What city? What kinden? Where had the Wasps taken this luckless man from, to force him to fight enemies not his own, to have him die in panic and pain far from his home?
On the face of the wall, the black liquid had evaporated, leaving only a great blotchy stain to disfigure the walls of Tark.
The plated engine’s retreat was the signal, and the Wasp assault slowed, the commands moving around as fast as they could be shouted. One more wave of soldiers, too enthusiastic for their own lives, flew out unsupported into the Tarkesh crossbow-shot, while the wall artillery made the imperial engines’ return a hazard, sending rocks and ballista bolts hurtling at them to the very far extent of their range. The imperial soldiers who regained their camp were the whole ones, or those with only light wounds. All others had been left to the sharp-edged mercies of the Ant-kinden. If they could not fly, they died.
General Alder watched the survivors, so few of them now, struggle back into camp. The two waves of Hornets had been wiped out to a man, and only a third of the light airborne had made it back, with half of the Bee-kinden engineers he had risked. By traditional military standards the assault had been a disaster. Generals had been executed for such performances, he thought bleakly. This had better not be the battle they remember me for. Morale would be low in the camp tonight, and would only get lower. His soldiers would still fight, but they would lack fire, for the discipline of the Ants would destroy them. The Wasps would inevitably batter themselves to death against the defenders’ steel resolve. Of all things I hate fighting Ant-kinden. Every step forward’s nothing but bloody butchery.
He cursed wearily. Those wounded fortunate enough to have returned would be under the care of the field surgeons now, or else the healing skills of the Daughters. Later he would walk amongst them, as was his tradition, and it was more than just show put on for the men. The general felt the responsibilities of his position keenly.
For now, though, there was one meeting that he was anxious to get over with, and the spark of anticipation he now felt was that it might just give him an excuse to have the maverick artificer killed.
‘Get me the Colonel-Auxillian,’ he snapped at his attendant staff, and one of them flew off to locate the man.
Colonel Edric was at that moment coming over to make his report, in all his barbaric splendour. Alder found himself vaguely surprised that the man was still alive, but then recalled: Third wave is his tradition. Lucky for him we pulled out when we did.
‘Colonel, speak your piece.’
‘Sir.’ Edric had not forgotten himself so far as to miss his salute. ‘We made progress, sir, we really did. I’m told that the combination of engines, troops and the grenades broke up the defenders so that we were able to send a whole wave of the airborne over the wall without resistance.’
‘Really, Colonel? And amongst the hill-tribes, this is considered progress?’
‘Sir?’
‘And will you take the city with just one wave of the light airborne?’ Alder shook his head. ‘Go see to your men, Colonel. Those few that are left.’
There was a bitter taste in his mouth, and he had nobody to share it with. That is what it means to be in command. But of his subordinate colonels, Edric was too savage and Carvoc too dull. Only Norsa, of the Daughters, could possibly understand his feelings. He promised himself that he would visit her tonight, share a bowl of wine and talk of this in tones that would not be overhead. An imperial general shows no weakness to his men. His bleak thoughts could not hide from his own scrutiny, however, nor would he disown them. We have done poorly today, and that bastard Drephos is to blame.
He saw the man in question now, swathed in his robe as always, with not a crease or scratch on him. As he watched the Colonel-Auxillian make his way over, his gait slightly offset from some old injury, his face was just a blur under the cowl, but Alder was sure that he could glimpse a smile there.
‘Drephos,’ he growled, ‘explanations, please?’
The cowled man made an amused noise. ‘It’s war, General. Surely you know your own business.’
Alder’s one remaining hand caught him by the collar, twisting the cowl half across his face. ‘For what cause have you spilt the blood of so many of my men?’ he demanded.
‘For your cause, General,’ said Drephos, his voice showing no sign that Alder held him by the throat.
‘I don’t see any of the walls down, Drephos,’ Alder snapped. He knew that Wasp lives were less than nothing to this man. Spending life in the Empire’s name was one thing, while spending it to fuel the Colonel-Auxillian’s private games was quite another.
‘Let us have this conversation again in two days’ time,’ Drephos suggested. ‘Then you might see something quite different.’
Six
Tisamon and Tynisa were duelling, passing rapidly around the circle of one of the practice halls of the College. There were a dozen or so spectators, students garbed or half-garbed as Prowess contestants, sitting on one of the tiers of steps. There was none of the cheering and shouting of a public performance; instead, the watchers murmured to one another on technique as they compared notes.
Nor was it the formalized shortsword technique of Collegium’s duelling circle being practised here. The pair carried rapiers, live steel blades, and the air between them flickered and sang with the lightning clashes of the weapons. It struck Stenwold, as he entered, that he had never seen Tisamon with a rapier in his hand before: the folding blade of his clawed gauntlet had always been his first choice. Rapiers were a Mantis-kinden weapon nonetheless and he was showing his proficiency here. They dodged and lunged so abruptly, father and daughter, that Stenwold felt that they must have rehearsed this between them. Each move was matched by the other and he thought, at first, that the entire bout, starting however long before his entrance, must have continued entirely without contact.
Then he heard Tisamon’s voice coming in at irregular moments. ‘Strike,’ he would declare, and then after another furious pass with the weapons, ‘Strike.’ He was marking his touches, Stenwold realized. Unlike any sane or civilized duel the fight did not pause on a hit. There was no moment permitted for Tynisa to regain her composure or her balance. Sweat gleamed on her forehead, soaking her arming jacket, but Tisamon’s brow was pearled as well. Stenwold could not tell if it was the injury from Helleron or the pace of the current duel that strained him.
‘Strike,’ Tisamon noted again, and they fought on. Neither was cut: the blows had been delivered with the flat of the narrow blades only. Their faces had so much the same expression of intense concentration that in that moment Tynisa truly resembled her father. The features of her dead mother were momentarily banished.
Stenwold sat down a little way from the rapt students. Tisamon had promised to train his daughter — the one gift he could give — and he took that vow as seriously as the Mantis-kinden always did.
‘Strike,’ he said again. Stenwold expected Tynisa to become frustrated now, stirred to anger that would be fatal for a duellist. Instead she seemed calmer after each call, focusing more and more within herself.
Stenwold glanced around at the students. They had stopped murmuring now, were watching the action with almost as much concentration as the protagonists themselves. They were all young, in their first year, local Beetle-kinden mixed with a few visitors. No Tarkesh Ants, of course. They had been recalled, all of them, when the news broke of the threat to their city.
‘Strike,’ came Tisamon’s voice, and then, ‘Strike!’
The sound of swords stopped, and Stenwold struggled to disentangle what had happened. Only when he saw the line of her blade pressed against her opponent’s side did he realize that the last call had been Tynisa’s.
They were all watching Tisamon now for his reaction. It was a nod, just a small, sharp nod, but Stenwold read volumes of approval in it. The Mantis ran a sleeve over his forehead, fair hair flat and damp with sweat there, and then came over to sit by Stenwold. Close to, the strain was clearly visible, more lines
about his eyes and an added pallor to his face.
‘You should perhaps take things easier for a while,’ Stenwold suggested, knowing the suggestion was futile.
‘I’m getting old.’ Tisamon smiled a little. ‘I used to heal faster than this.’
‘You’ve healed faster than anyone has a right to,’ Sten-wold told him. ‘You took quite a scorching there.’
‘It has been a while since someone put such a mark on me,’ the Mantis agreed.
Tynisa had meanwhile been accepting the congratulations of the students, who seemed to appreciate that fighting Tisamon was like fighting a force of nature, and that even one strike was equivalent to a victory.
‘Of course, you killed her a dozen times there,’ Stenwold remarked.
Tisamon shook his head. ‘Practice is always different to blood, even using a real sword.’
‘I notice she wasn’t using the sword you gave her.’
Tisamon seemed to find that amusing. ‘It is crafted for killing, Stenwold. It wouldn’t understand.’
‘What will you do, when she’s good enough?’
‘She is already good enough, or nearly.’ There was hard pride in the Mantis’s voice. ‘She was on the edge of good enough before I even met her. Blood will out, and all she needed was real blood on her hands to call to her heritage.’
Stenwold shifted uncomfortably. ‘So what will you do now?’
‘When this is done and when we can, I shall take her to Parosyal.’
‘I can’t even begin to imagine what that means for you, but surely your people.?’
‘They will hate her, and despise her,’ Tisamon said flatly. ‘Not one of them will look at her, or even at me. We will be pariahs in my people’s holy place. But they will not deny her, because she has the skill. If she can pass the trials they set, then in the end. in the end she will be one of us and then their hate must drain away, and they must accept her.’
‘“Must”.?’ Stenwold prodded.
Tisamon was silent.
‘Well, if Cheerwell can be accepted by the Moth-kinden, then anything is possible,’ Stenwold allowed, and rose to greet Tynisa as she approached.
It was late when they finally returned to Stenwold’s townhouse. Tisamon had cautioned him to reside elsewhere after the last attack on it, but Stenwold had a stubborn streak when it came to giving up what was his. He would not be harried out of his own home, his own city. Besides, with Tynisa and Tisamon under the same roof with him, he reckoned it would be a brave assassin that tried it.
After watching the duel he had gathered reports from some of his people within the city. They were not his agents as such, but he had slipped them a little coin to keep their eyes and ears open. He knew that the Assembly still kept its doors closed to him, out of pique more than anything else. Until that attitude changed, the Wasps had time and, while they had time, they would move carefully.
But there would come a moment, as there had in Helleron, where the metal met, as the saying went, and caution went out of the window. A night of knives, it would be. He was glad to have Tisamon and Tynisa with him, glad also to have sent his niece Cheerwell to the relative security of Sarn.
In the quiet of his own room he shrugged out of his robes, letting them pool on the floor. The night air was cool on his skin through the knee-length tunic, and the water he splashed on his face made him shiver. They were forecasting a cold winter for Collegium — for the Lowlands as a whole. Cold, of course, meaning a few cloudless and icy nights. Salma, hailing from north of the Barrier Ridge, had claimed that nobody in the Lowlands knew what winter really meant.
It was still warm enough to sleep in his bare skin, so he stripped off the tunic and cast it on the floor, then turned the flame of the lamp out. Finding his way in the moonlight to his bed he threw himself down on it. His mind was alive with stratagems, shreds of information, clues and counter-intelligence. The threat of the Wasps was bad for his sleep patterns.
And then he became aware that he was not alone in the room. Somewhere in the darkness someone moved.
All at once he went colder than the night could make him. At first he was going to call out for Tynisa or Tisamon, but if he did so then it would only mean a swift blade — a blade that might come at any time, but would surely come now, right now, if he called.
Why couldn’t I have listened to Tisamon?
He reached out. There was always a sword within reach of his bed, a judicious precaution that had borne fruit more than once. His fingers brushed the pommel, so he stretched a little further to grasp the hilt.
‘There is no need for that, Master Maker,’ said a woman’s voice, one he knew, he realized, although he could not immediately place it.
‘Who’s there?’ he asked, excruciatingly aware that whoever it was could obviously see better than he could in the dark.
‘Wouldn’t you be more comfortable if you lit the lamp again?’
Yes. Yes I would. He crawled backwards off the bed, sword in one hand, still sheathed, and in the other a sheet clutched demurely to his chest. He thought he heard a snicker from the unseen woman which helped not at all. Then he realized that he would need both hands free to light the lamp.
Both hands. His sword-hand included. Or perhaps not. He let the sheet go, modesty playing second fiddle to mortality, and opened the lamp hatch single-handed. Thick fingers fumbled across the cabinet top until they located his steel lighter. He flicked at its catch until it caught, and then brought the fragile flame to the oil. It lit with a gentle, golden glow and, with his sword firmly presented, he turned to face the intruder.
She had a hand over her mouth, in hilarity or horror, and it was a moment before he recognized her. When he did, he swept the sheet back up so fast that he almost lost his sword in it.
‘Arianna?’ he gasped. ‘What are you. what are you doing — in my house?’
She was desperately trying to hide a smile. It was hilarity then, which was the worse of the two reactions. ‘You do not bar your windows, Master Maker.’
‘That’s not an answer.’ But she was right of course. He still thought like a Beetle, having just one entrance to his home, on the ground floor.
‘I. I wanted to speak with you, privately.’
‘Well this is about as private as I get.’ He clutched the sheet close to him, tried to drape it about him like a robe, and found it would not stretch. In front of the young Spider-kinden’s unabashed gaze, he felt acutely aware of all the physical parts of him that had never been slim to begin with, and that time had only expanded.
‘I would have said something when you came in, only. ’ Her shoulders shook a little. ‘Only you started getting undressed so fast and. I didn’t know what to say.’
How old I feel, at this moment. ‘Would you mind. turning your back while I at least put a tunic on?’ he asked.
Then the door burst open and Tisamon was there.
The Mantis had his claw on ready and he saw the intruder at once, bounding across the room towards her. She shrieked, falling down beside the bed and tugging desperately at a dagger that was snagged in her belt.
‘Tisamon, wait!’ Stenwold yelled, and the Mantis froze, claw still poised to stab down. Arianna was now completely hidden behind the bed, but Stenwold could hear her ragged breathing.
‘What is this?’ the Mantis demanded.
‘She’s just a. student,’ Stenwold said, feeling the weight of providing some explanation descend on him. ‘You can. let her get up now.’
Tisamon backed off from her cautiously. ‘She’s Spider-kinden,’ he remarked.
‘I don’t think that’s an objection you can make any more,’ Stenwold pointed out, reasonably.
Arianna stood up slowly, one hand nursing the back of her head. The dagger was still caught in the folds of her robe.
‘She’s armed,’ Tisamon said, sounding less certain now.
‘She has a knife. I wouldn’t advise anyone over the age of ten to go about the city without a knife these days.’ Sten
wold realized that Tisamon’s attention was focused on him now, rather than on Arianna.
‘I was. ’ Stenwold looked down at the rounded bulk of his own body, so inadequately hidden by the sheet. ‘I was just retiring. ’ he began lamely, acutely aware that the harsh lines of Tisamon’s customarily severe expression were trembling a little.
‘Retiring with.?’
‘No!’ More harshly than Stenwold had meant. ‘Or at least not knowingly.’
‘So,’ Tisamon’s mouth twisted. ‘What does she want?’
‘Good question.’ Stenwold looked at the girl.
‘I want to help,’ she stated.
‘Help how?’ He had his tunic on again, which felt like armour beyond steel plates under the gaze of this young woman. Here in his study, the desk between them, he could feel a little more like the College Master and less the clown. She sat demurely where he had placed her but there was merriment still dancing in her eyes.
‘Everyone knows how you’ve been to the east. Everyone knows there are enemies waiting there. I mean, the Empire, that you taught us about in history. Nobody else has ever dared point the finger. None of the other masters would even answer my questions. And yet it was always there, and those soldiers — the Wasp-kinden — had come from there for the games. And that’s when a few of us started to realize that you’d been telling the truth all this time. That those men weren’t here just for the sake of peace and trade.’
‘Some people believed me, anyway,’ Stenwold said heavily, ‘understood that they are the threat I made them out to be. But the Assembly? Perhaps not.’
‘I believe you,’ she said, without hesitation. She was staring at him so earnestly that he became acutely aware of how young she was, how old he was. She was an odd specimen for a Spider. Her coppery hair was cut short in a local style, and she had freckles that made her look even more desperately earnest. He found himself looking at her in a different light: how very slender she was, how pale the skin of her bare arms where the short sleeves of her robe ended.
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