‘I am not your strategist,’ Lowre said tiredly. ‘Make your own plans.’
Elass’s mouth tightened into a thin line. ‘My son will fly for the border, taking with him a band of our best, to deliver a message to these criminals that they will clearly understand. He will make a severe example of whoever he can catch. By the time our main force has joined him, the bandits shall no doubt have lost their stomach for the fight. And I believe, Prince Cean, there is one amongst your household who wishes to accompany Alain.’
Lowre Cean’s face was stony, but he said nothing.
‘Maker Tynise,’ Elass named the girl, ‘you see here beside me my champion.’ A nod towards Isendter, who had knelt motionless throughout. ‘My son will lead the attack on these villains. Will you be his huntress, his champion, when he does so?’
She could see the Lowlander wanting to glance at Lowre for his reaction, but she had said ‘Yes,’ already, her response following eagerly and inevitably after Elass’s question. Lamplight glittered, caught on the badge that she wore.
Elass smiled pleasantly at her, saving the razored edge of her expression for the old man opposite her. Oh, I know, my Prince. Felipe Shah had apparently sent a personal request to his old friend Cean, to look after this girl. Elass had no idea why the Lowlander was so important, whether she might be some great dignitary whose death would tarnish Shah’s honour, or whether this represented just one more inexplicable fragment of sentiment from the prince. But it is enough that I have taken her from them. Let them fret, and now let her live or die by her skills.
Staring across the room at Lowre Cean, Elass knew the old man could read all of these thoughts in her face. She revealed them there clearly, just for him. I will turn you to my purpose, my Prince, she reflected. When I asked you on to my lands I sought a hero, not this senile wreck of a man I see before me. You shall either recover your earlier glories or I shall strip you of all you have. And as for Felipe Shah . . .
The girl, Tynisa, had first arrived at her door with news of her son, Salme Dien. As always, the foreigners did not understand how life was amongst a civilized people. She had no such son, nor had she for many years, since long before the Lowlanders’ own wars had claimed Dien’s life. Felipe Shah had taken her son from her, and reworked Dien into his own creature. She still remembered the day that he had quite publicly made the request of her. Oh, it was an honour, no doubt, and because it was an honour she could not refuse it, and so she had been deprived of yet another child, and only Alain left at her side, the least promising of the lot.
But I have found a way to strike back, at last, through this Lowlander girl. Perhaps, in the end, I will kill her myself – have Isendter challenge her and then cut her down. Or perhaps the brigands will spare me the trouble.
And, of course, after that rabble of thieves is dealt with, I have other plans. Then perhaps you shall find, Felipe Shah, just what happens to a prince who forgets what it means to have noble blood.
‘When were you going to tell us that this was the plan?’ Mordrec demanded, chasing after Dal Arche, as the bandit leader tried to walk away. Receiving no immediate response, the Wasp-kinden simply dogged Dal’s steps all the way out of the encampment, still demanding, ‘When, Dala? Or did you think we wouldn’t notice?’
Dal’s other two lieutenants, tall and close-mouthed Soul Je and the stocky Scorpion Barad Ygor, followed a few paces behind, content to let Mordrec draw their leader’s ire.
At last Dal rounded on them. ‘What do you want me to say?’ he asked.
‘I want you to tell me the truth about what this cursed plan is!’ Mordrec insisted. ‘Let’s go raid the Salmae, you said. They’ve got plenty of what we need, you said.’
‘And have I led you astray, in that?’
‘Dala, what you failed to mention is that you thought we needed people. You had us running about picking up thieves and malcontents to bring to you, when all the while you had this business ready to spring on us.’
‘Mord, this was never the plan,’ Dal protested.
The Wasp blinked. ‘Then what in the pits is it?’
Dal looked back at the encampment, seeing a messy aggregation of tents, lean-tos, fire pits and sleeping rolls. Spring’s turning out mild, which is just as well. Most of these people never thought about where they’d be sleeping, fools that they are.
‘Four villages,’ Ygor the Scorpion reminded him. He spoke in an absurdly cultured drawl that originated somewhere half the world away, in a place ruled by Spiders.
‘Victims of our own success,’ Dal murmured.
‘Success?’ Mord hissed, back on the offensive again. ‘I know what success looks like, to a bandit. It looks like a little loot, and nobody about to catch you yet. It doesn’t look like piss-near all the people of four villagers deciding to sign up with you. What are you planning to be at the end of this, Dal? A general?’
Dal tried to recall where generals featured in the Imperial scheme of things. Ah yes, at the top. ‘You want me to turn them away?’
‘Yes, I want you to turn them away! Maybe one in five is some use, good to hold a spear or pull a bow. We’ve got children out there, and old people, too. What’s the point of them? Why are they even here?’
‘Victims of our own success,’ Dal repeated.
‘Stop saying that,’ Mord snapped.
Soul Je held up a long-fingered hand. ‘He’s right,’ the Grasshopper intoned.
‘How is he right?’
‘Mord,’ Dal addressed him, ‘you know that pile of loot we’re sitting on, all the food, the drink, the cloth bales, the honey, the kadith, the gold? You do understand that was taxes intended for the Salmae, yes?’
Mordrec nodded , with an expression stubborn enough that Dal knew he already understood. Still, he pressed on.
‘And you can see the actual villagers from here, yes? Do they look as though they got much of that stuff? You’d describe them as prosperous? Well-fed?’
‘And who’s going to feed them now? Do they reckon they’re better off with us?’
Dal shrugged. ‘Because at least we’re fighting, is how they see it.’
‘We’re not fighting, we’re robbing,’ the Wasp pointed out mulishly.
‘I don’t mean fighting the Salmae specifically, although we will. I mean fighting what is,’ Dal told him.
‘Since when were we idealists?’ asked Barad Ygor slowly.
‘We’re not. We never were.’ Dal threw his hands up suddenly. ‘I’d go back south, right now, if there was anything there for us, but the reasons that brought us here still hold.’
‘Dala, we came to raid. That lot behind us isn’t a raiding party,’ Ygor stressed. ‘We can’t move fast. We can’t get ourselves out of the way, if a hundred Mercers suddenly turn up. Or at least they can’t.’
Dal looked past his lieutenants, at the camp beyond. ‘You’re right. We need to do something about that.’
They exchanged uncertain glances.
‘You’re going to turn them away?’ Mordrec asked. Although it was what he had been arguing for, he sounded uncertain now.
‘Separate out those who can fight,’ Dal instructed. ‘The three of you, take half of them, and all the non-combatants. Lead them to Siriell’s Town, with your pick of the supplies.’
This was greeted with silence.
‘There’s nothing at Siriell’s Town any more,’ Ygor started slowly.
‘There will be once you’ve repopulated it with this lot,’ Dal told him. ‘And before you ask me what’s to stop the Mercers attacking the town again, we’ve shifted the battle lines. While we’re here gnawing at their vitals, they won’t be sending any punitive expedition further south.’
‘I was wrong. You’re not a general. Inside your head you’re a prince,’ Mordrec accused him.
‘I’m a brigand, Mord, like all of us, but think of this. Four villages raided, now, and most of the locals just came right over to join us. We’ve got half again as many fighting men, even after you take
the non-combatants away. If we keep rolling in that kind of support, we can raid as far as the gates of Leose itself. And where will they be able to raise a levy from, if all their peasants are under our flag, hmm?’
‘We’re not exactly equipped for a siege,’ the Wasp pointed out, although he sounded less adversarial now, the spirit of the idea working on him.
‘Let them keep their walls. I doubt that they can eat them, once they get hungry,’ Dal Arche declared. ‘I want the three of you gone by tomorrow for Siriell’s Town, or whatever’s left of it. Get your charges lodged there as soon as possible, and bring me back anyone you find who’s able to fight. Bring me weapons too, as many as you can: spears, arrows, axes even – whatever you can get. We’ve got plenty of hands all of a sudden, and nothing to put in them.’
He looked from face to face, seeing Ygor and Mordrec still unhappy, Soul Je merely impassive. ‘Or what?’ he asked them. ‘No, we didn’t ask for this. We came here to raid some villages, put a little thorn in the side of the nobility, get a little plunder. We knew that the Salmae taxed hard and all we thought was that the locals wouldn’t risk their necks to defend the tax collector’s haul. Well, fate’s dealt us more cards than we know what to do with. What would you do with what we’ve been given?’
‘Where does it end?’ Ygor asked quietly. ‘We break the Salmae, and then what? Felipe Shah? The Monarch?’
Dal shrugged. ‘Where does a bandit’s life normally end? What were you expecting?’
‘Dying rich in a Spiderlands whorehouse, for preference,’ the Scorpion considered. ‘But, seeing as I’m a few hundred miles out of my way for that, why not raise an army? Next-best thing, isn’t it?’
‘Damned right it is,’ Dal confirmed. ‘And you, Soul?’
The Grasshopper had remained silent a long time, but now he nodded, just the once. ‘Let’s do it.’
With that said, Mordrec gave in with poor grace. ‘We’re dead men from now on. They’ll stamp down hard when they think it’s bandits. If they find out we’re stealing their peasants, they’ll keep on stamping till we’re just a stain on the grass.’
Dal’s smile was resolute. ‘There comes a time in a man’s life when he gets the chance to be free, even if it’s just for a day or so. That chance doesn’t often come twice.’ In his mind he saw the marching armies of the Twelve-year War, as viewed from the midst of a block of terrified peasant levy being thrown headlong at the black and gold, without a choice, without understanding, just bodies for the grinding Wasp war machine to chew up and spit out. Who should a man blame for that kind of memory? Blame the Wasps? Oh, too easy. The Dal Arche of back then had no grievance with the Wasps, had barely heard of their Empire. When they come to throw you into the fire, he considered, don’t blame the fire for burning you, blame the hands that threw you.
‘I want to be free,’ he told them fiercely. ‘I want to be free of the nobles and their wars, just this once, and if they won’t let us retire free in Siriell’s Town, then the only way any of us can be free is to take the fight to them and give them a hard enough slap that they won’t come back. Now, round up your charges and be ready to head out with the dawn. The Salmae and their cronies will be on us soon enough, and I’ve got to make plans.’
She could now ride a horse, without help. The facility had come to her along with so much else, in that moment at the end of the hunt. Some level of calm and concentration in the saddle had been gifted to her, unearned and unasked for. Still, she was not the equal of the Commonwealer nobles and their retinues, so she brought up the rear as they hurried through sparse woodland towards the latest pillar of smoke. Some way behind them followed a grumbling levy of Grasshopper-kinden peasantry, given only spears and orders, and making the best time they could. Telse Orian had decided not to wait for them, though, once the smudgy pillar of black had been sighted.
He had mentioned the name of the village, but Tynisa had forgotten it already. The Commonwealer names all seemed interchangeable, and were a matter of supreme indifference to her. All that mattered was that the avenging Mercers arrived there in time to catch the brigands still at their pillaging.
Alain himself was scouting aloft with a few other nobles, perched on their glittering insects with the countryside speeding past below them. Perhaps he would be at the village ahead, she hoped, feeling a familiar eagerness steal over her. She had wanted to ride with him, but inside her a voice had said, You must prove yourself first, then he will not deny you.
Let there be blood, she proclaimed to the world, for she had accepted the truth now. In nothing do you so excel, the voice said, as in the spilling of blood. It is your calling.
So she had joined up with Telse Orian and his followers, judging him a man who would not be slow in joining battle, and even now the smoke of a murdered village blotted the sky above them as they surged through the trees.
Abruptly, Telse Orian had put the spur to his mount, and all around Tynisa the rest followed suit, breaking into a charge as they passed the treeline, and leaving her behind. Her horsemanship, however acquired, was insufficient to keep up with them at a gallop, so all she could do was tag along behind, losing ground with every hoofbeat.
Ahead she saw the village itself, much of it ablaze and a crowd of men and women clearly setting the next house alight. Telse lowered a lance now, and Tynisa saw the brigands scatter left and right, or straight up into the air. Arrows were already skimming towards them, several of the Mercers drawing and loosing smoothly from the saddle, which was another skill Tynisa did not possess.
But the voice within told her, You will have your chance, and she trusted it implicitly, kicking at her mount to get all the speed from it that she could.
A half-dozen of the arsonists were down already. They seemed poorly prepared for the assault, getting in one another’s way even as they tried to flee. Telse left off the attack, circling his horse in the centre of the village even as another roof began to smoulder with burning embers. He was peering down at the corpses.
‘Hold!’ he cried, but most of his followers were too busy chasing down the enemy, and only Tynisa heard him say, ‘What kind of bandits are these?’
To her eyes, they were dead bandits, and the only shame was that she had not slain them herself. Telse Orian stepped from the saddle, though, and knelt down beside one.
‘No armour – not even armed . . .’ He stood, frowning. ‘Hold!’ he called again. ‘These aren’t bandits. I’ll wager these are the locals themselves.’
‘Then what are they doing?’ Tynisa demanded.
‘Perhaps they seek to deny the real brigands the use of their homes, and—’ Telse started, as an arrow slanted from the gleaming chitin of his breastplate, knocking him off his feet.
There was now a second band of men breaking from the trees, and they were a far more fearsome prospect than the fire starters had been. Most of them had bows, and Tynisa saw swords and spears, leather and chitin mail, and even a few battered pieces of armour that had surely graced some Mercer or noble scion once.
Telse sat up again, still winded, but his people were already reacting without any guiding plan. She saw two of them cut down from their saddles by bandit arrows, as the rest flurried and circled, some passing one way and some the other. The advancing bandits were loosing arrows at every target that presented itself. One shaft nipped past Tynisa herself, to bury itself in the ground.
Now, came the voice in her head, and she felt her father’s hands guide her as she whipped the reins and dug her heels in, her mount breaking into a gallop. She heard Telse Orian call her name, but he was irrelevant now.
There was some ground to cover before she reached the first of the brigands, but they could hardly fail to spot her. An arrow danced to her left, another to her right. She had her sword thrust out, and the next shaft, impossibly, struck the blade, its impact jolting all the way to her shoulder. She was close, then, levelling her rapier as though it was a lance.
They were a vicious-looking crew, she noted dis
tantly. Dragonflies and Grasshopper-kinden, with a couple of other breeds too. One in particular stood out like a leader amongst them, a burly Dragonfly-kinden with greying hair. He had an arrow nocked at the moment she marked him, and it was loosed as soon as she saw it. She felt the impact shudder all the way through her horse, as the shaft plunged into the animal’s breast right up to the fletchings.
Another two strikes followed rapidly from other archers, but the luckless beast was already toppling forward, its forelegs giving way. For a moment Tynisa stood in the saddle, then hurled herself forward, landing on her feet and rushing the last few yards to the bandit leader.
He bounded backwards with a ten-foot leap, his wings briefly glimmering, then his next shaft, drawn and loosed with remarkable speed, struck the rapier’s curved guard even as she lunged forward, the sword seeming to guide itself as it defended her. She saw his eyes widen, then she was laying about left and right, catching two of the brigands neatly between the ribs, both as good as dead in the same instant. A Grasshopper spearman tried to get in her way but the tip of her blade made a ruin of his face with an almost leisurely flick.
Then the enemy were fleeing, and she could hear the drumming of hoofs behind her as Orian’s people finally rallied. Tynisa thought the brigands had broken at first, assuming that the horsemen would follow the enemy into the woods. There was a core of discipline to the bandits, though, enough of them turning at the treeline to shoot that Telse Orian called his people back. Tynisa stood firm, arrows skipping at her feet, but she was not touched.
I will remember you, she warned the bandit leader in her mind. Whether you are a captain or a mere lieutenant, I will remember you.
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