-kinden of Captain Anadus formed up with more discipline, but they now were making a slow retreat, shields locked and manoeuvring between the tents, losing men to arrows even as they did so. If there had been more of them left from the siege of Tark then perhaps they could have made a difference, but now all that Anadus was trying to do was leave.

  The invaders struck the Wasps’ half-formed line and Alder’s soldiers began to go down. He raised his blade and lunged forwards, parrying a rapier as it snaked towards him and, with a skill that belied his years, binding under the enemy thrust to drive the blade into his opponent. There was a further volley of flashes as several of his men fired their stings at once, and looking down he saw the face of a Mantis-kinden man ashen in death.

  Mantids? he thought, utterly bewildered. From the woods beyond Merro? What have we done to provoke them? All around his camp was falling. The Mantids were in amongst the packed artillery now, firing whatever they could with oil spilled from the Wasps’ own smashed lanterns. Major Grigan and his artificers were being hacked down even as they ran to douse the flames.

  ‘Form up on me!’ Alder shouted again, feeling his voice hoarse with the smoke that was heavy on the air. He saw another group of men trying to join up with his own, with Colonel Carvoc at their head, but they were getting whittled away like wood. They were still ten yards away when Carvoc himself reeled back with an arrow through him, and his squad immediately disintegrated.

  Alder’s sword came up swiftly, catching the curved blade of a claw as it sliced down on him, but then a spear drove into his side, shattering ribs and embedding itself deep into his body. He cried out and tried, with his last strength, to kill the man – no, the woman – before him, but the spear-wielder pinned him to the ground, stamping on his chest to free the spear-point and, as she passed over him with barely a pause, the Mantis woman stabbed again, this time through his throat.

  ‘We asked them how many warriors Felyal could muster, all told,’ Tynisa explained to Stenwold, ‘and they thought about a thousand or fifteen hundred, meaning everyone except the children, really. And they agreed that even a thousand warriors could not hold off the army of Wasps that was out there, if it attacked, since it was an army of about twenty, thirty times that number.

  ‘And then we asked them how many Wasps they could kill if they themselves attacked. Attacked without warning, at night, after a long wait had left the enemy distracted, bored . . .’

  ‘And they thought about thirty each,’ Tisamon finished, and he was smiling now, a particularly Mantis smile.

  *

  And across the field of the Wasp encampment the warriors of Felyal raged, and where they found Wasps or their allies they killed, never slowing or stopping or giving their foe any time to realize that the force that attacked them was barely an army at all. A mere warband a fraction of their size, but that ravaged through their tents with a ferocity born of long years of smouldering grudges against the Apt masters of the sunlit world.

  They left nothing untouched. They were Mantis, so they took no prisoners, they kept no slaves. They expected no mercy and they gave none. When they came to the tent of Mercy’s Daughters, Norsa faced them in its doorway, unarmed, and for a moment it seemed that she would turn them aside, but they were mad for blood, and not known for leniency, and neither healers nor wounded escaped their blades.

  Those soldiers who escaped, for the Mantids were not equal to their boast in the end, would make conflicting and broken reports to their interrogators, and none would forget that night. Even those that questioned them would thereafter sleep uneasily, their imaginations fired by the dreams of blood and shadows, as though the night itself had teeth and they had fallen into its jaws.

  Of the soldiers of the Fourth Army, the Barbs as they had been known, scarcely one in four survived.

  Stenwold shook his head at this news. The Wasp army that had been ready to rampage up the coast was gone. Teornis had already told the story of how it had been held back, first by the Lord-Martial himself, and then by a close cousin of his whose face would pass, when suitably made-up, for Teornis’s own, with a mere two hundred men. He had only hinted at other plans for the Fourth Army, because he did not wish to boast about matters still in the brewing.

  Stenwold found that he was grinning at Tisamon. ‘You chose a good time to show Tynisa her heritage.’

  Tisamon did not smile in return. ‘They will not fight for Collegium, Sten – but they will fight. The south coast road has gatekeepers, and the Wasps will come again.’ The thought of that future was grim in Tisamon’s eyes, and Stenwold was about to find some reassuring words to offer when Arianna plucked at his robe.

  ‘Stenwold!’

  She was staring back up the steps leading towards the Amphiophos entrance, which st
ill saw a fair traffic even at this hour.

  ‘What is it?’ Assassins, he thought instantly. Who has she recognized?

  ‘Stenwold, you want Thalric, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, why?’

  ‘Get soldiers, as many as you can,’ she hissed. ‘If you want him, you’ll have to fight for him. Now, or it will be too late!’

  Soldiers? When I have Tisamon. ‘With me,’ he growled, rushing back up the steps, and Tisamon was instantly in step with him, claw hinging out. He heard Tynisa and Arianna behind, knew that his ward would have her rapier clear. He felt much safer with these escorts than with a score of Parops’s Ant-kinden.

  ‘What is it? Tell me?’ he demanded, as they clattered through the corridors of the Amphiophos.

  ‘I saw her!’ Arianna was saying. ‘She’s here for him!’

  ‘Who?’ Stenwold demanded, out of breath already.

  ‘The Dragonfly! Tisamon knows!’

  And she was suddenly ahead of them, standing before the guards of Thalric’s suite, a Dragonfly woman, her cloak thrown back to reveal scintillating armour. The Beetle-kinden guards clearly did not know what to make of her, seeing her possibly as one of Teornis’s foreign troops. They had their shields half-up, frowning, and abruptly there was a long, straight sword in the woman’s hands. The curtain to Thalric’s chamber was drawn half-back, as though Felise had first tried to simply walk between them.

  ‘Let me pass,’ she demanded, in the tone of a final warning.

  Stenwold shouted, ‘Stop!’ skidding to a halt beyond reach, or so he hoped, of that oddly-styled blade. Instantly she had shifted stance, the arc of her sword now covering the guards and Stenwold both, and for a second there was silence as the tension in the woman coiled up to a crisis.

  ‘Lady Felise.’ Tisamon had come to Stenwold’s shoulder, claw at the ready, but there was a strange expression on his face.

  The Dragonfly stared at him, something changing behind her features.