‘Sir,’ one of his men warned, in a slightly uncertain tone. Fragen looked round to see a pack of the locals standing further along the row of stalls, somewhere between a dozen and a score of them, young and middle-aged men, and even young women. They were clustered together for mutual support, but they held staves and sticks, and he saw a couple of axes in there too, and even a poleaxe near the rear.
For a second he hesitated but he was, after all, a sergeant of the Imperial Army. He could hardly back down from a mere rabble of Bee-kinden peasants. Instead he led his men straight towards them, seeing the wretches shuffle back a little, yet hold their ground.
‘What’s this, then?’ he demanded, as he approached them. ‘This looks like a riotous assembly to me. Clear off, the lot of you. Get back to your work before I take it out of your hides.’
He was forced to a halt. They were drawing closer together, but going nowhere. Their dark, flat faces remained inscrutable. He saw a few knuckles tighten, fists clenching on their stave-hafts.
What is this? For a moment he was baffled. Are these really locals, or have they come in from elsewhere? The next nearest Bee-kinden were miles off in Tyrshaan and Vesserett, though, and yet the men and women of Szar had never behaved like this, never attempted to question imperial rule.
‘I gave you an order!’ he shouted at them. Behind him, his men had drawn their blades, and he saw that sudden show of steel send a ripple through the little band of locals. ‘You disperse right now or I’ll make an example of you, you just watch.’
He levelled his hand at them, and he saw them trying to muster courage, and failing. They would not go, yet nor could they act. He would obviously have to make their minds up for them.
With a curse, because it had been a reasonable day until then, he loosed his sting, punching one man off his feet into the arms of his fellows, with a blackened circle in the centre of his chest. The victim was dead before his friends could let him go, and by then Fragen and all his men had their hands levelled, making it plain that they would kill every man and woman of the mob unless they broke up.
One man, the man with the poleaxe, abruptly dropped his weapon and backed off, and then they were all going, suddenly running off and scattering amid the stalls.
‘Right,’ Fragen said vaguely. He looked at the petrified stall-holders about him, at the peasants with their bushels and baskets. ‘Someone clear that filth away,’ he ordered them, pointing at the corpse. ‘Give it to its family or throw it on the waste-heap, I don’t care.’
‘Sir!’ called out one of his soldiers, more urgently this time. Fragen turned to see another band of Szaren citizens approaching, filtering between the stalls, in groups of three and four, men and women of all ages.
He saw steel there, a lot of it: enough arms and armour that at least two in three were equipped as soldiers. Where could they . . . ? But it was obvious enough. A few had the heavy russet-painted breastplates that the old Szaren army used to wear, but most of them were now wearing imperial armour and carrying army-issue cross-hilted shortswords or crossbows or spears, all crafted in Szar by the Bee-kinden. Others had the traditional Szar axes, each broad, curved blade balanced by a wicked back-spike. Many had squat triangles of sharp bone jutting from their knuckles, the gifts of their own Art.
Fragen tried to estimate their number but stopped when he realized there must be over a hundred of them, and more still coming.
‘Sir! Pull out, sir?’ the soldier enquired nervously, already backing off.
‘Stop where you are!’ Fragen shouted at the mob. ‘This is an imperial city, and any attempt at resistance will be taken out of your hides and your families! You know that, surely, you stupid peasants! Now back to your jobs! Back to your factories! Who do you think you are?’
The crossbow bolt lanced through him just as he finished speaking, causing him to spit the last word out with a spray of blood. Fragen stared at the fletched end of it jutting low down in his chest, and then he toppled over.
His men, already thoroughly unsettled, launched themselves into the air, wings unfurling to dart them towards the governor’s palace and the safety of the garrison.
It was the first such incident, but, by the time the soldiers had alighted on the palace balcony, it was no longer the only one.
When Colonel Gan returned to his favourite balcony again, it was under heavy guard.
Parts of Szar were already burning. He could not believe it: his beautiful, peaceful, affluent city tearing at itself like a mad animal.
‘Look at this,’ he whispered in awe. ‘What has happened? Are we at war?’ Were there foreign agents in the streets stirring up this dissent? Agents that could work so suddenly and efficiently as to upset two decades of absolute peace?
He felt like yelling at the city, shouting at it angrily as if it were an unreasonable child. He felt that a single slap should rightfully bring the place back in line.
‘You, go fetch me the Princess,’ he pointed to one of his men. ‘And where is that new captain? None of this started until he got here!’
As the first soldier ran off, Gan saw the very same captain approaching. The man was still in his dusty armour, stepping into view while he gave some final orders to a Fly-kinden kitted in imperial uniform. The small man took flight and was heading away eastwards even as the captain saluted his superior.
‘What was that about?’ Gan demanded suspiciously. ‘What game are you playing, Captain?’
‘That was a message for the rest of my soldiers, Governor,’ the captain replied, as though it was the most natural explanation in the world.
‘The rest of your . . .’
‘One thousand of the imperial army, all fresh from the garrisons of Capitas,’ the captain confirmed.
‘One thousand . . .’ Gan stared at him aghast. ‘Captain, I demand that you tell me right now just what in the wastes you’ve stirred up here.’
‘Not I, Governor, but someone realized it was coming,’ the captain said. ‘I should introduce myself, Governor. I am Captain Berdic of the Imperial Army, also Major Berdic of the Rekef Inlander.’
Gan drew in a sharp breath. They really are everywhere. He made sure that his posture and voice did not give any hint of his disquiet at what the man had said. ‘So, am I under investigation then?’
‘That remains to be seen,’ Berdic said noncommitally. ‘What exactly is going on in your city, Governor?’
‘You tell me!’ Gan snapped at him. ‘Clearly you knew it was coming!’
Berdic shook his head. ‘Governor, there are riots everywhere on the streets of Szar. There are parts of the city now held entirely by the local insurgents, so that the north and west are closed to us until further notice. Elsewhere it is only by putting all my soldiers onto the streets that peace has been maintained. Beyond those safe limits the population of Szar is arming itself for war.’
‘War?’ Gan was dumbfounded. ‘Against me?’
‘Against the whole Empire.’ Berdic shook his head. ‘Even my thousand troops may not suffice if this entire city takes up arms. It has been a while, maybe, but I’d wager these people still remember how to fight. Were you yourself here for the siege of Szar, Governor?’
‘No, and neither can you have been since you’re far too young.’
Berdic smiled without humour. ‘I have, however, read my histories. These Szaren Bee-kinden were fanatics in battle, true berserks. That is their Art, just as we have our stings and the Ant-kinden can speak mind to mind. That, Governor, is the barrel of firepowder we must now keep the spark from.’
In spite of himself Gan felt his initial antagonism towards the man draining away, leaving a kind of cold fear behind it instead. ‘What do you advise?’ he asked quietly.
‘I heard you sending for Princess Maczech,’ Berdic said. ‘That’s a good first step. Have her speak to her people. Convince her first that if Szar rises up, then the Empire will soon put it down hard. Tell her about all the men, women and children who will be strung up between pik
es, the slaves sent off to other cities, the punishments meted out to her people already settled elsewhere. Tell her all of that, for it will be nothing but the truth. Now, excuse me, I must attend to the soldiers. I will leave enough men in the palace to defend it, but the rest must be a visible presence on the streets.’
He marched straight off without a salute, leaving Gan biting his lip and trying to work out where it had all gone wrong.
They escorted Princess Maczech to him within minutes. He looked into her face for signs of the madness that had gripped his city, but saw none of it there. She even smiled at him.
‘Princess,’ he said, gratefully. ‘The people of Szar are currently engaged on a course that can only lead to their destruction. Look down there, how they are tearing up their own lives! When the Emperor hears of this, he will have one man in twenty impaled outside the city. You must address them immediately. Will you now speak to them?’
‘The Emperor already knows,’ said Maczech, so softly he barely heard her.
‘I don’t understand,’ was all he could reply.
‘How is it that everyone knows but you, Governor?’ she asked him.
He stared at her, feeling his innards twist.
‘My mother is dead,’ she told him. ‘The Queen of Szar is dead, and her funeral wake will see you burn.’
His mouth was open, lips moving, but at first no sounds came. Then finally he got out, ‘Then you are Queen! I declare you Queen now! You are still mine, so calm your people.’
Her smile cut through him, flayed him. ‘I am nobody’s,’ she announced, and the commotion started inside the palace itself.
‘I am Szar’s,’ she said, reaching out to touch his face. The acid of her Art seared him like a brand and he fell back, screaming. His guards started to lunge forward, but abruptly there were Bee-kinden everywhere – the palace servants, old men and old women, girls, even children: throwing themselves at the Wasp soldiers, literally hurling themselves on their swords, so that the Wasps were forced to cut them down, to burn them with their stings, or hack them to the ground with bloody blades. And meanwhile Maczech . . .
Maczech was at the balcony’s edge, and wings flowered from her back. Gan reached out an arm, hand opening to scorch her, but an aged woman grabbed at it, forcing his palm against her stomach, so that when he loosed his sting it tore through her. And Maczech was gone, already in the air and dropping towards the contested streets of her city.
Gan stood at the edge of the balcony as his soldiers killed the last of his servants, with the crisp red imprint of her hand vivid on his face, staring after her and shaking with fear and pain.
Twenty-One
The rain in Jerez had stopped, literally. The water was suspended in mid-air, a field of shimmering droplets impossibly held in place, each one with a twisted reflection of the moon glimmering in its heart. When Achaeos stepped forward, they ran against his skin or broke against his robe in a myriad dark patches.
There were people abroad this night, of course, for the locals did not mind either darkness or rain. Here they were, frozen in place with the raindrops while going about their innumerable shady errands. He paused to examine the strange Skater physiology, distinctive for those freakishly long limbs, the narrow faces with their long, pointed noses and ears.
Somewhere out there was a presence not frozen in place, a presence waiting for him to find it.
This is a dream. But there was no such thing as ‘just’ a dream for the Moth-kinden. They had dozens of categories: dreams serendipitous and dreams intentional, dreams prophetic and dreams malign. This, however, was a dream he had been seeking for many nights, for this was a seeing dream. He was trying to find the Shadow Box, but had already realized that it was a hopeless search. In Jerez he was just too close to it. Its power was everywhere, leaking out into the darkness, and he could not pinpoint it.
And now this, a proper seeing dream – but to see what?
Achaeos paced through the streets of Jerez, feeling the ubiquitous rain break across his skin and dampen his hair. When he stood still he could sense movement, others abroad this same night. He was not the only one to have this dream. That meant gates had been opened, tonight, that could not be easily closed.
Should I call out? But how foolish would that be? He could not simply stand here, in this dream-Jerez, and start calling for help like a lost child.
But you called for help before.
He started in shock. That thought had not been his own.
He tried to work out whereabouts in the town he was. The lake lay to his right, its expanse of water suspended in frozen ripples, dotted near the shoreline with the further-flung natives, with great stands of reeds, with little boats that had set out on clandestine errands.
A movement again: he turned, and for a second he thought there was a woman there. He had a fleeting impression of bulging red eyes and a hunger-pinched face.
Nothing there. Only the night.
We heard you call us. We call you now.
‘Who are you?’ he whispered, but he already knew, and with that knowledge he did not want to meet the thing that called to him.
You waste your time. You have not come to us. You have not found us. It was the voice of the Darakyon, but fainter, hollower. The voice of the Shadow Box.
They seek us, all of them. They are grasping even now for the line we throw only to you. Little seer, little neophyte, come to us.
‘Where are you?’ he demanded, louder, beginning to run through the frozen rain. He had another quick glimpse of one of his pursuers, a man of his own kinden wearing a silver skullcap, his face deeply lined.
Here.
And it was there.
He tried to stop, because to touch that would be to die, and he skidded, feet slipping from under him, so that he fell at its . . . where it rose from the earth.
There was a shape there resembling a woman, the lean frame of a Mantis-kinden warrior, except the reaching, grasping thorns and briars had pierced her a dozen times over, arcing and leaping back and forth through her flesh, that had sprouted darts and barbs like a Thorn Bug, and prickly leaves as well. Spiny brambles ran up and down her, and through her, and they twisted her skin, which was pale and human in places but elsewhere hard and shiny like the carapace of an insect. Her arms were simultaneously a Mantis woman’s with the Art-grown spines jutting from her forearms, and a mantis insect’s with great folding, raptorial hooks. Her face glittered with the facets of compound eyes, and scissoring mandibles worked inside a human mouth.
I would die . . . There was no doubt of that. Achaeos scrambled back a few paces, staring. Even his eyes, which knew no darkness, could not quite take in that piecemeal, shifting figure, but he knew that it was ancient and mighty – and in pain.
‘Do you . . . have a name?’ he whispered.
The lips and the mandibles both worked together, but neither matched the voice that now reached him,
I was Laetrimae when I lived. You must find me, Achaeos.
‘Show me,’ he said. ‘Quickly, before the others get here.’
The creature nodded and strode off into the unnaturally arrested town, without another word. Achaeos choked to watch her, for it was the naked Mantis woman who took each step forward, but once her foot touched the earth the briars and vines thrust up through it to rake across her and impale her over and over, and her skin ripped open with the barbs and thorns, and healed over in the gleaming green-black exoskeleton of her kinden’s beast.
He got to his feet and hurried after her, after it . . . the spirit of a Mantis woman trapped between life and death for five centuries, constantly degrading and corrupting and yet still remembering her own name.
He knew that others, many others, were presently seeking him out. The other collectors and perhaps worse, all those who had the magical skill to seize upon this open portal and follow the thread. Laetrimae was pacing ahead sedately, but each step carried her such a distance that he was forced to run even to keep her in sight, and the
re was perpetually a flock of shadows behind him, squabbling over his tracks.
Until the tortured Mantis-creature paused at a door, a lowly place near the lakeshore where a sprawling guesthouse sagged, its walls at conflicting angles. She grasped the doorframe with such force that the wood splintered, and thorns and creepers grew out from her into it, and split it further.
And then he knew. He looked wildly about him for landmarks. He had to remember this place, when he awoke . . .
And Laetrimae grasped him about the throat in a vice-like grip, killing spines razoring his skin, and he felt her thorny branches questing at his flesh, eager to drink his blood.
And she said only, Remember, and branded that place on his mind so that he would never ever forget it.
Achaeos awoke with a cry, startling Tisamon, who had been keeping watch outside. The Mantis almost kicked the door off its hinges just to get in. Beyond him, Achaeos saw that it was night still, and thus the best time to go to work.
‘I know where it is!’ he yelled. ‘We need to move now.’
‘Who’s we?’ Jons Allanbridge demanded, not a ready waker at this hour.
‘Myself,’ the Moth replied. ‘Tisamon, and Tynisa, and—’
‘And me?’ Thalric asked sardonically. ‘You brought me here, yet you’ve had precious little use of me yet.’
‘What about Gaved?’ Tynisa started.
‘No time!’ Achaeos insisted. The Wasp hunter was still at Nivit’s place, with the strange girl they had rescued. ‘Now – we go now. Allanbridge, you stay here. Can you get your machine ready to leave?’
‘It takes hours just to fill the canopy!’ the artificer informed him.
‘Well, just . . . do something,’ Achaeos said, almost hopping from foot to foot. ‘But we must go, please!’
Blood of the Mantis Page 32
