I am carving my own coffin. Perhaps it was the fatigue of these last days, or the need to find some spark of life in such dark times, but he had now lost the reins that could hold his desires in check. He bent down almost fearfully, as though she were venomous, but he still kissed her, and she thrust her lips up towards him.
When he awoke the next morning and he turned over to find her there, warm and soft and alive, sharing his bed, it all flooded back in on him, the pleasure he had taken, for which a price was surely yet to be paid. Yet this morning, with the Vekken army already assembling for its next assault, he felt more rested, more vital, than he had in so very long.
Then there was someone rapping on his front door downstairs, and he foresaw the chain of circumstance exactly: Balkus answering the door and lumbering upstairs to deliver some message, then not comprehending why his employer was sleeping with an enemy agent. He pushed himself out of bed and slung a robe on.
He hurried downstairs in time to intercept Balkus, recognizing the thin, bent figure that had come to see him this morning.
‘Doctor Nicrephos?’ Stenwold asked blankly. Could matters be so desperate that they were drafting such an ancient Moth as this to be a messenger? ‘Is it the wall? What news?’
‘Master Maker. Stenwold,’ Doctor Nicrephos hovered awkwardly on the threshold. ‘We have known each other for. ’
‘We’ve done business for years,’ Stenwold agreed. ‘But why.?’
‘I need your help,’ the old Moth said, ‘and I know no one else who might even listen. Tell me, what do you know of the Darakyon?’
The Vekken woke like clockwork. Thalric had witnessed it each morning of the siege. Each morning, at precisely an hour before dawn, every single soldier in their army arose and drew on his armour, buckled on his sword. No words, no sound but the clink of mail. Walking down their lines of tents, Thalric felt a shiver at the sheer brutality of their discipline, that strode roughshod over everything in its path.
Except perhaps this siege was starting to tell on them, he reflected. This morning they seemed a touch off-kilter, their timing fouled by something. A few of them were even running late, hurrying with their buckles, no doubt under the withering scorn of their peers.
For some reason the Ant-kinden had passed a troubled night, he decided, and that was curious. Still, the siege had been now many days in the making. The casualties amongst the Vekken had been, in Akalia’s words, ‘acceptable’, though, to Thalric’s eyes, seeming far too high if these Ants were as good as they were supposed to be. Even Ant-kinden would get their edges blunted eventually, under such punishing treatment. Still, it seemed strange that, on this morning, a malaise should be so marked amongst them.
Ant-kinden, he thought, mockingly. They even go off the rails in unison.
He saw Lorica threading her way through the Vekken towards him, unconsciously falling in with their mechanical rhythm, getting in no one’s way and finding her path without having to seek it. She too looked out of sorts, though, and was frowning.
‘Something wrong?’ he asked her.
‘Possibly.’ She rubbed the back of her neck, her eyes still heavy with lost sleep. ‘You should know, Major. There’s been a visitor to the camp.’
‘Speak.’
‘A Fly-kinden messenger came in, for Major Daklan’s ears only.’
Thalric let his breath out in a long sigh. ‘That could mean many things.’
‘He was from the Empire, I’m sure of it,’ Lorica told him. ‘Imperial Fly-kinden have a kind of a look, and they hold themselves a different way. They know they’re onto a good thing.’
Thalric nodded. Outside his tent he could now hear the louder pieces of Vekken artillery launching at the walls of Collegium. The actual fighting was just a distant murmur beyond.
‘You’ve cast your lot,’ he told the halfbreed. ‘I don’t know if you’ll regret it, but I hope not.’
‘I respect you, Major Thalric,’ she said candidly. ‘And I hope you value me, since Major Daklan certainly doesn’t. Do you know what’s going on, sir?’
‘For certain? No.’
‘But you suspect.’
‘I have seen this before, and too many times,’ said Thalric, wearily thinking, And most of the time I have been on the other side of it. Secret messages from the Empire, and for Daklan’s ears only. ‘Perhaps it’s nothing significant.’
‘You don’t believe that, sir.’
‘No, I don’t, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true.’ He stood, shaking his head. ‘How do you think the siege is going, Lorica?’
She had stood watching with him, now she frowned. ‘I’m no strategist.’
‘If you’d asked me yesterday I would have said well. Now something’s changed, and this message doesn’t make me any happier. I’m going to talk to Daklan.’
‘Is that wise, Major?’
He managed a smile. ‘Lorica, I am a simple man. Nobody ever believes me when I say that, but it’s true. I like my life simple. I am for the Empire, and I should therefore stand shoulder to shoulder with everyone else who is, and face with a drawn sword all those who are not. That is simple. you see, but someone is trying to complicate my life. I’m going to talk to Daklan, to discover precisely what he’s not telling me.’
He found Major Daklan out by the artillery positions, with Lieutenant Haroc nearby as his constant shadow.
‘Major, how goes the war?’
Daklan’s face was so devoid of guile that it was evidence of guilt in itself. ‘Well enough, Major Thalric.’
‘The Vekken seemed slow off the mark this morning, I thought,’ Thalric said. Daklan gave a glance over at Haroc and then nodded.
‘I cannot explain it. I heard some talk of disturbed sleep, no more.’
‘You don’t think they’re losing their stomach for the campaign?’
‘Not at all.’ Daklan shook his head. ‘Tactician Akalia seems satisfied with their progress. Every day they are closer to breaking the wall, or taking it by storm.’
‘She’s a cold woman,’ Thalric observed. ‘I’ve heard some of the casualty figures.’
‘That’s Ants for you,’ said Daklan dismissively. ‘The ships, the artillery, the men — she’s only looking for the victory. Whatever has unsettled her men clearly hasn’t reached her yet. Perhaps the Collegiates have developed some kind of mind-affecting gas that has drifted over here. Ant-kinden are strong of body, but they lack our strength of will. They would be more easily swayed than we.’
Thalric nodded carefully, and then said, as offhandedly as he could make it, ‘I hear there was a messenger from command.’
Perhaps there was a moment’s flicker in Daklan’s eyes. ‘Nothing to worry youself with, Major. Helleron has fallen to our troops, or rather, has capitulated. The Winged Furies now threaten Sarn and so the siege here will not be relieved.’
‘Good,’ Thalric decided. ‘Then all we have to do is wait.’ He turned and walked back towards the camp, knowing coldly that Daklan had been lying, and that his days of cherished simplicity were gone.
They had been shadowing the Vekken army since it first came in sight, and had been given an unexpectedly good view of the first day’s festivities. All that time, he had kept his head low, which was a skill he had acquired over many years of doubtful company, while Felise Mienn had gone about her business as freely as she pleased.
Living off the land, Destrachis considered, was a game for fools and peasants. And, inexplicably, for Dragonfly nobles.
He had watched her. With the cloak blunting the sound and shine of her armour she could freeze to near-invisibility while standing amongst trees or crouched against the scrub. She moved as though she was part of the landscape, and she would always come back with food. He himself was, he suspected, eating better than he had in the fiefs of Helleron.
When she came back this time he had to put the question to her. For all that questioning Felise was a dangerous game, it was time to air some facts
‘You were a Merce
r, were you not?’
She looked at him as though she didn’t know who he was, which was always a possibility.
‘What do you know of the Mercers, Spider?’
He smiled. She scared him badly a lot of the time, but he knew he must never show it. ‘I have done my stint in the Commonweal. That was what attracted me to your cause in the first place. I therefore know the skills a Mercer needs in going about her business. There’s a lot of open country in the Commonweal: woods and farmland and marshland and hill country. Lots of villages but lots of space between them, and the roads not so good, and half the Wayhouses lie empty and rotted. Keeping the peace, tracking bandits, carrying the Monarch’s word: it means spending a lot of time in the wild, doesn’t it?’
‘It does that,’ she agreed, then she sat and dumped a bagful of roots beside the fire, together with some grain biscuits she must have taken from a farmhouse. He took out his smallest knife and began to peel, aware that she was looking at him with more curiosity than usual.
‘Destrachis,’ she said at last, and he allowed himself to relax, because when she could actually remember his name she was least likely to threaten him. ‘What was a Spider-kinden doing in the Commonweal?’
‘My question first,’ he pressed, carefully not looking at her.
‘Yes, I was a Mercer, when I was very young. I wanted to. but it changed when. ’
He sensed a shift in her and said hurriedly. ‘I drifted north of Helleron years ago. Ended up in Myal Ren and then travelled a little, plying my trade, stitching and quack-salving.’
‘I saw him today again,’ she said, without warning.
His knife stopped for a second and then went on. Looking down onto the Vekken encampment, he had caught a glimpse of a couple of men in black and yellow armour, but her eyes were better than his and she now swore she had seen Thalric.
Her patience impressed and appalled him. She had been stalking this entire army for almost a tenday now.
‘So when are you going to make your move? Are you going in there after him?’
He had missed the change, but she had snatched her sword out. ‘So many questions,’ she said. ‘Why? What are you hiding, Spider? Who are you working for?’
‘You,’ he said, still peeling although his hands shook slightly. ‘Or, if you won’t have me, for myself. I’m not your enemy, Felise.’
‘No. you’re not.’ The sword was hovering just in the edge of his vision. ‘But I do not know what you are. ’
Why did I ever agree to this? But he was here now and there was no getting away from it. He would rather cut his own thumbs off than risk becoming a target for Felise Mienn.
‘I will have my moment soon,’ she said. ‘Thalric cannot hide amongst the Ants for ever. Or perhaps I will go in and get him. We shall see.’
Thirty-Two
There was one matter only before the imperial advisers today. The tangled news of the Spiderland intervention in the progress of the Fourth Army had been flown to Capitas as fast as a chain of messengers and fixed-wing flying machines could fetch it. It had thrown them all but, while most were still reeling, General Maxin had been able to find his moment. After all, there were few setbacks for the Empire that he could not turn into his personal opportunities. Life was a ladder, and if he clung on when everyone fell back a rung, then he was inevitably closer to the top.
Of course, he must be seen to be deeply concerned. He had even brought an expert to speak before the council, which meant a double victory for him. Not only was he himself shown to be so committed to the Empire’s progress, but his witness was formerly in General Reiner’s camp, until she had seen the way the wind was blowing and come over to Maxin’s side.
She was a Spider-kinden named Odyssa, a Lieutenant-Auxillian in the Rekef, and she had been telling the advisers and the Emperor what she knew about the Spider military potential. The summary was that it varied.
‘The Spider ladies and lords prefer to hire or levy their armed help when needed. There are personal retinues but no real standing army,’ Odyssa explained. ‘The various cities of the Spiderlands all have provincial forces that can be called on and, as there is always plenty of work for mercenaries and fighting men in the Spiderlands, there is always a sizeable pool to draw on.’
‘Perhaps we should simply avoid these Fly-kinden places,’ one of the Wasp advisers said. ‘What glory or profit can there be in vanquishing Fly-kinden?’
‘Merro is a keystone in the Lowlands trade routes,’ one of the Consortium factors intoned drily. ‘Also a large proportion of black-market and underworld trade passes through the hands of the Fly-kinden. There is a great market at Merro in which, it is said, anything can be purchased for a price.’
‘Moreover,’ put in old Colonel Thanred, ‘we have no guarantee that the Spiders will not simply disrupt our supply lines and attack our rear, with or without the cooperation of these Ant islanders.’ Thanred was the nominal governor of Capitas, a ceremonial position accorded to a war hero, and his sole advisory role seemed to be to deride other people’s ideas.
‘Is that likely?’ an adviser asked, and Odyssa then explained to them about Spider politics, or at least so far as they could be made comprehensible to outsiders.
‘The Spiderlands,’ she said, ‘are like the Empire in that they have a fair number of subject peoples within them, although those territories, I would think, are more than twice the size of the current imperial holdings. Unlike the Empire there is no central rulership. Individual cities have families that vie for control, and so do whole regions, and then groups of regions and so on. And all these families are constantly working against each other, playing one another off, changing alliances or enmities. Spider-kinden, when engaged in politics, cannot be second-guessed. Therefore they may decide that General Alder’s army represents a threat, and thus attack, or instead they may not. You can only be certain that you will have no clue of what they will do before it happens.’
‘A load of good that information is,’ the Consortium factor grumbled.
‘What about that city beyond the Dryclaw, what is it called? Our recent find?’ someone asked.
‘Solarno,’ Maxin completed for them: a city that Wasp exploratory expeditions had contacted only months before, that seemed to represent the north-east corner of the Spiderlands. ‘It may repay long-term investment,’ he suggested. ‘Unfortunately it seems to have seceded unilaterally from the Spiderlands, with no attempt to recapture it. More politics, I suppose.’
‘Long-term investment?’ Thanred jeered. ‘We have an entire army sitting at the mercy of these backstabbers.’
The Consortium factor bristled. ‘And what if they do attack? We need Merro. It’s a prize second only to Helleron. So let’s fight the Spiders. What could they muster, realistically?’
‘If I could, mnn, speak,’ said the old Woodlouse Gjegevey. Maxin turned a narrow gaze on him, because he had not entered the debate until now.
‘I have not travelled in the Spiderlands, but have read, nonetheless, of their, mmn, kinden. There is record of a Spider lordling who mustered an army with the, ahm, intention of conquering at least part of the Lowlands — Tark and Kes and the Fly warrens at least. It came to, mnm, well, he was defeated by the machinations of his political rivals amongst his own kinden, but the, mmn, reports regarding the force he raised placed its size at over one hundred thousand soldiers.’
There was a thoughtful pause amongst the other advisers.
‘I cannot vouch for the quality of their troops, but you will understand that this was a single lord. If our precipitate, mnn, action should prompt a unification amongst such families, well. ’
It was help from an unexpected direction, but Maxin would take it. He turned to the centrepoint of the advisers’ crescent of chairs and asked, ‘Your Imperial Majesty, what would you have us do?’
Alvdan started from his reverie. He had taken no part in the discussions, and Maxin knew just what it was that so consumed him. What the Mosquito was offering h
im, impossible as it sounded, far outweighed these mundane debates. ‘What would you advise, General?’ the Emperor responded eventually.
‘Perhaps an official embassy should be sent to these Spider-kinden. No doubt they want something from us, some recognition or tithe. We can buy them now and take back our gold at our leisure. We have done it before.’
There were no strong objections, and the Emperor put his seal on the plan. The Fourth Army would stay put, and General Alder would fret, but Alder was Reiner’s man, Maxin knew. The glory of the Lowlands would go to General Malkan when he took first Sarn and then Collegium. But Malkan had always been one of Maxin’s retinue, and he was the youngest and keenest general the Empire possessed.
Maxin was careful not to leave in Odyssa’s company, for that would have raised too many questions. He met her eyes, though, and nodded to show that he approved of her performance. He gave a nod to old Gjegevey too, before he left.
As for Gjegevey, he made a great show of being slow to rise and the last to leave, and when he left, Odyssa was waiting for him.
‘I thought it must be you,’ she murmured softly. ‘My message was that the Lord-Martial had a man amongst the imperial advisers.’
‘As you yourself said,’ Gjegevey murmured, ‘any man who plays politics with the, hmm, Spider-kinden, is liable to find himself caught in webs.’ He smiled. ‘What a pair of, mmn, traitors we are.’
‘To who?’ she asked. ‘Do you honestly think, O scholar, that you know where my loyalties lie?’
Even speaking to her I feel myself ensnared, Gjegevey thought.
Felyal had an uncertain relationship with the sea, and held no firm borders. The wall of greenery their boat coasted past was inundated now, the brackish waters reaching far inland with the high tide. When the waters receded, the trees would be left suspended on their spidery roots amongst a mudscape of burrows and discarded shells.
Outsiders used the name and made no distinction, but Tynisa learned that ‘Felyal’ was the Mantis Hold, and that ‘the Felyal’ was the wood itself, just as that other place far north-east of here was the Darakyon. There had been a Mantis hold there as well, once.
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